Goldkat

Yeah its weird you how cant put flashlights in the belt. It would also be cool to find security guard zombies with flashlights in their belt

If you have a knife you can already do this.

Not to sound rude but have you played the game and read the dev blogs? Many of these things are already in the game /being worked on or are not realistically possible due to the technical limitations of the game.

I agree, currently bath towels are almost completely useless. You cant cover things with them or rip them for fabric, only dry yourself which outside of CDDA or cryogenic winter will never be something you actually need to do.

While there is a focus on farming and cooking for build 42 can we get a overhaul of produce spoilage times? In real life onions last for weeks at room temperature months if stored properly and yet in project zomboid its like 10 days. Same thing for canned goods, if canned properly they will last for years, I understand wanting to balance gameplay with realism but the balance should be something more realistic. IRL you can only use canning lids once before they will no longer seal properly and if you mess up your canning by not sanitizing everything or not putting in enough water then you have a significant risk of rot or bacterial infection. Not to mention you need salt and vinegar which dont exactly grow on trees. Right now I understand that the game is focused towards the first few weeks of the knox event, but with build 42 adding more mid game and longevity features an overhaul of spoilage times would allow for a lot more preparation and trade. Right now high cooking if valuable because it lets you somehow eat rotten food(not safe IRL the visible rot is just the flower of the fungus, most of it is spread throughout the food) , but I think a better option would be that experienced chefs know how to preserve food properly. In multiplayer it would be a realistic strategy to farm and prepare foods to trade with other players. In single player it would allow you to start storing food for the winter during the harvest season which is something that happens IRL. Another thing that I would like to see is hardtack, super dry super salty terrible bread. But it lasts for decades, we should be able to make some. Because that is what people used to eat in the past, and if the devs are serious about the crafting system being expansive enough to allow dedicated enough players to build up to a nu medieval society (And yeah I would be one of those players) then its not going to work if all of our produce spoils so quickly and we cant preserve food.

We should also be able to use a fishing hook as a needle tbh.

What if this creates a problem where some likes or dislikes are overpowered? wouldn't this give an incentive to re-roll characters until you get one with the best stats?

Simple, have bears and wolves try to steal food and attack you if you try and stop them. There is a reason why you don't leave food laying around when camping. It's realistic because these animals aren't randomly trying to kill you but its also a threat that can be mitigated with some infrastructure just like zombies. Maybe even have animals making dens in buildings, so that they "Guard" the "Loot" inside. Having a bear living in that abandoned hardware store you really want to break into adds some risk vs reward game play and makes the world feel lived in. Also you could just let them eat your food, no fight required.

Yeah I have noticed this as well, its also weird how skill books have no effect on your mood. Are you telling me that a chef isn't going to enjoy reading a cooking mag or cook book? Or a park ranger would not want to read a book on foraging? I think we should get mood buffs from reading skill materials that boost skills we have related professions or traits for.

I agree, I think we need a first aid / health system overhaul. Right now its very underused considering the depth of some of the features. One thing I would like to see is heat related illness, like frostbite, heat stroke or sunburns. Right now we have this complicated temperature system that barely effects things. Right now Zomboid feels like a tech demo more so than a game because there are all of these rich and complex mechanics that don't really ever seem to amount to much. The game as it stands is about fighting zombies in the initial infection, and the game even cheats behind the scenes to give the zombies advantages (Like spawning more zombies in) because if it didn't the game would loose all its challenge. But things like first aid would be a serious concern that would add a whole level of challenge to the game, as you said infections are nothing to mess around with IRL and adding other injuries like bug bites, poison ivy, weather related effects like I said above, minor burns, sprains, etc would not only make the first aid skill worthwhile (because right now its almost meaningless) but also add another level of difficulty to the game that's more dynamic.

Looks like they added this in the latest unstable build.

Currently the sturdy stick recipe requires you to have a saw, but this has the consequence that you need a saw to make a tent kit. Can we please get the ability to craft sturdy sticks without a saw? Maybe a branch and a knife or even a plank and a knife but you get less sticks than with a saw? On a related furniture like wooden chairs and stools should drop sturdy sticks when disassembled, chair legs and sturdy sticks are already in the game so its weird that chairs don't drop them and with the crafting overhaul coming up this would be a logical change. Alternatively we could just use branches directly to craft a tent but that seems less realistic.

Agreed. I would like to see a future fuel update where they expand on fuel storage, and add new types of fuel like bio diesel and regular diesel (Maybe even vin diesel?). I also think we should be able to open the tops of barrels and start fires in them.

