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Magic Mark

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Everything posted by Magic Mark

  1. There's some interesting topics here, but a lot of this sounds extremely specific and unnecessary. Let me get into each point. 1. Height affects gameplay This sounds like a weird one to scrutinize and have it solely affect action times. This would probably mean re-working the skeletons and animations as well as clothing etc. Other games that feature animation rigs of different heights for player characters that don't have a mechanical difference usually just have the animations play out differently. No need to go deep into this. Often the height-related differences are just compensated in the animation difference. Getting into mechanics based around height just seems so unnecessary. 2. Getting Old I really don't mind this, but there isn't much gameplay for the world developing as you grow so I wouldn't put too much eggs in that basket. That portion really depends on where the developers want the game's meta to go to. Players will always find a way to survive for the long-run no matter how much people falsely believe the game fails if it doesn't kill you in a couple hours, so it's definitely worth the conversation. For character creation, however, I really wouldn't mind putting "Old and tired" on the trait list and have that have it's effects. Something like youthful exuberance would help as the counter merit. 3. Gender-based gameplay differences. No, to everything you said here, and for obvious reasons. This has been shot down before, and there's a lot of reasons why this is worth nipping in the bud. For starters- Sure, you can argue gender averages as your sole reason for thinking this is viable, but the fact of the matter is that you are building individual characters, not the statistically average male or female. There are females that are stronger than males, taller, shorter, more or less testosterone due to genetics, males that have higher pain tolerance, epigenetics etc on the individual scale which, mind what you think, is the entire point of character creation. "On average" this may not be the case, but since this is a video game and people are going to try and make the character they want to play, there is zero reason to throw a wrench at this. As said in the response above regarding idea 3, this forces roles onto people based on what sex they choose to play as, a unanimously bad idea for a game with character creation since there is absolutely nothing wrong with the current system. The only other worthwhile thing there is to say about suggestion 3: There are already weak/strong pros and cons to choose from, if somebody wants to build a weak girl or guy, they can already choose to do so. The idea that there is a video game that punishes you for choosing a girl/guy in character creation would certainly throw Indiestone under the bus. If the backlash is not due to controversy over ethics, it will be because of the fact that players are incentivised to choose their sex because of gameplay reasons and have less overall less agency over playing the character they want to play for personal/roleplay reasons. No real point to this whatsoever. I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole. 4. Face customization Some options here would be pretty good, even if it isn't being seen 100% of the time. Scars would be pretty cool. 5. Part Two Nationality/language While in theory this could present some interesting gameplay, I really don't see this going farther than a mod or a cool scenario for roleplaying or a storyline NPC. Reminds me of a RP server story that my friend was telling me about where they had to take away character language blocks since people just chose language barriers for their character for the sole purpose of having private "team chats" in MP.
  2. AFAIK this was already implemented with the updates on zed migration, and I think there is a 'heat map' of sorts already being used. The whole "base in the woods getting mobbed eventually" is already a thing that happens. Edit: And yeah, you can already alter the properties around that in the settings. How long between periods where zombies populate nearby vacant chunks, how far zeds will travel when migrating on their own, how large zed groups can get by simply being attracted to each other's noises, etc.
  3. I haven't seen much hunter clothes (camo/orange vests, hats, etc). Will we expect some?
  4. Magic Mark

