Morgan2020

I never thought I'd see the day that the TIS forums stamped on any dissenting opinion and mocked the holders of those opinions, but first RJ implies that anyone who can't handle the current IWBUMS Z numbers is 'stupid', then Enigma once again states that any opinion that disagrees is 'invalid'. Since dissenting opinions aren't listened to anyway, I give up trying to feedback into what is an awesome game, hope the congratulatory circle-jerk feels worthwhile...

Leolvanov, I agree with your basic point, towns shouldn't feel safe. But if you can quote an author's fictional opinion of a fictional event, then allow me to point out that in The Walking Dead, had Rick stepped out of the hospital at the start of the series into the scene in Atlanta that he almost rides straight into, it would have been a very short series. That makes my point as clearly as I think possible. I don't want easy, I don't want handholding, I would like a chance to get my bearings in a new game and perhaps gather the basics for survival. And while I'm sure that the game will be better balanced when it's not at the very beginning of a new IWBUMS cycle, I don't think that the only voices the Dev's should hear should be those who are revelling in nostalgia for their lost pre-alpha super-hordes...

Hey Enigma, in direct answer to your point. I did that. I ran, and ran, and ran, and made it to the logging company, which had very few zombies. It still had very few zombies 3 weeks later when it was back to being a farming simulator. I was trying to avoid being negative but if the answer to the game being fixed to no longer be a farming sim is to run far enough away that you can play it as a farming sim, then it isn't really fixed... Instead I tried to suggest a change to the new system that would allow people to, perhaps, explore more than one mostly empty house before death. I wasn't asking for the game to be easy, but easier than nigh-impossible unless you're very lucky or want to run far away to play happy farm would be nice... Edit: Just to clarify, wasn't trying to single Enigma out to argue against, but 'quote' wasn't working.

I have to say that, in theory, I'm liking the new numbers. But they feel a little too punishing early game. As in, invading your safehouse when you have not made a noise, have curtains up and all lights out. Reading a book then sleeping should not be making a noise. Could the new respawn system not up the count as time goes on? Starting with a few less then using days in game passed to increment the respawn multiplier perhaps? And please note, I'm not talking about starting with build 31 numbers, but perhaps less than 8-15 Z's outside every single building in the game which is roughly how it feels now. A chance to get some supplies, to build some defences at least, would be preferable. Because at present it seems that any move made towards survival ends in death. I'm not complaining about building up hordes if something turns noisy, that's (partly) my own fault, but so many Z's that you can't get out of your starting house which did not provide anything useful to your future survival beyond a tissue, some bleach and a cup, seems a bit harsh. When they then overwhelm your house on night one due to the metagame noises, well that doesn't feel like the game is offering any survival options at all. Don't get me wrong, I only ever play survival, I enjoy challenging, I enjoy difficult, I like the direction the changes have taken, but they seem to be a bit unbalanced at this point. I haven't had chance to try out any of the bombs, traps or other new features because I'm dead, often before day two, and I play the 'safest' approach to this game I can, I don't fight zombies unless I have to, I sneak, I walk away if a building won't open, unless I've first lured away any Z's that might hear me. Please don't think this is a complaint, but I wanted to try to put a reasoned argument against the full extent of the new numbers because the people who love the new numbers are very vocal and the people who dislike them appear to be very frustrated.

@Hurston - Tried the same thing, then re-read it, it's Hold E to climb through, press will either open/close the window

No problems waiting for awesome, waiting to be disappointed would suck but you guys haven't let me down yet. I've played many survival games, some longer than others, and I was blown away when I started playing this one, because on the surface it looks relatively unsophisticated for a modern title (though it strongly brought back happy memories of the early UFO games). But below the purely visual level it's one of the best thought-out survival games I've encountered, which means that when you say, a little self-consciously, that it'll be one of the most ambitious NPC systems out there, ever, I believe you. You've proven with multiple well-thought out systems that you all genuinely care about this title. We can wait for the awesome. But then I've never understood pressuring dev's to output faster, it simply has to lead to corner-cutting sooner or later if the dev's bow under the pressure.

