muscamole

That wouldn't clean the water, that just dilutes your alcohol. Alcohol needs to be at least 50% to be effective at sterilizing anything.

I like the name change suggestions, but I also just think you should be able to autoswitch to a weapon if you have one. Tons of other actions already autoswitch. I'd rather they reduce the tedious aspects of the game by enabling autoswitching without user input when it makes sense than add new nested menu options.

Currently, there are no ways of transporting large amounts of items without using cars. In real life we have things like shopping carts, wheelbarrows, and dollies to allow us to do that, but none of these items are found in the game. There is really no reason these items should not be in this game. These items would be very common in 1990s rural Kentucky. The lack of these items seriously detracts from this game's atmosphere and realism and makes the world feel empty. These items would be extremely useful in the game, serving as big mobile containers that don't require gas. This would improve so many in-game tasks, such as construction, wood collecting, and corpse piling. Shopping carts and similarly sized items could also serve as weapons capable of multihit. A person sprinting with a shopping cart at full speed could easily knock down 2 or more people. It wouldn't really be a fatal weapon on its own, but it'd still be really useful. I know this has been brought up in the past, and to a degree was incorporated in the Hydrocraft mod, but this should really be incorporated into the base game. It seems like it wouldn't be that hard given that cars are already in the game. It would require new models and animations, but essentially these are just new car types.

Ah maybe I just got lucky, or maybe there are some bugs in certain situations. I tried demolishing a roof and replacing it with wood flooring, and I fell 4-5 times from the roof to the floor because of weird pathing/selecting the wrong tiles and never got hurt. But I do seem to remember getting hurt jumping out a window from the second story in previous versions.

I was playing a custom map which featured tall apartment buildings and noticed that zombies don't take noticeable fall damage, even from 3+ stories. They kinda get into this crouch/impact bracing animation but are totally fine afterwards. A 3 story fall should nearly always turn zombies into crawlers or kill them outright. Very disappointing from a realism/atmosphere standpoint. I do play with "random" toughness so its possible these zombies were just tough, but even if that were the case they shouldn't be able to walk after a 3 story fall. Zombies falling from one story should have a high chance of turning into crawlers too. Not sure if fall damage for player characters is missing as well, but a one story fall seems to rarely damage the player character. Please fix fall damage devs!

I agree that something is wrong with ammo weight, but maybe this points to boxes of ammo being too light rather than bullets being too heavy? I actually think this "fluidity" is represented in the game already with the current bullet weight. You can pretty much always toss a few bullets into a bag to fill up whatever space remains, just like you say. I see what you're saying about how it doesn't make sense that you can carry anything at all without a bag, but I don't know if the answer is to make your body a weight-reducing bag without giving a reason. Maybe the system should be revamped so that equipped clothing + character strength determines on-person carry capacity. Base carry capacity would be lower than it is now, but adding more clothes gives you more. Equipped clothing could give you weight reduction, which would make sense. Holding 20 loose bullets in your pocket would be pretty easy, while holding 20 loose bullets in your hand would be hard.

I generally agree but there are some head scratchers here and there. Pasta comes to mind. I guess I understand why rice would be so heavy because you can easily find it in large 5-10 lb bags at stores, but I've never seen a bag of pasta that big in my life, so I'm not sure why pasta weighs the same as rice, and nearly as much as a plank. Wearing socks should be as close to weightlessness as possible. Its minor and I really don't think I've noticed it in game but I think OP is right about it. Ammo makes sense because it would be hard to carry around a lot of loose ammo. But it'd be nice to get something like a bandolier to make it a little more manageable. Really the bigger problem is that item weight isn't adjusted based on amount left, for most items. I think that would solve most weight issues.

Wearing a backpack might provide minor scratch defense at best, but overall wearing a backpack should be detrimental to combat abilities. It would definitely make you a lot more susceptible to getting pulled down and grabbed.

