winterpyre

In mp, you simply can't escape someone with higher sprinting. You either kill them or die, and that's not very fun. That's why I think sprinting should be mainly top speed and acceleration, while Fitness covers the endurace. You can be fast, but not for long, or you could be slower but run longer. Or you can have both, but other skill progression suffers. To me, this would make it realistic and balance it more

Pleasing, isn't it.

well it would certainly add a lot more tension after being scratched, and tie you to your character more.
I do like the idea that maybe doctors or nurses would be able to tell sooner if it really is infected or not, maybe give them the ability to calm and reassure people that they will be fine (even in the current system this would be helpful).

If it's not bad enough to be a problem, then I don't really mind. But it still isn't great when the reason for a certain choice is "I can't be bothered".
 
 
I've stated my opinion. As long as there is a reason for for either choice I don't mind really (as long as the reason isn't "the other option is too inconvenient"). I'll be a bit more lenient on RNG though, I can understand it's importance in non-fatal situations. I wouldn't mind having higher risks of infections from amateur surgery work and such.

I'm not completely decided yet, but I like where this is going
 
So far the issues that we all agree on are:
-grinding first aid by cutting yourself a lot instead of healing people who can't be bothered and self medicate even though logically they shouldn't(grinding is also a little bit slow IMO)
-stockpiles of meds that won't ever be used, sad lonely meds, they remind me of the poor Stinky Pete from toy story 2
-not enough situations where first aid is helpful
 
Anything else?
 
And yep, king kitteh, that's why I'm still undecided

@lemmy101 It can't be much fun getting all the flak you do about npc's, I have to resist blasting the bastards that comment on the facebook updates, It seems to me that a lot of people on facebook (and steam for that matter) are self entitled little shits.
You guys have made an awesome game and during the 2 years I've played it's got better and better.
I literally cannot think of any other form of entertainment where I've got 500+ hours for only 15 bucks, even if you guys stopped now (please don't though) the value would still be amazing.
Keep your chin up man, annoying fuckers gonna be annoying fuckers.

This right here is heartbreaking I hope your able to reclaim some of that joy eventually.
What you guys have put into this game really shows, you guys are doing an amazing job and everyone who frequents the forums knows that.
 
Though I do think king kitteh is on to something....

This right here is heartbreaking I hope your able to reclaim some of that joy eventually.
What you guys have put into this game really shows, you guys are doing an amazing job and everyone who frequents the forums knows that.
 
Though I do think king kitteh is on to something....

Things like hurting yourself from being clumsy/panicked/fat are already planned. If you watch the animation video you can see a player tripping over a fence.
 
As for things like cutting yourself while cooking or hurting your hand. I really don't like this. It's just annoying to have RNG punish you randomly. If there's nothing the player could have done to prevent it, it's not a good idea.
 
It'd be like if you had a chance of pricking your finger when suturing unless you wore a thimble, it's just inconvenient.
 
Edit: My example was showing that even if you could prevent it, it'd be a hassel.

It's not all bad - I still have a lot of love for a lot of stuff I do on Zomboid, still get excited like a kid about stuff I'm working on, I just miss having the NPC joy. I say all this but I'm sure I'll get NPC love back once anims are in and it can hit full stride again. And regarding breaks I do take breaks, but like keeping name out of the Mondoid I keep well shtum about it if I do
 
thanks all and sorry for the rather emotional outpouring I'm just very much in a 'get it all out there' mood lately.

At the end of the day I know devs who get it MUCH worse on games that have sold MUCH less. We have a lot of praise and love and are very lucky.
 
On the whole it goes without saying our community is great and the positivity toward our game from the vast majority is great. It's just tough when amongst that, almost every complaint and bad review is directed at you and what you're doing and I feel a lot of guilt about being that negativity lightning rod that undoubtedly gets the team and support guys down too.

This right here is heartbreaking I hope your able to reclaim some of that joy eventually.
What you guys have put into this game really shows, you guys are doing an amazing job and everyone who frequents the forums knows that.
 
Though I do think king kitteh is on to something....

This right here is heartbreaking I hope your able to reclaim some of that joy eventually.
What you guys have put into this game really shows, you guys are doing an amazing job and everyone who frequents the forums knows that.
 
Though I do think king kitteh is on to something....

This right here is heartbreaking I hope your able to reclaim some of that joy eventually.
What you guys have put into this game really shows, you guys are doing an amazing job and everyone who frequents the forums knows that.
 
