Quigleyer

Haha I wish you wrote that one just a wee bit earlier, I went in thinking I was going to make myself a man last night with 3 fully loaded pistol magazines, a fully-loaded-and-then-some shotgun, and a bunch of mollies.  I came back fearful of my life, exhausted, chased all the way home by zombies... with a very painful burn on my leg.  Thank goodness for thick skin, eh?
 
I know this is going to sound weak coming from the guy who can't seem to hit a zombie in a crowd at the moment, but I do hope that the developers stay cautious in this area.  While the developers are trying to make a difficult survival game with re-play value, I understand they're also really focused on multiplayer right now.  Making guns really easy to find by increasing their spawn chance in a setting that constantly re-spawns loot speaks of an environment that can easily become kill-on-site.  Without regular server wipes those on top will always stay on top... you know?
 
Just my two cents in multiplayer survival games.  Easily accessible guns in online survival multiplayer games easily turns into a void of character interaction, at least in my experience.
 
 

(Lengthy post, but I feel that this is a somewhat thought-out view on this subject. TL;DR there is more room to play with here than some may think)
 
The lack of emphasis on gun culture in general in the game is something that has really annoyed me, although I understand why it wouldn't look desirable to make the change.
 
So many decisions are made around development based on what is realistic for the setting, I just think the extremely large amount of gun ownership especially in Kentucky should be regarded, even if it means just adding shotguns/rifles to home spawn lists and automatic/sport weapons in the future. As for making the game easier... guns are relatively easy to find as-is, all this change would do (apart from more accurately represent gun culture in Kentucky) is make different varieties more available. If you, for example, find a single hunting rifle in a map where respawn isn't on, you already have a hard time finding the gun parts to fix it with, so for loot balance it could work for that too.
 
As for gun varieties, there definitely needs to be at least some automatic weapons (and a variety of professional/cheap variants/brands/models of currently existing weapon types) for the game to hold credibility on it's 90's Kentucky setting. We already know that there are military establishments that are supposed to be ingame at some point. I understand from a gameplay perspective why you wouldn't want it to become DayZ where several militarized players dominate the server, but from a single-player perspective (and even a multiplayer perspective where the gun spawn rate is admin-controlled) the problems could be circumvented simply by adding the options.
 
There is a huge opportunity here to capitalize on the setting. Plenty of games are praised for their gunplay, the setting definitely allows for it to work here, too.
 
When the game does release, and Fort Knox and the military airfield just south of what we have already is added, do you really see late-game multiplayer communities fighting each other with just basic handguns and big-game rifles? In Kentucky, of all places? It would take a lot of material and research on the balance to fully defend that from the critical side of the playerbase.
 
Considering it is hard enough as-is ingame to hit anything with a pistol and especially rifle with no gun skill (and the rate it takes to learn it), there is more room to play with here than you may think.
 
In my humble opinion, this should be something the devs test and get feedback on before writing it off completely.

Yeah, Thick Skinned doesn't make you more likely to survive a scratch. It decreases the chance of getting scratches in the first place, you'll still get hurt, but it won't leave a cut.
You always have a 25% of getting bit.
 
So if we do some calculations. You chance of surviving a scratch is 3/4. Multiply your five scratches.
 
(3/4)*(3/4)*(3/4)*(3/4)*(3/4) = 243/1024
 
243/1024 = 0.237
 
0.237*100 = 27.3
 
So you had a 27.3% chance of survival... Which isn't extremely lucky, pretty common.
It's more lucky that you received 5 scratches without getting bit once, especially considering the Thick Skinned Perk
 
 
Also.
Lucky has no affect on chance of infection.
 
EDIT: Saw it was 5 not 4 scratches

you've got the right numbers for a normal character. Thick skin reduces the chance of infection from scratches to 15% but does nothing for bites. It does make you less likely to receive a bite tho, I just can't recall the exact values.

I must be doing something wrong with guns in this game.  I have never, ever said, "man I'm glad I fired that gun" after doing so in this game.  It usually comes with a large amount of regret and a solemn oath to never do it again...

I must be doing something wrong with guns in this game.  I have never, ever said, "man I'm glad I fired that gun" after doing so in this game.  It usually comes with a large amount of regret and a solemn oath to never do it again...

I must be doing something wrong with guns in this game.  I have never, ever said, "man I'm glad I fired that gun" after doing so in this game.  It usually comes with a large amount of regret and a solemn oath to never do it again...

When you've got full auto guns and thousands of rounds . . . maybe a few friends in MP to help out . . . shambling zombies are no match.

