Things that thought people might like to see

[Salvag3]

      Before I get started please forgive my spelling and grammar, It has to be my weakest skill. Also I would like to start by saying that you guy have a truly amazing game and I hope my comments don't rub anyone the wrong way.

 

I was wondering why The PC eye site is so poor, it seems like I have to get way to close to zombies before I can see them, It just seems a little bit silly to not be able to see 50 zombies standing in the street 3 or 4 blocks away. Your PC seems to only be able to see and hear about 20-25 feet in front/around them. I mean in this world all the back ground noise is gone, all you would really hear is birds and other natural noises in the day time, and at night it would be all but Silent but for the moans of the 100's of undead running around the city. At night time on a quite street you can hear people 100 feet or more away if the sound has a clear LOS to you and unless its over cast most people can see more than 3 feet at night time. I can understand on a new moon it being that dark, but even with no street lights and no moon star light will allow you to not be walking blind. 

 

I was also wondering about the way the Zombies spawn, it seems just well, for lack of a better word, and im sorry, Broken. In my last game it was 14 days into the world and both the power and water had already failed, So I thought that I would check out that farm way out to the west. I kid you not I got there after 2 days travel midday, cleared the house, made dinner, went to sleep, woke up went out side and on the just off the front porch is 50+ zombies!? I understand that you have to find some way to balance the remote locations to prevent players from just hiding under a rock so to speak but that just seems not right at all.

 

Another example was with the play before that, about 2 months into a sandbox game, I had managed to setup 2 safe houses in the city, I had managed to loot almost 40% of the town proper and stock piles over 160 shotgun rounds and upwards of 180 9mm, So I thought to myself "Well I guess at this point in real life I would take the fight to the zombies" needless to say I killed almost 900 zombies, that town only has 3000 people in it, one would think that would have a effect on how many you run into on the street for a while, I mean sure more are going to come but they would be coming in from the woods around the city drawn in by the gun fire.

 

 

3rd Example the large warehouse on the north end of town that you can get on the roof, I lead a horde of zeds in one end ( after I had Boarded up all the windows ) when I ran out the other end I sealed up that door, and then ran back around the other side and cleared a hole with a shotgun so I could close the door I had them follow me in sealing about 30-40 inside, I thought myself pretty clever. When I came back to check on them the next day the place was empty though none of the windows or doors were broken down. I guess they just despawned. 

 

The other thing with spawning that I noticed was the overly random places you find items when looting, Why does the Pizza place have seeds on the make line ? I find it a little odd to find 9mm rounds in the Kitchen at the burger Joint. When you build a house and make a Object does it have a list of what things might be inside it ? That might prevent some of that sillyness

 

Realism seems to be a core factor in game play, however it seems to be over looked in a lot of key aspects. The Trait system perhaps needs to have a look taken to it. It seems silly to have to have bad skills just to be good at something. Thats not at all how people are, being forced to pick at least two things "that are wrong with you" just to be strong seems a bit silly, Yes lots of people have a weakness or two, but a lot of people don't have it to the point that the trait system suggests, Perhaps starting with 4 - 6 points to spend would make PCs a little more like people. I know that's kinda what the professions are, but they are two different things, one offers skills that you have learned over the years doing what you do, the other is just your natural skills, lots of people are simply strong because they spend 4 hours a the gym every week other than that they are pretty much avg but they don't have any Major flaws,

 

The Weight and Space system seems like it could use some work as well, 160 shotgun shells don't take up most of a book shelf, it also wont take you 5 mins to pick up a Ax and put it in a backpack  Have you every walked any place carrying 3 back packs on ? Your not going to be going into closer quarter combat like that, thats for sure.

 

Moving on to weather, I will not rain every two days in K.Y. never has, never will, but its almost like clock work it seems, 2 day clear sky, then rain. or maybe more often that that even, <-- that's the face of not being able to go outside and play with Zed cause im scared Ill get wet and catch a cold and die..... 