How exactly would "can't drive" work though? Like you can never drive a car throughout the playthrough? I feel like that doesn't make sense. There are a lot of people that don't drive but the people that can't drive aren't really represented in the game. Like extremely elderly, intellectual disability, blind, major physical handicap. Those are people that can't drive. I feel like most people that don't drive would be able to pick it up if their lives depended on it, its really not that complicated. Even manual transmission, you'd probably at least figure out how to get the car moving eventually. Maybe if driving were a skill that you could level up this trait would make more sense. "Can't drive" people would start out constantly stalling their cars, causing damage to the engine, moving very slowly, etc. But it should be a trait you can get rid of.

Anyone who would attempt to punch out a car window with their hand with a hammer hanging on their belt is either exceptionally stupid or extremely panicked and not thinking correctly. I think its safe to assume that our survivor is probably not as stupid as those people, so as long as they aren't panicked they should just automatically do the thing that most reasonable people would do in that situation, which is use a tool rather than their fists. I think its poor design for a game that pitches itself as realistic to make the player manually carry out these sorts of checks that would be automatic for a person. Sure, you can check if you have something in your hand by going to your inventory and making sure you have a weapon equipped. You can look at your character and see that he is holding something in his hand. This can be obscured in certain situations, like when you're to the north of a car that is facing south, and you want to break into the driver's seat. But more importantly you shouldn't have to do that at all because the in game character would automatically know that they didn't have something in their hand, just like you automatically know whether or not you have something in your hand IRL. It just adds a few tedious steps that don't need to exist. We already have tons of these automatic switches when it makes sense. For example, you don't have to manually make sure that the gas can is equipped to add gas to it, your character knows to switch because they aren't an idiot. You don't have to manually equip your hammer when dismantling furniture. You don't have to manually equip planks when constructing. You don't need to manually equip the saw and screwdriver when those things are required. So why do you have to manually equip a weapon to smash a window?

For non-Spanish speakers basically the suggestion is to be able to sleep anywhere, not just chairs or beds, which of course would have its disadvantages. I agree, you should be able to just sleep on the ground with penalties to things like comfort and happiness.

Basically exactly as the title suggests. If you have a weapon on your belt capable of smashing a window without causing injury you should switch to it automatically if you're smashing a window. This would prevent a lot of dumb immersion breaking hand injuries. Lots of actions, such as filling up a gas can, unequip your primary weapon, it can be easy to forget that you didn't reequip it. And then you don't realize it until you've punched the window and start bleeding. You would never do this in real life except maybe under extreme panic because you would always be aware of what you have in your hands. If you had a hammer hanging right there on your hip you wouldn't just punch a window.

How does the game prioritize shove vs stomp when there are multiple suitable targets? I think that's the issue OP is describing. In my experience the game does a fairly good job of picking the right priority, especially compared to when build 41 first dropped, but it doesn't always, which can lead to frustrating deaths that could be avoided if the player could manually choose that priority through dedicated buttons.

Maybe the problem is the way a broken leg is represented in game then. Like I said I've actually never broken my leg in game, but IRL a broken leg is a significant injury that takes 6-8 weeks to heal, for a minor fracture. You shouldn't be able to just sit around in your safehouse at the beginning of the game, you will run out of food and it will be really difficult to get more food because that broken leg will (or at least should, not sure if this is how it works in game) affect your combat ability, your carry capacity, and movement speed. You'll also be in constant pain initially with a lot of pain throughout. I think it is absolutely a 10 pointer if they actually were to represent a broken leg in a way that is realistic. And like I said, one way to balance it is to have a chance of permanent movement speed penalty, or maybe permanent chronic pain, if you don't have the first aid skill to properly fix it. So you can gamble and not spend points on first aid, and potentially end up with a very strong character, or you could end up with permanent damage. Actually now that I mention it, chronic pain would be a pretty good negative trait. Essentially would function like the smoker trait, but for painkillers.

I think thats fair too cause that still nets you one major positive trait. Honestly I've never broken my leg in game so IDK how it affects gameplay. Maybe its not that big a deal. But I have broken my leg in real life, and to me that would be like a 20 pointer in terms of how that would add difficulty to surviving the apocalypse, so at minimum a broken leg should net you one big positive trait. Perhaps the way to balance it would be to give it a risk of improperly healing if your medical skill is too low and/or you don't treat it fast enough. So broken leg would be +10, but you run a high risk of permanent movement speed penalty unless you also take something like First Aider or Former Scout from the start. Same with broken arm. A broken arm might be +6, but you run the risk of permanent combat penalty. You can choose to ignore first aid traits and hope to level up in time or just hope that the bones heal properly, which would net you more initial points, but it would be risky.

