Exhaustion feedback

[Fortport]

Could we possibly make a text popup that happens any time a player swings like… more than ten time in ten seconds? Have it come up like ten times before shutting down.

I kinda agree that if people continually refuse to play the game right when being directly told we can't cater to them. Obviously we want to be as clear and up front as possible; but it's like people who want to play te game by grabbing firearms and shooting up all of the zombies. We can't cater to those people, either.

Again, having your character wind up for attacks fluidly sounds like the solution to me! But text is just as swell, indeed, as well as more cost-efficient.

It's almost like people need a big, theatrical video clip for a tutorial.. illustrating Spiffo doing what should be done, and then what happens when he does what you shouldn't, e.g sprinting nonstop versus taking your time, charging attacks against spamming attack.

'S cute, but the fact you would have to do that for this one little thing is silliness.

[Madigari]

A tutorial mode doesn't need to be anywhere near that level, and I'm actually kind of disliking the derisive attitude I'm seeing towards who are people who paid for the game, same as you. If the game expects a certain style of play from you, as opposed to letting you decide how you want to play the game, then it should help guide you in that direction.

 

Numerous games have in-game interactive tutorials that help ease you into the game. Just to name a few off the top of my head, Kingdom Hearts, Assassin's Creed, the inFamous games, Phoenix Wright games, the console/mobile versions of Terraria, etc. It doesn't have to be a big, theatrical video clip, it can just be pop-up text that guides you through a preset world. Example:

 

"Welcome to the world of Project Zomboid! (Flavor text describing the game goes here.) To start off, you have been placed in this house. The first goal you should have is to find a weapon. Use (Movement keys here) to find the kitchen."

 

Player moves to kitchen, possibly with an indicator next to the cabinet with the weapon in it.

 

"Looking through cabinets and other storage space will help you find useful weapons, food, and other survival tools. To search these spaces, click on the cabinet with the mouse, or select it from the loot menu. When you've found the correct cabinet, take out the rolling pin and equip it by (controls here)."

 

Etc., etc., up to the point where it warns people about sprinting, swinging wildly, etc. 

 

It doesn't need to be a "big, theatrical" ordeal, and it can be extremely helpful in getting people into the PZ mindset, rather than the one that other zombie games have conditioned them to. And, more importantly, it doesn't alienate paying customers by telling them "we're not going to hold your hand."

[Kind-Sir]

I started a new character last night on the 30.7 update, stepped out of my house, got one zombie on me, then 10 more started coming after. It was really nice to see that I survived.

The new exhaustion implementation is nice, almost got killed when I got swarmed by 20 zombies and tried at 'em with a baseball bat!
I think what would add to the exhaustion system is perhaps adrenaline, or some sort of boost when entering combat, where you don't exhaust for a little bit, then BAM you can barely walk.


I wonder if there could be some sort of animation implementation for exhaustion. Perhaps swinging a blunt weapon would be slower, or the character would slouch a little.
 

As a bonus, perhaps bleed the edges of the screen (like in those first person shooty tooty games the kids play) slightly.
Or perhaps have the lighting darken a little if the player is exhausted, noticeable but not detrimental to gameplay.

 

 

EDIT (for not wanting to double post):

A tutorial mode doesn't need to be anywhere near that level, and I'm actually kind of disliking the derisive attitude I'm seeing towards who are people who paid for the game, same as you. If the game expects a certain style of play from you, as opposed to letting you decide how you want to play the game, then it should help guide you in that direction.

 

-snip-

 

It doesn't need to be a "big, theatrical" ordeal, and it can be extremely helpful in getting people into the PZ mindset, rather than the one that other zombie games have conditioned them to. And, more importantly, it doesn't alienate paying customers by telling them "we're not going to hold your hand."

It would be perfect for the "beginner" mode that was added in 30.7

I think maybe just expanding the guide from Spiffo (F1) to have more interaction in the beginner mode (look at Madigari's post, the snipped section from quoted above) would achieve the same goal without being too much in the way of certain players.

Some players may just want to figure things out by themselves (like myself), and simply dismiss the tutorial, but still play on a beginner difficulty (not me).