Done well, vehicles will be great, at first. Then comes the lack of regular maintenance, the gas scrounged from vehicles that have sat with all the gunk settling in their tanks, the degradation that comes from only using them when absolutely necessary, the bumps that make them not run quite right when there's no other way to escape a horde. I look forward to looting vehicles, but driving and maintaining them for long could well be more work than it's worth, unless we can rig them to go in a straight line, turn up their radios and have them de-zombify a street for us with a brick on the accelerator

As far as I have seen a scratch is a cut, but it wasn't done with teeth. It bleeds to some degree and after an amount of time relative to the severity of the wound it will turn the bandage 'dirty'. The more active you are while wounded the more that scratch will bleed, the quicker the bandages need changing etc. AFAIK there's nothing to stop you leaving on a dirty bandage for a while as long as you have the resources to disinfect the wound before it goes too rotten. If possible I always try to eat lots, rest and read any skill books I have available when first recovering from a wound, or sleep if that ends up too boring. Directly disinfecting wounds is painful - this alone can increase your pain level very rapidly if you're too liberal with the disinfectant. Alcohol wipes (and I believe alcohol cotton) is less painful, and disinfected bandages allows a measure of infection control that is less painful. I strongly suspect that all of these will only affect the normal, everyday, mundane infections. However, I have had 'scratches' that later turned out to need stitching (if your wound level just keeps getting worse, see if you can, as always suture needle/needle and thread need to be in your main inventory) or indeed informed me about the glass shard inside only after several bandage changes. I haven't tried a doctor or nurse build yet so I'm unsure as to whether a high First Aid skill would make diagnoses faster, I'd hope that it would. But let's not forget that without a relevant skill your character is basically saying "I'm hurt" and whether it was teeth, fire, infection or something else that did the deed. I'd just like to say that although I haven't been playing PZ all that long I've had lots of wounds on lots of IWBUMS playthroughs and trial-and-error'd my way through them, oh, and apologies for the extra long post Edit: One last thing, I think all scratches/bites bleed, the 'Bleeding' moodle is mainly to let you know that it's enough for zombies to track you by scent.

I found that you can pre-load the fire shortly before lighting with pots, kettles and bowls, but if you choose to store your containers of tainted water there (which made sense to me) until you next have a fire, then I found none of them would boil until removed and replaced if they had been in there too long*. *Not certain how long is too long, I was busy surviving at the time, until I wasn't, by which point I no longer had rain collectors

Perhaps the answer is for water management to have a 'realism' slider for sandbox mode at least, going between hardcore (where even boiled water goes stale and tainted if not stored in sealed containers), through the current setting all the way to the suggestions of a deterioration period on the water in your rain barrels (though that could still bite you if you didn't empty the barrel completely). I don't mind the current system personally, I generally have 3-4 pots which I fill with tainted water whenever they're emptied, then I boil any tainted ones whenever I need to cook and if it doesn't rain for a while I tend to be okay as I generally hoard water bottles. Plus I only boil water for drinking/cooking, farming water goes on tainted. Edit: Just had a thought with regards an auto-filtration system. If you can set up a water collector that feeds through a physical filter (no real need for charcoal, fine mesh fabric will do) into a still of some sort, it's a slow burn pure water source that for optimal efficiency you'd never want to let go out. You don't get much cleaner than distilled water, though I wouldn't particularly want the job of cleaning the filter or the bottom of the distillation tank

Sadly not Rathlord, I wish I could explain it away as this bug. I played almost continuously since downloading the game as my wife is hooked on PZ: The spectator experience, but then took 2 days off to avoid burnout. I've only played on Survival mode since I graduated from Beginner, and then today things have not gone well for me in the 5 or 6 playthroughs I've burned through this evening.

Thanks Dudeman, that tallies with what I could see regarding updates, but I've only been playing Survival mode so it's definitely not sandbox settings, guess it's just been a string of unlucky games, despite all having the 'Lucky' trait

Has the number and aggressiveness of zombies been changed in the last day or two in the IWBUMS build? Have played through quite a few times (best survival time 3 months 22 days before a camp fire incident gave me a Viking burial) but then I tried playing again today and the zombies seem to be really intent on hunting me down. As in breaking into houses where all the windows have been covered for days, I've been going in/out via a sheet rope and no zombies in sight when I have gone in/out and the noisiest activity I've been engaged in when it's happened was reading up on how to cook... Best survival time today = 5 days and 3 hours...

Can't see any previous mention of this, but skill books under the new system: they each cover two levels of a skill but after one level is trained the book needs to be re-read (briefly) to get the multiplier bonus back. Re-reading for this purpose only takes a second, but wasn't sure if this was intended behaviour... Other than that, really liking the IWBUMS build, good work guys.