Your True & Honest Opinions about B42

[I Miss Her]

Project Zomboid is one of my favorite games and I can securely say that I'm addicted to it. I loved playing b41 and when they introduced multiplayer the enjoyment only skyrocketed.
However, with b42, I feel like a lot has changed, some of it is genuinely a skill issue and others are just absurd.

[/h3] Muscle Strain
Muscle Strain is actually a very fascinating fix to the feedback loop of exertion = instant fatigue. It encourages aversion to combat, while still giving you some time to deal with a few stragglers you come upon, still allowing some horde combat tactics to still work early on, such as argoing two or three from the horde and kiting them away so that they wont be heard.

Not only that, on the occasion that you do have to have an extended battle where muscle strain gets too high that you swing to slow, or that you stomp so much that your Combat Stance is compromised, whether you win or lose, it gives you some more time to read up on that skill book you've haven't had the time to read, or to organized your now very tiny inventory.

[/h3] Backpacks
Backpacks have gotten cripplingly small, which I feel is a massive nerf for no reason. I understand that its because the fixed the feedback loop of fighting = high exertion = fatigue. Which essentially made it that you could make it through half the day without having to sleep for 10 hours. That fix has given us way more time to be awake, the player can now go from spawn (7am) to midnight without the fatigue moodle even popping up.

I can only assume that the idea was since we have more time now, we have to make more back and forths between looting and offloading said loot. However, Most bags don't even go over 20 anymore, and those that do are either very rarely found (Hiking Bags & Military Bags) or don't provide a good enough weight reduction (Dufflebags [Which don't break 20 capacity anymore]).

Then there's keys, pens, books, etc.,, they upped the weight to 0.5, the same a roll of duct tape. Our carrying capacity got chopped and ell the things that used to be negligible or at least something that wasn't too heavy suddenly got heavier. What was the point? it would've made sense if they made the mod that allowed you to carry a backpack, a satchel, and a vest a part of base game, but this is overtuned on the weight side.

P.S. Nails weight 0.05 EACH. Each box of nails still carries 100 nails though.
P.S.S Nails in B41 weight 0.01, totaling out to 1kg v. 5kg. This plus our even more limited carrying capacity sucks.

[/h3] Skills
The new skills are definitely interesting, however, I feel just based off of names, a lot of these could be combined into more umbrella skills, such as welding & metalworking, carpentry & carving, literally the entire farming category. (At least animal handling & butchering being one.). My complaint isn't with the naming or the number of skills we have. Its how you gain experience with these skills.

Project Zomboid was already a grindy game in B41, where you had to dismantle 100+ watches just to make Electrician 1 if you didn't read the book. Now, you can't gain experience from dismantling. Making the grind exceedingly worse. With Backpacks, I searched for a reason as to why they'd do the things that they did, and there is some reasoning. However, there's no reason to remove xp gain from dismantling.
Now we have to spend time to cut logs to build log doorways, which look atrocious, to gain 1.3 experience, just to eventually get to lvl 1. The new Durability system absolutely shafts this, because the time we spend cutting logs, the more axes we need to get, which break even quicker now, nevermind finding the logs in the first place, god forbid you get attacked by a singular zomboid so now you're wasting more time.

There will be some elitists that say: Just read the Carp 1 Book. Or, Its a late game skill now.

A) What if I can't find the carpentry 1 book: "Just find a bookstore"
a) What if the bookstore/school is overrun.
B) Why is it a late game skill? We still have to deal with the helicopter event, we can't barricade as efficiently anymore. If you dedicated your time to grinding out Carpentry, in b41, you could craft stairs before the helicopter event, which has honestly led to some of the most memorable defenses I've ever had in this game.

"Just wait it out."
b) What if I don't want to. Why would developers want to take away player agency in such a key moment of a run?

Mind you, this is only for carpentry, it becomes another nightmare skill like Electrician, Tailoring or First Aid.

