RELEASED: Build 30.12

[Rathlord]

Florin this change greatly increases the pace of the game, not decrease it. What brought about this change is that the devs saw how much the old style exertion was destroying any reasonable pacing.

The problem you're having is that you're still coming at this the wrong way, with the idea that you should be able to do whatever you want all the time with no penalty. This is not what the devs or most of the fan base want.

The easy solution is to break up your day between high and low exertion tasks instead of just going back and forth between that and resting.

I apologize if it seems like I've been talking down to you. That's not my intent; I'm posting from my phone which is a bit hard from me, which makes me come off more terse than I'm aiming for.

I still believe, though, that you're not even remotely giving the change a chance or the devs a chance to actually balance it. If all you want is perfectly polished features you shouldn't be using this build- simple as that. Your feedback, to me at least, seems like a lot of complaining with very little useful feedback.

[Florin]

I'm quite prepared to give the developers the benefit of the doubt when it comes to balancing these changes, but if no one gives critical feedback then they'll have a much harder time knowing what needs balancing.

 

Yesterday one of the developers told me that the point of increasing the challenge at this stage in the game's development is to make it a more complete game right now, rather than leaving it incomplete until they finish other features. That's fair enough, but right now, the only thing that helps mitigate the boredom of moving from town to town in the game is sprinting. Removing the ability to sprint from place to place begs another way of making these treks without spending an unreasonable amount of time watching your character walk along a road.

[Jack Bower]

This will force people to base on multiplayer, well I don't mind extra loot being in place I can get other then dufflebags in the woods. I would just really appreciate it if we could still kill a large amount of zombies, doesn't have to be anything too crazy but if players can't adequately defend their own bases from a decent amount of zombies they'll be pissed. Perhaps add a cornered option that makes your character ignore the effects of that, because players should have the right to have a base that they can properly defend.

Edited December 10, 2014 by Rathlord
Fixed double post

[Rathlord]

@Rathlord - The problem is, you won't stop people from killing zombies in mass, we'll just find new ways to do it. We'll effectively find ways to work around the problem of zombies, like as of next patch camp fire is just going to be the go-to method for frying large hoards and it'll just be used by a lot more people now that weapons are a lot less viable.

You can patch all you like to encourage different gameplay but we'll find ways around it. Because of the rest changes I guess I'll have to carry a tent around with me which is tragic, but it does encourage basing and hoarding of loot which I really enjoy because it is little treasure troves around the map I can track down.

 

*Edit* I am with you Florin, this patch slows down the pace of the game when the difficulty could come from other places.

 

The idea that people are going to try to cheese a game can't stop you from developing the game reasonably. I don't understand where you're going with this... since people like you will cheese it, should we just take the zombies out and make it a looting simulator?

[Rathlord]

I'm quite prepared to give the developers the benefit of the doubt when it comes to balancing these changes, but if no one gives critical feedback then they'll have a much harder time knowing what needs balancing.

 

Yesterday one of the developers told me that the point of increasing the challenge at this stage in the game's development is to make it a more complete game right now, rather than leaving it incomplete until they finish other features. That's fair enough, but right now, the only thing that helps mitigate the boredom of moving from town to town in the game is sprinting. Removing the ability to sprint from place to place begs another way of making these treks without spending an unreasonable amount of time watching your character walk along a road.

 

I agree that feedback is necessary, but some stuff like posting

 

 It's not challenging, and it's not fun.

 

 

Isn't helpful criticism; it's just complaining.

 

And you're right about what Lemmy101 said; they want it to be an enjoyable experience throughout all courses of development. Some of those things can't happen all at once, though. We can address difficulty right now with this change, but we may not be able to hit easy travel for a while (implementing cars/bikes takes new sprites, new code, new animations, new items to go with it, etc.). I'm presuming that they'd rather have the game be difficult and travel be a bit slower than having the whole thing be brokenly easy and continue to encourage people to try to kill hordes all the time.

 

When you really look at it, though, I don't think the amount of time spent walking in PZ is that bad, even if you feel the need to make the whole trip in one go and not do anything in between (like forage or loot) (which, again, is not really what they're wanting you to do anyways). Compare to a game like Eve Online where travel between points can take 10-20 minutes (or more) with nothing to do in between. Compare to Unreal World where the game is almost all wilderness survival- you can do other things than just walk, in UW and in PZ. Cataclysm: DDA similarly has large travel times between points of interest in some cases. Even DayZ (from what I've seen, I don't play) has fairly sizable walks between places from time to time. It's not like this is a trip you need to be making on a daily basis. Traveling between two towns in PZ is supposed to be a big deal. It's supposed to be scary and challenging and important, just like it was in The Walking Dead (near the beginning of the series, at least).