 

Crafting- Man this is where I think the game gets so much fun, and has the most room of all to expand, Its the end of the world mate, no more rules, time to put a blade on that shotgun son, time to make your own armor, no im not talking about plate mail, News paper wrapped around your forearm with tape will stop a bit, Your kids Foot ball helm make for a cheeky headbutt, Or in my case, there's no way Zed could bite though my Synthetic Motorcycle gear, Hell even Classic Leather riding gear would go a long long way, When you have nothing but time on your hands and the will the not be eaten alive, you would be amazed what people come up with, not to hard to sharpen a broom handle into a spear, not very hard to break the handle off a Knife and wedge that in to a broom stick either, then reinforce with with screw, or tape, And back to this rain thing.... its super easy to turn those plastic bags into rain gear, no it wont last forever but when your options are cover your self with a trash bag or catch a cold and die / stay inside and be overrun by Zed, I take the 2 secs to cut 3 holes in a bag and throw it over my head. 

 

Where are the explosives ? This is K.Y... any farming supply store has blasting caps, each one is a 1/4 stick of TNT, If your PC can learn to build a house, Im sure they can figure out how to make a pipe bomb. 

 

  I know this post is long, I know im kinda ranty, im sorry, Please don't think Im bashing on your game, Your game rocks, I have never had more fun playing any other Survival Game, I am not a programmer I have no idea how hard any of my ideas would be to add to the game. I just wanted to try to offer some constructive feed back. 

 

 If anyone reads this and wants to try to mod some of these ideas and make them real I have made lots of table top games, And have used modding tools for other games before, I dont know how effective I would be trying to do this stuff by myself but I know I could be useful in making it happen working with another person/persons Ill keep a eye on this thread and see if anyone has any interest in it. 

 

Keep On Rocking Guys ! 

Salvag3

 

[magnum2016]

Okay first of all i would like to say i am not trying to be mean or anything i am just going to answer your questions

 

 

1: Well you see it balances out the game of course your "player" irl could see from way far away but this is a game and first of all to make it so you can see super far they would have to add a zoom out button with is not realistic at all or they would have to add a scroll button which would allow you to scroll across which would also be unrealistic.

 

2: And well you survived 2 months? Well Maldraugh is near Louisville and Fort Knox where everyone would head to in case of a outbreak, after 2 months infected begin spreading out, keep in mind there is no wall surrounding the county or anything. Also lets say a player just goes on a rampage and kills 3000 zombies then what? The game would be boring! Zombies need to keep on spawning but they spawn on the edges of the maps so don't worry.

 

3: And even though i believe they probably broke through one single window which seems very likely i do not recall them being able to despawn i believe this may of been a glitch or they got out by a window somehow.

 

4: Well keep in mind this is about 1 month after the outbreak possibly more! So who knows who held up inside of that Burger Joint? Also they put the rounds there because ammo is hard to find and a Burger Joint would probably have a gun with some ammo inside of it i know my nearby fast food restaurant has a shotgun in the back?

 

5: Okay this goes back to balancing the game.... If you started out with +6 points then it would be unfair think of it like this my basic set it to take Short Tempered and Light Drinker then i use them to get Strong and i usually take Hypochondriac to get Graceful. But if i had a additional +6 points i could get Agility as well it just makes the game easy, this game is suppose to be HARD not easy. 

 

 

6: Well if you would feel better go to Sandbox mode and put the time to 1 day is 24 hours so then you can pick up a axe in a couple seconds... Because lets say you run into the Burger Joint a horde of infected is outside smashing the windows you have to get the supplies fast and get out the back door if they do it your way then you could get every item it just is not fair and unpratical. The point of having to wait is so you have to leave something behind etc.

 

7: Now Rainfall is completely random but it is different per season for instance it is much more common in spring and fall than in Winter. Also Louisville (right by Maldraugh) gets roughly 44-55 inches of rainfall every year so it is possible. Also rainfall is to balance the game in farming.

 

8: Now this is a common mistake that people forget about this game... IT IS IN BETA meaning that yes more crafting options will be added soon possibly even armors but for now they are a no no because they have more important things to do like release NPC's if you want to do some of the things you listed check out the mods section they have some cool stuff

 

9: Anyone in the world can set up a nice little fence or put planks in the ground not everyone can create pipebombs hell most people dont even have a clue on the first thing to do to make them would be and also holding them safely etc. possibly in a mod or in the future but for now i believe it is a No. Also remember this game is in BETA meaning that things that will be added are not yes added.

