Concern about Build 42 and the long-term difficulty for players

[IndustryStandard]

Just to clarify I am mega hyped for build 42 and see it as nothing but a straight improvement at everything it is trying to do. 

 

A concern came up while reading the latest blog post though. What exactly is meant to challenge players late game or in wilderness only runs? 

If we can survive and thrive without any reliance on civilization with build 42 then what real incentive does the player have for endangering themselves in the city come late game or even just after they get comfortably established outside town? Zombies very sparsely will wander out in the wilderness and a handful at most will not pose a threat to the player. What exactly is left once you're in your new medieval society besides going through the motions?

Are NPCs intended to be what corrects this with potential bandits? I'm just a little worried about still having that dull late game popping up even with all the new changes. 

[Hugo Qwerty]

You can already go and live away from all the zombies.

 

The incentive will always be on the player wanting to go killing zombies, not the gaming forcing them to.

[IndustryStandard]

I feel like you misunderstood the post. With the attention on improving the games lackluster mid/late game it seems the difficulty of the game isn't being talked about. 

The incentive to killing zombies in build 41 is that players will basically *have* to interact with the zombies in order to loot or gather materials, you can live out in the wilderness technically but it's extremely dull and boring. If build 42 is going to make that aspect of the game much more interesting and in depth than it might be more attractive of an option vs living in the city.

And with that being the case, the game seems like it will cease to provide any really difficulty or issues for players to overcome. This registers as an issue to me. 

[Jack Bower]

It is for multiplayer when you spawn into maps without loot respawn. Or if you start in a custom map without any loot containers.

It will shine more in multiplayer than single player play.

Plenty of players have essentially /beaten/ the game. If you get your nimble skill high enough - you can move faster than zombies when you hold the cnt key. That trivializes the game much more than this patch.

 

Server I am currently playing on is planning a Medeval Times RP server when it comes out.

Edited May 12, 2023 by Jack Bower

[fcolley3]

20 hours ago, IndustryStandard said:

Just to clarify I am mega hyped for build 42 and see it as nothing but a straight improvement at everything it is trying to do. 

 

A concern came up while reading the latest blog post though. What exactly is meant to challenge players late game or in wilderness only runs? 

If we can survive and thrive without any reliance on civilization with build 42 then what real incentive does the player have for endangering themselves in the city come late game or even just after they get comfortably established outside town? Zombies very sparsely will wander out in the wilderness and a handful at most will not pose a threat to the player. What exactly is left once you're in your new medieval society besides going through the motions?

Are NPCs intended to be what corrects this with potential bandits? I'm just a little worried about still having that dull late game popping up even with all the new changes. 

Take  a trip to Raven Creek...I promise you won't be bored.

[EnigmaGrey]

Maybe a better question is asking why you feel we’d make it easy and convenient just to shrug off modern society.

Regardless, I can’t say I ever felt killing zombies was mandatory in PZ and I feel people assuming that it actually is is the source of many people’s frustration with the game. 

[IndustryStandard]

15 hours ago, EnigmaGrey said:

Maybe a better question is asking why you feel we’d make it easy and convenient just to shrug off modern society.

Regardless, I can’t say I ever felt killing zombies was mandatory in PZ and I feel people assuming that it actually is is the source of many people’s frustration with the game. 

Because the game currently is lacking in mid/late game difficulty and the changes thus far with build 42 while adding a much more interesting mid/late game as far as content is concerned hasn't talked about anything that would seem to address the games inversed difficulty curve. Going by what the blog posts said these upcoming changes will allow players to thrive in a wilderness only map. I don't see how that can be interpreted as anything other than saying you can avoid modern society entirely. 

Zombies are mandatory currently because it'd take a considerable amount of effort on the players part to die from anything else in the current build. If players are able to completely circumvent having to even interact with them by living in the middle of the woods than the game will just become dull in spite of the crafting/professions enhancements. We're playing the self-proclaimed ultimate zombie survival experience afterall and having a major component of the game becoming unnecessary seems to be the antithesis of that. 

I am very confident that a substantial chunk of players can sympathize with that moment in the game when things are secured, and the game just fizzles out and has no more tension. That point where you could technically survive forever from farming, trapping or fishing and never enter a town again. Where the game shifts into testing how long you feel like fast forwarding through 80% of the day until something happens before you just start a new game or play riskier to bring a pulse back into your save. 