This will force people to base on multiplayer, well I don't mind extra loot being in place I can get other then dufflebags in the woods. I would just really appreciate it if we could still kill a large amount of zombies, doesn't have to be anything too crazy but if players can't adequately defend their own bases from a decent amount of zombies they'll be pissed. Perhaps add a cornered option that makes your character ignore the effects of that, because players should have the right to have a base that they can properly defend.

 

Making a base in PZ was almost completely worthless before this update; it just wasn't needed, you could live in a building made entirely of windows without any worries before. What's the point of having a base if the zombies aren't a challenge? Your base should make up for you being exerted sometimes, it should give you the time to spend to rest up in between fights (if it's more than 20-30 zombies) and should help you repel their attacks. If you can just run out and massacre them all, why build a base in the first place? This was a complaint TIS saw all the time (that there was no point to making bases), so if you ask me what you're saying is more of a positive than a negative

[Moose65]

My only suggestion with the current exertion system is to tier it similar to the Tired system. Right now, you basically go straight to "moderate" exertion, it would also help some confusion when resting.

 

For example, I think some of the people who are complaining probably only rest long enough for the moderate exertion moodle to drop. I know for a fact that there is still some "hidden" exertion, because if you rest only long enough for the moodle to drop (as in not the full duration for resting) you will again become moderately exerted after a few kills.

 

With a proper tier system players could gauge a lot better when resting, and you could even put stricter penalties at the highest tier, like the inability to sprint at all, or to do basically no damage.

 

Edit: Also, for those complaining about exertion and killing zombies, you still can kill them, you simply have to be extra careful when handling 5 or so when fully exerted. While not recommended, if you can gauge the speed that they run at, you simply back peddle with charged attacks (using a baseball bat in this example). You DON'T try to kill any that fall down, as that will get you swarmed and become almost impossible to break free, but you simply hit and back up, waiting for that 1 shot kill. Even if you do get swarmed, you have a chance to shove them away and attempt to sprint away, as I have yet to find a zombie that is faster than me even when fully exerted.

 

It can take awhile, but you should be clearing out zombies in your surroundings anyways so you can kite them. I really like the new exertion because its caused me to almost get killed from being slightly careless, to as where before I would have to run into the middle of 20 zombies to die. Now, running into a group of 5 can proof extremely difficult to break away from.

 

To be fair though, this does make Strong and even more required trait under these conditions.

[Jack Bower]

I am not 100% against the fatigue system I would just like it to be implemented properly with the ability to properly deal with zombies, I don't need to be a super-hero. I feel just stopping people from running through zombies would make this game a great deal more difficult and I really like the idea of locking people down to areas of influence so they'll travel and deal within an area making it like their own "territory" almost.

 

However, if I have a clean stretch behind me or like a very small hallway of Sparta I should be able to hold my ground fairly effectively against the rotted menace.

When your house gets surrounded by zombies and they start pouring in through every window you should probably die in that kind of a situation unless you get lucky and one window is clear, if zombies bodies blocked way more then you would be way more afraid of zombies wherever you went. You would avoid closed areas a lot more because they are death traps.

I just hate the idea of being stuck in a place where I'd die and being unable to defend myself in a life or death situation because I am le tired.

[Moose65]

I am not 100% against the fatigue system I would just like it to be implemented properly with the ability to properly deal with zombies, I don't need to be a super-hero. I feel just stopping people from running through zombies would make this game a great deal more difficult and I really like the idea of locking people down to areas of influence so they'll travel and deal within an area making it like their own "territory" almost.

 

However, if I have a clean stretch behind me or like a very small hallway of Sparta I should be able to hold my ground fairly effectively against the rotted menace.

When your house gets surrounded by zombies and they start pouring in through every window you should probably die in that kind of a situation unless you get lucky and one window is clear, if zombies bodies blocked way more then you would be way more afraid of zombies wherever you went. You would avoid closed areas a lot more because they are death traps.

I just hate the idea of being stuck in a place where I'd die and being unable to defend myself in a life or death situation because I am le tired.