 

-Magnum2016

[Salvag3]

I see your point on some of that stuff, the Perk thing seems like a easy fix though, If you spend your 4-6 points then, just like when you take Strong you cant take Stout as well, it seems like you could still make it balanced by just having it not allowing you to stack some of the best ones or raising  the point cost  with out taking a really bad neg one. 

 

 

I guess what I mean is like u start with 4 points and u take Stout, now all the other Pos skills that need +3 or greater points to take now all cost 5 points, So that way you could have a guy that has one good skill. Or 2 or 3 good skills and 3-4 bad ones, or a few minor pos skills.

 

I guess my line of thinking here is that If you have already made it 3 weeks, your prolly not the avg person because 95%+ of the rest of the world is zed .. Surly you have something besides blind luck going for you thats allowed you to live this long.

 

The pipe bomb thing, I agree that most people have no idea how to make home made explosives, just like most people dont have any idea how to build a wall ..... 

 

Using a Blasting Cap however is far from rocket sci. But I mean it seems easy to balance them as well, we can all agree that homemade bombs is about as far away from safe as one can get. Things could always go very very wrong, That one part in Saving Pvt Ryan comes to mind. 

 

As far as the view distance thing, I dont mean like 500+ feet out or anything I just mean to the edge of the the screen, It seems like with normal sight you can really only see about 20 feet out, And that Drops to like 1 foot at night .... that just seems a bit silly. And you already can Scroll if you hold Ctrl and move the mouse way to the edge of the screen you PC is no longer centered you look far out but you can only see landscape, You cant see Zed till hes about in the middleish of the screen while

 

About the looting, That wont really address what im talking about, cause live action speed isnt scaling with the Day cycle time, I mean its silly to Die Picking a bat up off the floor, It take less that 1 sec to pick up something, Like say Putting 150 nails away, should not take me around a hour ( day cycle time ) or a life time when your in combat. Looting some stuff like nails I can understand, I mean it would take a little bit to collect 40 lose nails on a shelf. But I mean what are you doing with them ? Throwing them in your open backpack all willy nilly ? Maybe they just need small boxes to put small items in. I mean I work around it by putting nails in a plastic bag thats inside my main pack but still I seems super micro, Cant you from time to time find a box of shells ? or Cigs in a pack ?

 

I guess my deal with Rain is that I dont care how wet I have gotten in the rain, I have never become encumbered by it, From working outside to hiking to what ever, it would take like 40 + 50 pounds of water to have any effect on a persons movement. At some point you are as wet as you can get and the water is just running off you for 1, I mean go test it out, take a pair of pants, shoes, shirt and socks and a backpack and put them on a scale. then Submerge them in your tub and see how much more they weight, then that weight gets placed over your body almost evenly. You will notice your wet but as long as your not in some way to baggy Thuggy G outfit you shouldn't notice much difference in your movement.

 

As for the Zombie spawn, its not that I dont think more Zeds should show up, but what Im seeing is I walk down a street and its clear, I remember that I left something I needed at the safe house, I turn around and 5-10 secs later on the same street there stands 70 zombies ... They didnt walk there ... if they did I should have heard/seen something. I understand its the game trying to kill me, I dont have a problem with that. I just want it to feel real, If in 24 hours you kill off 900 zombies its going to be a little while before others find there way into your city. The way it feels now seems more like the game is always keeping a certain number of zombies in the city. If you kill one another pops up someplace else, how fast do you think a zed travels over long distances. They travel very slow. Unless they see prey they should just be meandering along it would take quite a while for them to get though the woods that are around the city. It just seems like you should be able to give your self some breathing room If you have the Balls/Skill to kill that many zombies in that short of amount of time. Keep in mind took almost all my ammo to do and it took 2 months to collect it all.  

 

This last question is kinda off topic but do they act any different if you play in the winter ? Are they slower ? Less strong ? cause they dont gen heat ... they should but little zed cubes once its gets below 32. I mean I know they cant just make them be frozen in the winter but the cold should do something to them.

