Crafting Overhaul

[Cerberus2013]

Hello everyone!
So,I've been playing the latest builds for a long time now and everything seems to be going as planned...
My only complaint is...Crafting!
Craftings in PZ is too damn difficult,you find stuff laying around,such as combs,bleach,a spade etc which have absolutely no use as far as I've seen...
My suggestion is...

Make crafting more user friendly...For example..

Adding a Dead Island kind of crafting table or a 7D2D type...Or even better...

Blueprints...As you progress through the game and you keep looting and looting everything,you may come across blueprints such as for Molotov Cocktails,home made explosives and such...Each blueprint has it's own sets of meterials needed and will spawn in realistic locations...For example:
You search a warehouse?You come across a spiked electric bat blueprint,which means the player can now create this weapon,

eg
Nails + Bat + 2 batteries -> Matterial

Hammer -> Tool

Matterials + Tool = Final product!

or 

Home made explosives blueprint

Cooking Pot + Nails + Gasoline + Towel  -> Matterial

Lighter -> Tool

Drop the explosive on the ground and use the ligher to light it...Them BOOM!


(Nailed bats and such should be available immediately as no special materials and thoughts are required,Nails + Bat -> Matterial,Hammer = Tool,combining these 2 requirments gives you a nailed bat,it's common sense!)

And in addition,when you roll the mouse over a bluepring that is in your inventory you can see what it needs,kinda like a reading game mechanic.

So?What does everyone think?

[TinnedEpic]

My question to you is who makes a blueprint prior to the apocalypse for a spiked electric bat? Sorry but the premise of crafting tables, blueprints and extreme weapons is something that I feel is pulled directly from Techland's Dead Island. I can't tell you how many times I got frustrated in that game because of not been able to find a crafting table, I ended up going 'Look! there is a table right there, All I need are some repairs. That box would do, oh come on!'. Thing about a molotov is that it shouldn't require blueprints to make. It's a bottle containing a flammable liquid with a rag in the top. you throw it and on impact it makes a nice little fire patch. Nothing complex about it, I could make one right now IRL if I so wished it's that simple (I'm not going to though, just fyi). Neither should a nailed bat or plank have a blueprint. The idea behind these weapons is they are easier to make straight off, until you are able to find better weapons.

 

I'm all for new weapons, don't get me wrong I look forward to what indie stone has to bring to the table in terms of weapons in the future. But this electrified business is really outputting mainly because i'm pretty sure a zombie isn't gonna really care 2 ways about getting zapped by battery level voltage. Electric Fences holding currents of up to 10,000 volts are a yes from me. Electrified spiked bats containing less than 100 volts not so much.

 

 

In my eyes this takes PZ in a completely different direction to the survival game we know. It's not about the cool fancy weapons, it's about putting off the inevitable death. Sorry if I sound harsh, it's not my intention to discourage. I just get very detailed about my reasoning why I personally do or don't support ideas. I indeed do thing crafting could be a bit more friendly. it's not difficult per say atm it's just very unfleshed and basic. But copying Dead Island I feel is not the answer.

 

Instead I propose this. Reintroduce the crafting tab that was implemented in 2.0. It was a good system, very easy to manage. I could sit just under the vitality heart on the left hand side and when opened it centres the crafting menu in the middle of the screen just bellow your inventory and looting tables. Drag and drop system;

 

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So it doesn't change the list like system that is already in place and multiple items can be stacked in the crafting table to craft multiple items at once.

[VamyreLord]

There is a mod called Crafthelper that pretty summarizes every content that you need to build\craft something. Try it out.

[LeoIvanov]

Since making the game too complicated and not giving people a grasp on what they are supposed to do unless they check out wiki doesn't work out all that great. Take Game Dev Tycoon for example. It does very little to inform you what you are supposed to do, and when you did something wrong, it is unlikely that it'll tell you why it ended up wrong.

 

Games like Project Zomboid should have a system integrated into the game so you don't have to minimize it to find out what to do. It is really good that we have a survival guide now, as most of the things are now covered, but there is still yet to be an explanation of what kind of items you can craft and whatnot.