    Videoid

    Wow, looks awesome! I'm excited for the new clothes, they all look varied and awesome. @nasKoMy only comment about the clothing video is to make sure that the amount of regular-clothed people is proportionate to the type of business. I noticed that most of the zed in the giga mart were employees and the civillian zed came in from outside, even though often the patrons outnumber the workers during work hours. Also, It would be nice to see the different zed types have a small chance of appearing in random locations! Like having police officers/firefighters be found in places outside of stations and what not with the chaos of the apocalypse.
  5. Have you implemented medical scrubs clinic/hospital staff?
  6. Having gone through all of the side links (there is a separate conversation linked through that one where a similar discourse occurred), what's easy to read from that is that using a sling to hit an animal is both inconsistent, inaccurate, and often times the creature did not go down in one hit (because not everyone gets "100mph" for every single shot, that's like saying the top speed of a sports car is where you'll drive it at all the time). "Smacks the squirrel in the butt, it goes flying off SPINNING! it look hillarious, just imagine a squirrel, all limbs spread, spinning like a helicopter blade Shocked. After that it got up and ran back up the tree" http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1270605033/0 Another problem I hadn't considered, but encountered through the other conversation about attempts at sling hunting, is that the slower moving rocks often make sounds as they whistle through the air, and plenty of alert animals (rabbits, etc) can hear the stone coming and move out of the way. The thing is, that slinging forum was the best case scenario for hunting with a sling, since it is so obscure, impractical and requires a specialized knowledge and skill that is rare in the 21st century. Note the OP: So, apart from the reasons I have brought up above, it's pretty damning that the majority of people on the thread both thought they weren't accurate enough, and one thing that the forum responses make clear is that the prey often don't go down in one shot and need to be finished off. The most hopeful responses you could glean from that were hypothetical anyways, which is totally fine, but that leads me to the next thing. RE: "I think the problem is that people don't do a lot of hunting with slings" Uh huh. That's because slings aren't very practical for hunting, especially with better alternatives that aren't guns. And there are better ways for doing it. The only reason why slinging is still around is for primarily recreation, and it's not a common skill. So the problem isn't that people just choose not to use a sling to hunt when it is a practical way to hunt. It's a problem because there are better ways to hunt that don't require such a specific set of skills that can produce better results. For example, spears are both a simpler concept for somebody to learn to use and can catch you more food than a sling would any day of the week. ~~ So, apart from that recreational slinging thread, there's a lot of points to look at here. Before this thread I had never even considered the idea beyond joking about how ridiculous it would be. Big game is off the table. You can kill small game, but it's inconsistent and requires a ton of skill to be remotely reliable. Now, the other issue still is that this is basically a recreation of the throwing knives dilemma, except the problem about having that knowledge that makes the weapon lethal is multiplied. For gameplay, I think it's important for PZ developers to try to think of stuff that people would think to do in the apocalypse, like set up generators, learn to garden, sharpen sticks, and form tools out of stuff you could find in the woods, etc. So, you said yourself that you have no experience on this, and this thread has been one massive hypothetical discussion. So why would this be anyone's go-to for getting food in the apocalypse? Not a lot of people have the knowledge to use a sling in a way that is lethal, and the amount of skill needed to hit small, agile targets make it extremely unreliable. This discussion so far (which I have learned a lot from with the research I've done, so thank you by the way) brings me back to my original point: The sling is a little specific. Now, I'm not saying don't add the sling because it's sub-optimal for the use you have suggested. There are other uses for a sling, and it could be a niche yet entertaining way to kill zombies. Just not accurate enough for small targets, and not fast enough (or accurate enough) for agile big targets. I just don't think the set of knowledge is common enough or practical enough to allow this to become a primary method of hunting in PZ. Thanks for listening! Have a great rest of your day
  7. You're oversimplifying it as if you could hit a deer in the head at 100mph (quite the feat) with a sling just with some practice and a dream. It's not an effective way to kill big game regardless of how good you get at it. Especially if the deer is moving, or any considerable distance away from you (and the getting close to one without it being aware of you with any of it's viable senses - especially smell - is challenge enough). Not to mention the fact that if you stood as close as the man in that video, the winding up of you starting to swing that for momentum will scare it away instantly. And there's a fairly obvious reason hunters don't use poisons to kill the animals that they eat. Regardless of what you hear or read about tradition, that poison will be in the meat. There have been cases where people were charged with killing protected animals because those animals died eating the flesh of other creatures that they poisoned. It's not recommended. As said above, slings are useful for other reasons. Just not hunting deer. Or much else that has evolved and adapted to perceiving and outrunning fast game. The first obstacle is getting close to one. If it isn't socialized to humans (as most surviving deer in this scenario would definitely not be) this often involves masking your own scent and camouflage, and often knowledge that people don't just suddenly pick up. If you are trying to be practical, there are already much better ways to hunt that don't need to be reinvented. Edit: I went on a slinging forum and found this exact question, and they disagree as well. At most, some claim to kill small game, but inconsistently. Keep in mind that they are talking about small game. Sorry. It's a fun idea, but for hunting deer, it just doesn't sound like this is going to work. There are other reasons for slings though.
  8. My bad, as I read your post and thought slingshot. But a sling would probably be less effective for big game (not small game, which it would be effective for). I'm not familiar with them myself, but yeah, I could see killing a rabbit with that. But big game? Sure, you could eventually kill something, but it would require a lot of skill to make that kind of shot and if it doesn't concuss them it certainly wouldn't kill them through their tougher hide. But yeah, you are right about it for small game. If it works, it works.
  9. On the contrary, survivors wouldn't really turn to hunting until their pantries and what not begin to turn dry, and that means learning to both shoot and hunt if they haven't already (good luck tailing deer if you can't tell it's tracks from your neighborhood cats) that's still remembering the fact that the hard majority of citizens (including hunters) have either died or turned into zombies. There is no real scenario where the deer population wouldn't immediately grow until the usual fluctuations of predator/prey populations intervene, regardless of zombie intervention. I'm familiar in the rifle culture of my mountain/farm town I grew up in and I know enough to tell you without google that hunters play an important role in keeping populations stable, and a lot of times that means shooting a doe with an institution's incentive to do so. I'm not sure what you meant about disease control since not having the DNR is pretty nonconsequential for this scenario considering that wildlife have a tendency to thrive even without this kind of intervention. Deer can live without it, and certainly, aren't going to go extinct without it (even though it certainly helps in population management). So, nothing you said would really cause them to drop off as much as it would increase. The deer population would rise significantly at first. If you have a different point I'm not considering, I'm all ears. Keep in mind that deer are timid creatures that are very agile, and melee combat would be a useless endeavor, so I don't believe a zombie force meandering around the woods is going to do much damage. I've found a useful article to back my claims here: http://extension.illinois.edu/deer/damage.cfm?SubCat=8890 Ask around any hunting forum or even your local community (if applicable) if you want more information, they'll probably tell you the same thing to some degree. I can't speak for Kentucky, though a google skim doesn't contradict anything I've said. Hope this helps. Have a good day!
