Any tips on how to make the game more fun?

[Scroba]

So I'd say I'm pretty new to Zomboid (sub 200 hours) and I've run into the same issue I've had with many runs and worlds with different mods and different settings. I feel like theres a huge lack of progression once you get a sledge hammer, some strong weapons and maybe settle into either an off grid location or a decently fortified building. does anyone have any tips to make the game feel like I'm actually working towards something? or something to increase the joy of trying to survive against the zomboids? because clearing zomboids in mass just to freely loot a town gets kind of boring. I really do love this game and I constantly browse the steam workshop to find any interesting mods to make the game more enjoyable for me. I want to love this game more but I feel lost in what to do.

[Gekko]

roleplay and make your own story

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Scroba:

Any tips on how to make the game more fun?
So I'd say I'm pretty new to Zomboid (sub 200 hours) and I've run into the same issue I've had with many runs and worlds with different mods and different settings. I feel like theres a huge lack of progression once you get a sledge hammer, some strong weapons and maybe settle into either an off grid location or a decently fortified building. does anyone have any tips to make the game feel like I'm actually working towards something? or something to increase the joy of trying to survive against the zomboids? because clearing zomboids in mass just to freely loot a town gets kind of boring. I really do love this game and I constantly browse the steam workshop to find any interesting mods to make the game more enjoyable for me. I want to love this game more but I feel lost in what to do.

"Ironman runs"

Restart the world every time you die, so you do not rely on whatever you have achieved before.

Start in different locations, play new maps, deny overpowered mods. Especially the later is a problem.

You may deactivate the actual zombie virus death, to avoid absolutely surprised death by incredible bad luck. But with Ironman and having to lose everything every time, it is the best joy you can get while trying again and again to survive longer and better each time.

And if you need a goal ingame, set milestones such as - every ingame month time to move to another district, maxing out certain skills, and so on.

In multiplayer the fun never stops. Other than that it is what you do best with your experience.

[Made in-Human]

You mostly have to set your own objectives. I have over 300 hours and haven't added any mods yet, but I've got my eye on some that will turn an already difficult surviving experience into a true nightmare. I mean, have you played sprinters?? Regardless of how buffed and prepared my guys can get, none of them survive past 30 days with fast shamblers only, but with sprinters I'm lucky to survive 30 minutes! Now with mods that make them smarter, able to actually VAULT over fences at full speed and even open doors, well, you can imagine how that would amp up the difficulty considerably. But even without all that, there is still plenty of challenges to overcome in the vanilla game, but you mostly set them yourself.

One objective I always have in mind when going out is to be on the look out for skill books and skill VHS tapes. It's the best way to get your character up to speed on skills and whatnot if you lose your current character and you're playing vanilla. I keep a notebook with my character at all times where I've listed the ones I'm still missing, to keep track.

[Ocular]

Make a main base and make a tiny base in every town.

[Beltneck]

If it gets boring, restart and increase the difficulty. Never a dull day with sprinters.

But once you get good with sprinters, the slower ones are super boring. Need to massively increase population to have the least bit of difficulty.

The majority of mods only make the game easier, but a few choice ones do add layers of difficulty. Like radiation zones, dangerous winter temperatures, new ways to get sick; actually needing skill in first aid or you could die of infections, or bleed out because you can't stitch a wound. Stuff like that.

[Boge]

The Wolf Extraction Quest mod is my goal. You need to build up enough to be able to extract.

[Scroba]

Originally posted by Beltneck:

If it gets boring, restart and increase the difficulty. Never a dull day with sprinters.

But once you get good with sprinters, the slower ones are super boring. Need to massively increase population to have the least bit of difficulty.

The majority of mods only make the game easier, but a few choice ones do add layers of difficulty. Like radiation zones, dangerous winter temperatures, new ways to get sick; actually needing skill in first aid or you could die of infections, or bleed out because you can't stitch a wound. Stuff like that.

I usually play with eternal winter on, it makes the game more difficult and I just like snow. I didn't know about radiation zones so I'll check that out and yeah, I always wondered what the point of the first aid skill was. majority of my wounds I just delt with bandages or ripped sheets. I did a little more research into the combat system in general and I'm learning its pretty poorly designed in the severity of injuries and where you get them

[Scroba]

Originally posted by Vlad The Penhaler:

Make a main base and make a tiny base in every town.

that's not a bad idea. I disliked the huge travel distance between everywhere so having at least some tiny safe house in every major location will make it a bit less boring

[Scroba]

Originally posted by Made in-Human:

You mostly have to set your own objectives. I have over 300 hours and haven't added any mods yet, but I've got my eye on some that will turn an already difficult surviving experience into a true nightmare. I mean, have you played sprinters?? Regardless of how buffed and prepared my guys can get, none of them survive past 30 days with fast shamblers only, but with sprinters I'm lucky to survive 30 minutes! Now with mods that make them smarter, able to actually VAULT over fences at full speed and even open doors, well, you can imagine how that would amp up the difficulty considerably. But even without all that, there is still plenty of challenges to overcome in the vanilla game, but you mostly set them yourself.

One objective I always have in mind when going out is to be on the look out for skill books and skill VHS tapes. It's the best way to get your character up to speed on skills and whatnot if you lose your current character and you're playing vanilla. I keep a notebook with my character at all times where I've listed the ones I'm still missing, to keep track.

I tried sprinters and I figured for my own patience it'd be wise to just take it a step at a time and figure out the game without jumping straight into the deep end. I just feel like I'm in this weird middle ground where I don't want to just have a massive difficulty spike to make the game more interesting, but rather what can I do to make it feel like I'm always progressing towards something.