I don't think build 42s changes so far really address that in any meaningful way. I still think build 42 is going to be absolutely wonderful and they are definitely going to succeed in mid/late game content but what's really going to drive players to experience that content if food/water/enemies aren't really factors anymore? 

 

Multiplayer especially benefits from this of course but this game isn't just for multiplayer either. Maybe NPCs with bandits and managing the needs of your group (if that will be a thing) can add that necessary spice to keep players engaged. 
 

 

 

 

For context this is coming from a long time player that players on apocalypse with lowered loot settings and no gameplay/content adding mods. 

Edited May 14, 2023 by IndustryStandard

[EnigmaGrey]

Inverse difficulty curve? Doing better the longer you play is the norm in games. Without cheesing the zombie stats or adding special zombies, there’s not much more to be milked from them and that’s antithetical to our vision for the game.

We’re not going to arbitrarily punish people for doing the sensible thing in this type of situation, even if it’s not necessarily the greatest gameplay experience. You can just not go out into the wilderness, if it matters.

 

Animals can be threats and sources of strife by themselves, as well as the desire to explore the crafting system. There’s nothing to address here.

 

This is end game content and fleshing out a barren skill and crafting system. Why would this only benefit MP?

 

I just don’t think there’s necessarily much we can do for people that play the game to death, learn all its intricacies, and exploit them. As you’re a long time player, all I can suggest is trusting that by giving you more to do, there’ll be more to play.

[IndustryStandard]

It's normal to do better at a game the longer you play, it is not normal for a game to get progressively easier the further you progress into it. 

 

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Without cheesing the zombie stats or adding special zombies, there’s not much more to be milked from them and that’s antithetical to our vision for the game.

Zombies also aren't the only way of increasing this games difficulty and the point of making this post was to inquire further into what might get done. Zombies however are currently the only thing that can threaten the player. Not disease, food, thirst or weather though. 

 

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We’re not going to arbitrarily punish people for doing the sensible thing in this type of situation, even if it’s not necessarily the greatest gameplay experience. You can just not go out into the wilderness, if it matters.

 

I didn't say TIS should either. Among the biggest hurdles game designers face is protecting players from themselves, this is generally unavoidable human behavior. I'm not suggesting punishing players in the wilderness for being smart. 

 

 

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Animals can be threats and sources of strife by themselves, as well as the desire to explore the crafting system. There’s nothing to address here.

 

Okay, are they going to be? I don't remember build 42 blog posts mentioning animals attacking players. 

 

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This is end game content and fleshing out a barren skill and crafting system. Why would this only benefit MP?

I didn't say it did, was more in response to Jack Bower. 

 

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I just don’t think there’s necessarily much we can do for people that play the game to death, learn all its intricacies, and exploit them. As you’re a long time player, all I can suggest is trusting that by giving you more to do, there’ll be more to play.

 

I feel like you aren't really understanding my post. I'm not running out of things to do, I'm running out of reasons to care. I don't need to care about food anymore if it's in such massive abundance with minimal upkeep. I don't need to care about water when a few rain barrels or a river provide everything I could ever need. I don't care about medicine because we don't currently have to really worry about getting sick or injured. I don't have to care about zombies if the game isn't incentivizing me to step out of my safe space for any reason, whether that's in the woods or somewhere in town that I keep the population down. 

I'm not asking for special zombies, I'm asking for more ways the game can challenge players more and incentivize them to leave that comfort that is easily attained. NPCs can do this but we are still a ways off. Weather could actually damage crops, kill animals or even damage your home rarely requiring players to actually fix up or deal with potential disasters. Diseases with more variety of specific medicines could knock my character on their ass and force me off schedule and missing out on things. Being in the woods with the only source of light and real noise should, would and could draw zombies my direction. Nutrition can be changed to require more thought into your diet, give players more reason to cook balanced meals or a variety of meals besides shoving 30 ingredients into a frying pan. Give the slightest movement speed variation to zombies so players can't casually walk in a circle to cluster 200 of them. Let zombies bust through any window of a car and attack the players. Make weather/lighting affect zombies so players feel like they should or shouldn't take advantage of certain times of the day or certain weathers. Make it so players can't watch Life and Living and then watch the same VHS version of the show they already saw for extra XP. Make cars that haven't been touched in a month or two require some maintenance before being drivable. Let zombies bust down those unbreakable fences. And more. 