  10. More options are better, but guns and crossbows/bows should be the obvious first choice when it comes to hunting. While both of them are primitive ways of hurting things, sling and javelin are both slow and give just as much opportunity for the prey to run away where a big game rifle or heavy draw crossbow could drop an Elk in a well placed shot to the heart and not give that opportunity. That said, I'm all for adding a Javelin as an ineffective but primitive (homemade) weapon, a sling is a little specific and not exactly a "tried and true" method of killing anything larger than a chipmunk. I'm confident about using firearms in the deep woods where I would presumably go to hunt, since zed don't spawn out there for obvious reasons. With no hunters alive keeping the deer populations in check, hunting bigger game would be very viable. I don't imagine a slow or sprinting zombie doing much damage to deer that are already both agile and timid.
  11. So, from real life driving efficiency science: Sunday Driver should reduce fuel consumption at the expense of gaining panic from high speed.
  12. Personally, I don't want to spend actual hours just to walk from one town to the other, so by the standards of most open world games with driving I think you are wrong there. The need for vehicles was already present when the map was just Muldraugh and West Point, let alone the newer map that would take many sittings to fully traverse on foot. However, I don't think the game is ready for Helicopters.
  13. Well, to be fair, you can run a car on gasoline that's over 8 years old (know this first hand), it's just sub-optimal. As long as this is a sandbox option gets more fleshed out in the future, I don't see much of an issue with erosion. I would really like to see it get divided between nature's growth and structures crumbling so I can stretch it out for realistic tree growth though.
  14. http://map.projectzomboid.com/?#0.27318906503161505,0.1075728072932535,279.15381232800263 http://map.projectzomboid.com/?#0.44662137897390325,0.1841260917797381,482.3777877027884 http://map.projectzomboid.com/?#0.3982381537152435,0.03689680113342731,694.6240142920153 http://map.projectzomboid.com/?#0.8405339907197688,0.23752789059178608,694.6240142920153 Camping, fishing and survivalist stores are definitely a thing, and also quite common in rural US. Oh, and farm supply stores, which also would have guns.
  15. New problem: Foliage layering is screwed up, ruining every decorative shrub placement.
  16. Gonna have to side with seeing them shake regardless, but I totally see your point. Reason being that even in large buildings and woods you can hear twigs breaking for probably the entire field of view for characters. Silence can easily make the lightest of noises carry farther and sound louder As an example, I thought somebody was keying the windows of the glass doors of my school library while I studied on the opposite side of the building until I realized it was just a tree brushing against it in the wind. The branch has been trimmed now, but this anecdote remains true. I would at least argue for the point that with multiple sound sources, pinpointing this kind of thing and percepting it becomes much harder.
  17. It would actually be more work to make textures for every single street. The problem here is that none of the streets have names and a lot of landmarks are also largely unnamed. Not only would the developers have to name each street, they would have to create individual textures for each street sign, which makes this a very tall order. Kaleidozombie's inspection idea is actually a pretty safe compromise for that issue because it doesn't require new textures and allows the developers to adapt this to any new streets they add. It also would make it easier for modders to adapt it to their maps.
  18. I know, it feels like the new map was released a while ago, but there are some notable quirks that easily get in the way of anybody trying to stay here. 1. The roof clips inside of the building on the 2nd floor of the Ranger station, creating a black void in half of the kitchen and some of the seating area up there, creating big problems for anyone trying to build in it. http://map.projectzomboid.com/?#0.3117780075708957,0.12960163469705666,824.1870128045256 For some reason, I really can't find my screenshot of it, but from the inside upstairs it is very noticeable and there is no workaround to fixing it as the offending tiles can't be removed via sledgehammer. 2. Door frame left over from a previous building design: http://map.projectzomboid.com/?#0.3428315757779829,0.11650705058952977,1257.9086294416245 3. Furniture clipping issues http://map.projectzomboid.com/?#0.3559043382716524,0.12302452018288802,873.5476593344616
  19. Hey, just a heads up that somewhere along the build the country club has been broken. Reset the map twice to verify (and by reset, I mean physically deleting the server files and character map files to be extra sure that it is a new issue), missing walls/added walls confirmed from multiple clients. In addition to a large piece of the wall being missing, a new wall has appeared on the same tile of the other end of the balcony. This one is harder to notice, but walls on the second level have been removed that are surrounding the window panes. We used the admin character to make sure this portion of the bugs weren't a perspective issue. Checked other buildings in the area and they appear to be fine. After scouring the country club, other than the stacked tables that have been there from the start these are the only new major issues. -- Driving a car with three or more people is impossible at the moment. We've had incidents with players become stuck in the black voids. Reducing the occupants in vehicles has been the sound solution, but driving still generates its own temporal anomalies with becoming stuck every few seconds because of the supposed increase in world loading time. Driving by yourself is at acceptable levels of interruptions. -- New atmosphere looks great. You can really tell that there is a difference. So far, great feedback all around.
  20. That office desk, in particular, hasn't had any movable interaction. I reported it a while back, but with so many similar furniture to that model it would be pretty easy to fly under the radar. It's that exact model as well as the corner variant of it. All locations where it can be found.
  21. Metalworker is objectively useless to take as a starting occupation. Not only is metalworking neither accessible or efficient to use at the beginning of any level of playthrough, but the things you can make are also easily replaced by carpentry in the lower and higher levels of knowledge. Ideally, metalworking is a skill that you could learn up to the starting level of three after you have already secured yourself enough carpentry knowledge to actually build defenses. It's something that would only benefit anyone who has reached the late stages of the game and it would certainly not help them get there. It is wiser to simply pick anything else and read metalworking books in your spare time. A workaround that could heavily benefit this (among other occupations that buff under-utilized skills) would be to make the buff substantially higher so it gives you something that makes working with welding something easier for that character. For example, buffing the start level to 6 would make metalworker-related tasks successful and make it more appealing to the player to pursue that skill as the quality of things you can build will actually give the players a reasonable cost-reward ratio. Compare this to Level 3 (the current starting level) which does not open your options much for players who have picked this occupation under the expectation of being able to build stronger walls immediately. Conclusion: Massive hit and miss. Little practical use. Barely rewarded for having the skill. Requires late game or low difficulty comfort to utilize fully. There is no incentive to take this as an occupation even if the player values metalworking within their playstyle.
  22. Magic Mark

