ZombiesLoveBrainiacs

Parts marked in red are important, others are less important
 
Table of content
1. JUST SKIP MY INTRO
2. ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
    The manuever player wants to do and how effective it currently is;
    The dilemma of how effective players should be in combat;
    What we could do;
3. MOVEMENT PRECISION
    Unintentional strafing;
    Bobbing camera;
    Aim control;
4. SIGHT DIRECTION
5. STEALTH PLAY STYLE
6. THINGS THAT HIT THE SPOT
    Characteristics;
    Animations;
    Details;
7. BUGS AND MINOR IDEAS
    Bugs
    Ideas
8. THANK YOU
 
 
1. JUST SKIP MY INTRO
 
I only started playing PZ recently and I think this game is absolutely amazing. I'd say it is one of the best survival management game I've ever come to known and perhaps the most immersive game I've ever played. I've been playing the public build for almost 2 weeks before I decided to try out this build 41 that everyone's been talking about, and oh boy here we go...
 
First thing first build 41 is AWESOME! The things you can do, the details that are added and the improved animations and models and everything, I just wanna give a huge shoutout to the dev team who after all these years were still able to bring this game up so much level!
 
However I'm really here to give thoughts (feedbacks) and I fully understand that this build is currently still undergoing heavy tweakings. I hope my profession as a character animator and my game company background (not a game animator, just cgi) may offer some helpful suggestion.
 
2. ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
 
Character movement. It's a huge improvement, but also a huge problem directed at gameplay. I'm sure the dev has heard enough already. I did googled many other people's review and many talked about the same thing which I mostly agreed on. But I wanna get into details on this issue.
 
                The manuever player wants to do and how effective it currently is;
 
I won't be using words like oh my character turns like a fish in water it's unrealistic blah blah blah no I'm going to look at it from gameplay perspective: with currently movement control what changes was forced upon the gameplay as a whole? It's simple, we are now pretty much denied the ability to safely disengage and run when we think we are about to get overwhelmed, we are also no longer able to quick react during a sudden close quarter encounter, for example a zombie lurking in the corner out of sight. It's not impossible, it's just you can easily failed and in this game instead of a set back it's game over. Zombie's new grabbing ability probably contribute to it quite a lot but it's hard to say which one is more problemetic. I personally liked the zombie grab, it's just not being able to perform quick runaway is putting me off.
 
                The dilemma of how effective players should be in combat;
 
I understand that this animation was part of an effort to prevent kiting which enables player to 1 vs horde. But I think currently the slow 180 turn thing or the movement delay as a whole is really just discouraging player to take even the smallest risk or just about doing anything. So in a way it is discouraging player to just, well, play the game.
 
To further show the impact of this mechanism, I have tried lower the difficulty to weaker than "initial outbreak" settings and what I noticed is that I still get pretty much the same amount of scratches from the casual single or double encounters. Now the game is already looking boring with such low difficulty due to having just 3 to 4 zombies for an entire block and they don't react much to me, but that 3 to 4 zombies is just going to scratch me at some point. ALL OF THEM are resulted from bad movement control, NONE was caused by my bad decision making. Back in public build the gameplay is mostly like: the shop is right there, the horde is over there, should I run for it or should I lure them away? And when I get myself killed I think: damn, shouldn't have underestimate the number, shoulda been more patient. In Build 41 it's mostly like: Oh are you kidding me you miss shoving that one slow ass zombie right in front of you?
 
                What we could do;
 
My suggestion for this particular issue is that we should definately take a much more responsive approach for movement control, player should be able to traverse with ease in a close quarter situation. Perhaps the nerf is instead focus on combat action. For example, here's what I can think of: you hold LMB to charge up attack power, maybe it'll take 1 second to reach full damage, then release to blow, while you charge, if you moved your charge drastically slow down and your movement will severely impaired. This will discourage player to kite indefinately while facing a sizable horde. Players are also rooted during swing, and if you release RMB before releasing LMB it immediately cancel action allowing quick disengage. Just a quick thought, or could be some better solution.
 