Though I do think king kitteh is on to something....

We should take all the people who complain about NPCs and put them in a sweatshop. In the sweatshop they each have a small room, with a bucket and a computer.
 
Installed on the computer is PZ (and ticktacktoe for some reason), they are then forced to act as NPCs on other PZ players Single Player worlds.
 
 
This is the most obvious solution, two birds with one stone! Complainers disappear, and they also get a free bucket!
Meanwhile everyone else gets to play with NPCs, albeit NPCs who complain about some evil Indie Stone conspiracy where they're trying to enslave people for cheap labor (wait, isn't that what game development is?).

*Cough* Now that that's out of the way ... *Hugs everyone*
 
Positional audio is one of the goals; it'll be using mumble for a back-end; it'll be customizable  for servers where possible. Even General Arcade isn't re-inventing the wheel, but it's a nice feature found commonly in MP games and regularly requested for PZ. There's no real reason not to do it.
 
It helps that this is the sort of thing General Arcade is known for.

If I ever meet you, I'm buying you a pint. 
 
You deserve it. 
 
But seriously, as shitty as it must feel with people constantly forcing the 'NPC Issue' down your throats at TIS, most of us on the forum understands that you're all doing a fantastic job on the game so far. Keep it up, man. 

For that matter I'm getting tired of a few people who aren't interested in a particular feature assuming that this preference applies to the entire playerbase and that development of the entire game should fit around their own personal wants. If we said 'right, NO MORE MP STUFF WILL BE DONE UNTIL NPCS ARE OUT' we'd just be doing a search and replace on the complaints we get on the forums and how we're focusing on NPCs too much, and this isn't fair to the MP communities, and how NPCs aren't really required when you have humans and humans are so much better to play with than dumb AI, and WHY IS THERE NO VOIP?! You CANNOT win.
 
FAO EVERYONE. NEWSFLASH: There are a lot of people who own this game. NOT EVERY ONE OF THEM WANTS THE SAME THING AS YOU DO AND STOP BEING SELFISH TRYING TO DENY THEM IT JUST TO MAKE YOURSELF HAPPY.
 
We're a tiny team, and we're hiring outside help to do the multiplayer stuff for this very reason (well not just this reason, they are also awesome and can do stuff we cannot), yet even when spending extra money on an external team to avoid it affecting your fabled NPCs in any way whatsoever, and making that clear mondoid after mondoid, we still put up with all these constant complaints and opinionings whenever we talk about ANYTHING non NPC (and yet, ABSURDLY, we get 10x the complaints when we DO talk about NPCS), we are pritoritizing the work that gets done to try and keep the most people happy we can, to provide regular updates to make people feel they are getting their moneys worth, and the reviews suggest we're doing the right thing.
 
If I have to read more whinging about NPCs its SO tempting just to stick static 'shopkeeper' characters in there, soak up the complaints, and never speak of them again. Sick to death of it.  YOU GUYS are the biggest risk to NPCs out there, I tell you. We GET it. We read complaints about NPCs ALL THE TIME. It amazes me so many seem to think by posting a comment on the forums or on an unrelated mondoid we're going to go 'oh what?! WAIT. PEOPLE WANT NPCS? I DIDN'T REALIZE! Sorry! Right, they will be out next week!' - We're so very obviously aware people want NPCs, its like the worst kept secret in the world. Why people can't understand after a certain point it becomes MASSIVELY detremental to a small team where the developers themselves, who are human and bound by such human traits as motivation and stress have to READ this endless stuff themselves, there is no PR guy soaking it up.
 
It's also tempting to put a complete ban on any versions until NPCs are out, and then direct all the huge anger at a list of email addresses I collect from NPC complaints, and see how they like it. Nope people excited for VOIP, you're NOT allowed it because the NPC gang want their NPCS and THEY are who matter, NOT YOU. Doesn't matter that we got extra external people to do all the work. If we talk about it, or god forbid release it, then that's unfair to NPC fans. They don't want other people having any enjoyment of new features if they aren't getting it themselves. Here's a list of people to go and harass about it every week.
 
