mieksta

Back to Study Central
 
Welcome to the unofficial-but-officially-endorsed statistical study on the causes of death in Project Zomboid.  This started out not as a study on causes of death, but rather on the number of scratches from zombies it takes on average to become "zombfected".  Alas, my baby has grown up into a much better study.
 
The study is now completed.
 
Responses as of date last edited: 298
Responses to the sub-form as of date last edited: 68

Results at 67 deaths:
Results at 100 deaths:
Results at 253 deaths:
 

Heya guys, I'm going to throw together a quick list of things that are commonly suggested and whether they've been mentioned by devs as tentative or no's. I'm going to be basing this off of a few threads in the old forum and the top of my head. If I miss any please mention it in the thread and I'll add it to the list.
 
Key
[n] - This is a confirmed 'No' from the development team. Please don't waste your time or ours reposting unless there's something relevant and new about it
[y] - This is confirmed 'Yes' from the development team. This is something the definitely want to see in the game, but this does not constitute a guarantee. Please don't post about it unless you have something new or relevant to add.
[m] - This is a 'maybe' from the dev team. It's something they've mentioned that they were interested in but we still don't know if it's a confirmed feature. Please don't post about it unless you have something new or relevant to add.
Everything else - everything not marked would be something overwhelmingly decided by the community or that's self-evident. If you feel it needs discussion bring it up here or in a thread if there's not already one out there.
 
The Big No's!
These are a list of things that are either vehemently opposed by the majority of the community, confirmed "no's" by the dev team, or impossible within the game as it is. I'm going to try to make this completely unbiased, but if you disagree with anything posted feel free to mention it. The most important ones are highlighted in red. If you take nothing else from this thread, please pay attention to these.
 
 
         Aerosol Can + Lighter = Flamethrower
[n]    Beginning the game before the infection
[n]    Children or babies
[n]    An ending or any game over other than death
[n]    First Person or other viewpoint changes including camera rotation
[n]    Immunity/Cure
[n]    Military Aid
        Mini Maps
[n]    Morality or Karma meter
          Nudity
          Nukes
[n]    Overpowered weapons/specific firearms
          Overpowered Vehicles/Tanks
[n]    Personal Hygiene (going to the bathroom, etc.)
          Playing as a zombie
[n]    Random generated maps
[n]    Rape
[n]    Respawning/Quicksaving
[n]    Sex
[n]    "Special" Infected or any type of superhuman zombies
          Specific named weapons (such as AK47, M14, etc.)
[n]    Unlimited/large amounts of ammo and weapons
[n]    Voiceover
[n]    Zombie Beasts or Infected Animals
[n]    Zombie Camo, or Using Zombie Guts as a Disguise
 
Tentative Yes's
These things are things that either the devs have expressed interest in adding. Please note that this list does not mean these will be in the game at release, nor does it mean the devs will ever add them. It's solely a list of features that at some point they expressed interest in. These things do not need further threads, so please refrain.
 
 
[Added]     Ability to lock doors
[m]  Amputation
[Soon]   Animals
[Soon]   Hunting
[m]    Porting/Console Version (Depending on Things)
 
[m]   Armor
[y]    Barricading with furniture
[Added]   Bodies of water 
[y]    Bows and Crossbows
[y]    Cauterizing wounds
[y]    Car Batteries
[y]    Chainsaw
[Added]    Cleaning up corpses/blood
[Added]    Crawling Zombies
[y]    Dogs
[Added]   Electronics
[Soon]   Feral Animals
[Added]    Generators
[y]    Walkmans
[Added]    Malnutrition
[Added]    Area Maps (no location marker)
[In Progress]    More animations
[In Progress]    More map content
[In Progress]    More weapons
[Added]    More jobs
[Added]    More sprites
[Soon] More Baldspot and Kate
[Added]    More/Different sneaking animations
[Added]    Movable items (such as wheelie bins)
[Soon] NPC's (of all types, good and bad)
[Soon] NPC relationships
[Soon] NPC companions
[Soon] NPC infection
[Soon] NPC management
[Added]    Online Multiplayer
[y]    Passing out
[y]    Profanity Filter
[Added]    Rain Barrels
[Added]    Suicide
[y]    Sadist Movie Director (in progress) aka The Governor
[Added]   Sleep quality
[Added]    Sleep in Multiplayer
[m]    Sewers and basements
[Added]    Traps
[Added]    Unarmed combat
[Added]    Vehicles

This is a feature, not a bug. It's in case you need to bury a Human Centipede.