3. MOVEMENT PRECISION
 
This is very much similar to the issue mentioned above, but instead happens mostly during down time. So with the much bigger turning curve, walking or running from place to place indoor or in tight spaces becomes quite a hassle. There's two parts for this issue. The unintentional strafing caused by the curve, and the current camera tracking method that greatly reduces player's precision.
 
                Unintentional strafing;
 
What happens now is that when you turn 90 degree trying to get thru a one tile gap such as door, you are likely to take one more step to the side and miss and hit the wall, and then you have to scrub the wall a bit before you go thru. This happens way more often when you try to run indoor. This ruins a lot of immersion because many great moments happen when you're just enjoying the down time at home, cooking doing laundries watching TVs and bang you hit the wall and you're like: urgh...just..trying to...squeeze thru this door to use the bathroom... *phomp* there! This probably shares the same problem from not having a responsive enough movement control so I won't have any more suggestion to it.
 
                Bobbing camera;
 
It's not really "bobbing" it's just now it seems that the camera is tracking either the hip joint or head joint? Whenever we change character body direction now the camera wobbles a bit, this greatly reduce the accuracy of player's movement and sight direction control - especially during combat - and that is on top of the now turnning curve we have to deal with. I think this is more of a bug, cause I think the dev was meant to have it tracking the root ring? Perhaps it'll be fixed in the future.
 
                Aim control;
 
Oh boy I'm gonna try and suppress my emotion here.
 

 
This is bad! it's bad, it's really really bad! Forgive my insensitive wording but God I can't stress enough how much I hate this mechanism. Just make it like this:
 

 
It really is just every gamer's instinct to align directions from root of the character to cursor on the ground.
 
Also the camera bobbing has severely impaired player's ability to hit zombies right in front of them. I believe it's a bug and the devs are already working on, hope it'll be removed soon.
 
4. SIGHT DIRECTION
 
Right now the way we control our character's sight direction is way too slow. I don't think I like how the sight is bind to the direction of torso, this is causing certain amount of unpleasant in the gaming experience especially when things are tensing up and you want to be at top alert of your surrounding.
 
May I make a suggestion here cause I really like to see this happen: we now have stealth, right? I love it, I like implementing stealth and make it an important part of the game (althought more tweaking required). So now that we have a designated stealth, can we make RMB a sight direction thing without activating combat/stealth mode? Perhaps we can separate body motion with head motion, for example when players are moving, sight direction spins freely; while standing still body will try to turn towards sight direction. Maybe we can now look around while in vehicles. I really like being able to look around while walking running and doing other bar loading stuffs such as picking doors or maybe just resting on ground. Perhaps we get a slow panelty for the bar while looked away, that'll be fun! Scanning parameter is a huge part of zombie survival game like PZ and if we're allowed to do that it'll add SO MUCH immersion to gameplay! Please please make it happen!
 
5. STEALTH PLAY STYLE
 
I really like the idea of having stealth play as part of the strategy, especially for early games when players are more vulnerable. However when I was trying it in survival mode, I just don't think the stealth has much of an effect. I feel like the zombies are just going to see me from miles away anyway regardless of how dark and slow I am. Often time I feel like it's much more easier if I just do the good ole run and grab. Stealthing hasn't been much of a success for me in terms of going in for the loot. Also because of the thing I mentioned before, sight directions are way too slow so I can't keep a full awareness of my surrounding, I just feel like I'm not the one who's stealthing, it's more like zombies are stealthing me instead.
 
I think stealth can use a bit of a buff, it's going to create a much more exciting early game experience!
 
6. THINGS THAT HIT THE SPOT
 
There are things from build 41 that has really elevated this game from its previous build, things that adds a great deal into the immersion of this genre and deliver a much better gaming experience. Sometimes it's more important to know what you did right rather than what you did wrong, because it is the rights that set the direction of where we should be going in the future.
 
                Characteristics
 
Clothing! Variaty of clothing is one of the best thing we ever have from this build, it gives so much to the character we play, it makes our character much more alive than ever before. Oh we have slippers and pajamas now?! Can we have a sleeping bonus when wearing them to sleep?
 
