I don't understand why people like this game.

[BobOnix]

I get it, i get the draw, i love hardcore games and survival. but lets be real nothing in this game makes sense, nothign is explained properly.

most things make you go, huh, i don't understand why that's a thing.

for instance, how can walking attract a zombie a good 40 yards away?
how is every zombie now super human (in every game) taking 7-8 hits to kill,
Classic zombies are known for being stumbling bags of stupid rotten flesh "zombified" so fighting them should be a cake walk they are dangerous en masse (that's why every zombie film there's thousands/millions of them) so why is it so punishing fighting just a couple zombies.

Serriously go and bash youyr best mate witha frying pan full force and see how quickly he or she is out for the count.

i dread the first 30 mins playing, because i know, its just going to end up in a zombie train because apparently they can hear footsteps on grass from 50 feet.

and its only gotten worse with 41, i enjoy 40 cos i can fight 5-6 zombie sno problem to start but it can snowball out of control but you can get away.

the best moment i had was when i drove into a town with a freind and we triggered every zombie without realising it, the car got bogged down with the sheer amount of zombies, and hat to chop our way out back to back, and then a helicopterflew over us making things worse.

that was a thousand zombies tho, not 2. i cant enjoy this, especially as a solo, its to punishing. and i dont really fancy spending an hour to dumb down the settings.


its a nope from me and im an aficiando of zombie culture. pleaying resident evil onwartds since about 7 years old, this is crapping all over it at the moment.

thats just my opinion, some people are going to simp and protect this game. thast great for you, but i guarentee 95%% of people who played this stopped in the first 10 minutes

[nasKo]

Thanks for taking your time to even formulate this post. Just to have a better idea of where you're coming from, have you switched to build 41 somewhat recently or have you been at it for a while?

I can totally understand that the game or rather the change from build 40 to 41 might not be for you, though. We try to make it as adjustable to personal preference as we can, but there's always room for someone to just not vibe with it at all, and that's perfectly fine.
The game can still be adjusted to a similar combat style as Build 40, where you can take on multiple zombies at the same time. The drag down and multi-hit options are basically the only options you'd really need to touch for this.
For us, the build 40 playstyle was never what we wanted for PZ, though, and the shift back to what we had in mind for the combat with build 41 will no doubt take some adjustment for many who make the switch.
The overwhelming majority of people who did make the switch so far ended up coming around to it and liking 41 a lot more than they ever did 40, but obviously there will be some for whom the change might not be enjoyable. That is what we offer sandbox options for, but ultimately we're quite happy with what we've got at the moment.

For us, the idea that a single person would be able to take on 5-6 undead, no-pain-feeling, relentless but slow enemies didn't fit our idea of what fighting zombies would be like.

[BobOnix]

Originally posted by nasKo:

Thanks for taking your time to even formulate this post. Just to have a better idea of where you're coming from, have you switched to build 41 somewhat recently or have you been at it for a while?

I can totally understand that the game or rather the change from build 40 to 41 might not be for you, though. We try to make it as adjustable to personal preference as we can, but there's always room for someone to just not vibe with it at all, and that's perfectly fine.
The game can still be adjusted to a similar combat style as Build 40, where you can take on multiple zombies at the same time. The drag down and multi-hit options are basically the only options you'd really need to touch for this.
For us, the build 40 playstyle was never what we wanted for PZ, though, and the shift back to what we had in mind for the combat with build 41 will no doubt take some adjustment for many who make the switch.
The overwhelming majority of people who did make the switch so far ended up coming around to it and liking 41 a lot more than they ever did 40, but obviously there will be some for whom the change might not be enjoyable. That is what we offer sandbox options for, but ultimately we're quite happy with what we've got at the moment.

For us, the idea that a single person would be able to take on 5-6 undead, no-pain-feeling, relentless but slow enemies didn't fit our idea of what fighting zombies would be like.

yeh literally changed over today it, mostly because of the sneaky mode, because in 40 early on you couldnt sneak up behind a zombie, which I kinda hope was fixed in 41, In 41 it feels like zombie attraction has been turned up too 12, even off screen zombies fully zoomed out seem to make a B-line straight for me, so sneaking feels pointless.

here's the concept for a zombie.