[Suomiboi]

Also remember this game is in BETA meaning that things that will be added are not yes added.

We're not even in beta yet we're in alpha... Beta would suggest that the game is somewhat feature complete which it is certainly not.

 

as for the OP not being mean but have you read these:

Commonly Suggested Suggestions [Read Before Posting]

How To Write A Good Suggestion [Read Before Posting] 

My main point being you compiled quite a lot of info under one topic and rather than suggesting a way to be fixed you concentrated on what is wrong. That mostly results in a way that you are seen as complaining (which I'm not saying you are) rather than suggesting. And also it's very likely your thoughts will get lost in large posts because people mostly like reading coherent articles.

 

Anyways nice to see yet a new "face" on the forums

 

(edited a few typos )

[Salvag3]

 Thx for the Tip Suomiboi, I have never used Forums before, never found a game so cool I wanted to take part in it. I didn't mean for it to be so unfocused. I also didn't mean for it to come out as complaining, This game is amazing the Dev team and Modders have nothing but my respect. Can I delete this post somehow and split it up ? I dont wanna become a spammer by chopping it up and re-posting. 

[Suomiboi]

Been there...still somewhat there... I've never been to any forum before this so I don't know about deleting posts or whatnot, but you won't be a spammer by trying to find the corresponding threads. If something doesn't exist (or can't find it), create a new one. The mods are nice people so your not gonna get banned for creating a topic or two.

[magnum2016]

Well actually survivors that are normal people would still be alive after the initial outbreak not just the hard ass rambo's .

 

And everyone knows how to build a wall maybe not a very good wall but everyone knows how to build one, plus you have the Carpentry Books that would show you exactly how to build them. A book on how to build a pipebomb would be much more difficult.

 

Well then the Eagle Eye Trait would serve no purpose.

 

The pick up times are used to balance the game out my friend if you don't like it go to the scripts and mod it to make it shorter.

 

Cold might do something in the future.

 

And try carrying a shotgun, 100 rounds of shells, a axe and canned food while in the soaking rain it gets hard..

[Salvag3]

Well actually survivors that are normal people would still be alive after the initial outbreak not just the hard ass rambo's .

 

And everyone knows how to build a wall maybe not a very good wall but everyone knows how to build one, plus you have the Carpentry Books that would show you exactly how to build them. A book on how to build a pipebomb would be much more difficult.

 

Well then the Eagle Eye Trait would serve no purpose.

 

The pick up times are used to balance the game out my friend if you don't like it go to the scripts and mod it to make it shorter.

 

Cold might do something in the future.

 

And try carrying a shotgun, 100 rounds of shells, a axe and canned food while in the soaking rain it gets hard..

 

Im not trying to pick a fight here, But I mean the time it takes to pick something up off the ground and be holding it is far less than the time to pick it up and pack it away for travel, but this is kinda beating a dead horse.

 

The Eagle Eye trait could still do a lot, maybe you find 14 9mm rounds not 10 because you notice a few extra hiding under the sock in the dresser, or See spot a baseball bat in some bushes that someone must have dropped. Perhaps you can be looking at the side of a house and see that the window on the left is unlocked but not the one on the right. or your odds of hitting a target at the max range of your handgun is a little bit better. It just seems like you would have to have really poor vision not to notice 50 zombies standing 50 feet in front of you in broad day light.

 

The trait thing I was not really talking about some kind of Rambo at all, Im talking about how things work in the real world, when a species is faced with a event that wipes out a number like 90-95% of its population most of the time there's a reason that 5% didnt die out. Like a few of them are close to a food source the rest are not that has made them resistant to the illness that killed off the others for example. 

 

 And in this aspect the door swings both ways like, perhaps the "coward" is still alive because hes just better at hiding or hes so scared that when the crap hit the fan he was able to stay 100% silent as his wife was torn apart while he cowers in the closet.