Managable hair style? Holy shit! I remember coming back home from looting and fighting zombies and then I go to the bathroom to wash off my blood, and I take off my beanie and loosen up the pony tail, I can almost feel the relaxation from my character! Can we now make those combs mirrors razors and hairspray useable now!
 
                Animations
 
Combat motion. It's just great, coming from a fellow animator, I'm loving this animation overhaul! The way the character holds heavy weapon such as wood axe and sledge by the balance point? This is better than many of the game animators out there I know! I like to critize them a lot because I'm a character animator and we have much higher standard in CGI animations, but I'm totally loving this one.
 
More interaction animations. The tiny suble motions when the character is doing stuffs is just so properly done, things like eating, washing, grabing stuffs from chest and from ground or even reloading firearms, they are really bringing out the immersion of things! Oh and I love how some of the things can be done while sitting on ground! So can we finally sit in chairs and sleep in beds now please?
 
Wounding, limbing and tripping. That's a big plus. It really force you to be more aware of your surroundings and not just to look at them as obstacles. One morning I ran through a bush without wearing pants, and I scratched my leg. What else was I expecting right!
 
I notice vehicles have physics now, it feels good!
 
                Details
 
Firearm system is DOPE! Whoever designed this, you're a genius and I salute you.
 
Corpse decomposition and skeletons. I knew we'll have this some day. Thank you for indulging us.
 
Rain puddles, NEAT!
 
Frankly I can go on and on but you know how it goes. We'll always be excited for any details and interactables that are added to games. This is the very reason why PZ is unique!
 
7. BUGS AND MINOR IDEAS
 
                Bugs
 
Clip on tie currently is only visible on the inside, it appears that any layer will cover it.
 
Clothing icon color sometimes does not match up with actual color.
 
Trench jacket model can be see thru from below, this is quite distracting when zombie dies and you see thru it. Maybe there's a flipped normal or something.
 
                Ideas
 
Sit on chair, sleep in bed.
 
Tea comes in boxes, coffee comes in bags so that they won't be consumed for just one use.
 
Alarm clock can be placed on top of some table tops so that we can hit the stop button.
 
Does bread dough consumes the entire bag of flour? Maybe make it just half, or a quarter.
 
Firearms probably needs a little buff so that we can quickly kill off a zombie at point blank regardless of skill level. I agree we must regulate power of firearms, but not being able to kill of zombies in point blank kind of put off the purposes of having them in the first place, I mean they are kind of a last resort thing that will result in you having flea the area quickly after all, it's not like you get a shotgun and you immediately go fully Jill Valentine.
 
I have many ideas but I don't want to shovel them all in this articles. I'm sure devs have many great ideas for the future release, for now priority should be the major issues.
 
8. THANK YOU
 
At the end I wanna say thank you Indie Stone for making such a great game and keeping at it for so many years. I wish I know this game earlier and now that I do, I hope for the next release this game will rock the foundation of all management genre. Let's set a new standard for any survival games to come, coz why not.
 
I know devs are probably at the end cycle of next beta test release so my opinion probably comes either too late, too weak, or maybe just too non-mainstream. I'm looking forward to the next beta release and as a survival game lover, I hope that I will be able to give more useful feedback. And last but not least, to all the devs, I don't know where you are but please stay safe and don't let the virus get you. Yes the one that's out there right now. By the way who put a bunch of toilet papers in Cortman Medical Clinic and replace all the medical supplies? F*** you I died because of that! (JK)

Hey all, here’s a quick rundown on a few of the things currently in the internal testing build and due for a hopeful release early next week.
Visible wounds on the character New ‘vehicle zed stories’ to see on the road as you drive by (these being the car placements and zed clothing that suggests scenes of what was happening during the initial outbreak) Fuel timers for campfires and other fuelled items – showing how many in-game hours they have left The ability to tie a bandana either Rambo-style over your head, or to cover your face. Cruise control for cars – pressing Shift+W will increase the maintained speed, Shift+S will decrease it. Braking will turn it off. Stealth improvements – especially for sneaking up behind zombies and stabbing them. The player character will raise a hand to signal when he/she is close enough for a jaw stab from behind. Added ability to hold a flashlight in the player’s hand, and also for a visible umbrella to be displayed being held by the player too. Here’s a quick video that shows some of the above in action.
Finally today, here’s a quick look at Yuri’s work on fire spread. It’s not quite as visually appealing as the above, but hopefully it’ll be of some interest.
On the right you can see all the factors in-play: temperature, material types, weight, volume, surface area, heating energy, cooling energy etc – ignore the ‘weather’ tag at the top.
Then, on the left you can see a map of combustible materials, in this case trees. Each tile displays the temperature of a tree – the left the trunk, the right the branches. We then see a fire spread between them all – with the tree-tops lighting up, and their burning being passed on to surrounding trees.
This week’s rainy road from Цаплин. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. The Centralized Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too!