 

That's why you keep your safehouse and the surroundings cleared. I intentionally avoid bringing any zombies ANYWHERE near my safehouse now due to the new clumping mechanic. I play it slow and steady now, slowly clearing out towards locations of interest (and if it seems secured, borrowing a chair to rest to continue along). The exertion system does need some work (basically more moodles to alert you to different levels of exertion).

 

I think the melee combat is in a good place now, as before I could simply turn my character into a meat grinder with a baseball bat. There are also guns which shouldn't exert you much to be honest, but come with the obvious drawbacks that could be used when your highly exerted.

 

Been playing in west point and I had no problems securing twiggy's and looting the key interest locations around town (hardware store, pharmahug, gigamart, warehouse). Got unlucky and couldn't find a sledgehammer and/or spade so I could declare victory with rooftop farming in that play through. I'm really interested to try the new farming speeds, but I'm willing to bet that between level 5 cooking and mass planting of crops will lead to the same situation as before.

[Blasted_Taco]

This will force people to base on multiplayer, well I don't mind extra loot being in place I can get other then dufflebags in the woods. I would just really appreciate it if we could still kill a large amount of zombies, doesn't have to be anything too crazy but if players can't adequately defend their own bases from a decent amount of zombies they'll be pissed. Perhaps add a cornered option that makes your character ignore the effects of that, because players should have the right to have a base that they can properly defend.

Hold the phone m8

 

Are you telling me, that making bases is a bad thing?

 

Dude, a problem i had with the game is that i always could be surviving on the move in older builds, heck you didnt even needed to sleep that much at all in SP, MP is the same thing.

 

Now Safehouses are that, a safe heaven to you, where your loot is stored, where you can rest after a day of looting or fighting off zombies.

 

Actually zombies now attack where you live! Now you fear begin killed in your base! That is a good thing not a bad thing.

 

Afraid of zombies going insde your safehouse? Barricade the windows, place walls around your house, kill the zombies near your house, and if there is a horde coming your way, think fast cause you want your base to be left untouched, so you need to defend it or else find a new base.

 

All of that is good, is good that we need to think of ways to defend our home, too many zombies? Time to bring out of guns and think of something.

[The Dentist]

Hi. First time posting here, and literally just made an account, but I have been following this game for the past 2.5 years,...

 

I am currently playing build 30.8. Today, while going about my normal routine of doing finals for college and killing zombies in between, I noticed that when I went to add to my farm, something strange happened. I went to open a pack of seeds, and after the progress bar quickly filled, the seeds just disappeared. I thought maybe it was a rare error, so I tried with another packet. Same thing. I went through around 40 packs of seeds to see my entire supply of seeds disappear before my eyes. In the same save file, I was previously able to use seeds, as I have a pretty fancy cabbage farm going right now. 

 

I just wanted to make people aware/see if anyone else experienced this. I want my Fing seeds. 

 

I experienced it too. I can't build fireplacekits (!) or open up seeds. It disappears in the inventory after creating or opening.

Major bug. Can't play until it fixed, because i am playing for the long turn survival.

 

Even a completely new game, doesn't allow me to open up the seeds without loosing them. Just lost the potatoes - found them with the small shovel at day 1! Damn

 

And for the hardness of the build 30.x. Just managed it, to get into the bookstore and looting it without getting killed. So i think it's ok to not be able to massmurder every zombie wich is in town for looting the important buildings.

Dear Devs, please only try to avoid being exhausted by a little running/jogging around in town.

As soon the first exhaustsign hits up, i have to break up my intown tour an head back to my base. And it went up pretty fast, just by jogging around 3 blocks.

 

Hope u can finish up the game soon! Didn't liked the multiplayer mindchange, but now it seems you are back into pure survival.

Perfect! Doing a great job with 30.x for making it a challange again!

Don't loose faith in us hardcore-gamer, just because some more casual players "spam" the forums. Don't want to loose you like Dean Hall, even if i am not sure that he's gone is a bad thing.

[Florin]

I agree that feedback is necessary, but some stuff like posting

 

 It's not challenging, and it's not fun.

 

 

Isn't helpful criticism; it's just complaining.

 

That statement wasn't just complaining, it was my point that slowing things down doesn't increase the challenge or the enjoyment of the game. But I also said that in irritation at some of the remarks I had read shouting down any criticism of the patch.