    Beeverdoid

    Absolutely bang on! I totally agree with this post. I'm excited for the update.
  23. Magic Mark

    Beeverdoid

    Thank you for your feedback on my criticism I'm off to work now, have a great day!
  24. Magic Mark

    Beeverdoid

    I'm answering the call on the post to over-think it, so this is the feedback that I have to offer. I was also consulted on the original implementation of vehicles and maintenance by RJ, so I'll happily provide this again for vehicle upgrades with suggestions and work-arounds. I and others are not part of the development team. While I am grateful for having participated and called upon for a second opinion, I don't know that this is a conclusion that the developers have already reached. This is the design and model we were showed and asked to comment on, and I happen to have worked on a lot of car projects and enjoy enthusing about this (car upgrades !) Sorry if this is annoying to you. I have additional notes should you like to hear them if you are still accepting feedback. I understand that criticism may not be what we all want to hear, but it's what has lead to some of the better changes to the game in the past. Hopefully we can all work together to make a system that can make this the change to cars that the game has been begging for.
  25. Magic Mark

    Beeverdoid

    That doesn't actually fix the core, objective flaw with the design that makes it counter-intuitive. Even if it's not "pressing against it", the wheel turning outward whenever the car needs to maneuver requires space outside of the vehicle. (Often the wheel turns out farther than that) As I described in my lengthy post about the objective issues with these upgrades, it's the reason why you see in older cars with fender covers as a design that they only occur on the rear wheels, which do not turn and do not need that space. This is also why in plenty of attempts to model real apocalypse-ready vehicles, the turning wheel is left uncovered, as it's not something you want to hamper in your vehicle. You also need to consider that with body roll (inevitable, and already implemented anyways, amplified by the fact that these are older vehicles that have softer suspensions) that any coverage to the wheel won't further dig into the wheel when the body twists side to side as the weight on the car shifts with every turn. There are plenty of usable stuff in the concept pictures, but a lot there needs heavy reconsidering or needs to heavily penalize the player. A lot of these things wouldn't easily be considered upgrades that won't heavily penalize you in other places. These designs are influenced by show cars and movie props that may not actually benefit how you expect them in real world application. There are a bunch of cool and useful upgrades that could make this fun for gameplay that could work, just needs a lot of tweaking.
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