1. they are the base form of a human stripped of all logic and reason
2. they have diminished vitals, making them slow and prone to injury
3. they operate on the basic of primal instinct
4. they don't actively seek out prey (humans) they are opportunistic.
5. they have diminished senses, rely on close proximity smell and poor sight and sound
6. they are easy to incapacitate but are prone to grouping and are attracted by accumulative sounds of hordes.
7. easily distracted.
8. IN LARGE NUMBERS THEY ARE FORMIDABLE AND SHOULD ALWAYS BE AVOIDED.

in PZ41 you are punished, severely, barely able to overcome 1 Zed, 2 zeds its near impossible 3 is a death sentence, and urban areas are populated such that its too easy to attract Zombies.

the Character movement adds to this problem, its like your moving through malaise, where as 40 was more responsive. I honestly do not know why Devs have this weird Inertia effect to movement especially on pivoting, humans don't move like that naturally so its jarring, in fact being Bi-pedal makes us way better at turning on the spot.

in a fight situation there's no aggression, you have to treat the game like your a coward, sure it shouldn't be a zombie bashing Action movie, but at the same time fighting zombies should be exciting and not frustrating. it should be wise to avoid unnecessary conflict but you should be overtly aggressive almost murderous rage if confronted. i want to grab a zombie by the neck and smack the crap out of him or use him to push into other zombies.

I want to be able to attack them with the same primal survival instinct you'd see naturally.

also weapons should have way more weight to them, if i hit someone with an Iron bar, or a pan, or a baseball bat, they are going down and staying down.

the only thing that this current build is going to do, is bottle neck players into a particular build a set strategy just to get through particular phases of the game, people already abuse Obese and underweight to stack Fast learner and other traits. it stagnants experience.

also lets not spawn in a house, why can i spawn in a down helicopter randomly on the map, or be in a cut-scene of an army convoy being overrun or camp, or aid centre, or a nurse at a hospital.

just let me pick Random, with a randomized start and a premade characters or dev challenge.

look, im extremely new to the game i am in no way an expert or explored it's every nuance. all this stuff could be in the game already and im not looking in the right place.
please dont make spawn in a another useless house living on hopium that there's something useful nearby.

this is literally a first play through or beginner experience perspective so, comments of its meant to be played this way, or its not intended, is not just unhelpful, but completely against what a sandbox game is, and this is a sandbox survival game. make it fresh every time so even the constant failures don't feel like a waste of time, but a hope for a better play-through.

im sure its great and my time playing with my friend was hilarious fun.

[Teirdalin]

Originally posted by BOBO:

I get it, i get the draw, i love hardcore games and survival. but lets be real nothing in this game makes sense, nothign is explained properly.

most things make you go, huh, i don't understand why that's a thing.

for instance, how can walking attract a zombie a good 40 yards away?
how is every zombie now super human (in every game) taking 7-8 hits to kill,
Classic zombies are known for being stumbling bags of stupid rotten flesh "zombified" so fighting them should be a cake walk they are dangerous en masse (that's why every zombie film there's thousands/millions of them) so why is it so punishing fighting just a couple zombies.

Serriously go and bash youyr best mate witha frying pan full force and see how quickly he or she is out for the count.

i dread the first 30 mins playing, because i know, its just going to end up in a zombie train because apparently they can hear footsteps on grass from 50 feet.

and its only gotten worse with 41, i enjoy 40 cos i can fight 5-6 zombie sno problem to start but it can snowball out of control but you can get away.

the best moment i had was when i drove into a town with a freind and we triggered every zombie without realising it, the car got bogged down with the sheer amount of zombies, and hat to chop our way out back to back, and then a helicopterflew over us making things worse.

that was a thousand zombies tho, not 2. i cant enjoy this, especially as a solo, its to punishing. and i dont really fancy spending an hour to dumb down the settings.


its a nope from me and im an aficiando of zombie culture. pleaying resident evil onwartds since about 7 years old, this is crapping all over it at the moment.

thats just my opinion, some people are going to simp and protect this game. thast great for you, but i guarentee 95%% of people who played this stopped in the first 10 minutes

Eh, it's mostly just you got to get your skills up more to really bash effectively, which by default is incredibly slow, also strength helps in that regard. Game by default just sorta assumes main character is a bit of a wimp that can barely hold a spatula, that and default zombies are fresh undeads with are immune to pain and fairly strong due to said lack of pain and standard bodily restrictions, they deteriorate after a while if i remember right but not certain about this, may just be random chance. As for the helicopter event, I think that only happen like once or twice a playthrough but I cannot remember for sure, I do remember cars not being that bad, possibly might have to do with stats of the car though.

[BobOnix]

Originally posted by Teirdalin:

Originally posted by BOBO:

I get it, i get the draw, i love hardcore games and survival. but lets be real nothing in this game makes sense, nothign is explained properly.

most things make you go, huh, i don't understand why that's a thing.

for instance, how can walking attract a zombie a good 40 yards away?
how is every zombie now super human (in every game) taking 7-8 hits to kill,
Classic zombies are known for being stumbling bags of stupid rotten flesh "zombified" so fighting them should be a cake walk they are dangerous en masse (that's why every zombie film there's thousands/millions of them) so why is it so punishing fighting just a couple zombies.