[/h3] Closing thoughts

I know I've yapped for a while, and the last half of it was complaining, however, B42, for an Unstable release is honestly very fun. The combat, although different, definitely still encapsulates the Zomboid feel of desperately fending off an always chasing group of zombies. The updated/dynamic soundtrack is fun. The lighting is great, love the voice lines, and the main gameplay loop is great. However, a lot of the small things do not only need polishing but a heavy reconsideration.

What are some things that you guys have noticed? I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

♥♥♥♥ fence lungers btw.

[jaelee1111]

You are eligible for getting a master degree from Project Zomboidolgy.

[Etruzki]

I absolutely hate that magazines and books have unique names now, it was so neat and tidy to have them stack together instead of a huge ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of random book names and magazine names in a crate now.

[Bloom]

You see this sort of thing alot in games like this - seven days to die was one of the world's worst and still goes through the developers in a constant war with people that find ways to abuse the systems in place, but over-correct to the point of making things un-fun for the people who weren't. Adjustments are needed, but it's always difficult to find a proper balance on the first attempt.

Yes, smoker needed a nerf - most people were taking it (myself included) because Cigarettes were plentiful and there were no downsides, but like you said, now it's almost worthless to even be included as a negative in the game because the adjustments make it swing /too/ far the other direction for the points it offers.

The combat fatigue is just another example - instead of letting us hang ourselves by getting in over our heads or making a bad call, instead now the game's systems enforce a soft limit on how much you can fight back by forcing pain on you based on... not your fitness or strength but... your skill with a weapon category? It feels weird to have player agency taken away in a situation like this. You're telling me, in a life or death situation, that someone is going to whine about how sore they are instead of trying to push through that for the sake of living another day? Absolutely they're going to get fatigued and their efforts are going to mean less over time, but.. I feel as it is now it feels almost too over-tuned.

The durability and backpack changes feel like more of the same, but... honestly this is just the first few days of B42, I have been following these developers and this game for a long time now - since before it came to steam, in fact. I have faith that things will be addressed or re-balanced properly, and even if not in the default settings, either through a setting entry or modding community will address things.

Absolutely going to love poking at Build 42 to see how these changes play out in the long run, though. Maybe it's just too early for me to appreciate them, yet.

[xAlphaStarOmegax]

I am actually enjoying it pretty well; I am sure that it will take some time to get used to things, but I am glad it came out just in time for Christmas.

[ッ tenklop]

The thing I like about B42 is at least you dont become a invincible killing machine 1 week in with the new muscle strain and zombie heat map.

[maeharaprojekt]

I am enjoying B42 Unstable and I eager to find out what in the game survives this round of being beat upon by all of us sacrifi... Survivors.

[poh_de_arras]

I am trying B42 for some days now and I think the changes will show to be good decisions overtime. Thank you PZ team for make it happen before X-mas!

[ophelfromhell]

I hope they add game pad support soon or at least been able to access the build and craft option with a controller.

[Tony Hawking]

Originally posted by I Miss Her:

Project Zomboid is one of my favorite games and I can securely say that I'm addicted to it. I loved playing b41 and when they introduced multiplayer the enjoyment only skyrocketed.
However, with b42, I feel like a lot has changed, some of it is genuinely a skill issue and others are just absurd.[/h3] Muscle Strain
Muscle Strain is actually a very fascinating fix to the feedback loop of exertion = instant fatigue. It encourages aversion to combat, while still giving you some time to deal with a few stragglers you come upon, still allowing some horde combat tactics to still work early on, such as argoing two or three from the horde and kiting them away so that they wont be heard.

Not only that, on the occasion that you do have to have an extended battle where muscle strain gets too high that you swing to slow, or that you stomp so much that your Combat Stance is compromised, whether you win or lose, it gives you some more time to read up on that skill book you've haven't had the time to read, or to organized your now very tiny inventory.[/h3] Backpacks
Backpacks have gotten cripplingly small, which I feel is a massive nerf for no reason. I understand that its because the fixed the feedback loop of fighting = high exertion = fatigue. Which essentially made it that you could make it through half the day without having to sleep for 10 hours. That fix has given us way more time to be awake, the player can now go from spawn (7am) to midnight without the fatigue moodle even popping up.