It's a no for me on both accounts. None of this is unfair. Your player agency has consequences as does your character's inability to do something right. Both have a place in the game (as they do in basically every other game).
 
You clear the glass because it's the smart thing to do.
 
You miss clearing the glass because you are in a rush and chased by zeds. Or you aren't keen enough to do it on your own. You get your hands cut in the process. That's the way of the road.

Oooh, i didnt realize this, i have space bound with ready weapon, have had for years, i find it much better than shift...
 
Wow, wev nearly got to 100 'little' suggestions, should keep the devs busy!
 
RESPECT to TIS.  Best indie game by FAR!  Thanks for giving your time to listen to our requests. This game is really shaping up to be OUR game, we are some very lucky gamers to have such attentive developers, even if not one of these suggestions makes it in at least they are good listeners
 

But you already can stomp downed zombies by pressing space  Space pushes/stomps zombies.
 
89. Darker nights in general.
89a. Realistic moon cycles for some additional light during some nights.

82. Make it so day and night length change with seasons (did a quick test, on 21th of December it gets dark at 9pm, where it should at 5:20pm). http://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/louisville
83. Dig holes with shovel or trowel (or bare hands for that matter) as a first step of building a log wall (not my idea). That should prevent building log walls on concrete or asphalt or hard surfaces.
84. Being in a room with a wall clock shows current time.
 
EDIT
 
85. Make it so a hot cuppa does not consume an entire coffee jar.
85a. Make it so hot cuppa recipes requires being close to a heat source (working oven, lit campfire, lit BBQ etc.)
86. Make it so our character automatically picks first aid stuff from first aid kits in inventory or backpack when clicking RMB on health screen. I find myself never using first aid kits because you need to equip them first and manually take the stuff out. Too much hassle to be useful.
87. Make it so barbed wire has more uses then just 1 per piece.

73. (a) working beer pumps in bars.
       (b) pint glasses
 
 

I just have the simple request of not be able to read in the dark or craft complex stuff in the dark.
 
Light sources should be something you want and at the same time you fear, i barely see people using flashlights while raiding and the ONLY time i seen flashlights uses are when making lamp posts, batteries would become a valuable commodity as candles would.

Don't know if these count, but here are a few that I'd like to see:
1. Random creepy noises in the woods (swaying bushes that could mean a zombie or nothing, howls of a pack of feral dogs).
2. A short looping animation for the water.
3. A large amount of bodies in one area slow you down.
4. Fire does not burn chain fences/ any kind of non-flammable metal material. 
5. Remote controls can be linked to various in-game electronics by a high-level Electrician (radios, TVs, lights, etc.)
6. Snow slows down movement speed in the winter and long exposure to the cold causes unhappiness. 
7. Creepy sounds and/or images for a short period after a player awakens from a nightmare.

40. Make is so starting a fire on a charcoal BBQ uses same firestarters as a campfire (clothes, twigs etc.).
41. Make soda dispensers usable (fill bottles and cups with soda!).
42. Make those office water dispensers refillable and add an option to remove that big bottle on top from it.
43. Make ladders that are already in the game world usable.
44. Make all roofs and all under-an-angle stuff walkable (so roofs and MU railyard underground hangars basically).
45. Make molotovs from any glass bottle.
45a. Use petrol for molotovs.
46. Take nails from bags for barricading automatically.
47. Water-specific foliage near water and on the water itself.
48. Fix bowl of beans giving a mood bonus as can of beans gives mood penalty.
49. Make it so I can't stuff myself with dog food or rats and then just read a book or three to feel happy again.
50. Sleeping bags to improve quality of sleep in a tent / on couches/benches.
51. Make Park Ranger and Lumberjack move quicker then rest through woods.
52. Someone else mentioned that burned grass and foliage should regrow.
53. In random burnt houses there are perfectly fine posters and paintings hanging on walls. Same goes for light switches. Also halves of tables standing on two legs defying gravity.
54. Sleeping in bathtubs and on toilets.
54a. Sleeping on the ground (Sleeping bag would help! Rain would wake you up when sleeping outside!)
55. Bags found on zombies should have some random/useful stuff inside.
56. Random zombie senses/strenght/speed/travel distance, random group sizes, many zombies not forming groups at all, random migration times, random respawn times and random respawned zombie count.
57. Make it possible to walk across wide stairs (invisible wall atm). http://map.projectzomboid.com/#0.41836410782883027,0.1619607441212,325.04533736798015