This is most welcome! Thanks guys!

try Translator.getDisplayItemName("Wire")

Yeah I didn't get the results I wanted right off the bat. The character bled out xD.

This. Survivor Radio is a nice mod, but currently there's no sane way to make it really work.
 
We'd definitely need:
:setTimelinePosition()
 
Also nice to have would be:
:setMinDistance()
:setMaxDistance()

Hey guys, I was thinking it'd be nice to be able to have the radio and TV play sound files. That way we could mod in voice overs, songs and whatever else comes to mind.

Please make it so that I can destroy the interior wall segment without destroying the exterior wall segment at the same time. I do not have the resources or skills to rebuild that outer portion of wall. This only applies to corner wall segments.

 

You can use "getSoundManager():getMusicPosition()".
You can also test and play around with "getSoundManager():getPosition()".
 
Both functions "getMusicPosition()" and "getPosition()" return only floats.
To be exact, they both return Time Elapsed in milliseconds (ms).
 
To get seconds, you need to divide the music position by 1000.
local sound_position = getSoundManager():getMusicPosition() local totalSeconds = sound_position / 1000  
I created a function that prints the time of the music being played in many various forms.
You can choose which time formats you'd like from this, or you can edit or reference this code.
-- Prints in various forms, the current elapsed time of the music that is currently playing. function printCurrentMusicTime(isoPlayer) local sound_position = getSoundManager():getMusicPosition() print(string.format("Current Music Time Elapsed (ms): %.2f", sound_position)) local totalHours = sound_position / 1000 / 60 / 60 local totalMinutes = sound_position / 1000 / 60 local totalSeconds = sound_position / 1000 print(string.format("Current Music Time Elapsed (hours): %.1f", totalHours)) print(string.format("Current Music Time Elapsed (minutes): %.1f", totalMinutes)) print(string.format("Current Music Time Elapsed (seconds): %.1f", totalSeconds)) local totalHoursRounded = math.floor(sound_position / 1000 / 60 / 60) local totalMinutesRounded = math.floor(sound_position / 1000 / 60) local totalSecondsRounded = math.floor(sound_position / 1000) print(string.format("Current Music Time Elapsed (hoursRounded): %.1f", totalHoursRounded)) print(string.format("Current Music Time Elapsed (minutesRounded): %.1f", totalMinutesRounded)) print(string.format("Current Music Time Elapsed (secondsRounded): %.1f", totalSecondsRounded)) local music_clock = millisecondsToClock(sound_position) print(string.format("Music Clock: %s", music_clock)) end -- Returns a clock as a String in "hh:mm:ss" format. function millisecondsToClock(ms) local sec = tonumber(ms)/1000 if sec <= 0 then return "00:00:00"; else local hours = string.format("%02.f", math.floor(sec/3600)); local minutes = string.format("%02.f", math.floor(sec/60 - (hours*60))); local seconds = string.format("%02.f", math.floor(sec - hours*3600 - minutes*60)); return string.format("%s:%s:%s", hours, minutes, seconds) end end Events.OnRenderTick.Add(printCurrentMusicTime)  
When this function "printCurrentMusicTime" is called, it prints the various time formats on console.

 
Here's the actual SoundManager functions. I hope this all helps. Enjoy

 

 
 
 
MusicTimePrinter.lua

"Reload the game, hold shift and... Oh."
xD
 
btw: when I exit the game while there are zombies around, they are sometimes all gone when I re-enter. Does that happen to anyone else as well?

I think car storage space need a little rebalance.
 