I can only assume that the idea was since we have more time now, we have to make more back and forths between looting and offloading said loot. However, Most bags don't even go over 20 anymore, and those that do are either very rarely found (Hiking Bags & Military Bags) or don't provide a good enough weight reduction (Dufflebags [Which don't break 20 capacity anymore]).

Then there's keys, pens, books, etc.,, they upped the weight to 0.5, the same a roll of duct tape. Our carrying capacity got chopped and ell the things that used to be negligible or at least something that wasn't too heavy suddenly got heavier. What was the point? it would've made sense if they made the mod that allowed you to carry a backpack, a satchel, and a vest a part of base game, but this is overtuned on the weight side.

P.S. Nails weight 0.05 EACH. Each box of nails still carries 100 nails though.
P.S.S Nails in B41 weight 0.01, totaling out to 1kg v. 5kg. This plus our even more limited carrying capacity sucks.[/h3] Skills
The new skills are definitely interesting, however, I feel just based off of names, a lot of these could be combined into more umbrella skills, such as welding & metalworking, carpentry & carving, literally the entire farming category. (At least animal handling & butchering being one.). My complaint isn't with the naming or the number of skills we have. Its how you gain experience with these skills.

Project Zomboid was already a grindy game in B41, where you had to dismantle 100+ watches just to make Electrician 1 if you didn't read the book. Now, you can't gain experience from dismantling. Making the grind exceedingly worse. With Backpacks, I searched for a reason as to why they'd do the things that they did, and there is some reasoning. However, there's no reason to remove xp gain from dismantling.
Now we have to spend time to cut logs to build log doorways, which look atrocious, to gain 1.3 experience, just to eventually get to lvl 1. The new Durability system absolutely shafts this, because the time we spend cutting logs, the more axes we need to get, which break even quicker now, nevermind finding the logs in the first place, god forbid you get attacked by a singular zomboid so now you're wasting more time.

There will be some elitists that say: Just read the Carp 1 Book. Or, Its a late game skill now.

A) What if I can't find the carpentry 1 book: "Just find a bookstore"
a) What if the bookstore/school is overrun.
B) Why is it a late game skill? We still have to deal with the helicopter event, we can't barricade as efficiently anymore. If you dedicated your time to grinding out Carpentry, in b41, you could craft stairs before the helicopter event, which has honestly led to some of the most memorable defenses I've ever had in this game.

"Just wait it out."
b) What if I don't want to. Why would developers want to take away player agency in such a key moment of a run?

Mind you, this is only for carpentry, it becomes another nightmare skill like Electrician, Tailoring or First Aid.[/h3] Closing thoughts

I know I've yapped for a while, and the last half of it was complaining, however, B42, for an Unstable release is honestly very fun. The combat, although different, definitely still encapsulates the Zomboid feel of desperately fending off an always chasing group of zombies. The updated/dynamic soundtrack is fun. The lighting is great, love the voice lines, and the main gameplay loop is great. However, a lot of the small things do not only need polishing but a heavy reconsideration.

What are some things that you guys have noticed? I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

♥♥♥♥ fence lungers btw.

Honestly? B42 for me sucks ass, i love new animations,lights,animals and new crafting but literally everything else is just bad, backpacks are nerfed, muscle strains needs a rework and night time before power goes out feels too dark.

[Black Mamba]

Well I've played most versions for 11 years now, and this has been the best one as I've had the most fun and it has been the most challenging. It's also had the most going on in regards to the environment, and felt it's been the most active in regards to strategising what to do each day and what to prioritise. Thus far, I found becoming an alcoholic body-builder has solved all my mental state issues, though it takes some planning to work around the delayed-onset muscle soreness, but, give it a few weeks, I'll be fkn jacked.