 

What we might consider a "bad" trait could very well save your life in the right chain of events. But in all the class time I have learned about how we think evolution works people seem to agree that its something like, That breed that made it though was a little bit faster or a little bit smarter or what have you, Most agree that something made it better suited to survive than its kin that died out. I will agree though that im sure dumb luck has played its role in the past in some cases.

 

As for trying it out, I have my friend i spend a lot of time out doors, Check out what Outward bounds has to offer. That would be my longest time in one stretch. It was a little over 30 days out in the Boundary Waters in MN, our packs were almost 80 pounds fully loaded. Granted they had a Anti Rain rubberized coating to them, but I mean you can get the same effect by putting a plastic bag over the backpack or coating a untreated one with Rubber Cement. Even with out, I walked to School my whole life growing up From 1st grade to 12th and got caught in the rain many a time. I never had my pace slowed by having a wet Backpack even when its was loaded with all my text books.  

[feral_donkey]

Ive done an enormous amount of hiking.  Day trips to months.   Rain's primary risk is cooling you down too much on a cold day or night.    Nothing worse than setting up camp soaked with a cold night coming in.   Better have a change of clothes.   You'll be miserable at best and get hypothermia at worst. A pretty bad worst    It does slow you down a bit in certain terrain but the risk of slips is the primary culprit.   

 

IMO the two primary threats of rain in flat Muldraugh would be a cold rain opening you up to hypothermia and the loss of visibility in heavy rain (and mist/fog).   If they have rain of different intensities later,  they could add a visibility reduction. .

[magnum2016]

Oh i am not trying to pick a fight either friend I am just trying to explain why some of these things cannot be added/will be added soon. Sorry if i sounded like i was trying to pick up a fight.

 

Hmm the finding extra loot would actually be pretty good but the Eagle Eye right now is just what the Devs wish to do i suppose,

 

Oh i didn't mean like Rambo like in guns blazing XD sorry but what i meant was that there would still be everyday survivors still alive and once NPC's are released you will notice that the population is still pretty good probably 80/20 infected rate so yeah.

 

True but this is just weeks after the outbreak so your person was just a lucky guy that must adapt to the awful world around him.

 

And well most people are not like you, clearly you are more of a outdoorsman that can carry the weight but many people could not do that, we are all normal survivors in this game.

[Salvag3]

Oh i am not trying to pick a fight either friend I am just trying to explain why some of these things cannot be added/will be added soon. Sorry if i sounded like i was trying to pick up a fight.

 

Hmm the finding extra loot would actually be pretty good but the Eagle Eye right now is just what the Devs wish to do i suppose,

 

Oh i didn't mean like Rambo like in guns blazing XD sorry but what i meant was that there would still be everyday survivors still alive and once NPC's are released you will notice that the population is still pretty good probably 80/20 infected rate so yeah.

 

True but this is just weeks after the outbreak so your person was just a lucky guy that must adapt to the awful world around him.

 

And well most people are not like you, clearly you are more of a outdoorsman that can carry the weight but many people could not do that, we are all normal survivors in this game.

 

I see what your saying about your guy being "Normal Joe" But I guess my logic here is that I am guessing that your PC lived in town, Im from a Small town in MO where most of people have exp hiking and camping, stuff thats just the norm there. I would guess that a small down in KY would be pretty much the same. The People of the south seem to be even more outdoors that the folks up north. Also in a town that small seems like outdoors stuff would be pretty popular. But I Guess your guy could be some random drifter or something and really have no idea what to do outside. 

 

But your guy dosen't seem Avg at all, He can read two books and pretty much understand how to build a house ... My father was a Civil Eng. It is no easy task to build a house that can stay standing more than a few hours with out knowing what your doing. 

 

As far as being Truly Avg seems like you could fix that by spending the 4-6 points on Additional Starting Equipment vs a stat bonus.  

As far as it being 80/20 thats still 80% man .. that's still a huge number, assuming that the rest of the US is in about the same state that this place is thats 251.2 Million Turned Americans, out of 314 Million or so. Seems pretty clear that most of the Avg people are dead and gone at this point. 

 

 I guess what Im saying is that the Avg people would have either banded together to stay alive, or the ones that are alone like your guy/girl is are somehow better than the avg person.