We got plenty of things that can be tinkered with to provide challenge that perfectly fit in line with this games description and goals. 
 

Edited May 14, 2023 by IndustryStandard

[trombonaught]

10 hours ago, IndustryStandard said:

We got plenty of things that can be tinkered with to provide challenge that perfectly fit in line with this games description and goals. 

Sounds like a lot of tinker for a game that hasn't completed it's promised foundational milestones yet. Early Access and all that. Animal threats, raider threats, and the professions overhauls are already going to shake things up a lot (I'd imagine farming and medicine will be impacted by the new possibilities with crafting, both because of the new stations & the rewrite on the recipe system).

 

A lot of what your saying is tweaks on existing systems, but the game's systems aren't done yet. No one knows what the feel or difficulty curve will look like once every promised milestone is in place. Any tweaks before then may need to be retweaked for the final context once the game is finished, making for double work and slowing development overall.

 

But anyways raiders, wild animals, and reworked professions (with new crafting possiblities, likely opening up future reworks for farming, medicine, etc) are already going to be a huge change to the mid game. And, assuming wildlife populations develop over time, and that raider groups become larger and more organized over time, the late game is already going to be dramatically more challenging too. Not to mention the fact that, naturally-emergent raiders aside, there'll be a whole new factional & personal relationship development system to play with from the get-go.

 

So I wouldn't worry about anything yet. This is an insane amount of content for a game that only asked us to open our wallets one time, almost 10 years ago depending when you got on board, and I think it's very clear they know how to steer this ship.

[IndustryStandard]

I believe it's rude when players try to gatekeep when its acceptable to discuss, suggest or criticize a game under the pretense that it isn't done yet. It's extremely impolite and harms discussion. Worst of all it's doing a disservice to developers. 

It's hard not reading that comment as anything but 3 paragraphs of trying to tell me to not talk about the game anymore. 

 

Edited May 15, 2023 by IndustryStandard

[EnigmaGrey]

14 hours ago, IndustryStandard said:

I feel like you aren't really understanding my post. I'm not running out of things to do, I'm running out of reasons to care. I don't need to care about food anymore if it's in such massive abundance with minimal upkeep. I don't need to care about water when a few rain barrels or a river provide everything I could ever need. I don't care about medicine because we don't currently have to really worry about getting sick or injured. I don't have to care about zombies if the game isn't incentivizing me to step out of my safe space for any reason, whether that's in the woods or somewhere in town that I keep the population down. 

I'm not asking for special zombies, I'm asking for more ways the game can challenge players more and incentivize them to leave that comfort that is easily attained. NPCs can do this but we are still a ways off. Weather could actually damage crops, kill animals or even damage your home rarely requiring players to actually fix up or deal with potential disasters. Diseases with more variety of specific medicines could knock my character on their ass and force me off schedule and missing out on things. Being in the woods with the only source of light and real noise should, would and could draw zombies my direction. Nutrition can be changed to require more thought into your diet, give players more reason to cook balanced meals or a variety of meals besides shoving 30 ingredients into a frying pan. Give the slightest movement speed variation to zombies so players can't casually walk in a circle to cluster 200 of them. Let zombies bust through any window of a car and attack the players. Make weather/lighting affect zombies so players feel like they should or shouldn't take advantage of certain times of the day or certain weathers. Make it so players can't watch Life and Living and then watch the same VHS version of the show they already saw for extra XP. Make cars that haven't been touched in a month or two require some maintenance before being drivable. Let zombies bust down those unbreakable fences. And more. 

We got plenty of things that can be tinkered with to provide challenge that perfectly fit in line with this games description and goals. 
 

 

We're doing what you want us to do and you're acting like we're not because you said we're not.

Whole thread is just arguing with your own assumptions here.

[IndustryStandard]

My dude how would I know what TIS is doing and intends to do behind the scenes? I'm just following the Thursdoid posts and iirc none of them have really touched on the games difficulty. That's all this post is lol

Just bring it down a notch please. 

[light]

If development team  is too busy to provide later game goals for some hardcore players  in the short term,

I think we need  official  mission framework so that the community can make some interesting content by itself.

For example, some fan made game missions contain some stories, or escape somewhere to collect some important items.

But I have to say I'm really looking forward to the 4.2 build , crafting and npc system are really awesome.

