IndustryStandard

Build 42 is already getting much better lighting, like colored lighting or ambient lighting depending on the rooms you're in.

I only really have a reply for this from your comment since I wasn't really disagree with the other segments. It's not wrong to be able to neutralize threats it's just that currently we have basically none with minimal effort on the players part. I do still think a player with a lot of luck, skill and smart decisions should be excelling at the game but I also think they should still have a lot of things they need to do to achieve that. As for the why this would be wrong, and I don't think wrong is the best fitting word since locking down in 1 spot should be viable too. Part of it is just protecting players from themselves. I don't think it'd be difficult at all, no matter how skilled you are at the game some of the suggested ideas I threw out as examples can't be avoided entirely. Like if they added dangerous weather that could damage your crops or base you can't really do much to adapt to this, it's just a freak accident from nature after all. As for modding I think if you were intentionally subscribing to mods that made you overpowered then you're kind of the one at fault if you complain the game is easy. If you meant like, TIS having to consider current popular mods when working on updates then they likely just don't do that, can't balance a game around the existence of mods.

You aren't even reading anything here. Most obvious example is here I already answered this question the first time it was asked out of no where

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, I wasn't acting like this was a new thing with build 42. The difficulty problem that I have been talking about has been a long standing issue with the game even before it hit steam imo It doesn't stop being a problem just because it was always a problem.

The issue with these takes is that they need to pick a lane, you can't please every crowd no matter how many sandbox settings get created. The more broadly you try to appeal the less tightly designed your game becomes, you'll end up giving a meh experience for everyone instead. I don't think a lot of the suggested changes from this post are remotely on a level that would start alienating players and I don't believe at all that just because a portion of the playerbase want things to be a certain way (people that want to just sit in a fortress and never leave) that the developers need to cater to them. Game design is hard and players will unconsciously meta the fun out of their own experiences, it's important to protect them from themselves. Project Zomboid sells itself as The hardcore zombie apocalypse simulator game on the store and any changes that further this aspect should be expected and encouraged.

No ones forgotten about NPCs, they've been brought up a few times here and in my original post lol Hoping to have some difficulty rebalances before that since NPCs are a few years off still.

The biggest desire imo was definitely improving and adding an actual mid/late game but content is only part of that desire, more crafting and professions won't alone carry the experience. We're getting animals before NPCs because the AI for animals is going to be a lot more basic and easier to implement earlier into the game. And it's not as if some exploit fixes and mild adjustments couldn't go a long ways.

I genuinely have no idea what your issue is right now but I'm kindly going to ask you stop please. Every time I try to respond to you it feels like you are looking to provoke an argument in response to it, it's extremely unpleasant and I just wanted the post to be on the up and up talking about difficulty in the upcoming build, it's not an angry post demanding the game cater to the hardcore fanbase. The entire time I have this constant fear of getting banned for even interacting with you right now which is the complete opposite vibe that anyone should be giving off when we have a be lovely rule. I don't see where a straw man argument was being made; I have not asked for some peak behind the curtain. I don't know where the overly negative accusation is coming from here, I've been pretty openly praising build 42 in nearly every comment on my own post. If you're just not understanding my post or disagree with it, then that's fine we can just leave it be. I feel pretty discouraged from posting on the forums anymore anyways.

This isn't something exclusive to hardcore players, I've bought over half a dozen copies for friends when Build 41 stable hit in December 21. For every single one of them the game lost any semblance of difficulty once they got past the initial learning curve. Unfortunately, all but 1 of them stayed interested in the game a month later.

My dude how would I know what TIS is doing and intends to do behind the scenes? I'm just following the Thursdoid posts and iirc none of them have really touched on the games difficulty. That's all this post is lol Just bring it down a notch please.

I believe it's rude when players try to gatekeep when its acceptable to discuss, suggest or criticize a game under the pretense that it isn't done yet. It's extremely impolite and harms discussion. Worst of all it's doing a disservice to developers. It's hard not reading that comment as anything but 3 paragraphs of trying to tell me to not talk about the game anymore.