I use myself as an example, as I delve into every video game on the hardest difficulty and dismiss certain tutorials. It's more exciting to figure out things on your own and have the goal of not dying in mind... that's how I learned it's better to always carry nails when you have sheet rope.

[Jack Bower]

The problem is you can run through a pack of like 100 zombies and be fine, and in that I feel is the essence of the problem, when I run through some of these packs of zombies I should certainly be getting scratched or grabbed or something but I can run through entire buildings full of zombies with no negative consequences and as long as I don't stop moving I'll be fine.

 

If you slow down combat like this we will be forced to kill masses of zombies by other means, when we claim land we don't just surrender it to any zombie horde. We will just start fires and kite the zombies through the camp fires.

 

Please do not make us have to do retarded things like that to kill the zombies, please just make us rest every 24 hours or something or make it so when you are high exertion you can get more easily grappled by zombies or you move slower then zombies when you are weighed down and out of breath.

I believe in a challenge I just think we are looking for it in the wrong place, everyone can think of times they ran past tons of zombies and I think it just makes the game too easy.

 

<EDIT>

Oh yeah, fat people already get owned in the game by being way slower and pretty much are sitting ducks for a petty +4 points, it is pretty much on par with or greater then the weakness trait it should probably be worth 6 now that you can't even swing a weapon anymore because you are fat. (( Sorry baseball players! ))

[Blasted_Taco]

The problem is you can run through a pack of like 100 zombies and be fine, and in that I feel is the essence of the problem, when I run through some of these packs of zombies I should certainly be getting scratched or grabbed or something but I can run through entire buildings full of zombies with no negative consequences and as long as I don't stop moving I'll be fine.

 

Yes this is still kinda of a problem, not so much like earlier builds but the hordes feels "trasparent" cause they cant either grab you, tackle you, try to grab your feet,arm,leg whatever, you can just cheese it though a pack of 5 to 10 zombies standing infront of a door/window or just the middle of the street.

 

This is one big thing that is needed in the "Operation to kill you before end game", it really needs to feel that 10 zombies cluster togheter are a wall of undead that are going to rekt your shit if you try to get pass near it.

 

But with the exahusion feedback, so far is good for me, each day i have to plan with my friend (split-screen) what are we going to do next while we wait for the food.

If we are going to be going on a long trip, we say that we walk a certin distance, kill no zombies at all if possible and when is getting dark run back.

 

Looting downtown feels great cause you dont want to fight the hordes cause you need to be at full stamina to be able to run, and even if you try to fight them off, you are going to be tierd and they will keep coming. 

So the best plan of action so far is run though a horde, close window, take whatever we need, open door and cheese though a pack of zombies back to the safehouse.

[Jack Bower]

Running through hordes is probably the biggest thing that makes this game easy. An athletic character on 2.9 already is a must, now that this is being added the value of that trait is only increasing, now my fat Prince Fielder baseball character will not be physically capable of fighting the zombies despite the fact he will have the strong trait and will crush big macs / baseballs all day.

The real problem comes from what this means for traits and newer players, this will totally impose cookie cutter traits when all I ever really wanted to do was make an overweight character.

 

BTW Athletic is a must in multiplayer because if you run into a hostile raider and don't have athletic he can just run you down and take all your stuff and you literally can't fight it if you are melee and he has a ranged weapon, he can just kite you with a shotgun all day and when you turn to run he'll run you down and loot you.

 

Now everyone will always take athletic because not only is it the only way to live in pvp but now also you need it to swing your weapons.

[FreedomFighter]

The problem is you can run through a pack of like 100 zombies and be fine, and in that I feel is the essence of the problem, when I run through some of these packs of zombies I should certainly be getting scratched or grabbed or something but I can run through entire buildings full of zombies with no negative consequences and as long as I don't stop moving I'll be fine.