[Scroba]

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Originally posted by Scroba:

Any tips on how to make the game more fun?
So I'd say I'm pretty new to Zomboid (sub 200 hours) and I've run into the same issue I've had with many runs and worlds with different mods and different settings. I feel like theres a huge lack of progression once you get a sledge hammer, some strong weapons and maybe settle into either an off grid location or a decently fortified building. does anyone have any tips to make the game feel like I'm actually working towards something? or something to increase the joy of trying to survive against the zomboids? because clearing zomboids in mass just to freely loot a town gets kind of boring. I really do love this game and I constantly browse the steam workshop to find any interesting mods to make the game more enjoyable for me. I want to love this game more but I feel lost in what to do.

"Ironman runs"

Restart the world every time you die, so you do not rely on whatever you have achieved before.

Start in different locations, play new maps, deny overpowered mods. Especially the later is a problem.

You may deactivate the actual zombie virus death, to avoid absolutely surprised death by incredible bad luck. But with Ironman and having to lose everything every time, it is the best joy you can get while trying again and again to survive longer and better each time.

And if you need a goal ingame, set milestones such as - every ingame month time to move to another district, maxing out certain skills, and so on.

In multiplayer the fun never stops. Other than that it is what you do best with your experience.

I'm definitely gonna try this. I'll try without zombie infection because it is true you can just simply have a run ended because you rolled a 7%. Do you have any recommended settings for the world?

[Kaia]

I would recommend mitigating your issue by delaying your progression through increased levels of difficulty.

. Play apocalypse, increase the population levels in custom sandbox, from 1 / 1 to 1 / 4, then consider 4/4 .
. go insane loot rarity.
. start in muldraugh and westpoint.
. come up with house rules for your run (specific traits, lifestyles, etc.)

[Beltneck]

Originally posted by Scroba:

I always wondered what the point of the first aid skill was. majority of my wounds I just delt with bandages or ripped sheets...

Yeah vanilla First Aid is by far the most useless skill. Being a farmer is more useful, since healing speed is mostly dictated by staying well fed. Lvl 0 first aid, dirty ripped sheets, and being well fed heals faster than lvl 10 first aid, sterile bandages, and being hungry. Only exception is using a splint on a break/fracture, that actually does make it heal the fastest. Infections are just an inconvenience that cause pain, they never become deadly. Don't even need to stitch wounds, any type of bandage stops the health loss.

So I like a mod that makes that more realistic. Force you keep your wounds clean or risk having it go gangrenous. Stitch deep wounds, or bleed out. And have a chance at failing to apply treatments if you've got no skill in first aid.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Scroba:

Originally posted by アンジェル:

"Ironman runs"

Restart the world every time you die, so you do not rely on whatever you have achieved before.

Start in different locations, play new maps, deny overpowered mods. Especially the later is a problem.

You may deactivate the actual zombie virus death, to avoid absolutely surprised death by incredible bad luck. But with Ironman and having to lose everything every time, it is the best joy you can get while trying again and again to survive longer and better each time.

And if you need a goal ingame, set milestones such as - every ingame month time to move to another district, maxing out certain skills, and so on.

In multiplayer the fun never stops. Other than that it is what you do best with your experience.

I'm definitely gonna try this. I'll try without zombie infection because it is true you can just simply have a run ended because you rolled a 7%. Do you have any recommended settings for the world?

With some exceptions, like the mentioned deactivation of zombie virus, I would leave the world vanilla. That allows you to adapt properly over the without relying on "bonus features" you set yourself, like having longer time electricity and such, as those are part of the challenge.

The only item which I consider more or less "safe" tweaking would be the exp multiplicator. As it is a hard factor to begin with, no matter the game, unless someone is using a mod like this one
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2503622437&searchtext=journal
that mod suggestion is for other players who like a different kind of challenge than what I mentioned though. It is also great to alleviate the frustration fellow, less resilient, players can have in your friendlist.

In all my playthrough I prefer the kind of "nomad-life" in the game. Wandering from house to house to loot what I need, and making eventually one base here and there.

When playing multiplayer other kind of challenges can be enjoyed, such as clearing and fortifying a whole town/part of town from zombies. The problem with stationary bases like that is the "what now?/what then?" realisation. The game is about surviving challenges. But if you put yourself in an absolute safe spot with little to no need to struggle, it can be challenging to keep enjoying the fun. And that is why you asked to begin with, how to make the game more interesting after reaching a certain point.

Well, there you have it from my point of view.

Besides, in two hundred hours you surely tried this and that in the world setting. Easy to notice that even the smallest changes can have heavy impact.

For all what matters, one can come up with countless interesting settings. What mattters is you having fun. And if you want trying the zombies to be e.g. sprinters, but active during the day only... why not? Even just trying such a challenge can be fun. Even better if you have someone else to compete with in multiplayer. Who in such setting reaches Westpoint first and so on. PZ is a sandbox, and a great one to do all kind of fun stuff. By the end of the day it is up to you. The game already provides awesome scenarios to enjoy and the workshop is filled with great maps mods to enjoy varieties on top of that.

[Strelok]

Iron man with Antibodies will fit you really good.

Plus sprinters and MLS to make items really really really rare. Disable multi hit. Disable silencers if you're using any mod, try mods that have more vanilla like guns.

The last of us Infected is a really nice mod too.

I'm seeing a lot of people using chat gpt to take actions too.

Game lacks progression, so all you can do is mitigate it

[Jethro]

I always have the same problem. I get bored. Nothing will ever compare to the first few handful of hours, playing with my friends.

Been checking out Vein recently and it’s giving me the itch to try to get back into PZ again. But I know the same thing will just happen again.

It really is a good game with so much to offer under the hood. Mods help bring some fresh life to it for sure. Here’s to hoping b42 sparks so more excitement for me.