We try to be good to our customers, we try and be on their side all the time, we bleed for this game, but it's bloody hard. So so so tired of it. You wonder why NPCS aren't out?  I used to love working on NPCs. Now it practically gives me ulcers, because of you lot. THAT is why. Thanks for taking something I loved, was obsessed with, had huge aspirations for,  looked forward to 'getting boring stuff out the way' so I could get back to them, and instead making me want to puke every time I think of them.  They'll still come, as we've said a bazillion times, but it'll be 1000x shittier working on them in the meantime, so thanks. And yeah, they'll come slower too when I have to nail myself to the desk to force myself to work to them, instead of gleefully thinking about them in bed and thinking 'screw it' and jumping up to quickly to my pc to do that cool thing I thought about and them realizing its 10am and I've worked all night.  That happens to this day but not on NPCs no longer I'll tell you that straight up.
 
Perhaps they would come faster if they weren't such a poisonous thing, a three letter acronym of the dark horrible side of PZ that makes most of the community groan and wince when they hear it, the cause of 99% of the stress and discord in the community, and maybe there'd be a lot more pep in development if the people who mention them so often didn't so often act so completely selfishly toward other features people are excited about or talk in such gross belittling terms about the work of other developers on the game. "Oh boy got to get those wonderful people their NPCs, don't want to let them down <3<3<3' If it weren't for all the wonderfully lovely and understanding people, and those who've never posted on the forums at all, nothing would give me more pleasure at this point than just canning them, tell you the truth. As it stands its all those I don't want to let down and why I'll work through the grime and muck and tears and get them out as promised. Sadly my lofty aspirations of them standing out as something special and unique has slowly been strangled over the past year or so, they are tainted and I just want them done and all that pleasure and love is long dead, so its only responsibility to those people that drives me now.  
 
To make matters worse, when I do anything that's not NPCs I have to omit my bloody name out of the Mondoid and take no credit whatsoever, for fear of people going 'WHAT HE'S NOT WORKING ON NPCS?' (I hope the above gives some indication of why working 100% on NPCs day in / day out is now an impossibility for me without some recharge time) I get no sense of satisfaction or recognition for what I do do on the game apart from the much delayed NPCs because I have to keep it quiet because I'm known to be doing NPCs, and the OPs post is proof that this is not done out of paranoia due to not understanding game development and the simplistic 'if this then not that' mentality that dominates these kind of NPC complaints. So basically, despite being one of two people who built the game from the ground up from day 1 before the team grew, writing the base of the entire multiplayer in my spare time within a month, as well as the animation overhaul, creative, professions and trait overhaul and numerous other things, often as a bit of refuge from NPCs or in my spare time,  and having to run the company to boot, all I ever get back in terms of personal accomplishment or recognition is complaints about lack of npcs, accusations of being slow, and comments like one on Mondoid yesterday that 'I wish I had lemmy101's job so I could do nothing for years and still get paid!' - so fucking draining and demoralizing and people wonder why they aren't hurtling out the door at a billion miles an hour.
 
Only in Early Access do you suffer the indignity of constantly having random people come in and start telling you how your team should be organized and what people should be working on what. We involve the community heavily with development but it only coincidentally seems to be people complaining about NPCs that seem entitled to that control over the development and team and start saying 'I don't think this person should be working on this, you should put them on that!'. And there are some people on the Steam boards right now wondering why we vowed never to do Early Access again. There's also a thread there right now saying 'are we the only people doing Early Access right?' yet that right ain't good enough as long as there's one thing on your list you've not gotten out the door. A lot of Early Access developers would have closed doors a year or two or three ago, NPCs or no, but the fact we're keeping at it, still updating the game, working on it 100%, and can't think of starting anything new or fresh or exciting, mainly down to our commitment to YOU means nothing because you still not got your NPCs.
 
VERY IMPORTANT TRIP IN THE TOTAL PERSPECTIVE VORTEX: The people who post on this forum, and the people who post on steam, and the people who post on reddit, represent probably 0.001% of the playerbase. Just because the NPC noise is so deafening, the majority of people out there just want the game updating with new features. Most who bought the game did so long after we shut the fuck up about NPCs and we're keeping quiet so they can be content and not become more NPC noise dragging us down. All those people probably want updates coming out with features added to the game, not some total FULL STOP on any development that's not NPCS that wouldn't come much sooner if we did that ANYWAY. (to those without development experience, just consider the adage: "Too many cooks". Add 100000 developers to NPCs will not make them come out in 0.2 seconds) Ask yourself if our review score wouldn't be somewhere in the 20% if the majority truly did align with your own opinion? We should be getting nothing but NPC delay complaints. Instead we get reviews about the game that's there, and praising regular updates of new features, because lack of NPC tunnel vision means they appreciate all the massive work we put into the game in general. Npc complaints are, gladly, in the minority exactly because we don't keep going on about them and just work on them quietly, yet the minority who do complain do so so constantly, at such a deafening volume and with such incredible laser focus it just make me MISERABLE. I've always stuck up for NPC complaining people, 'oh its just because they are frustrated' and 'its our fault for hyping it too soon', full of apologies and sympathy, but it becomes harder and harder with each passing day. I think I'm hitting a threshold.
 