I think discarding reading materials is a balance/implementation issue. How are you realistically going to keep track of a player has read a magazine without creating a ton of overhead. Maybe they could diversify a bit so that there are different types of magazines and you get burn out and have to wait before reading more of a certain type? But I agree at the very least we should be able to burn them after we are done. Which speaking of, why don't our characters enjoy reading skill books? I read non fiction all the time IRL and I do think its odd that a park ranger would not enjoy reading a book about foraging. Perhaps we should get mood buffs from reading trait boosted skill books?

Tbh Sun glasses should HELP you find things when its really bright out.

Agreed, I love map making and challenge maps and I think this would be useful.

I honestly disagree and here's why. Its much more likely that the zombies simply busted out the door's hinges rather than broke through the metal door itself. And what is a metal door if not a large metal sheet? It would be interesting to see this happen in game, broken doors are either broken to bits or just broken off their hinges. Broken doors can then be reinstalled or broken down into the proper material types. I think that would be a good mechanic. I agree about the pretzels tho, we have all these awesome food items but vending machines and stuff only ever seems to have chips and chocolate. Tbh its weird how you never find zombies with snacks on them. We're looting these people who are wearing jackets with pockets and yet they are seemingly always empty? Literally every person should in theory have a wallet or some change on them.

This makes me think, why dont we get chair legs when taking apart chairs? There is already a chair leg object in the game anyway...

Honestly now that I think about it we really should be able to use flags to cover windows. I literally have 2 flags over my windows right now that I use as curtains. Flags already have textures we would just need rolled up textures for them.

Honestly I had not even thought of stitching towels together but that's a great idea not only would it be useful but its also much more realistic then patching and unpatching the same jacket hundreds of times. Plus having the ability to make sheets a non renewable resource from ripped sheets a renewable resource would really help the resource economy and the gameplay loop.

Devs, if you add beach towels I'll make a island survival challenge map <3

After reading todays blog post about small issues I remembered something I have had on my mind for awhile. Why can we not use towels to cover windows, or rip towels for fabric? I think a small but meaningful feature would be if towels were updated with the following: 1. ability to cover windows 2. Ability to rip for fabric 3. Ability to burn towels and use them as kindling and not as importantly but I think it would be nice if we could wear towels also, either around the waist or over the shoulders. Maybe even like a makeshift super hero cape? Unlike the other suggestions this would require adding new 3d assets so I don't really expect to see this. But the others should be quick to implement and make a lot of sense. Honestly if we want to go really far with it we should be able to place towels as a rug type furniture option and use them as a bad quality bed. People sleep on beach towels all the time, and its certainly better than just sleeping on the ground, a secondary effect would be a light weight and easy to find portable bed which is something that would really improve nomadic gameplay while being balanced by the fact that its not any better than just sleeping on a random folding chair. Currently dish towels and towels are almost completely useless and I think making them behave like other fabric items would really help round them out game-play wise, I've found myself in bathrooms looking for bandages and thinking "Why cant I just rip this towel and use that?". Or I find myself running out of fire fuel and thinking why cant I burn this dish towel I found in the cupboard. My favorite thing about this game is the multiple uses for items because it makes the game world feel alive and really leads to emergent gameplay due to satisfying problem solving.

