Tezzy101

Yes Please I sick of the bad lag

Reading through this topic gives me the idea that players are all too dfferent.
Which is not a bad thing.. it just means that there should be lots of customizations.
 
A fresh player is happy to kill a few zeds with a baseball bat between finding out that broken glass hurts and broken legs kill.
- Low amounts and mostly passive zombies.
 
An oriented player would like some peace to experiment with the professions.. farming, carpentry, etc.
- Medium amounts of zombies, preferrably passive enough to let him gather the required stuff and build up.
 
A seasoned player wants challenge, he knows what is what.. how things work.
- IMO he needs at least medium amounts of zombies with great randomity, migrating, moving, chasing, running, luring etc. He doesn't want runs to be the same. And he wants to see why it is worth building a safehouse.. hence he needs to be harassed enough to validate building walls days on end.
 
And at last the diehard player, who is interested in how zombies spawn and all the fine details. He wants to get better, he wants to be the only person who survived THE Zombie Apocalypse. But if he succeeds constantly.. he will move on.
- So he needs lots of zombies. Huge amount of randomity.. to be surprised by the zombies actions for him is pure joy. Finding yet another near impossible situation to work on is the best thing that can happen. And of course he needs to die. So he will aim at surviving just one day longer this time against the impossible odds. And when he does.. Win.
 
Also players have very different approaches and blood temperatures so to say. And I had this thought that maybe the solution isn't in finding the sweet spot. Because a sweet spot is only good for every player once.. when he is experienced enough for it and not too skilled for it.
 
I see that having way too many customization without any guideline is a maze in which players get lost, and they spend their playtime experimenting instead of enjoying the game. (We all seen those games where you start the n-th session hoping that it will be THE Session.. and finding out it is not)
But adding some more kind of "Advanced Zombie Options" might be good consisting: 
- Migration
- Overall number increase / decrease over time
- Beelining to player (one way or another.. metaevent frequency mayhaps or a straightforward scripted "coming after the scent of the living in the air")
- Emptiness handling (enforced homogenization of zombies or not at all)
- Magnetism (as in luring and grouping)
 
Something along these lines.. think these are mostly the important possibilities.
 
Or the worst case scenario is an interval timed event (2-3 months or 3-5 months eg.) called something like "Last Military Effort" or something which spawns multiple chopper sounds and starts fire in a few dozen locations throughout the urban areas. A last military attempt to contain the zombie outbreak.. and with it, dooming even that stubborn survivor in his 5 layer thick log fort with supplies for a century by burning his surroundings and attracting 1000 zombies to him.
 
You know.. just to make sure that EVERYBODY DIES in the end.
 
TBH I just want to build a safehouse (benefit from all the possibilities the different professions offer) with a few others in MP and eventually I want zombies to tear it down.. so I am enforced to run yet again and start anew. Always being in danger.. just almost avoiding that one lethal mistake, for as long as I could.
 
To summarize up:
When you get a few bagful of tools and supplies and find a good place.. you need some skills in farming/trapping and carpenty and you are basically in the end game, capable of surviving indefinitly. You should never get there. The concept should be "okay we have a good situation now, let's use it the best we can UNTIL we can". Even more so in MP where you can't fast forward time.. so you can't wait half a year to die at long last. And the only thing to kill you is zombies.. randomized or scripted in small or big groups, dispersed or in hordes.. doesn't change the point. But they need to come to kill you.. and to threaten your base.. or bases. The HOW is important.. that gives the feel, but your chances of survival needs to drop with time drastically to a point where it outweights your skill, your luck, your friends, your safehouse, your supplies.
 
Actually the customization for the start condition is awesome, I mean really awesome. The characters and the approaches are very colorful as well. The whole game is detailed to the point of WTF in 2015. But I think the focus on endgame is missing (as in the prevention of endgame . You either die anyway by the starting conditions (no loot, sprinter zombies etc.) or you die of accidentally making a minor mistake. Should be able to die in a hopeless situation without making a mistake, after surviving a while.
 
Sorry about the long post, just trying to give my personal thoughts and different viewpoints.. hope it helps.