 

Could be fix by make the hoard generate the noise depend on how big they are. If you happen to run through a large sum of zeds and they turn into big hoard that tailing you. It should generate massive amount of noise that will alert and attract any nearby zed in vinicity. This will make some of them and maybe, some of small hoard happen to come in front of you. Running by your own doesn't make much noise but when 20 to 30 people start to run together, that might make a ground in small radius shake and generate quite of noise that could be noticable.

[nasKo]

I think the indicator that was used back in the day would do the job in beginner mode for people who swing furiously?

Though, something tells me that can't happen

[Blasted_Taco]

Running through hordes is probably the biggest thing that makes this game easy. An athletic character on 2.9 already is a must, now that this is being added the value of that trait is only increasing, now my fat Prince Fielder baseball character will not be physically capable of fighting the zombies despite the fact he will have the strong trait and will crush big macs / baseballs all day.

The real problem comes from what this means for traits and newer players, this will totally impose cookie cutter traits when all I ever really wanted to do was make an overweight character.

 

BTW Athletic is a must in multiplayer because if you run into a hostile raider and don't have athletic he can just run you down and take all your stuff and you literally can't fight it if you are melee and he has a ranged weapon, he can just kite you with a shotgun all day and when you turn to run he'll run you down and loot you.

 

Now everyone will always take athletic because not only is it the only way to live in pvp but now also you need it to swing your weapons.

 

The most cookie cutter build is the typical: All the moods related traits (No NPCs, no need for these), Light drinker (cause who dosent love to get drunk), Unlucky and Strong and Athletic.

 

That is the build i see the most on multiplayer, i really dont see how to fix this, one game that i really love that does traits right is Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, i kinda hope to see that kind of traits in PZ.

 

 

 

The problem is you can run through a pack of like 100 zombies and be fine, and in that I feel is the essence of the problem, when I run through some of these packs of zombies I should certainly be getting scratched or grabbed or something but I can run through entire buildings full of zombies with no negative consequences and as long as I don't stop moving I'll be fine.

 

Could be fix by make the hoard generate the noise depend on how big they are. If you happen to run through a large sum of zeds and they turn into big hoard that tailing you. It should generate massive amount of noise that will alert and attract any nearby zed in vinicity. This will make some of them and maybe, some of small hoard happen to come in front of you. Running by your own doesn't make much noise but when 20 to 30 people start to run together, that might make a ground in small radius shake and generate quite of noise that could be noticable.

 

 

The real problem is that you can run though hordes, it dosent matter if they send a small hordes infront of you while another big horde is after you, you can run past that small horde cause they wont grab you at all, only if you are walking, but while running, they cant stop you.

 

 

[Jack Bower]

Yeah but it doesn't matter because zombies are not a threat because I can just run through infinite zombies down the highway and literally have no problems with minimal evading, I am surprised people even died to those slow things in the first place.

 

The only real threat atm is getting infected or killed by a player and the only way to actually make them a theat is to make it so you can't just whilly nilly run through 500 of them, they are already incredibly slow and a lot of people say the game is pretty easy.

I think the world is ready for zombies that can use their hands to grab you.

 

*Edit* Also the traits eagle eye and keen hearing can easily compete with Strong and Athletic because when someone is creeping through your base and you know where they are, you have a much easier time gunning them down. Eagle eye helping a lot with spotting people, lucky is a trait I often take also to help me. I am convinced it helps me find items because I seem to find more axes and bullets when I use the lucky trait, you need about 30 bullets to train your accuracy to level 2 and then you are ready to go out into the world and kill just about everyone you see.

[Scyth33]

I believe a better way to balance would be to be a little more lenient with exhaustion yet increase toughness of zombies.

 

One of my most fun playthroughs were with insane tough zombies. This alone meant that I couldn't simply go anywhere and fight my way through it but that I had to carefully choose my fights and retreat when there were too many to fight since taking on more than 5 without splitting them was pretty much a death sentence. It could be seen as tedious sometimes but I had a blast.

 

In my opinion, melee combat as a whole could use a rebalance. A player character without any fighting skills should not be able to take on several zombies at a time. Although exhaustion working as a cap to the player fighting ability is nice I think that either swing time should be increased or mobility should be reduced while swinging.

