Proposed modification to How Walls/Barricades are damaged by Zombies

[Destructopuppy]

Hey all,

 

My suggestion is with regards to how barricades take damage from zombies. It's become clear to me since I've started playing that Project Zomboid  focuses heavily on realism with some liberties taken for difficulties sake.  Bearing this in mind; the barricade/wall system is something I feel could be tweaked to help players feel like basing up outside almost fully enclosed areas is more viable given sufficient time to fortify.

 

My suggestion is as follows: For each barricade material and impassable player constructed fence/wall a minimum number of zeds should be required to be within range and aggroed in order for the barricade to start being damaged. For example, log walls could require 3-4 and sheet metal barricades 3, heavily boarded up windows (3-4 planks) only 2, etc.

 

The reason for this suggested change is twofold: 

 

Firstly; realism. Anyone who's ever seen a reasonably sized tree trunk knows that you can practically beat on it until the end of time unarmed and you'd never claw your way through, same goes for a metal sheet welded across a window. However, game balance must also clearly be considered so in my view it's much more reasonable to require multiple zeds to be able to provide enough force to pry and lever and scratch their way through a fortified fence, wall or barricade.

 

Secondly; Gameplay. Anyone who's ever built a sizeable base knows how annoying it is to feel like every individual zombie can potentially claw their way through your whole base given sufficient time. This mentality leads to people basing in cheesy locations using terrain indestructible or impassable to zeds and the use of strategies such as the prolific stair destruction+escape rope technique to guarantee that this problem isn't something they have to worry about.

 

Making barricades and player made fortifications more resistant to individual wandering zeds while maintaining their susceptibility to being destroyed by hoard events and large groups would allow larger player constructed bases to feel more secure and worth building without destroying balance.

 

Thanks for reading, feedback appreciated,

 

-Destructopuppy

Edited November 25, 2020 by Destructopuppy

[Primal]

 

I absolutely support it. Proposal for indestructible walls (metal fence (lattice)). A rare chance for a zombie to seep through the bars.

[Geras]

It's been suggested at least 2 times before.

 

The answer was that it would be too resource-consuming for every tile of wall to constantly check for the number of adjacent zombies.

 

Another user then suggested that every type and tier of wall should have a regenerative pool of HP on top of normal HP, and then have it balanced that only X amount of zombies for each wall type and tier, would be able to apply enough damage to the wall to destroy it.

[Destructopuppy]

Quote

The answer was that it would be too resource-consuming for every tile of wall to constantly check for the number of adjacent zombies.

 

How they choose to implement it doesn't really matter, I'm very much not a game designer. The idea you suggested seems like it could work. You could also have the check only performed if a player made structure of the required material(s) in a loaded cell is presently being damaged. I'm sure there are many ways this could be accomplished without tanking performance and I believe it's a problem that needs addressing.

Edited November 27, 2020 by Destructopuppy