I agree, I will note that currently zombies don't technically "seek" player built structures its just the way the spawning / horde mechanics work that causes issues. Realistically the biggest danger is before everything has gone to hell. Loved ones turning, finding yourself in a crowd unarmed because you were in a train station or a sports game during the outbreak. Not understanding what a zombie is and getting bit, etc. Once you have made it past the first few weeks of everything you are realistically pretty safe because you have a massive advantage. Death comes when you're so exhausted you collapse and get caught, or so weak from hunger you cant fight back. Or you get sick from drinking non purified water or food. A regular person in good shape can take on zombies without issue, but thats not why surviving would be difficult. It comes back to the issue of it being a video game, people expect to fight huge hordes of zombies in a zombie game. Even when it does not make sense. There are way more zombies than the population of the areas we find ourselves in. Why/how are there groups of zombies all over the roads and highways when there are barely any cars? where did the cars go? Why are there hundreds of zombies filling up train depots and warehouses, abandoned houses, park picnic areas, rural farms? It doesnt make sense. Instead I think the way forward is to add more threats so the zombies can be dialed back. Once animals are added then we can have dangerous animals, bears, wolves, stray dogs, coyotes, foxes (not too dangerous but I wouldn't want to fight one unarmed). Then there does not have to be 150 zombies in some remote location because you have these new threats. It plays into risk vs reward because you can hunt these animals, but good luck trying to take down a bear without a gun. Risk is firing a gun to kill an animal and drawing a horde of zombies to your location or trying to take down an animal without a gun and risking loosing that fight. Kill the animal and you get a reward, meat hide, bones/teeth, etc as well as the building/area it was in. Imagine seeing 2 bears and some bear cubs have made a home inside a warehouse you needed to loot, it adds depth. The second is better buildings, the devs have touched on adding masonry and brick walls and I wholeheartedly agree. I think metal and stone walls should be fireproof and virtually indestructible. Building a stone wall is really hard, it takes a long time and a lot of stone. Even a cinder brick wall has the same issue. IRL you can sit around and wait for mortar to dry or go buy more bricks when you break some. But its not easy to carry hundreds of bricks through the zombie infested ruins back to where you want to build your wall. This adds a cost and works with the class mechanics the devs are working on. A mason might not be as useful and well rounded as a carpenter but its worth having one in your colony because building brick walls is a massive undertaking with high rewards. Risk brick walls are expensive and time consuming, reward defense and fire resistance. And that leads me to my third suggestion, fire should be a real game mechanic. Rework the way fire is currently so stone and metal things don't burn and then add more ways for fire to spread. It adds danger without needing zombies while also being able to draw zombies. Smoke alarm batteries last for years and some kinds of sprinkler systems use wax that melts in high temps to release water. If people are going to be building metal forges to blacksmith or welding things then fire should come into play. Have it be so that you need stone/metal structures to house forges or stoves or kilns. Because fires will start and destroy wooden structures and the loot within. Have it so that if you start a fire or use a torch to light up a dark apartment building you can start a fire, but instead of the fire melting the stone walls into burnt wood and ash like it currently does have it only burn the wooden furniture and carpets. Leave behind charred metal furniture and rubble. Imagine you come to a dark apartment building/hotel and craft a torch to light your way, but you see a bear/wolf inside and run away but you trip and drop your torch on the way out. The building becomes engulfed in flames setting off smoke alarms which draw zombies in while you try to escape. You return later and explore the now burnt out ruins and scavenge metal things and bits of loot that didn't get burnt up, maybe a maintenance closet with a metal door that was protected from the flames, maybe one area had sprinklers that put out some of the flames. Risk fire will destroy/downgrade loot and may draw zombies. Reward crafting/cooking/light/warmth. Fourth would be reworking nutrition, the mood debuffs are crazy. I eat cold food on purpose and dont instantly become depressed. If you have been eating nothing but bugs and dandelions eating a cold pork chop or steak would be a godsend. Which side note devs please eat some dandelions IRL, they taste very bitter until you cook them so if anything is giving us a sadness moodle it should be that. I think the cooking system should be reworked by adding attributes to ingredients and then different recipes call for different things. So add a leafy green attribute to cabbage, lettuce, dandelions, mint, etc and then have a salad get bonuses for having a variety of leafy greens but also no negative for adding more. So instead of a pure lettuce salad that makes you depressed its simply a boring salad because you got your bonus for leafy greens but nothing further. On the other hand a sandwich with nothing but lettuce would make you sad because leafy greens have a threshold. For example a sandwich could have 1 bread 2 max leafy greens, unlimited meats, unlimited cheese, 4-5 max veggies. Adding some lettuce to your sandwich gives you leafy green bonus but adding over the limit will start to make it bad. These food attributes can go further, have salty, sweet, sour, bitter, savory attributes where adding 1 bitter thing is fine but a bunch of bitter ingredients will ruin the dish. Meanwhile combos will give even better benefits (sweet + sour anyone?). It really adds depth because say your colony has been eating nothing but foraged bitter plants and they are really sad about it. Going and finding some vinegar or honey could allow the chef to remove the bitter debuff from the food by cooking it with the right ingredients. Now farmers will need to grow a variety of crops so they have a mix of attributes. It's also intuitive because this is how cooking works IRL. It promotes trade and could even be expanded with a fatigue system where if you consume enough of the same dish/attributes they have diminishing returns. Your first game meat and cabbage sandwich might taste amazing compared to all the bugs you had been eating but after eating nothing but sandwiches for 3 weeks a salad becomes much more appealing. In conclusion make zombies more realistic but add other dangers that give players a reason to be in areas where there are zombies instead of just bringing zombies to the players artificially.