[Gretschory]

Well, I gotta say I am agreeing with Florin on this one. At the moment it is not really adding to the challenge rather than to the nuisance. I am all for the game to get harder but not at the cost of annoyance. These day should be over since the 90s.

 

The Zombie attraction system is a nice addition but does not work properly. I just watched 6 of them running in circles while I was standing about 10 m away from them. A 7th one came sprinting at me across, I don't know, 100 m, completely determined to go for me. He saw/heard me, while I was standing through trees, the 6 other zombies and across 100 m. This is not challenging, it is annoying. Just in my opionion.

Well, time to set up the Sandbox, since I fear that Survival won't be fun anymore.

[EreWeGo]

 

I agree that feedback is necessary, but some stuff like posting

 

 It's not challenging, and it's not fun.

 

 

Isn't helpful criticism; it's just complaining.

 

That statement wasn't just complaining, it was my point that slowing things down doesn't increase the challenge or the enjoyment of the game. But I also said that in irritation at some of the remarks I had read shouting down any criticism of the patch.

 

@ Florin - to play "Devil's Advocate", I'd argue that it does make the game more challenging, in that you can no longer just slog your way through a fairly decent horde, without having to recover your energy etc. This forces you to re-think how you approach the game - will you try to take on those 8 zombies, do you have enough stamina/energy to escape if things turn ugly?

 

Previously, if I ran into a pack of zombies, I'd just draw them out, one or two at a time, kill them, rinse-repeat. Now, I have to really think about risk/reward a bit more, and sometimes have to decide to run, bypass, distract rather than just straight out attack. Whether this makes the game more or less enjoyable is obviously very much each players perception.

 

I do understand some of the people complaining about the latest changes - it's always frustrating when you can no longer play the way you always have, or the way you want to play. It's like someone's broken your favourite toy, and being a bit pissed off is probably quite normal.

 

I think some of the comments similar to "you're playing it wrong" can come across as insulting, but as an example, if you're finding it frustrating having to kill some zombies, then rest, then kill some more, then rest etc, then maybe you shouldn't be trying that tactic - if you're trying to clear a large horde as previously, then even though it's something you want to do, and enjoyed doing, it's unfortunately not how the Devs envision what the "Survival" mode should be...

 

The thing is, we're talking only about the Survival mode, which Lemmy explains in detail in his "wall of text" post:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/108600/discussions/0/617321352375649325/

 

If you enjoy playing a certain way, then why not request that things like endurance be an adjustable option in Sandbox mode? One problem I've noticed is there seems to be a stigma for some people if they "have" to play in Sandbox mode to get the game play style they enjoy - but that's what it's for. Some days, I don't feel like playing Survival, and want to play with say, insane numbers of weaker zombies, or sprinters, or with ridiculous amounts of weapons. I wouldn't suggest that they make that the "base" for Survival mode, since that's just how I want to play it.

 

Regardless, I'd hate to see people not want to post their concerns or criticisms, and I can guarantee that the Devs would feel the same - PZ has one of the best, and open forums/communities I've seen, and very active Devs. They will listen, and if something's genuinely broken, I have faith they'll fix it.

 

/2cents

[Florin]

EreWeGo - I usually avoid large fights, period, unless I need to clear out an area for my own security. Some fights are unavoidable unless you're constantly on the run, which really only keeps you out of combat for so long.

 

When I say the exertion changes do not add challenge, I mean that I've not yet lost a character in either 30.7 or 30.8 and that the same strategies I used for staying safe and avoiding death still work more or less as they always did. I can still escape any zombie by strolling away from them, and I can still hack a horde of zombies to pieces if I really want to, it just takes a very long time and a lot of resting.

 

I did ask that the exertion changes be made optional in one of my posts a few pages back. I'd be quite content with that. I prefer the game to model short and long term exhaustion as it did previously, but I'm willing to accept that I'm in the minority. I just don't enjoy mechanics that slow the pace of a game.

[EnigmaGrey]

I . . . find i difficult to believe you're advocating for a system that, once you became moderately tired, would remove your ability to move faster than a sneak.

Not that you couldn't game it by simply sneaking backwards while attacking.

[Rathlord]

When I say the exertion changes do not add challenge, I mean that I've not yet lost a character in either 30.7 or 30.8 and that the same strategies I used for staying safe and avoiding death still work more or less as they always did. I can still escape any zombie by strolling away from them, and I can still hack a horde of zombies to pieces if I really want to, it just takes a very long time and a lot of resting.