Serriously go and bash youyr best mate witha frying pan full force and see how quickly he or she is out for the count.

i dread the first 30 mins playing, because i know, its just going to end up in a zombie train because apparently they can hear footsteps on grass from 50 feet.

and its only gotten worse with 41, i enjoy 40 cos i can fight 5-6 zombie sno problem to start but it can snowball out of control but you can get away.

the best moment i had was when i drove into a town with a freind and we triggered every zombie without realising it, the car got bogged down with the sheer amount of zombies, and hat to chop our way out back to back, and then a helicopterflew over us making things worse.

that was a thousand zombies tho, not 2. i cant enjoy this, especially as a solo, its to punishing. and i dont really fancy spending an hour to dumb down the settings.


its a nope from me and im an aficiando of zombie culture. pleaying resident evil onwartds since about 7 years old, this is crapping all over it at the moment.

thats just my opinion, some people are going to simp and protect this game. thast great for you, but i guarentee 95%% of people who played this stopped in the first 10 minutes

Eh, it's mostly just you got to get your skills up more to really bash effectively, which by default is incredibly slow, also strength helps in that regard. Game by default just sorta assumes main character is a bit of a wimp that can barely hold a spatula, that and default zombies are fresh undeads with are immune to pain and fairly strong due to said lack of pain and standard bodily restrictions, they deteriorate after a while if i remember right but not certain about this. As for the helicopter event, I think that only happen like once or twice a playthrough but I cannot remember for sure, I do remember cars not being that bad, possibly might have to do with stats of the car though.

the car / helicopter moment, was the Hook for me, that quite easily could have been the best gaming moment i've had this year. that's the thing, i don't mind making mistakes, learning from them, playing better, but playign better seems to consist of avoiding everything, avoid that 1 lone zombie, avoid that house, maybe i can get into this store....nope there's 3 Z's in here, i could waste an hour just wandering around not having fun because its to risky, i should be able to clear out a house methodically and then later on just swing an Axe like a pro zombie slayer.

but 41 feels like, if a want to progress to that in a reasonable timeframe ill ahve to "cheat" the game by dumbing it downa nad boosting gains, and morally as a puristic gamer id hate myself for not experience it the way its menat to be played. then i wouldnt have a the right to moan....why not just go god mode and no clip everywhere, where does the handicapping end?

[geras]

I find the extremely slow turning animation irksome as well. Normal person can turn around very quickly.

I also wish they'd add jogging backwards - hold RMB, go backwards, and press SHIFT to jog backwards.

[Gilga ™ |Yonaguni|]

1.500+ hours and i still like the game.

Originally posted by Teirdalin:

As for the helicopter event, I think that only happen like once or twice a playthrough but I cannot remember for sure, I do remember cars not being that bad, possibly might have to do with stats of the car though.

In the vanilla game, you`ll encounter the helicopter only once, pretty boring, i prefer to see the helicopter often, or at least sometimes.

[BobOnix]

Originally posted by Gilga ™ |Yonaguni|:

1.500+ hours and i still like the game.

Originally posted by Teirdalin:

As for the helicopter event, I think that only happen like once or twice a playthrough but I cannot remember for sure, I do remember cars not being that bad, possibly might have to do with stats of the car though.

In the vanilla game, you`ll encounter the helicopter only once, pretty boring, i prefer to see the helicopter often, or at least sometimes.

:gilga:

1.500hrs that's nice....for you.


I turned the heli event on sometimes in hosted server.

[Gilga ™ |Yonaguni|]

Originally posted by BOBO:

I turned the heli event on sometimes in hosted server.

Sometimes means you`ll encounter the event once in 7-10 days. Not something i would suggest for a new player, because its there to kill the player.

[BobOnix]

Originally posted by Gilga ™ |Yonaguni|:

Originally posted by BOBO:

I turned the heli event on sometimes in hosted server.

Sometimes means you`ll encounter the event once in 7-10 days. Not something i would suggest for a new player, because its there to kill the player.

:gilga:

but its fun...and thats what the game should be, and it doesn't kill the player, at least not in my case, we ran through the woods and escaped. ill make a game dramatically hard if its fun and makes me laugh my ass off. thats what games are about.

which leads to my next point, you've played 1500 hours...do you realise the small percentage of players that is?

if you stacked the bell curve of players your probs in the 2nd percentile. but if the 90 percentile is heavily stacked with players playing less then 2 hours and refunding that could be !00,000's of hours lost to the devs.