Edited May 15, 2023 by light
Express ideas more clearly

[IndustryStandard]

This isn't something exclusive to hardcore players, I've bought over half a dozen copies for friends when Build 41 stable hit in December 21. For every single one of them the game lost any semblance of difficulty once they got past the initial learning curve.  Unfortunately, all but 1 of them stayed interested in the game a month later. 

Edited May 15, 2023 by IndustryStandard

[EnigmaGrey]

On 5/15/2023 at 1:30 PM, IndustryStandard said:

My dude how would I know what TIS is doing and intends to do behind the scenes? I'm just following the Thursdoid posts and iirc none of them have really touched on the games difficulty. That's all this post is lol

Just bring it down a notch please. 

Or you could just not ... be overly negative and put up strawmen.

 

It's not going to get us to give you a peak behind the curtain -- quite the opposite, here.

[IndustryStandard]

I genuinely have no idea what your issue is right now but I'm kindly going to ask you stop please. Every time I try to respond to you it feels like you are looking to provoke an argument in response to it, it's extremely unpleasant and I just wanted the post to be on the up and up talking about difficulty in the upcoming build, it's not an angry post demanding the game cater to the hardcore fanbase. The entire time I have this constant fear of getting banned for even interacting with you right now which is the complete opposite vibe that anyone should be giving off when we have a be lovely rule. 

I don't see where a straw man argument was being made; I have not asked for some peak behind the curtain. I don't know where the overly negative accusation is coming from here, I've been pretty openly praising build 42 in nearly every comment on my own post. If you're just not understanding my post or disagree with it, then that's fine we can just leave it be. I feel pretty discouraged from posting on the forums anymore anyways. 

Edited May 17, 2023 by IndustryStandard

[Axiomatic]

OP has a valid concern and point and its driven by love of the game. I also have very similar concerns. I understand that we of course don't know everything in the works behind the scenes, but I have high hopes, given the great and passionate history of development of the game so far, that our concerns are ultimately not warranted. 

 

There is a lot of development time and effort going into systems/art/etc to flesh out late game survival in the wilds which helps makes the game more realistic and opens up options that a lot of people would likely take IRL. While that does have its own difficulties, what we've gleaned from the thursdoid is primarily logistical and time management in nature. The hope is that playing PZ in that style doesn't just turn into stardew valley / riftworld where the core narrative and game play functions of having to survive ZOMBIES doesn't just disappear. There are many ways to deal with this including things like more in-depth migration, events, and antagonistic NPC interactions that reintroduce this core element into gameplay with some regularity. There are other challenges like robust sickness/injury/weather systems that would provide greater difficulty surviving in the wilds also. Bottom line, OP, myself, and certainly other players just hope that all this time/effort by the honestly fantastic dev team at Indie Stone on these systems will help address keeping the mid to late game not only more fleshed out but also just as risky and dangerous as early/mid game but in different ways.

[Modin]

I also love the game and I also am frustrated by its inverse difficulty curve, as you said. It's why I clicked on the thread. I also wonder what plans are there to be excited about for its future, difficulty-wise.

 

And I think that's all the thread is here for? Discussing the possible future, what could be added to balance the game out and keep players excited? What's feasible or not for the devs, and what we can expect for our favorite game in the coming years?

 

The #1 topic on the subreddit is "What do I do now?" - new players are getting frustrated by a lack of incentive to do anything more than survive at all costs, and are drawn to play in a boring and very safe way. As @IndustryStandard said, the job of a game designer is often to stop players from playing the game in an unfun way. The game needs to shake the player out of that, and I believe it's one of the exciting things about Zomboid, right? You're dropped in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, and zombie apocalypses are culturally understood as anything but boring and easy to survive.

 

I think the fun everybody has in Zomboid comes from the idea that you're always in danger, fighting for your life. The ultimate survival experience. It's what makes doing anything in-game cool. You're not just doing it, you're doing it in a hardcore zombie apocalypse where you could lose everything at any moment if you're not very well prepared and careful. The second a player starts realizing how easy it is to survive in the wilderness (or in your little cleared corner of a town), the illusion is shattered and the game loses its flavor - surviving beyond the first couple weeks loses meaning.

 

The dev team right now is working on adding content that's mostly relevant for long-term games, right? See what I mean? Is that content gonna be relevant if the feeling of surviving a hardcore apocalypse ends after a couple of in-game weeks? I think many of us here feel like there's this elephant in the room and it's not being addressed, and we just want reassurances that this will get looked at eventually.