 

Just because you've not lost a character yet (and the build's only been out for a day or two anyways, so...) doesn't mean that it's broken, though. It just means there's more work yet to be done. I'd love to see (and I'm sure the devs would as well) a video of you surviving a period longer than a week or so so we can see what you're doing and work on improving the difficulty there.

 

Regarding hacking a horde to pieces if you "really want to" that's exactly what they're aiming for: not being able to do it in one sitting. Mission accomplished, it's working exactly as intended. It's only if you view hacking a horde of zombies to pieces as a goal of your gameplay that the new system becomes a problem. And that's what you still refuse to acknowledge; the system works fine when hacking hordes isn't your goal.

[Moose65]

 

Just because you've not lost a character yet (and the build's only been out for a day or two anyways, so...) doesn't mean that it's broken, though. It just means there's more work yet to be done. I'd love to see (and I'm sure the devs would as well) a video of you surviving a period longer than a week or so so we can see what you're doing and work on improving the difficulty there.

 

Regarding hacking a horde to pieces if you "really want to" that's exactly what they're aiming for: not being able to do it in one sitting. Mission accomplished, it's working exactly as intended. It's only if you view hacking a horde of zombies to pieces as a goal of your gameplay that the new system becomes a problem. And that's what you still refuse to acknowledge; the system works fine when hacking hordes isn't your goal.

 

 

It's not too hard to survive in the current build. Setup your first safehouse, clear a safe area around it. Now as you move towards your area, pull them in slowly (you can still rope a dope on occasion, pulling 1 or 3 from a pack if you do it properly). Continue like this the whole way towards whatever your clearing to. Rest in nearby chairs as needed.

 

If you do pull a bunch, let the fast ones separate from the pack and take them out. If your exhausted, constantly back peddle with charged shots waiting for a 1 shot to eventually grind out the hoard. Check every body for baseball bats and etc.

 

Traits I used

 

Construction worker

Strong

Lucky

Resillent

Clumsy

Hard of Hearing

Brooding

Short-Tempered

Light Drinker

 

I'm well over a week into the game and have already cleared a path into downtown Westpoint. I stopped because I didn't find a sledgehammer and Spade.

 

Until exertion can cause you to be slower than zombies (along with an AI fix to prevent rope a dope so they move as a group), they will never ever be able to kill you unless your EXTREMELY careless. Worst situation I got into was getting stuck in a group of 5 or so after being exerted, but eventually I was able to push them away and only managed to get 1 scratch (Lucky, Construction worker, and resilient are probably to blame for me not dying in that situation).

[CaptKaspar]

 

New update! 30.8:

• Reduced a tad endurance loss when running
• Changed endurance loss when swinging, it's now tied to the damage you do
• Reduced a LOT the endurance used for stab weapon (even more when you do a close kill move)
• You can now use the module in result recipe, like Result=farming.Tomato
• Added canned food: add vegetables (5) inside an empty jar + water + vinegar + sugar, cook it and you'll have a 2-3 months food preservation, Jar Lids will prob be needed in a future update, you can jar those vegetables for now:
  • Tomatoes
  • Bell peppers
  • Red radishes
  • Leeks
  • Eggplants
  • Potatoes
  • Carrots
• Added a "OnCooked" on the items script to call a lua function when.. Well, the item is cooked
• Added logs stacks recipe: 2 logs and 2 ropes to make a logs stack that weight 1/3 less (also with 3 and 4 logs/ropes)
• Added more translations
• Reduced the forage loot rate with the sandbox options

 

 

I can not express how happy I am that the dev team has finally added a way to preserve food in the vanilla version of the game!!    BUT, why can we not preserve all the food that we can grow? Yeah I know jarred strawberries, broccoli, or cabbage would probably taste terrible, but is there a realistic reason why we can't? Its still calories afterall. Will we ever be able to grow leeks, peppers, or eggplants since they can be jarred?

 

I would also love to see this feature expanded to preserving meat and having a longer term solution to the limited resources of vinegar. I have never tried to jar any foods using a pressure cooker as someone mentioned, but that seems like a better solution to me since, as someone else mentioned, eventually all the vinegar will be gone.