 

The mods are cool for that reason, but what the game really needs is some sort of achievement for exploration, or in other words, have the game reward you for going from house to house (despite it already being a neccesity because you need stuff from it to survive). We already have "books" implemented, those that are mainly boosting up your skill level. Why not implement "Crafting Books" that allow you to browse through informative and illustrative pages (Similar to Survival Guide) of what recipes you can craft?

 

For example : Cooking books (varied on their levels) can have "recipes" button, and when you open it, you get to see what items you can craft in the game, with explanations and pictures. The bigger the book's level, the more advanced recipes you can access to see. 

 

However, we don't want to restrict people to being able to craft those items only after you found those books. The beauty of being new to the game is that if you are not forced out to wiki to find recipes, you'll be willing to improvise and experiment, when you see the usage of it. E.G - you found a bat, hammer, and nails. You'd naturally want to try and craft a spiked baseball bat. But because you did not find the proper book, you can't do it, so it can get frustrating. Especially when you die, you loose everything, and you'd have to start over.

 

tl;dr

Similar to survival guide, add ability to "browse" skill books to see what recipes you can get from crafting different things. Quality of recipes depends on the level of the skill book.

[Spacerogue]

I agree that crafting needs work but what you suggested would only make it more frustrating. Try out Crafthelper its a great mod !  

 

 

this is just MY opinion but another only thing that needs to change is the 'bag hassle' if my can opener is in one bag and my tincan in another I shouldn't move them to the main inventory box. So much time is wasted in this game micro-managing your inventory its rather a sad thing.  

[VamyreLord]

I agree that crafting needs work but what you suggested would only make it more frustrating. Try out Crafthelper its a great mod !  

 

 

this is just MY opinion but another only thing that needs to change is the 'bag hassle' if my can opener is in one bag and my tincan in another I shouldn't move them to the main inventory box. So much time is wasted in this game micro-managing your inventory its rather a sad thing.  

Yeah, that always get under my skin. For example, you can't reload your gun if the ammo is in your bag, I know it adds to the realism, that you have to unpack it and such. Well, at least it's not a feature that will ruin your game or something.

[Guest]

Game is more focussed on realism, it's more about what a normal person having a normal job could do with a particular skill set, rather than finding blue prints for stuff.

Blue prints just scream bad, also the current system is probably already a second overhaul(?)

[SilverDragon]

for the most part the new system aint too bad when it comes to crafting things like walls/chairs so on but indeed i would like to see the return of the old

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system to a point, it does make things easier when it comes to making say food items/tea/soup so on, but im sure ill be happy with whatever they do with it.

[Realmkeeper]

I like, as a few people have said here, the simplicity of 'blueprints' but not the practicality of them.

 

As has been suggested, having the (food) recipes in something like a cookbook, but not requiring the cookbook to actually make them, makes a lot of sense to me. Also, it would add a (proper) use to the skill books.

Beginners carpentry - full of basic woodwork designs you can try out. Camping and Survival - how to make a campfire, how to pitch a tent, etc etc.

 

So call them blueprints, but they aren't needed to craft the item(s), though they describe what is needed so newbies can figure it out for themselves in-game without the ol' wiki

[TinnedEpic]

for the most part the new system aint too bad when it comes to crafting things like walls/chairs so on but indeed i would like to see the return of the old

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system to a point, it does make things easier when it comes to making say food items/tea/soup so on, but im sure ill be happy with whatever they do with it.

Indeed like I stated, the old crafting system only side on so you can stack items in the new fashion.

[vonVile]

The things that need to be fixed in crafting are these:

 

1. Raise the item limit to make things more than 4. Something around 8 max.

 

2. More flexible recipe code. The current recipe coding structure is very limited.

 

a. Have more than one item be created in a recipe. What I mean by this is if I want to disassemble something to it's basic components I could do it.

 

b. The design can't currently understand number values when it comes to multiple items on one line of recipe code. For example the game can't understand this:

 

Dogfood=3/TinnedSoup=3/TinnedBeans=3,

 

What this line of code should do is if you have 3 of any of one item it'll make the item. Instead PZ only understands the first item needs 3 while the other 2 items you just need only one. So instead I'm forced to write 3 recipes to do the exact same thing.