Oh I definitely think the trait points need rebalancing, and also a better description of what they actually do. I'm kind of surprised with your assessments of those particular traits, just because I've never felt impacted by any of them. But maybe this points to a need for some sort of community wide survey of trait balancing to get a consensus of how useful certain traits are vs others. These "temporary" traits don't have to be worth tons of points but some of them should. Like you could start with the flu, which would be 2 points. Pretty minor impact but allows you take one more small positive trait for a little extra flavor. Or you could start with a broken leg, which should probably be 10 points. Having a broken leg and no gear to start would probably be a death sentence in real life so it should be a lot of points. 10 points gets you a lot of positive traits, but I think thats very fair. A person who can survive that probably does have more positive traits than the average person.

Why not? I think we need more traits that can be eliminated through gameplay. It'd give a lot more variety to starting characters. There are already a number of permanent negative traits that are essentially free points. I always take things like high thirst, slow healer, slow reader, hemophobia, and weak stomach. These traits basically do not effect the game at all. They add nothing interesting, no new mechanics, no new goals, but I always take them. I think many of us do the same. Meanwhile on the other hand traits like overweight distinctly change the way the early game works. Traits like Smoker, which absolutely should be a trait that you can eliminate over time, also add new goals to the game. Starting with a broken leg, or starting with the flu, these would have clear and obvious effects on the early game. Its also realistic to have traits that can be changed over time. Changing things over time is a big part of this game, why shouldn't your character be able to improve, or get worse, depending on how you play the game?

The slowdown is nice, but I guess my point is I don't want it to just be a movement slowdown and better visualization. Enough corpses would become a new entitity, a container that has Z height that can be walked on. So if a pile gets too big next to a high fence eventually zombies would be able to go over it. You would also have to pull individual zombies out from the pile to loot them since now they are held within this "pile" container. A slowdown and visual change is not enough. Currently you can basically endlessly chop up zombies inside a little room with a window. I'm all for window camping because it makes sense, but it doesn't make sense that you can chop up 100 zombies in a neat little pile by the window. Sure there may be slowdown if you walk on it but you are camping by the window anyways and not moving. If piles had a greater physical presence, like a piece of furniture, you couldn't do this anymore because eventually the movement path would be physically blocked by the pile, as if you had put a fridge or something in the way of the window. It also would greatly simplify burning bodies since you could just dump fuel on the entire pile rather than individually.