I must be doing something wrong with guns in this game.  I have never, ever said, "man I'm glad I fired that gun" after doing so in this game.  It usually comes with a large amount of regret and a solemn oath to never do it again...

Hope this is in the right place, sorry I'm new here.  I will abide happily by any moderating decisions made about the proper place for this and apologize ahead of time.
 
Hey folks, I'm back to playing this after a long break.  Survival mode is umpteen times more fun for me now and after 10+ dead characters I'm starting to get to the point that I'm playing with the nutrition system and living long enough to see the results.
 
My 5 weeks broke down like this:
 
First 3 weeks:
 
I needed to gather and stay quiet, I ate on the run a lot.  This time period was one spent eating entire bags of chips and pies in one sitting.  Every morning I got myself "well fed" and went out to gather.  I never let myself be any kind of hungry for too long.
 
After day 14 I noticed I had gained a lot of weight, by day 21 I was up to 89 kg and had the overweight trait.  Gaining 10 kg (22 pounds?) in three weeks is a little insane for someone who is running around, bashing zombie brains in, jumping through windows, chopping trees, and in constant "fight or flight" mode through sheer panic.   For comparison the guy who did the Super Size Me documentary gained 24.4 pounds (~12 kg?) in his first month (four weeks) of eating nothing but giant McDonalds meals and living a nearly entirely sedentary life.
 
QUESTION: does anyone know the cap for calories burned per day?  
 
Week 4:
 
It was time for a change, and I had enough materials to begin truly fortifying.  I had two safe houses and chose one to move all of the food to and began constructing a log wall.  Because I was relatively safe the whole time I let myself get hungry (and very hungry).  Only twice did I lose the hunger moodle, and it was from eating a lot of low calorie canned food.  Within a matter of days I was down to 84.X kg and had lost my overweight trait.  If you just let yourself get hungry and run the timer quickly you'll see the kg just melt away... and keep melting... and melting...  
 
Week 5:
 
Log wall is constructed, I'm pretty safe, I have a medium-sized stash of canned and dry food, and I started to get crops coming in.  I'm currently trying to maintain weight and finding it incredibly difficult.  In real life I am a very efficient dieter and have lost 180 lbs (90 kg) through diet and exercise in my lifetime- calorie counting and approximation is something I can do in my sleep.  But obviously this is a game and it comes with hidden mechanics and caps that aren't entirely obvious to the player in the game's current state.  
 
I have some suggestions on things I think could improve this portion of the game:
 
1)  Starvation mode (a moodle?)
 
This is a real thing- a lot of people call it "hitting a plateau" in weight loss.  Your body essentially thinks you're in for a long starve and starts to covet your body's excess fat- sometimes you will even eat muscle away in lieu of fat in more prolonged instances.  Losing weight becomes incredibly difficult, you become very agitated, and if you go long enough EVERYTHING HURTS.  
 
The human body can only metabolize so much of itself within a given time.  I don't know the exact numbers behind it, but I do understand a lot of it is based on the weight of the individual.  If you think you're still losing weight it's probably water weight and you're actually de-hydrating yourself.
 
---- So if we look at it like that I think "starvation mode" can work as a cap on the amount of weight one PC can lose in a given amount of time- let's just say one week right now.  The limit doesn't necessarily need to apply to real-world numbers and the number would more reflect what was balanced in the game world (so we can hit that sweet spot of realism and balance).
 
---- Since this would essentially cap some negative effects from not eating for that given week (after you've lost the allowed amount of weight) you could start to accumulate other negative moodles that apply so it's not overly abused.  The longer you're starving the more moodles you get.  ON EDGE, IN PAIN, and QUEASY  would apply perfectly here- but I'm sure there are other options as well.
 
The idea here is just a bit less of a fall for slacking on your micro-management, and it even adds some "realism".  You can't just steadily lose weight, it doesn't work like that.  Realism and balance!
 
Doing it this way (and not adjusting the cap on calories allowed to be burned per day) is better, in my opinion, because the more you would reduce the cap of calories burned the less of an impact doing activities has on your need to eat, which is NOT good, IMO.
 
2)  Calorie Counting devices (items)
 
I think the game would really benefit from devices that specifically make the nutrition side of things easier.  Devices like calorie counting watches, both for estimated calories burned and for calories consumed, would really be a cool way to help micro-manage the numbers game.  The idea here is that we keep the system complicated, but we can get some aid from rarer items scattered around the world to make it less tedious if we are lucky enough to find one.
 
http://www.keepinspiring.me/10-best-calorie-counter-watches/
 
---- One of the biggest issues I'm having with this portion of the game, despite diet-watching being a thing I do well in real life, is that I'm at a total loss as to how many calories I'm burning doing any one activity.  Without an external way to tell the players approximately how many calories they're burning doing stuff they will NEVER know.  Does chopping trees burn calories?  Does walking?  Sprinting?  I don't even know which activities burn calories, let alone how many calories.   That's what this idea is supposed to solve.  
 