 

OR better yet, allow us to make vinegar!! It is actually very very easy to make vinegar from any acidic and alcoholic solution. Basically take some fruit, mash it, strain the juices, cover with a cheese cloth, come back in 6 months and BAM you have vinegar. The juices will ferment through exposure to natural wild yeast (btw we already have yeast in game) and the alcohol will react with the acids in the fruit. Apple cider vinegar is very common. Actually in RL I left a half empty jug of apple cider in my fridge for way too long and it was turned mostly into vinegar without me doing anything. Just throwing it out there.

 

Speaking of apples, will we ever be able to grow apple trees? They are quite common in Kentucky. Most of Kentucky has a great climate for them. Maybe pears as well? Just throw an apple under some soil and nature should take care of the rest. Would take a long long time to get any mature fruit trees, but the effort in cultivating them would be worth it in the long run.

 

Wouldn't mind growing some corn too

 

I haven't had a chance yet to play since 30.6 since I'm on a flipping work trip this past week and I can't wait to get home to play! A more efficient way to carry logs? HORDES?!?!? WHAT?!?! So excited... Xmas is around the corner and I don't care because I'm more excited to play PZ. Yep PZ is more exciting than the holidays for me and I have a loving and supporting family and friends to spend them with. Too bad they won't see me much because I'll be playing PZ. Way to destroy my relationship with my family TIS!

 

*as a final note* There has been some posts that were borderline not 'lovely' in this thread recently. Constructive criticizm is good, trolling is bad. Keep it lovely and constructive! Lets all hold on to our humanity during this zombie apocalypse!

[bpitterl]

9 game days into 30.7 after a several real life months hiatus.  Just managed to raid the hardware store and it was the most satisfying accomplishment I've had playing the game yet. I'm finding the new zombies + exhaustion very challenging (died about 4 times before this run), but in a good way, especially since the tweaks made this morning (exhaustion calculated by damage vs swings). I'm able to get through moderate clumps of zombies, but definitely have to think twice and plan carefully before moving into an area swarming with them. In my opinion, recovering from exhaustion is no big deal (just hit fast forward or sleep 1 hour) and it definitely forces me to strategize more.  A mid-day catnap has become part of my routine. No biggie.

 

Now that I'm starting on fortifications, I'm hoping to actually find zombies knocking at my door one of these nights.  So far its pretty quiet around home....   For me this is the main test. I'm really hoping that fortifications will actually mean something now that these changes are going into effect.

 

Good work devs! 

[Florin]

 

I . . . find i difficult to believe you're advocating for a system that, once you became moderately tired, would remove your ability to move faster than a sneak. 

Not that you couldn't game it by simply sneaking backwards while attacking.

Are you replying to me or someone else? I'm not sure what you're talking about.

 

 

When I say the exertion changes do not add challenge, I mean that I've not yet lost a character in either 30.7 or 30.8 and that the same strategies I used for staying safe and avoiding death still work more or less as they always did. I can still escape any zombie by strolling away from them, and I can still hack a horde of zombies to pieces if I really want to, it just takes a very long time and a lot of resting.

 

Just because you've not lost a character yet (and the build's only been out for a day or two anyways, so...) doesn't mean that it's broken, though. It just means there's more work yet to be done. I'd love to see (and I'm sure the devs would as well) a video of you surviving a period longer than a week or so so we can see what you're doing and work on improving the difficulty there.

 

Regarding hacking a horde to pieces if you "really want to" that's exactly what they're aiming for: not being able to do it in one sitting. Mission accomplished, it's working exactly as intended. It's only if you view hacking a horde of zombies to pieces as a goal of your gameplay that the new system becomes a problem. And that's what you still refuse to acknowledge; the system works fine when hacking hordes isn't your goal.

 

I don't know how to record a gaming video, and my hardware probably can't. As Moose said, though, all you have to do is what people have been doing in PZ for ages - backpedalling, swinging, kiting, etc until you have what you need to survive, then set up a farm on a rooftop and live there until you get bored. Anyone can do this as long as they don't get careless or impatient. I'm not a skilled gamer, I've just been playing PZ for long enough that I know what to do to survive. The main cause of death in PZ is player carelessness. The only difference now is that it takes more time.

 

If the mission was to make it harder to survive then it certainly isn't accomplished by the changes in 30.7. Making it more time consuming for players to hack their way through the game is not the same as making it more challenging for them to hack their way through the game. And that's my complaint. The zombie clumping was a better addition than the exertion change, but it doesn't work properly yet.