35. Make it possible to have power on roofs you can actually access via a staircase (like the one of Mul Warehouse).
36. Make it possible to place Exit Signs on doorframes (currently, if you remove one from its doorframe, you can't place it back)
37. Make it possible to open/close shutters and garage doors (More suggestions on this idea HERE)
38. Give us more paintable signs (More suggestions on this idea HERE)
39. Make Soda Vending Machines capable of cooling.

9. Make it so heavy stuff which is drainable (bag of coal, spray can, paint, water bottles, bag of cement etc.) changes weight accordingly with 'uses left' bar, so a bag of coal which has 1 use left will not weight 8.0 or a bottle of water with one sip left will not weight 0.8. You get the idea.
10. Make it so used drainable stuff consolidate with one another, for example 2 bags of coal with half of uses left will make full bag of coal (it might be a bit awkward with painkillers, though, as they are in blisters... or propane tanks). Also usefull with cans of paint of the same colour. Blindcoder did a mod for that.
11. Make it so we can pour gas from one canister to another. Or make them consolidate, but keep the gas can.
12. Make it so existing walls can be painted/plastered.
12a. Make plastering/painting change the appearance only of 1 side of a wall so we can choose inside and outside colours separately.
13. Make it so you can equip a bag from your hand directly to your back and directly from your back to your hand (we need to unequip and equip again atm).
13a. Same thing as above but for 2 handed weapons that are equipped in one hand and we would like to equip it in both hands. Or the other way round.
14. Make it so we can put garbage bags into rubbish bins and metal barrels to create a water collector. Or just clean said containers thoroughly with bleach and use as water collectors without bags.
15. Make it so we can pour fresh water into existing box, barrel, and other collectors for indoor storage.
16. Make it so we can empty a collector from water (to move collectors). TBH I'm not sure if this is implemented already or not. (not my idea)
17. Make it so we can use seeds as bird/squirrel/rodent bait in traps (not my idea).
18. Make it so we can open doors and windows with a crowbar (penalty for that would be noise). (We can't do that now, can we?)
19. Make it so we can break the glass in openable windows and then open the window to climb through it without injuries and without the need to clear the broken glass.
20. Make it so we can break glass in doors with glass to open the door.
21. Make it so we can choose the fill for our shelves and book cases and what not. Guns on a bookshelf certainly don't look like books  Though, that would require some of Mash's magic.
22. Propane tank bomb.
23. Make it so we can move entire doors without breaking them (door must be unlocked and it would require a screwdriver or other tools).
24. Give mailboxes a small inventory where magazines and newspapers would spawn.
25. Make it possible to power a gas station fuel pump with a generator (there is a mod for that already).
26. Make it so street lights are not on 24/7 and make some of them flicker/don't turn on at evening/night.
27. A button to toggle visibility of entire outsides of buildings, street lamps etc. (so upper floors don't disappear when you get close).
28. Make traffic lights animated when power is on (low priority :))
29. Make an option in game settings for a character to automatically turn the lights in a room on upon entering and off upon leaving.
30. Make metal bar and metal pipe weapons.
31. Make it so chainlink fence doors do not leave planks when destroyed (wire maybe? metal pipes/bars?).
32. Make it so it does not snow nor rain in MU underground and metal hangars.
33. Make it so those entire-wall-section-tall windows can be just walked through when glass is broken (so no need to press "e" to jump over imaginary ledge).
33a. Make it so it takes more planks to barricade said windows (would require new art, I think).
34. Create new art for barricading wide windows (we put nails into glass atm).
34a. Make it so when you break double window it breaks in the other section as well (would require new art, I think).
 
 
 

I have some sugestions for cooking, I know this will not make great difference in the gameplay, but i like to think it will give a good flavor to the game.
 