---- I would suggest that week 1 players (the first week?  The game-learning scenario) get this as a starting device, personally.  New players need to be able to have access to these numbers quickly, or else they'll just be entirely overwhelmed.
 
CONCERN:  This game takes place in 1993.  I was too young in '93 to know if devices similar to these were around, but I don't think it's too far-fetched to think they were.
 
 
From what I've seen playing this IWBUMS build I'd say the developers are totally on the right track.  This is a fantastic addition to the game and only brings in more depth to a genre that's typically lacking in things to do.  This system only has minor shortcomings in my opinion and is looking really solid.
 
 
 
 
 

So does the helicopter always draw zombies towards you?  
 
I could have sworn that it drew them away twice in my last playthrough.  I had two 4 day stretches where I didn't see a single one following the loud chopper noises (I was inside my house both times, luckily), which is really weird for survival right now.
 
Is the helicopter event scripted right now day-wise?  I'm curious because it seems to be really close to the 7th day, which is a place I've been a lot lately (started over more times than I'd like to admit).  I know it isn't coming at the exact same time every time, but it always comes at the end of the first week in my experience. 

(I understand your time is limited, please don't feel the need to continually respond to me if I'm getting annoying.)
 
Thanks for pointing me there! So it's like a constant meter of -3500 to +3500, and then weight loss/gain/maintenance is applied depending on where in that scale you fall?
 
With my recently deceased character above (he died last night, fifth scratch is the charm) I was seeing the loss of nearly 1 kg (~2 lbs) a day, which would mean by starving myself I could lose about 7 kg (14 lbs) a week!  I think that whatever the number for max weight loss and gain is it should be roughly 1/3 of that so that the average person can lose or gain ~4 pounds a week.   That is still a bit extreme, but would probably work okay in a video game.
 
EDIT:  Just saw the Mondoid announcement that days will be changed in length.  So I guess those numbers (for potential loss/gain in a week) will be lower if the max weight loss/gain value remains the same?  That'll probably help.
 
But I guess on the other end that could easily nerf weight loss to the point it isn't a big deal anymore.  I honestly don't know how "realistic" this needs to be. 
 
 
I'd say there are no stupid opinions personally.
 
Just like in real life your weight loss and gain is determined ONLY in your calorie loss or gain.  The composition of foods is just fluff, and I hope it remains that way.  If you eat MORE calories than you use you will gain weight.  If you eat LESS calories than you consume you will lose weight.  Without calorie content fat, carbohydrates, etc. is all unimportant.
 
Don't let those numbers intimidate you in the game, just look at the calories (90% sure).

Wrote a break down of the nutrition system earlier, here:
As to weirdly rapid weight changes . .  .That's kind of the issue with the current system: we have realistic calorie amounts for food items and activity is tracked, but it's then altered by this odd weight gain/loss mechanic, where -3500 cal is max weight loss, -1500 to + 1500 is no change (?) and +3500 is maximum weight gain. This is applied every update in-game.
 
This mechanic also doesn't take into account your weight. Instead, weight loss/gain rate is scaled by weight.
 
So you'll get weird situations where you eat three entire pies and gain the maximum number of weight gain per minute, rather than gain the weight the calories of the food item should give you. Same with loss, of course.  In testing, I ate some ice cream and a pie and gained a kilogram or two my first day, despite the the caloric content being only equivalent to about one or two lb.

Hope this is in the right place, sorry I'm new here.  I will abide happily by any moderating decisions made about the proper place for this and apologize ahead of time.
 
Hey folks, I'm back to playing this after a long break.  Survival mode is umpteen times more fun for me now and after 10+ dead characters I'm starting to get to the point that I'm playing with the nutrition system and living long enough to see the results.
 
My 5 weeks broke down like this:
 
First 3 weeks:
 
I needed to gather and stay quiet, I ate on the run a lot.  This time period was one spent eating entire bags of chips and pies in one sitting.  Every morning I got myself "well fed" and went out to gather.  I never let myself be any kind of hungry for too long.
 
After day 14 I noticed I had gained a lot of weight, by day 21 I was up to 89 kg and had the overweight trait.  Gaining 10 kg (22 pounds?) in three weeks is a little insane for someone who is running around, bashing zombie brains in, jumping through windows, chopping trees, and in constant "fight or flight" mode through sheer panic.   For comparison the guy who did the Super Size Me documentary gained 24.4 pounds (~12 kg?) in his first month (four weeks) of eating nothing but giant McDonalds meals and living a nearly entirely sedentary life.
 