We owe the majority their updates, and sorry that this makes NPCs take their time but that's the way it is. Apparently hiring external help to do MP stuff, and endlessly talking about how we're doing that in the Mondoids, isn't enough, so I'll just have to lay it out in black and white for you. I think I've done pretty much that. That's why NPCs are delayed, it has nothing to do with VOIP. or any other feature by any member of the team or even features I may myself work on instead of working on NPCs. If I'm not working on NPCs it's because I've hit a roadblock or am otherwise being unproductive, and my time is then better spent on something I'm making progress on. This constant NPC noise just makes that MUCH more frequent and MUCH more severe. The reason NPCs have been delayed is working on NPCs is now like working in a sewer, and when you work in a sewer you're only there as long as you have to be, you have to come up for regular breath to get the stink out of your nose and keep yourself from getting ill. And this is why I'm not being hyperbolic when I say if you'd all have shut up about them you'd probably be playing with them right now. This is perhaps a the most valuable thing to take away for future reference when talking directly to anyone relying on creativity to create something you want.
 
I'm sorry if this all comes over as harsh, its your first post and from your perspective the heated response may not seem appropriate for your question, you may not have seen the sea of people saying the exact same things day in and day out that have wore our nerves and patience to a nub. but they are still there from our perspective and after so long the camel's back snaps.. a lot of this is general and not directed at you, though a lot applies to your comments,
 
Have a nice day

So if your starving and foraging trying to get some berries or looking for bait to put on a fishing rod, what would posses you to stop pick up some rocks, a few sticks and a log??
 
I was thinking maybe we should be able to "blacklist" different categories of items for when we forage, maybe by splitting it into 4 groups Kindling, Rocks, Food, Bait.
Kindling could be twigs, sticks, and logs
Food are berries, mushrooms, and flora
Bait are bugs
Stones are hopefully obvious.
maybe a Misc. for anything added later on not included in those groups
 
How I thought it could work is if you blacklist a group and you go foraging, then if you would've normally picked up an item from that group it gets re-rolled and if the new item is from a group you haven't blacklisted you get it and if its not then you don't get anything.
 
I feel this could represent us actively looking for specific materials and not stopping to pickup anything remotely useful.

well in the animation teaser it showed us being able to sit on the ground, might not be too long before we can do the same with furniture

I always thought random lightning strikes on the player would be annoying (because I dislike gameplay mechanics that punish the player randomly and with no way to stop it) but I like your idea about it happening only on higher levels and/or near water. That way as long as you're being safe, you wont get struck, but it your running around on roofs and swinging a golf club at every zombie you see during the storm you might deservedly get hit

I will say that I'm not crazy about lightning being something that could cause a fire, but that's mostly due to the fact that fire is currently a little intense when it flares up in the game

I don't want to live in a world where I can't climb up a sheet rope with one hand while carrying 30kg of gear and a refrigerator

I prefer some check value that tell us can we just use sheet ropes to climb down or also climb up (yes lets seperate those 2 actions). If that value is low you cant climb up/down or thers risk that you will fall.
That value would be calculated based on few things like (+), nimble skill, strenght, (-) hand injuries, weight (you + gear you have with you), height (of building).
 
So there might be situations that some characters will be able to climp up to 4th lvl, some can just climb down and only from 2lvl max etc.
 
So sheet ropes are still in game but only a specific build character will be able to use them.

I think just adding a weight limit to the rope might be sufficient, maybe make it so that you cant use it if your weight is above 10 or add a increasing chance to break so you cold end up hurting yourself if you try to carry too much
 
also the ability to reverse directions while climbing would be amazing since there have been times were I've run into zombies at the bottom that I was unable to see before climbing out.

It could be pretty neat, having dirty/bloody/sweaty clothing make you unhappy. I would suggest skewing the realistic time frame it takes for such clothing to make you  unhappy though to keep the upkeep from becoming a annoyance rather than a feature. Also the unofficial vanilla patch mod i think is working on a bathing system atm.