[Puppers]

Originally posted by Black Mamba:

Well I've played most versions for 11 years now, and this has been the best one as I've had the most fun and it has been the most challenging. It's also had the most going on in regards to the environment, and felt it's been the most active in regards to strategising what to do each day and what to prioritise. Thus far, I found becoming an alcoholic body-builder has solved all my mental state issues, though it takes some planning to work around the delayed-onset muscle soreness, but, give it a few weeks, I'll be fkn jacked.

Same here been playing since 2014 and this is one of the most best in depth and most immersive updates yet.

Comparing to older builds the world was so much more barren, I absolutely am in love with 12 months later its my favorite game mode ever. I love the atmosphere of all the trash and pillaged places.

The book titles are amazing and give life to the world, at first I was overwhelmed at all the names but quickly got a hang of the different titles and icons and theyre pretty dang funny. Makes it easier to tell if you picked up a magazine and already read it.

Regarding the weight and backpacks i dont think there is anything wrong with backpacks with a container size of 28 that is a lot of space in my eyes. In build 41 I often found myself collecting so much and getting relatively bored in the first week of the game that I was forced to use either a mod to make loot rarer, remove vehicles both vanilla and any mods, and not use any clothing mods because of how much space there was in them. Now I know this isnt for everyone but the biggest problem with project zomboid I feel is that people get stuff way too quickly. Or things are found in the same spots causing people not to venture off into other parts of the map and thats mainly because it hasnt really been worth the effort or risk...but so far from what I have seen first hand while exploring its worth it to actually go out and explore. I have no issues with the weight changes because I found cartons of items and I think the trade off is worth it for that, i ended up removing items from my backpack just to carry a carton to my new house i found. I was proud that I walked with that damn box lol. Even survivor houses are better, you find some really good stuff in some of them, granted its not all the time as I dont think it should be, but it is a nice treat to find something good in them.

As far as most of the skills you can change the xp you get from skills individually just like you can alter the sandbox settings for muscle strain, which I have grown to love muscle strain like Mamba explained. its really not too bad to manage once you are prepared for a fight.

In the end I am sure we will see some tinkering so I wouldnt be too concerned , tis is pretty good at giving us sandbox options or mod creators making mods for those whom whatevers.

[KingOfFriedChicken]

They should give us customized weight in the options, personally I lowered but didn't disable the fighting fatigue system I'm still to fresh in many aspects to be bogged down with fighting also weakening me xD

But the weight I disliked in 41 and they made it worse not better in 42. I hope they revert changes, some things can be weightless even like keys on the Keychain I can suspend my disbelief and have QoL.

If they don't change it I'll gladly mod backpacks and weight systems when modding comes out for both. Handy you can craft a makeshift sheet bag... unhandy my entire starting neighbor hood seems to be void of sheets someone looted em all lol but I found a backpack in the school nearby.

[(Seeking)Eye]

In my case, while i get what they are doing here, and I'm glad the people who love realism and find b42 immersive are happy, for me a number of the things going on made the experience just draining and takes me out of it. some of it to me feels like change for changes sake. every time I check a board for other peoples experiences and they mention individual factors another thing was altered. was so much of the game just seen as that wrong? further I don't even see that much a point in commenting, because nearly all my complaints will be responded to by "wait for patches/mods/use sandbox to change it!". the company and I clearly have different intents, and my playstyle has only further deviated from where they want to take this over time, so thats about all I can hope for. even if I don't care for resorting to it. I started sandboxing because I think respawning zombies is not good.

why did the Gunplay get changed? I ask because sure, those who liked things like the advanced trajectory mod series are likely enjoying the new system on M and K, but I use a gamepad so at the time loaded in it was not functional for gamepads. what do they have in mind for controller gunplay now? I know people had issues with a number of guns in B41 and apparently the new system is kinder to certain guns and harsher on others, but this just seems a bit much to pull out the old system.

oh boy, Muscle strain- so in and of itself, not a terrible idea, but i really don't care for the implementation. I'm not sure it's something the game needs as a default experience when exertion management was already a thing, and as a newbie I was supremely terrible at fighting zombies. a lot of comments positive about strain seem to point to at least some people wanting a fresh challenge... which to me says they are rather experienced at the prior build to the point of boredom, and that's part of why they like this default change. I'm not into it.