It's normal to do better at a game the longer you play, it is not normal for a game to get progressively easier the further you progress into it. Zombies also aren't the only way of increasing this games difficulty and the point of making this post was to inquire further into what might get done. Zombies however are currently the only thing that can threaten the player. Not disease, food, thirst or weather though. I didn't say TIS should either. Among the biggest hurdles game designers face is protecting players from themselves, this is generally unavoidable human behavior. I'm not suggesting punishing players in the wilderness for being smart. Okay, are they going to be? I don't remember build 42 blog posts mentioning animals attacking players. I didn't say it did, was more in response to Jack Bower. I feel like you aren't really understanding my post. I'm not running out of things to do, I'm running out of reasons to care. I don't need to care about food anymore if it's in such massive abundance with minimal upkeep. I don't need to care about water when a few rain barrels or a river provide everything I could ever need. I don't care about medicine because we don't currently have to really worry about getting sick or injured. I don't have to care about zombies if the game isn't incentivizing me to step out of my safe space for any reason, whether that's in the woods or somewhere in town that I keep the population down. I'm not asking for special zombies, I'm asking for more ways the game can challenge players more and incentivize them to leave that comfort that is easily attained. NPCs can do this but we are still a ways off. Weather could actually damage crops, kill animals or even damage your home rarely requiring players to actually fix up or deal with potential disasters. Diseases with more variety of specific medicines could knock my character on their ass and force me off schedule and missing out on things. Being in the woods with the only source of light and real noise should, would and could draw zombies my direction. Nutrition can be changed to require more thought into your diet, give players more reason to cook balanced meals or a variety of meals besides shoving 30 ingredients into a frying pan. Give the slightest movement speed variation to zombies so players can't casually walk in a circle to cluster 200 of them. Let zombies bust through any window of a car and attack the players. Make weather/lighting affect zombies so players feel like they should or shouldn't take advantage of certain times of the day or certain weathers. Make it so players can't watch Life and Living and then watch the same VHS version of the show they already saw for extra XP. Make cars that haven't been touched in a month or two require some maintenance before being drivable. Let zombies bust down those unbreakable fences. And more. We got plenty of things that can be tinkered with to provide challenge that perfectly fit in line with this games description and goals.

Because the game currently is lacking in mid/late game difficulty and the changes thus far with build 42 while adding a much more interesting mid/late game as far as content is concerned hasn't talked about anything that would seem to address the games inversed difficulty curve. Going by what the blog posts said these upcoming changes will allow players to thrive in a wilderness only map. I don't see how that can be interpreted as anything other than saying you can avoid modern society entirely. Zombies are mandatory currently because it'd take a considerable amount of effort on the players part to die from anything else in the current build. If players are able to completely circumvent having to even interact with them by living in the middle of the woods than the game will just become dull in spite of the crafting/professions enhancements. We're playing the self-proclaimed ultimate zombie survival experience afterall and having a major component of the game becoming unnecessary seems to be the antithesis of that. I am very confident that a substantial chunk of players can sympathize with that moment in the game when things are secured, and the game just fizzles out and has no more tension. That point where you could technically survive forever from farming, trapping or fishing and never enter a town again. Where the game shifts into testing how long you feel like fast forwarding through 80% of the day until something happens before you just start a new game or play riskier to bring a pulse back into your save. I don't think build 42s changes so far really address that in any meaningful way. I still think build 42 is going to be absolutely wonderful and they are definitely going to succeed in mid/late game content but what's really going to drive players to experience that content if food/water/enemies aren't really factors anymore? Multiplayer especially benefits from this of course but this game isn't just for multiplayer either. Maybe NPCs with bandits and managing the needs of your group (if that will be a thing) can add that necessary spice to keep players engaged. For context this is coming from a long time player that players on apocalypse with lowered loot settings and no gameplay/content adding mods.

I feel like you misunderstood the post. With the attention on improving the games lackluster mid/late game it seems the difficulty of the game isn't being talked about. The incentive to killing zombies in build 41 is that players will basically *have* to interact with the zombies in order to loot or gather materials, you can live out in the wilderness technically but it's extremely dull and boring. If build 42 is going to make that aspect of the game much more interesting and in depth than it might be more attractive of an option vs living in the city. And with that being the case, the game seems like it will cease to provide any really difficulty or issues for players to overcome. This registers as an issue to me.

Just to clarify I am mega hyped for build 42 and see it as nothing but a straight improvement at everything it is trying to do. A concern came up while reading the latest blog post though. What exactly is meant to challenge players late game or in wilderness only runs? If we can survive and thrive without any reliance on civilization with build 42 then what real incentive does the player have for endangering themselves in the city come late game or even just after they get comfortably established outside town? Zombies very sparsely will wander out in the wilderness and a handful at most will not pose a threat to the player. What exactly is left once you're in your new medieval society besides going through the motions? Are NPCs intended to be what corrects this with potential bandits? I'm just a little worried about still having that dull late game popping up even with all the new changes.