 

I think this thread makes a lot of sense.

[Makestro]

3 hours ago, Modin said:

I also love the game and I also am frustrated by its inverse difficulty curve, as you said. It's why I clicked on the thread. I also wonder what plans are there to be excited about for its future, difficulty-wise.

 

And I think that's all the thread is here for? Discussing the possible future, what could be added to balance the game out and keep players excited? What's feasible or not for the devs, and what we can expect for our favorite game in the coming years?

 

The #1 topic on the subreddit is "What do I do now?" - new players are getting frustrated by a lack of incentive to do anything more than survive at all costs, and are drawn to play in a boring and very safe way. As @IndustryStandard said, the job of a game designer is often to stop players from playing the game in an unfun way. The game needs to shake the player out of that, and I believe it's one of the exciting things about Zomboid, right? You're dropped in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, and zombie apocalypses are culturally understood as anything but boring and easy to survive.

 

I think the fun everybody has in Zomboid comes from the idea that you're always in danger, fighting for your life. The ultimate survival experience. It's what makes doing anything in-game cool. You're not just doing it, you're doing it in a hardcore zombie apocalypse where you could lose everything at any moment if you're not very well prepared and careful. The second a player starts realizing how easy it is to survive in the wilderness (or in your little cleared corner of a town), the illusion is shattered and the game loses its flavor - surviving beyond the first couple weeks loses meaning.

 

The dev team right now is working on adding content that's mostly relevant for long-term games, right? See what I mean? Is that content gonna be relevant if the feeling of surviving a hardcore apocalypse ends after a couple of in-game weeks? I think many of us here feel like there's this elephant in the room and it's not being addressed, and we just want reassurances that this will get looked at eventually.

 

I think this thread makes a lot of sense.

 

You already have the answer to this, build 43. You guys have to look at it from a logical point of view, right now the biggest desire most people have for the end game is for it to be more fleshed out not for more of a challenge, which is why we're getting animals in build 42 instead of NPCs. Mods will have NPCs in the game pretty quick after build 42 comes out anyways which will add the end game difficulty you're all looking for. But it makes no sense for them to focus on end game difficulty when very few people reach end game already and a vast majority of people already think the zeds are hard as is. With these changes in build 42 a lot more people will be hitting end game so the next logical improvements will be to make end game a lot harder by adding in new dangers, because after all this is how you died.

[IndustryStandard]

The biggest desire imo was definitely improving and adding an actual mid/late game but content is only part of that desire, more crafting and professions won't alone carry the experience. We're getting animals before NPCs because the AI for animals is going to be a lot more basic and easier to implement earlier into the game.

 

And it's not as if some exploit fixes and mild adjustments couldn't go a long ways.

[Makestro]

2 hours ago, IndustryStandard said:

The biggest desire imo was definitely improving and adding an actual mid/late game but content is only part of that desire, more crafting and professions won't alone carry the experience. We're getting animals before NPCs because the AI for animals is going to be a lot more basic and easier to implement earlier into the game.

 

And it's not as if some exploit fixes and mild adjustments couldn't go a long ways.

 

Sure I think we all would like to see certain things in the game get reworked and made better, stuff like non-zombie infections, to add those extra layers of challenge to the game that should already be there. Hell, I'd even agree these are things maybe TIS should try to do for build 42 because the difficulty curve is about the take a hit with this update. But Project Zomboid is a Zombie Survival game that has nailed the zombie portion of the game but the survival part is lacking when you look at the late game. If you talk to your average player who plays apocalypse they don't live long enough to justify focusing on the difficulty of the game falling off hard versus more ways for people to reach that end game than "just getting good" or using cheese strats like maxing out nimble. It might be a really hard pill for some of you to swallow but the crafting/survival side of the game is one it's weakest areas. Animals are indeed easier but like I said, modders will have NPCs in the game in probably a month after build 42 comes out.

The real concern should be how much time will be between build 42 and 43, because the hard to swallow pill for TIS is the fact all the concerns shared in this thread about the difficulty curve falling off fast and hard will become a lot more of a common observation once build 42 hits. I know they have big plans for NPCs but if takes over a year to come out like this one it's going to have a more negative impact than the time 42 took since more people will end up "bored" instead of just frustrated they keep dying and take small breaks. I think most of us that feel the end game needs more challenges are also probably combat oriented players, I'm sure plenty of people would have just as much fun as we do bashing zeds but instead just building a fort in the woods and playing project sims. And even when it comes to the time 43 will take I'm not that worried, because like I said modders will have NPCs in the game after the update drops, they will probably be pretty primitive and leave a lot to desire but it'll hold us off while they work on 43 and we get the rimworld update everyone also wants.