How about put the recipes of bread, cake and pie in just one Good cooking magazine (maybe call it bakery apretince magazine) and add a recipe for pancakes? (also how about some mapple syrup, honey and jam for the pancakes?)
 
And add a Italian cuisine magazine (maybe call it Mama's Old Recipes) that contains recipes for pizza, tomato sauce (that can be jarred maybe?), fresh pasta (not the convencional pasta in game, but one tha spoils really faster if not cooked soon) and fresh lasagna noodles (like the fresh pasta)
 
And add lasagna noodles in the way pasta is in game, so if you find the normal lasagna noodles in game you can make lasagna without reading the magazine?
 
Also, this is kind of minor, but I like to think that you don't wanna toss a whole tomato or cabbage in a dish, you'll like add a chopped/diced/sliced tomato or cabbage into a dish, then maybe, if you don't want to put the whole item in the dish, you need to chop (in game, let's use just chop maybe) it first, than you can add just part of it, but it has a downwards, after chopped, an item will spoil really faster, as it will do IRL, how about make this for meats and vegetables that are not small like peas.
 
Have some other ideas to put down the line, just need to organize them first.

Also,
 
6. It'd be nice to have some loot drop from destroyed walls, similar to doors.

I like these! Going off of the zombie ash, perhaps it would be possible for us to see burned areas of forest slowly recover and grow back grass?

Since in the mondoid its mentioned that small but important stuff are added such as drying of towels and that we are urged to suggest in the forums. I have started a thread so that others may pile up their most important feature that is not very complicated but you think should be in vanilla.
 
I want to suggest some others that might be a good thing to add
1. Removing of zombie ash (burned zombie - currently no way of doing this unless using a mod)
2. Addition of Red and Black paint (its rimary colors and black is a popular paint colour for some).
3. Removing redundant distribution files that has been replaced to avoid confusion.
4. Making wearable stuff like clothes and skirts to become moddable like the rest of the items ( this might be hard but will add so much to the game if its enabled )
 
 
Thanks

Don't forget about pushing them down stairs. 

It would be cool if there was a considerable chance to push a zombie out a window when (duh) pushing a zombie towards a window. Same for low fences, because as of now, zombies seem to bounce off of low fences.
 
Thanks.

The title of this really caught my attention. Phrasing bro. Phrasing.

Thank you, we'll review the balance of the zombies in the future, as well as the possibility of making them stronger but in turn having fewer in numbers.
 
In the meantime, use your imagination to suspend disbelief.. The game might not start you at Day 0. Maybe soldiers threw "bodies" into the quarantined zone. Maybe they came in from outside of Muldraugh/West Point for one reason or another.
   

You might be happy to see this
 

Mondoid that this video is from: http://projectzomboid.com/blog/2016/05/gundoid/

Personally I like the achievements idea - but you could try a twist on it by making them badges. Give each player another profile tab with more in-depth statistics (how many unique books have you read? Unique dishes eaten? total books? total dishes? Total zombies fought - total zombies killed. Number of carpentry projects completed. Plants harvested. etc.) and the badges they've earned from them. All for one lifetime - one character.
 
Then when they die, if someone else loots the corpse, pop up a window with the top badges the player had earned.
 
It sort of adds weight to the idea of their life. Here are their accomplishments. Here is the amount of effort lost. (and in PVP I'm sure some people would get a kick out of killing "the best <insert task here>")

Panic already work like that.
 
Ofc I don't want gear sets and bonuses its way too RPG but in real life items have different qualities. If you take few knifes or axes some are heavier some are sharper it's nothin special. But trust me, players like to collect items and they will hunt for those "perfect ones".
 
For other collectables I remember that Will wanted to put some random journals to the game. You will find them at different places and they add some flavor to the world.

For gear the good solution is to make random quality for each item. Not that different than average but trust me if average axe have like 25 dmg you will find people that will spend hours to get that perfect sharp axe with 30 dmg.
It worked well for Diablo 2 where special items had statistic range like 10-20 vitality and whenever you drop one the rng did the magic.
 
Same can go for any weapon or clothing.
 
For other challenges I'd love to see some more scripted events. Like siege of our base. Spawn 2-3 waves of zombies, or group of bandits.
Random group of traders etc.
 
Achievements are nice but don't let them have impact on character stats.