QUESTION: does anyone know the cap for calories burned per day?  
 
Week 4:
 
It was time for a change, and I had enough materials to begin truly fortifying.  I had two safe houses and chose one to move all of the food to and began constructing a log wall.  Because I was relatively safe the whole time I let myself get hungry (and very hungry).  Only twice did I lose the hunger moodle, and it was from eating a lot of low calorie canned food.  Within a matter of days I was down to 84.X kg and had lost my overweight trait.  If you just let yourself get hungry and run the timer quickly you'll see the kg just melt away... and keep melting... and melting...  
 
Week 5:
 
Log wall is constructed, I'm pretty safe, I have a medium-sized stash of canned and dry food, and I started to get crops coming in.  I'm currently trying to maintain weight and finding it incredibly difficult.  In real life I am a very efficient dieter and have lost 180 lbs (90 kg) through diet and exercise in my lifetime- calorie counting and approximation is something I can do in my sleep.  But obviously this is a game and it comes with hidden mechanics and caps that aren't entirely obvious to the player in the game's current state.  
 
I have some suggestions on things I think could improve this portion of the game:
 
1)  Starvation mode (a moodle?)
 
This is a real thing- a lot of people call it "hitting a plateau" in weight loss.  Your body essentially thinks you're in for a long starve and starts to covet your body's excess fat- sometimes you will even eat muscle away in lieu of fat in more prolonged instances.  Losing weight becomes incredibly difficult, you become very agitated, and if you go long enough EVERYTHING HURTS.  
 
The human body can only metabolize so much of itself within a given time.  I don't know the exact numbers behind it, but I do understand a lot of it is based on the weight of the individual.  If you think you're still losing weight it's probably water weight and you're actually de-hydrating yourself.
 
---- So if we look at it like that I think "starvation mode" can work as a cap on the amount of weight one PC can lose in a given amount of time- let's just say one week right now.  The limit doesn't necessarily need to apply to real-world numbers and the number would more reflect what was balanced in the game world (so we can hit that sweet spot of realism and balance).
 
---- Since this would essentially cap some negative effects from not eating for that given week (after you've lost the allowed amount of weight) you could start to accumulate other negative moodles that apply so it's not overly abused.  The longer you're starving the more moodles you get.  ON EDGE, IN PAIN, and QUEASY  would apply perfectly here- but I'm sure there are other options as well.
 
The idea here is just a bit less of a fall for slacking on your micro-management, and it even adds some "realism".  You can't just steadily lose weight, it doesn't work like that.  Realism and balance!
 
Doing it this way (and not adjusting the cap on calories allowed to be burned per day) is better, in my opinion, because the more you would reduce the cap of calories burned the less of an impact doing activities has on your need to eat, which is NOT good, IMO.
 
2)  Calorie Counting devices (items)
 
I think the game would really benefit from devices that specifically make the nutrition side of things easier.  Devices like calorie counting watches, both for estimated calories burned and for calories consumed, would really be a cool way to help micro-manage the numbers game.  The idea here is that we keep the system complicated, but we can get some aid from rarer items scattered around the world to make it less tedious if we are lucky enough to find one.
 
http://www.keepinspiring.me/10-best-calorie-counter-watches/
 
---- One of the biggest issues I'm having with this portion of the game, despite diet-watching being a thing I do well in real life, is that I'm at a total loss as to how many calories I'm burning doing any one activity.  Without an external way to tell the players approximately how many calories they're burning doing stuff they will NEVER know.  Does chopping trees burn calories?  Does walking?  Sprinting?  I don't even know which activities burn calories, let alone how many calories.   That's what this idea is supposed to solve.  
 
---- I would suggest that week 1 players (the first week?  The game-learning scenario) get this as a starting device, personally.  New players need to be able to have access to these numbers quickly, or else they'll just be entirely overwhelmed.
 
CONCERN:  This game takes place in 1993.  I was too young in '93 to know if devices similar to these were around, but I don't think it's too far-fetched to think they were.
 
 
From what I've seen playing this IWBUMS build I'd say the developers are totally on the right track.  This is a fantastic addition to the game and only brings in more depth to a genre that's typically lacking in things to do.  This system only has minor shortcomings in my opinion and is looking really solid.
 
 
 
 
 

it would be cool if metal barricades make more noise when hit. Making them stronger but more noisy.
 
talking of noise, hammering metal would make alot of noise and forges would make alot of smoke. That would make lots of zombies turn up to see you.