tl;dr Corpses should become corpse piles that have actual physical presence and depth Corpses become a major part of the environment, but they feel like an afterthought in the game. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of good things about the corpse system that you don't see in a lot of games. Corpses don't just disappear. You get sick if you're around them, they act like speed bumps on the road, you hear flies buzzing around them. But even when you are surrounded by corpses, it never really feels like you're surrounded by corpses. A pile of 100 zombies is essentially the same as one zombie. The problem is that corpses don't actually take up any space, at least in the Z plane. I understand that it is probably very computationally expensive to give each corpse its own depth, but this isn't necessary to implement depth to corpses. One way this could be implemented is if corpses that are clustered within the same tile automatically enter a new container type, the "corpse pile" when there are enough corpses. As more zombies die within the vicinity of the corpse pile, the corpse pile has the potential to grow into a larger corpse pile, which has a greater height and extent than the previous level. You would be able to walk over these corpse piles similar to stairs, with significant movement penalty that ramps up as the height of the pile increases. This type of system would add so much to the atmosphere of the game because corpses would physically change the landscape as time goes on rather than simply being there and being a nuisance. A pile of 100 zombies would be an imposing sight that blocks your movement and your vision. Smaller corpse piles could be used for the player's strategic advantage. Players could lead zombies into small corpse piles, which they would potentially stumble over. But the movement penalty could get you killed, and also killing too many zombies in the same place could create impassable barriers as the pile's height grows. It would also eliminate some of the tedious aspects that people often complain about when it comes to corpses. Instead of clicking each body and clicking "add fuel" and burning them, you could just burn the corpse pile provided you have enough fuel. You could also just destroy segments of the pile with regular attacks, at the cost of unhappiness and sickness chance. It could also eliminate some of the cheesier game strategies and set up some amazing unscripted gameplay moments. Window camping is a highly effective method against zombies in the current build. It absolutely should be highly effective because that would actually be a great strategy for fighting zombies IRL, but it shouldn't be unlimited. Eventually you'll either block the window or have to move. That could be good for you if that was the only side they were coming from, but what if you needed that escape route more? This could also affect the safety of high fences without giving zombies the ability to destroy them directly. Zombie piles would have to be actively cleared in order to keep yourself safe because if the pile gets too high, the zombies can simply stumble over the fence and land in your backyard. I would also love to see this combined with the ability for zombies to damage other zombies when they are downed. Imagine getting surrounded by a massive horde in your normally safe gated Rosewood home. You jump the fence, thinking you have made it. But you turn around and see that outside the fences the horde still sees you, and is in desperate pursuit. As the horde pushes against the fences, some of the zombies stumble, and they are trampled by the rest of the horde. Slowly you watch the piles of the dead grow, and you gaze in horror as the zombies reach closer and closer to the top of the fence. You realize that no place was truly safe after all. This will be how you died. I don't know, maybe its just me but I think changing corpses to have some kind of physical presence should be one of the top priorities for future builds. What do you think? Is this something that is planned? Is this something that has already been scrapped?

Agreed. I was so disappointed the first time I dropped a lit candle on the ground and it did nothing.

The shout button is very useful but it could be so much better if we could just vary the volume at which we shout. I think the shout key and the whole shouting mechanic could be improved a lot if the key was changed from a key that you tap to a key that you hold down. The longer you hold the key, the louder your voice is. Visually the volume of your voice could either be represented by text size, or by changing the text to things like "psst" for quieter speech. From a realism perspective obviously it is realistic to be able to vary the volume of your voice. From a gameplay perspective it gives the player a potentially powerful tool for indoor exploration and crowd control. It also requires an element of skill on the player's part since the timing of the button hold determines how loud the shout will be, and thus the radius that zombies will be able to hear you. Too short a hold and you won't make any noise, too long and you shout at the top of your lungs, which could attract a lot of zombies. What do people think of this idea? Are there any plans to implement voice volume control, in this manner or otherwise?

I'm a scientist so I would love to see this so I can properly role play myself. However in the current map I don't know that it makes much sense. There just aren't any places where you'd find research labs within the current map. It would make sense once Louisville is added since there are proper hospitals and research-conducting universities there. Also there are so many types of scientists so it doesn't really make sense to give them those sorts of abilities and just call them "scientist". One way it could work though is if the traits "fast learner" and "fast reader" became tied to the "scientist" profession instead of being traits anyone can select.

Great points, I have personally experienced #1, 2, 3, 5, 7 as well. In regards to 7 this seems to happen when you try to attack the zombie that is on the ground. If you attack it'll do the regular attack animation, not the ground attack, and it'll instantly stand the zombie up.

Tallow takes ~7-8 hours, while soap takes 24-48 hours. Not that long at all. The devs plan to add hunting. It'd be a strong incentive to go hunting if you could collect animal fat as well as food. Lye is also a fairly common thing found in the real world, and could have multiple uses. I can understand why they'd rather just add more soap or rebalance soap use, but making soap is not some nonsensical fantasy. With that said, I think soap would be fine as is if they let you wash yourself at least partially with water.

Oh I had no idea, it took some getting used to the first time I found one, but I actually kinda liked it once I adjusted to it. It made it feel very heavy, making it especially satisfying to take out those downed zombies. I just think you should have the ability to drop it and run if you need to. I guess that would probably require a new animation but I think it would really improve the feel of combat, not just for the wood axe but for other weapons too, if you could have the ability to perform feint attacks or drop your weapon and abort the follow through animation part should the situation call for that.