Why do you think they update and change the experience? (not always for the best)

it's to mitigate those losses, the first 10 minutes should grip the player, and in my entire item that helicopter moment was amazing!

but if players are met in the first 3 minutes being eaten by 2 zombie's for 30 minutes straight, you can see how that would be a cause for refunds, and if you enjoy the game you want it to be populated by newer players all the time, you'd want it to grow and be worked on, so being 1 person who played 1500's really isn't much of an opinion to heed.

here's another analogy, when planes in WW2 got shot down, the surviving planes, had all there bullet holes marked, not because that was the weak-point's, the wings or fuselage. no it was because those hit indicated where it was ok to be hit and survive. the ones who didn't come back took hits elsewhere, and those where reinforced.

so those players who don't come back are the ones who need the most attention, becuase the company survives if it reinforces where the are loosing players.. and id bet they lose them rather quickly in the beginning.

its great your enjoying the game, ive seen the possibilities, but theres an area for newbies that needs to be worked on, i dont have time to pull up 100's hours of video's and trawl the wiki's...i barely have an hour a day and today that's spent pointing out my frustration, because i care about the direction ive seen from 40 to 41 and how it will affect new players if it goes live.

[Gilga ™ |Yonaguni|]

I have several friends who have more or less the same playtime, its rather common to have 1.000 + hours, if you own and play the game for many years.

I get your frustration, but most people enjoy the game the way it is. Its all about learning the basics, i would suggest you look at some YouTube videos for example, many Streamers are activ playing the game, and new players will learn a lot.

Because this game will punish you for every mistake you make, thats why we have the Sandbox, to adjust the game the way you like it.

[BobOnix]

Originally posted by Gilga ™ |Yonaguni|:

I have several friends who have more or less the same playtime, its rather common to have 1.000 + hours, if you own and play the game for many years.

I get your frustration, but most people enjoy the game the way it is. Its all about learning the basics, i would suggest you look at some YouTube videos for example, many Streamers are activ playing the game, and new players will learn a lot.

Because this game will punish you for every mistake you make, thats why we have the Sandbox, to adjust the game the way you like it.

:gilga:

thats fine, you and 3 of your Friends play games alot. i played wow for 14 years straight, there comes a point where a game can change to much...

its not about you, or your friends or those streamers who make money for fake persona's hyperbole of video games your are no longer making money for the game, if you end up hating the direction the only one loosing is you the companies made their means from you.


its always about the new players, always will be. if they lose them, they are doing something wrong and we shall see.

[Gilga ™ |Yonaguni|]

What ever, i tried to help, have a good day.

https://steamcharts.com/app/108600

[Gotgo]

Was a bit of a read through this thread, but from what I've gathered you're falling into the same thing I kind of fell into when I started. The beginning sucks for new or inexperienced players especially if you're not committed to learning the game. The novelty of being on the run and trying to duck and dodge and survive can wear off fast. Chances are you have no real weapon proficiency or even a real weapon. Your sneaking skills are so damn low you could hardly sneak past a zombie on the other side of the road. You panic when more than 2 zombies are coming after you. You can't hotwire a car. You're thirsty, hungry, and wet. All of which is kind of like what would happen if you get dropped into a zombie apocalypse.

Making it past the first week is a milestone. Closing in on the first month is game changing. The problem is people arnt able to break out of that beginning. They are in this perpetual cycle of new char then die, new char then die, new char than die. They never get to know what it's like to have an experienced character that can kite out half a dozen zombies, easily dispatch then, then go in for the rest of the hoard. They never know what it's like to be able to sneak right past a hoard without so much as a head turn from them. They never know what it's like to rest up in a base without a care in the world. All because they want to brute force it and not look up some hints. I mean brute forcing works since you learn by mistake, but it takes a lot longer.

I would say you have to invest time into this game, but since you already said you only have an hour a day to play them maybe this game isn't for you and it's that simple. For a chunk of people a game like this probably isn't something they even want to invest in if they had the time. For me once I invested time into it that is when it become fun. As I said the beginning sucks.

/edit but that is also why there is sandbox setting and other modes. you can make the beginning not suck until you know what is what.

[Gilga ™ |Yonaguni|]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRiyAlC9mHA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHcD8vL3mT4

[BobOnix]

Originally posted by EnigmaGrey:

Tldr: there’s a few things you need to relearn when going from build 40 to 41 and sandbox is there for you to settle any disagreement with the base game. Please use it.

