bambi

So I was in the process of washing all the clothing I had collected, but I ran out of water. No problem, I'll just drop my clothes on the ground next to the sink and wait for it to rain again! No biggie, right? RIGHT? Well I just learnt the hard way that the "items for removal" list applies to things YOU drop as well. This means some uber rare items of clothing such as the hockey mask, Spiffo suit headgear, nuclear biohazard mask, civilian and military bulletproof vests, gas masks and air force/military helmets, can straight up POOF out of existence if you accidentally leave them on the ground for too long. How long is too long? 24 HOURS. This rule applies to no other items in the game. Tin cans and other clutter items? They stay on the ground permanently. But bulletproof vests and helmets - stuff that's actually useful, they despawn. Rare items that have taken me hundreds of hours to find, such as the hockey mask, YEP, THEY DESPAWN TOO! Guess my only option now is to cheat and spawn things I lost back in, but this really should not be something the player should ever have to be concerned about at all. SUGGESTION: If you drop something in your base, it should stay where you left it!

Just now lost a character because I was exhausted, shoving 3 zombies away, and literally couldn't turn 45 degrees in time to open a door directly beside me without getting chewed on. And yes, I was definitely spamming the 'e' key. If you're wondering how I got into this situation, heli event followed by two tripped house alarms and a car alarm after I'd just been doing exercises. I nearly made it though! To my understanding turn speed was reduced due to the new animations... so is this an unintended limitation or is it deliberate? It feels so unresponsive and just adds artificial difficulty. I want the game to remain difficult but in the right ways. Situational awareness is such an important factor in PZ and it just seems so absurd the amount of time it takes to merely check if something's behind me, in real life I can just look over my shoulder! It's not a matter of getting used to it, because I am used to it, I just think it could be better. It's also plain unrealistic. In real life you don't have to shift your whole body just to face something behind you, you just rotate your torso or swivel your feet. Sure, in a real zombie apocalypse we'd all probably die, but I'd hope to at least be able to spin as fast as Star Wars kid. ... Nnm no one is as fast as Star Wars kid.

Grouping off definitely feels more immersive and has an eerie feel to it, but in my opinion spreads them out a little too thin and uniformly and only works well with insane pops. I do still like grouping as a mechanic and want to retain it in my game to a good extent. Actually setting the percentage of zeds that form groups would be incredible, giving us the best of both worlds. Perhaps also having a chance for groups to disperse or even merge with others after a certain timeframe if that were possible. Problem with zero grouping is that the zed's greatest strength is their numbers but the more spread out they are the easier they are to isolate. Also makes it much harder to observe gaps to sneak through undetected, and forces you to always carve a path through them which can get tedious. EDIT: Added another image to main post to show what I mean. The idea behind them forming groups is that zeds should be attracted to noise made by other zeds. Knowing this you'd naturally expect groups to form and even merge together occasionally, but as you say they just cling to their randomly determined leader and strictly keep to their group limit whilst deliberately making an effort to avoid other groups, it's just bizarre...

+1 Ravens and crows rule.

I mean, it sorta makes sense. I'm still able to find alcohol wipes/vitamins and the like on the front shelves, but they keep the important stuff out back like a real pharmacy. Cookies and tire pumps is a lil odd though.

Current grouping and distribution is way too predictable. The default settings always have zeds eventually huddling up in little circles equal distance apart. In the image above I can reasonably determine that I will encounter almost the exact same thing no matter where I go. It's not always this obvious, but moments like this are too common and completely break the illusion for me. Here is a simple illustration of the current grouping settings, and a rough example of my proposed grouping: Instead of grouping settings being static values, they should be variable: E.g. "Group Size: 20-40", "Group Radius: 3-10". The percentage of zeds that form groups should also be configurable. Same could be done for redistribution/respawn settings. Zeds by default always move to fill gaps on an impeccable 12-hr schedule. You'd think their movements would be a little more sporadic, unless they are meant to operate like some kind of larger organism/hive mind in PZ lore. When I clear an area and return only to find a group of identical size has taken it's place, I know that they didn't just happen to stumble into the area or that I missed them, it was just the redistribution time ticked over and all the zeds in the vicinity moved deliberately and swiftly to fill a gap on the map. How do they know?! Simply by being able to set a variable schedule would somewhat solve this issue by injecting some uncertainty as to how much time you have until the next migration, but even better would be to configure the percentage of zeds that redistribute as well. It may impact game balance but if you could set it anywhere from 50-150% then zeds would be way more erratic in their distribution cycles, potentially overrunning certain areas until the next cycle moves them again, or perhaps only redistributing a fraction this time around. Ideally I'd like zeds to group together much more organically, while still retaining gaps in their numbers to sneak through. Thick hordes and small flocks of varying distance apart, mobile "patrol groups" shambling slowly down city streets, stragglers that break off from herds to join new ones or just wander aimlessly... I'm aware that a lot of this is easier said than done given how zeds are loaded in-game, but I just wish it wasn't so consistent across the board. Would also be great if we could make the grouping develop and change over time, Sandbox+ already has this feature among a few others that are much needed in the base game, like varying zed speeds and having multi-hit tied to strength and other factors. Thanks for continuing to make this game amazing, seriously!