As of now Ambulance is the best car in the game as far as storage space is concerned:
 
- 6 seats - 150 space (big seats) + driver
- 90 space in trunk
- plenty of engine power as a bonus
 
It makes little sense for an Ambulance to be the best in this regard.
 
As a rule of thumb heavy duty cars should have large trunks for them to have better storage capacity, as well as convenience of filling just the trunk, and not all the seats, compared to normal cars, but normal cars can be quieter still + have better fuel economy and better acceleration as a bonus.
 
  Car model Proposed trunk storage Seats storage (big seats) Total Notes Chevalier Step Van 220 30 250 Less torque and acceleration + worse fuel economy + more noise than Franklin Valuline (2 seater). Franklin Valuline (2 seater) 170 30 200 More torque and acceleration + better fuel economy than Chevalier Step Van. Dash Bulldriver 150 30 180 More convenient than Franklin Valuline (6 seater), as you only need to fill trunk + seat, instead of trunk + 5 seats. Franklin Valuline (6 seater) 30 150 180   Ambulance 80 90 170 Changed to 4 seats total instead of 6. Chevalier D6 140 30 170   Franklin All-Terrain 70 90 160 Much more power and torque compared to Cerise Wagon + good offroad performance. Chevalier Cerise Wagon 70 90 160   Chevalier Nyala 50 90 140   Chevalier Primani 50 90 140 More power, torque and acceleration compared to Chevalier Nyala. Dash Elite 45 90 135 More power, torque and acceleration compared to Chevalier Nyala and Chevalier Primani. Quieter than Chevalier Primani Masterson Horizon 45 90 135   Mercia Lang 4000 40 90 130 More power, torque and acceleration compared to Chevalier Nyala, Chevalier Primani, and Dash Elite. Quieter than Chevalier Primani and Dash Elite. Added 2 more seats. Chevalier Dart 40 90 130   Chevalier Cossette 60 30 90 Most powerful and quietest of all performance cars.  
EDIT: Forgot about Dash Rancher. It can stay the same but add 2 more seats.
 

A "keep speed" solution for drivers
 

 
You accelerate to a desired speed, release [W] key, then press [key bind] and car starts to maintain current speed until you press [W] or brake.
 
Bonus: 👀
Fridge vans (heavy duty variant) Wood-powered car/gas tank (Video)  

One solution is to change "MyClass:OnPlayerUpdate(p)" by removing the colon and replacing it with a period, "MyClass.OnPlayerUpdate(p)".
I am not sure why this works, but it has to do with how  . and : on "MyClass" both act with Zomboid's Events.
local MyClass = {} function MyClass:new(o) setmetatable(o, self) self.__index = self --Events.OnPlayerUpdate.Add(self:OnPlayerUpdate) -- Error: function arguments expected near `)` Events.OnPlayerUpdate.Add(self.OnPlayerUpdate) return o end function MyClass.OnPlayerUpdate(p) print(p) end local o = {} local instance = MyClass:new(o)  
With this change, "print(p)" should produce this now.

 
 

Sigh. I'll try to keep to the point instead of using an angry, dismissive tone. 
 
Walking backwards with a spear and fighting a human oponent might be a bit complicated, because he'll dodge, block and if he has a long reach weapon as well, you have to worry about counterattacks.
 
A zombie simply walks forward - he never protects vital parts, usually has one or two arms outstretched (leaving weak points open), and some of them even let their heads lean forward in front of their bodies. A zombie is easily baited, feinted and deceived. It just follows two basic instincts: kill and eat. It doesn't have a clue if that pointy stick aimed at its head is going to kill it.
 
Such a target is laughably easy to hit while moving. I mean it - grab a broom, walk backwards, and tell me you can't place strong accurate thrusts in front of you.
What you have to do is worry about your footing (you may trip if it's uneven terrain and you're not paying attention) and zombies sneaking at your back. Stopping after each swing is not realistic and very tedious. I'm sure that there is a better path than implementing artificial, unrealistic difficulty by twisting reality just because players are being efficient. Spears are just THAT good in real life. 
 