1. The default apocalypse mode is about stealth. Survival is closer to build 40, with easier to fight zombies.

2. You can just change then to weaker zombies in sandbox. If you’re not willing to do that, then that’s simply on you.

3 . How hard it is to kill a zombie all depends on skill, traits, and condition of your body. The frying pan is already essentially a 1-3 hit crit without any skill, so I don’t get the criticism for it. Try stomping them on the ground after they fall? Maybe you’re missing the head (or doing it bare foot if you are stomping).

4. Personally, I find the idea that zombies have to be rotten bags of mush a non-starter given the way they’re depicted ripping people apart gruesomely in zombie fiction. It’d be pretty boring if that’s what we went with for ours. You can tell many other creators toy with this idea in their stories then reject it once they realise it defangs the setting, such as the walking dead, where it lasted all of one issue. That’s one area where too much realism tends to negatively affect things, whether it’s zombies decay like corpses in real life or require energy to exist.

5. The sound radius for walking is also about the width of the street, not 40 yards. 40 yards would constitute most of the visible area when zoomed out. Your perception of distance may be a bit off if you think it’s that high.

6. You could sneak up on zombies in build 40. The burglar/lightfooted/inconspicuous was very op, as was the sneak skill. Without the skill or the trait, though? Yeah, wasn’t going to happen. They’re more important in build 41, if that’s what you’re going for.

7. You may have confused sound with eye sight. If they’re looking straight at you, they can see you at a range of 15 - 20 tiles, which is close enough I guess? This is different from earlier builds, where there the calc accidentally halved their vision. Pay attention to their direction of facing; they’re not blind.

8. The movement speed is impacted by clothing, moodles, body condition, and skills. This is different from build 40 because movement had no need to match an animation rig. Much faster and not only would the game be a cakewalk, but it’d also look very comical, so after months of tweaking, we’ve landed on this.

9. Overall, just seems like you’ve brought in an awful lot of assumptions as to what’s your ideal zombie game is but they don’t match up with ours fully. It happens; that’s one of the reasons both sandbox and mods exist, so that we don’t feel compelled to satisfy everyone (something that’s impossible to do).

10. New players seem to love the game, even if you perhaps do not like certain things about it. This has been our most popular build since the game was released. Most of the time, the compaints are just old players being unwilling to adapt to the newer build. They usually come around once they’re not directly comparing it to something easier and arcadey, like build 40 was. We’ve got an audience of almost 2 million people at this point, so I don’t get why you’re acting like Gilga is the rare one that likes it.

i numbered your points to rebuttal
1. i found no difference between stealth an Apocalypse when it came to zeds, it seems alot easier for Zeds to grab you and bite you, compared to 40, this may not be helped by the new movement mechanic.

2. im a purist, i don't weaken settings because i trust devs in their infinite wisdom of their own game to make it balanced, doing so would be a cop out, i like the authentic experience.

3. i ignored this, because granted 1 on 1 is fine with a Z but even 2 and deffo 3 its useless to even try and the point i was making is its not fun to avoid ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING, it just becomes a walking Sim

4. Walking dead was never really about zombies, it was initially but it was always about how humans are a bigger threat and the re-establishment of a society, your game doesn't have npc's yet, so its focused on zombies. not a good comparison.

5. ever thought about how grass, gravel, stone, tarmac, dampens sound? is this going to be a thing, i avoided roads alot in-case it made me "louder" i guess its not a thing

6, if i crouch and move slower i should be less conspicuous to a zombie? but a still attract a Z 20 tiles away with there perfect 20/20 vision?

7. this sight is too near perfect for an isometric game if i have to avoid them, but they simply turn cardinal direction catch a glimpse and "hunt" you. i would dial this down, because if you get caught off guard, its difficult to break them off, if you fight them you have to hop no more zombies "see you", and it just become a constant fight, there's no point trying to make ground, cos Z are everywhere. so by

8. im simply not a fan of inertia in games, it makes humans feel like they walking on sludge, it feels less responsive because its tied to animation and that take priority over input.

9. yes, yes i did, based on the greats of zombie horror writers especially Romero who who cemented what makes a good zombie and because assumption are all you have when nothing is explained or done so poorly. by design all a player has is assumptions and as i said i do not have time to read wiki's or watch 1000's of hours of youtube vid's to understand basic mechanics of a game. if they deviate from that, they aren't zombies.

10. 2 million? where are they, youve only just become "popular" recently, Steam charts would say other wise, barely scratching a thousand players for a LOOOOOONG time, so where is it your loosing players? because you are? i wouldnt say a peak of 3k players is millions, you may have sold a whole bunch, but your not exactly mired in success. so yes 1 person who plays 1500 hours is a tiny % of the total. lets not lie here.