Crafting, Animal husbandry, Basements- I like crafting expansion, but I don't care for the xp changes around disassembly and what sounds like a number of recipe changes- no need to fix what wasn't broken kind of a feel. Animal husbandry is something I'd not personally do, but im sure at some point if B42 works better for me a deer will cause me problems somehow. things like basements are great.

Light changes, voices, animation changes- mixed bag. I don't like the voices, lights certainly are more realistic, and I'm someone who doesn't care for the new animations.

Moodles- can you guess my take based on the above?

Thats some of my thoughts. I didn't want them to push out B42's test to early, and wasn't looking forward to it anyway- now im even less enthused. as a cherry on top, performance for me during my attempts was a major downgrade too with constant crashes and lag, so I hope thats just a case of patching needed as the build gets more stable.

[Max Tilt]

Two things regarding your thoughts on the encumbrance system, I dont play a ton so forgive me if this isnt new, but there are a lot of recipes for packing cans of items for encumbrance reductions, and (i play on builder mode so forgive me) finding a van seems to be a higher priority now, but isnt the idea that the modular crafting system will apply to cars as well? Meaning mod out your car for storage, have a garage full of shelving, storage now becomes a more integral part of the gameplay loop? Again, im sorry im not a player that goes all in on hardcore mode these days.

[dawashere]

Overall B42 is a mixed bag. It's a constant battle between Fun and Unfun. I found it boring because the amount of frustrating things, too slow, janky as f, with a lot of changes that weren't needed just for the sake of being something new and a lot of dumb things that makes your character a Darwin Award winner. I see the big potential behind all that, but it killed my hype. I admit I didn't massevely engage with B42 because of that but I think that's the problem. B42 is not as engaging to me than my B41 modded

Combat system : well... Not much to say. Muscle strain is a worst system than the exhaustion one. The zombie animation when you push them over seems to be buggy, with them flipping over more than before. the lunges are still BS with an atrocious hit box, so they didn't fix that. I like the up in difficulty and the fact that they grapple more. It's fine, but nothing special. On apocalypse I had a 100% bite rate, that's a bit annoying since there are a lot of bugs.

Loot / backpack : loot sucks. Blablabla "sandbox settings" blablabla "normal". Don't care. Apocalypse is the 1st experience devs want a new player to have. The loot is lackluster. It wasnerfed for some reason. I understand that some people like to have a hard time finding things, I too had several run in insanely rare. But loot is a psychological trick. It's the promise that your efforts will bring you the stuff not only that you need, but that you dream. I first thought the loot was so bad because devs wanted us to try the new crafting system. But... And with backpack being nerfed....

Crafting system : it sucks too. Too complex for the sake of complexity with too much things needed, plus some very dumb decisions that make me want to see my character die in a horrible way. If my character can't put rice in a pot containing water, he doesn't deserve to live. Combine with the loot that sucks, well... I guess I will care for it when they'll fix it. I understand what they are aiming for, adressing the end game criticism. But if the early and mid game is boring, I won't be there for the endgame. I just don't care for the new xp system, because the all thing doesn't fell engaging for me because it's too tedious. But a lot of people seems to enjoy it.

Graphics, sound design, lightning : W all the way. Good job.

3 Best things about B42 : basements, sound design, map changes

Honorable mention : I pet a sheep. He liked it.

3 worst things about B42 : loot, guns, crafting system too complex and too long to set up than before.