However, I do feel the animals could eventually be updated between builds to have some sort of system that after a set amount of time stuff like a big packs of coyotes will wonder through the map, packs of wolves, bears and other deadly animals that could mess up your day. Would be that extra layer of danger since you'd have to for sure start carrying a firearm and leveling that skill to protect yourself after a certain amount of time and a wolf is definitely more dangerous than a shambling zed so it would add that new challenge. Think something like this would be a logical mini update for them if it's not already planned as a feature. Think of it like the random encounters in rimworld, except you won't get 50 mad squirrels trying to destroy your colony(or maybe you will).

 

EDIT: I just want to clarify for TIS people who end up reading this, what I mean by if build 43 takes as long as 42 it'll have a more negative impact is anecdotally I've observed all my friends will play games they don't really like but are fun to play with friends. But there is one game most of my friends will ever play with me again, and that is minecraft. It's because at some point while playing minecraft the survival/rpg aspects of the game vanish and it becomes a creative game even in survival mode which leads to my friends getting bored and never wanting to play again. Something to be aware of, is if people reach end game and get bored enough they'll feel that's all the game has to offer and be done with it forever. No amount of minecraft updates or anything even remotely spark an interest in most my friends I game with because they know once they reach end game their play style falls off and they have nothing to do. No amount of me telling them to try to make something cool solves it, they just log out and never play again. Even if mojang added some crazy end game systems that catered to explorers and combat oriented people I highly doubt any of them would pick it back up with me again. So don't just write off these suggestions, because this is going to become a more common topic after the update drops since it's the next logical problem that needs solved.

Edited May 18, 2023 by Makestro

[puppers]

What is easy for some can be difficult for others.  One of the best features of pz is the customization, where there is not an option in the sandbox settings there is often a mod. More meta events would be cool. Looking forward to build 42 to see how everything comes together to get an idea how this will turn out and make a better conclusion, like npc raiders(if a feature) sound scary.

[Opaquejaguar286]

I'm not trying to be dismissive but the difficulty drop feels largely self-inflicted to me. By this I mean it's a choice to avoid leaving the proverbial cave once self-sustainability is reached. The player can instead go out and explore the world, in all it's apocalyptic wonder. Round up a big horde and stick a fork in em for no particular reason. Setup secondary bases just because. Go find more stuff you don't need because you want it. Whatever floats your boat....

 

I think it's a clear design goal to offer more experiences beyond a constant barrage of neverending threats to stave off premature death. Perhaps some players are content to sit around marveling at their conquest of the apocalypse. Maybe some want to focus on the building aspects. Clearly some want a hardcore experience. Some, like me, change depending on the mood. One minute I'll sit there adding another level to a structure just because. The next I'll take a trip to a storage lot inhabited by definitely not herbivores during a hurricane, sledgehammer in tow, while nursing a broken leg for the hell of it.

 

I bring it up because if the game were to force the issue here it would have to involve unavoidable threats, given the reason difficulty can drop off. Go too far that way and players seeking a less hardcore experience could easily lose access to it. I'm not sure this is necessarily a good idea.

 

None of this is to say tweaks or additional threats is blasphemy either. Both could have value. Throwing around ideas and discussing it certainly isn't harmful. I just think it's important to account for all the potential playstyles and experiences one can get from PZ when considering such changes.

[getstoopid]

Yes sure you can challenge yourself and risk your life without any need just for the thrill of it - but in parts I agree with the OP and some other posts. We risk our accomplished safety not because it's necessary but only because the alternative is to start a new game and that feels somewhat lacking and for some players this is simply not enough. 

The problem is in its current state the game does not provide enough threat-variety to make random dangerous situations plausible enough. There are ideas though like hordes appearing somewhere at the edge and crossing the map, harder helicopter events (military for example) later in the game or exploding factories and such. I hope we'll see some of them in the future. 

I also think there should never be a time where you can just lean back and relax. That's just not the way of the game - the game is about how you died (and it does not suggest "of old age" *g) and this should stay true even after a year in the apocalypse, maybe even more so!