[EnigmaGrey]

You seem to have an odd conception of what the old system was, Florin.

In the old system, you could grease the system to the point where exhaustion wasn't even a remote problem by sneaking and walking backwards, while landing your attacks. You got your instant gratification from just abstaining from striking for a second.

If you did anything other than this (swing often, miss attacks, .etc) you'd suffer a severe exhaustion penalty and have your movement severely restricted.

That's all the old system was.

The new system requires you to limit your activity to a dozen or so kills, then retreat and rest, or face penalties.

So, how exacty is it not challenging to have to find a safe place to rest? Of having your attacks be much less powerful when exhausted? And having a cap on the amount of physical activity you can do within a single day?

Maybe the problem is a ton of favorable traits, like Moose has. But I can't replicate your issues with a trait-less character.

[Peemore]

Just want to confirm the seed packet bug, it's happening to me too. They just disappear after being opened.

 

Also I really like the idea I read about different moodles for different levels of exhaustion!

 

And the idea of making your own vinegar sounds great too, but it makes me think there is a need for a new type of book/magazine. In addition to skill books, maybe there can be recipe books around the world that are more focused towards teaching specific crafting options. Things like how to make vinegar, how to make more complex traps, how to make a splint... things that would be really handy to know, but that your average Joe might not know how to do.

 

But as I think about it more this idea is completely unnecessary... skill books already unlock more crafting options, and I know the devs are going to expand on that more in the future. I'd erase this completely useless idea if I hadn't spent the last 5-10 minutes typing it up. Le sigh.

[Moose65]

If the mission was to make it harder to survive then it certainly isn't accomplished by the changes in 30.7. Making it more time consuming for players to hack their way through the game is not the same as making it more challenging for them to hack their way through the game. And that's my complaint. The zombie clumping was a better addition than the exertion change, but it doesn't work properly yet.

 

 

This here. Fix it so that the group moves as more of a unit, and so that I can't pull a few zombies away because 1 or 2 were looking towards me while the other 10 had their backs turned. If ANY zombie is pulled in the group, there is no reason why the rest of the group should not be alerted. It would be natural for it to immediately moan upon sighting prey, thus alerting the others nearby. I think that zombies  should probably also be constantly pulling others to it as it chases prey, creating a VERY bad situation if you don't take care of them since you could accidentally form larger and larger hordes.

[Florin]

You seem to have an odd conception of what the old system was, Florin.

In the old system, you could grease the system to the point where exhaustion wasn't even a remote problem by sneaking and walking backwards, while landing your attacks. You got your instant gratification from just abstaining from striking for a second.

If you did anything other than this (swing often, miss attacks, .etc) you'd suffer a severe exhaustion penalty and have your movement severely restricted.

That's all the old system was.

The new system requires you to limit your activity to a dozen or so kills, then retreat and rest, or face penalties.

So, how exacty is it not challenging to have to find a safe place to rest? Of having your attacks be much less powerful when exhausted? And having a cap on the amount of physical activity you can do within a single day?

Maybe the problem is a ton of favorable traits, like Moose has. But I can't replicate your issues with a trait-less character.

 

Again, I don't understand what you're talking about. "Advocating for a system that, once you became moderately tired, would remove your ability to move faster than a sneak"? I'm not doing anything of the sort. I'm advocating for the old system, where exertion represented short term strain and could be recovered from by avoiding additional physical exertion. Right now it represents the same thing as the tiredness moodle, and when you get winded it's permanent until you spend time staring at the ceiling. I would not argue that characters didn't recover from exertion too quickly or easily in the old version, but this change makes it so that you never recover from it passively. The old system was sound, if in need of tweaking. You should recover passively from being winded. You shouldn't be indefinitely out of breath after exerting yourself until you go off somewhere quiet to meditate.

 

And I don't know what I can tell you about why the change isn't challenging that I haven't already said several times. Walking away from a bunch of zombies, locking yourself in one of the game's many houses and sitting on a chair for a while before returning to the fray is not hard. My current character is a fireman with athletic, strong, short tempered, brooding, light drinker, claustrophobic. I tried a character without athletic initially and rerolled after discovering how rapidly permanent exertion occurred.

[EnigmaGrey]

Again, if you're taking a ton of favorable traits, you're going to get favorable results.

Guess those better be nerfed.