 

Of course damage could be increased to make every swing more important instead of mindlessly mashing the same button hoping the zed is dead. I think that this alone should mean that people wouldn't be able to consistently take on several zombies simply by running back and hitting. After all there isn't much ground in general pop culture zombie lore for this kind of behavior. For example I've never seen a zombie movie where characters simply run back swing then run back repeteadly to trim a horde.

[Akiruu]

I love the new stamina system, Stamina as a daily commodity makes sense. Infact make it harder   :]

 

On the 8 Months After Preset i was able to kill 10-15 a day pretty easily while Hungry/Very Hungry with a Bat. Plus i was sprinting around like a madman in and out of houses to break zed line of sight. I never got lower than 50% stamina. 

 

I still feel like when we start, we are too super human. I dont want to start as a zombie killing machine, we should be awkward, weak, afraid, and un-learned in the art of Zombie Combat. Even at max level, a survivor shouldnt be 1 shotting zeds with an axe mowing them down like weeds. A Pro-Zombie fighter would fight very efficiently not wasting energy, dodge with agility, and know when to run.

 

 

I think combat should use more stamina per swing but make a weapon skill (like "Efficiency") that moderates how much stamina is used per swing to simulate us becoming more mastered with our weapons. For example, I've never played baseball and have swung a bat like 5x in my life. I would use too much strength in swings or swing with bad form trying to kill a zed in real life. But after say 1 month, i would be much better and kill much more efficiently with better form and power usage.

 

** I dont really know exactly what all the new weapon skills do- so this idea may already be implemented **

[EreWeGo]

Yeah but it doesn't matter because zombies are not a threat because I can just run through infinite zombies down the highway and literally have no problems with minimal evading, I am surprised people even died to those slow things in the first place.

 

The only real threat atm is getting infected or killed by a player and the only way to actually make them a theat is to make it so you can't just whilly nilly run through 500 of them, they are already incredibly slow and a lot of people say the game is pretty easy.

I think the world is ready for zombies that can use their hands to grab you.

 

*Edit* Also the traits eagle eye and keen hearing can easily compete with Strong and Athletic because when someone is creeping through your base and you know where they are, you have a much easier time gunning them down. Eagle eye helping a lot with spotting people, lucky is a trait I often take also to help me. I am convinced it helps me find items because I seem to find more axes and bullets when I use the lucky trait, you need about 30 bullets to train your accuracy to level 2 and then you are ready to go out into the world and kill just about everyone you see.

Although, when not tired, your character can run through large groups of zombies untouched, I'm pretty sure if you did try to run willy nilly through 500 of them you might have a few issues...

 

Having said that, I wouldn't mind seeing the chance of being scratched, or grabbed increased if you run right through a pack, (say, more than 6-8?). You should be able to run around them or out-run them though - fits in with the zombie lore in the standard game. The danger should be in their sheer numbers and mindless determination to feed. I'd like to see them as a constant threat - and punish a player if he decides to go Rambo on a horde

 

As another penalty, if a player runs right through a horde, maybe there could be a chance of them losing equipment, like a bag they're carrying etc?

 

I wonder if it's time to nerf two-handed weapons and make them much less effective if used one-handed? To be honest, I almost always use a bat or axe one-handed in the game, leaving me free to have a bag equipped on my back and another secondary...

[Rathlord]

Running through hordes is probably the biggest thing that makes this game easy. An athletic character on 2.9 already is a must, now that this is being added the value of that trait is only increasing, now my fat Prince Fielder baseball character will not be physically capable of fighting the zombies despite the fact he will have the strong trait and will crush big macs / baseballs all day.

The real problem comes from what this means for traits and newer players, this will totally impose cookie cutter traits when all I ever really wanted to do was make an overweight character.

BTW Athletic is a must in multiplayer because if you run into a hostile raider and don't have athletic he can just run you down and take all your stuff and you literally can't fight it if you are melee and he has a ranged weapon, he can just kite you with a shotgun all day and when you turn to run he'll run you down and loot you.

Now everyone will always take athletic because not only is it the only way to live in pvp but now also you need it to swing your weapons.