Technical issues are another matter - but neither me nor any of my friends saw anything wrong in that regard lately (floating legs?). What we did feel as soon as we booted the game today was our characters being slow, stiff and clunky. 
 
Also, this feature (fix?) was uploaded today. I suppose the criticism and feedback (even positive ones) will be coming from now on.

No mods
 
2 bugs shown in this video: https://streamable.com/t84p9
1) instead of the stomping animation I get sometimes the shoving animation but still it gives damages to the zombie on the ground.
 
2) zombies on the ground sometimes flip over for no reason
 
Something else we can't see here and is not really a bug but feels like one is that crawling zombies can still move and spin when you are on top of them which, I think, doesn't make sense since when you are on top of "normal" zombies they can't move at all.

1093
 
When you scroll over a weapon, Add a few words saying what weapon type it is. Would help new players know that spoons are a small blade, and also help us for when you add more ambiguous weapons in the future like the pickaxe or the machete.  Did not know until I looked on the wiki that a machete is a long blade.

Stay safe! I know with all this social distancing, I'm looking forward to the MP feature release more than ever!

There's already instruments in Zomboid that haven't got much use other than as a weapon or a collectible, but wouldn't it be cool to have them be playable?
 
Examples of their application could be:
A way to stave off unhappiness or insanity. Social use in multiplayer for fun. Being the Post Apocalyptic Pied-Piper of Muldraugh.  
I think the two ways of implementing this would be a form where you have access to a keyboard and can play the keys in sequence (not very fun) and through the ABC system (very fun), similar to how it was done in Lord of the Rings Online. The way this works is that the internet has websites that are these huge reservoirs of .abc file notated musical compositions (plus you can make your own) and you would have some designated folder, maybe in Zomboid's case it could be somewhere like This PC>Local Disk (C:)>Users>Player>Zomboid>music and then you paste the .abc file there. Then when you open the game, you would right click on your guitar to play and it would open a list that shows all the compositions you have in that folder, and you click on one and it will play, as your character acts out the complementary strumming animation. 
 
As a part of the game itself, there would be a perk requirement of guitar player, or an occupation like music teacher to be able to a variety of instruments. I think it would be an interesting way of showing how even a character whose traits wouldn't seem to ordinarily be sought after in an apocalypse, an entertainer, can still be a valued member of a group and contribute as such.
 
Please share your thoughts with me! 🙂

1085
 
Rework existing professions to account for new skills being added. For instance, it would make sense for the repairman profession to have a level in electrical, metalworking, and/or mechanics, for mechanic to have a level in metalworking, etc.

1088 In-game road atlases that you can find so you don't have to resort to out-of-game maps when driving between towns. Road signs would also help

1082
 
Make a splashing sound when running/walking through puddles. 

1079
 
Add "Zombie virus infection chance" to sandbox, so we can adjust how infectious scratches, lacerations, and bites are.
 
I'd like to set bites to 99%, personally, for my sandbox games.

1071. Desire paths. Having trails form as a result of one specific path being continuously used by your character, vehicles, zombies (and NPC survivors in the future!) would be a nice touch and add a bit of post-apocalyptic atmosphere to the game, and could also help those holding out in locations in the wilderness only connected by meager dirt roads that are being threatened with becoming overgrown and unable to be used. I'm not sure how hard it would be to implement into the game, but it could solve the problem of "this dirt road I always use is covered in trees, bushes, and grass now."
 
1072. A way to move vehicles without driving them. Some roads will be randomly blocked with car wrecks, which, in the case of vehicles that are nothing more than burnt out hunks of metal, can be disassembled for scrap, but intact vehicles seem to not have that option. Usually, you can drive around them, but some roads are narrow to the point where you'll have to drive through the grass, which can become a major issue as time goes on when bushes and trees begin to grow. Having a way to move these vehicles would be very useful. Towing them, setting them to neutral and pushing them, or some other method would be very useful, and it would also allow vehicles to even be used as barricades more easily without having to hope the vehicle has gas, working parts, and (if you can't hotwire) a key.

1070: audible breathing from idling zeds
Currently zombies are completely silent unless they see you, I thing they should make at least some sound to be able to recognize when there's someone right behind the door