So your solution to cookie cutter builds is making traits pointless so that, for instance, fat people aren't penalized for the trait? No thanks, I'll take it as is. Wait for sneaking to get adjusted and you'll be fine.

Yeah but it doesn't matter because zombies are not a threat because I can just run through infinite zombies down the highway and literally have no problems with minimal evading, I am surprised people even died to those slow things in the first place.

The only real threat atm is getting infected or killed by a player and the only way to actually make them a theat is to make it so you can't just whilly nilly run through 500 of them, they are already incredibly slow and a lot of people say the game is pretty easy.

I think the world is ready for zombies that can use their hands to grab you.

*Edit* Also the traits eagle eye and keen hearing can easily compete with Strong and Athletic because when someone is creeping through your base and you know where they are, you have a much easier time gunning them down. Eagle eye helping a lot with spotting people, lucky is a trait I often take also to help me. I am convinced it helps me find items because I seem to find more axes and bullets when I use the lucky trait, you need about 30 bullets to train your accuracy to level 2 and then you are ready to go out into the world and kill just about everyone you see.

Sorry but there's no way you're running through "infinite" zombies with the new patch. Go try it and see what happens- you et exhausted and die, as you should. Happened to me just two days ago.

I think you should make sure you're actually trying this build before criticizing it.

Also you're saying in this post that there's lots of viable traits when you said in your last there weren't. So…?

[ShiiteDog]

I'd just like to add my two cents by saying that I think exhaustion is fine just the way it is, and it'd be quite a shame to have that changed due to ignorant swing spammers. Beginner mode or whatever it ends up being called can just stress the fact that you can't just annihilate hordes and expect to come out unscathed. I really feel that this new focus on difficulty is taking the game in the right direction and the way it was always meant to be played, so please, by all means make it harder.

[MafiaPuppet]

As long as you set the baseline of exhaustion at ~20 zombies, it won't effect the experienced players whether they lose exhaustion killing zombies or swinging. The end effect for them is the same. Just ignore the retards that believe computer games are an elitist sport and do whatever makes the most people happy.

[Madigari]

And now it's getting derogatory on both sides of this debate... 

[Rathlord]

Moderator Warning

Next person to use a derogatory slur about the other side of the debate is getting warning points. Disagreeing is fine, and arguing constructively is too, but the name calling stops now.

[MafiaPuppet]

To be fair, I'm sure my side is full of retards, too.

 

Spank me, daddy.

[Jack Bower]

I wouldn't want traits made useless but I would want them to at least be relatively consistent in value. Like if I spend 4 points on something it should be worth 4 points, not I pick some trait and get like 4 extra things in one, doesn't make sense not to pick the trait. Overall athletic only costs 6 and gives you a whole bunch of bonuses and overweight gives you 4 points while weakness the counter for strong gives you 6 points. Shouldn't overweight the counter to athletic also be six points?

 

I'd love to see more incentive for people to pick some of the more horrible traits, overweight, weakness, ect. Even at 6 points overweight seems like a steep price to pay for the six points.

[NewBornpt]

30 locked framerate... Axe used. I ran for 20 seconds (real life) and chopped half a tree and my guy becomes "Moderate exertion" X)

[Florin]

(those people we simply cannot seem to stop people from swinging their bat around their heads frantically no matter what we do )

'No matter what you do'? The game doesn't even give the player any feedback to let them know they are charging a swing.

[Jack Bower]

But it does provide a point tip that tells you that this is not a game where you spam click, if you spam click you die.

[EreWeGo]

30 locked framerate... Axe used. I ran for 20 seconds (real life) and chopped half a tree and my guy becomes "Moderate exertion" X)

...but, how far did your character run in those 20 seconds? Two blocks, three, more?

 

Pretty sure if I ran two or three blocks, then starting cutting down a tree, I'd have some moderate exertion too....(actually, I'd probably need oxygen and a defibrillator... )

[Madigari]

I don't think anyone questions that someone would get winded in a real life situation like that. The real question that needs to be asked and debated is, "Does it make for good and/or entertaining gameplay?"