Your True & Honest Opinions about B42

[Monjarston]

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.

[galactic]

just my 2 cents, as someone with coming up on 5k hours playing this game (primarily vanilla) Im having fun so far, I have not been able to get too far in depth yet, still just trying to get basic needs met so I can start focusing on other things.

some disclaimers, I pretty much always play sandbox, very high pop, Ive had to dial that back to just high pop, which for me was exciting, I gave myself a some extra trait points so that I could take the build I used to run. and I turned the fatigue system down a bit, I dont want to do away with it entirely but the constant fatigue for me does not match my
play style. and I want to live long enough to play some with all the new changes.

it may be that I will ease off my easy buttons as I get used to the new build but thats
what the sandbox settings are for, so we can play anyway we like and I am all for all the changes it just increases the customizombability of the game.

I actually like the moodle appearance changes, used to be that once you knew and understood what they were then you could understand them, but now its more obvious what each means it just takes a moment to get used to the new look.

anyway just wanted to say Im enjoying it so far and looking forward to all the new challenges and surprises.

[Estellese]

I am loving the update so far.

Muscle strain needs adjusting. It scales mostly off weapon skill and a little off strength. This needs to be flipped. Should be mostly off strength and a little off weapon skill. Like 80/20 would be nice. Or even 70/30.

But overall the strain idea is a great idea to extend the early game, and make zombies challenging again. All the people complaining about it never suggest a good alternative to make zombies challenging and stop players from just bashing down massive hordes on day one. If I wanted to play a game where I kill tons of enemies without any effort, I'd play vampire survivors. They do it better. I am here for a challenging survival setting.


Did not realize they nerfed backpacks. I do not like that.

And keys should go back to being very light. There is no reason for a key to weigh 0.5


Skills are grindy, sure. But this is very good for MP servers. More to do.

And for SP, we have the option to adjust EXP gains to reduce that grind. Maybe they just up the default EXP gains for lower difficulties a little to make it less grindy.

I think it is good they removed the EXP from dismantling random furniture. This is a MP feature, maps look bad after a few players come through and break everything in sight.

But dismantling watches and similar items should still give exp. Removing that exp gain is an issue. If they want to remove it they should at least provide a good alternative to level without it.

[Lexyvil]

Originally posted by 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.

I find it pretty cool to collect all the different ones now in a bookshelf.

[Lexyvil]

I'm absolutely loving the update so far, even the muscle strain mechanic. I wouldn't like it as much if there was no way to improve your muscles, but thankfully Strength and Weapon Skills does mitigate it.

So many cool additions. Really excited for multiplayer.

[Malu]

I like most of the things, but muscle strain is way overtuned for now and nowhere near as realistic as people make it out to be. I think mist people just have never actually swung an axe (or even exercised) in their life and they believe anyone would just fall apart after a dozen swings, when it's just not even remotely true.

[TheBasque]

I am loving the update, and you do get experience for disassembling electronics, it's only when disassembling furniture that you don't receive experience anymore.

[Estellese]

Originally posted by TheBasque:

I am loving the update, and you do get experience for disassembling electronics, it's only when disassembling furniture that you don't receive experience anymore.

That is much better. It will save servers to have people not breaking every furniture piece they see.

My old speed-leveling strategy was making spears but they changed that, so I will need to figure out what a new one will be.

[[Censored]]

i think everything is awesome - im glad its finally here - when this is finished zomboid is gonna blow up again to millions of ppl this time... you guys gotta realize they arent building it specificly for you

[dustbiter]

OP, you don't need to barricade to deal with the chopper event, just got through it in B42. You probably can do without any barricade building in B42 just like B41.

[Zenopus]

Tbh I was not very excited about this update and after playing it for a little while I'm still disappointed. I'm not sure why the developers think making the game more tedious somehow makes the game better. I'm not even against muscle fatigue either, but the way they implemented it and the other systems just make the game more frustrating than anything. Plenty of things that worked fine in B41 were changed for seemingly no other reason than change's sake.

[Malu]

Originally posted by Morbs:

Tbh I was not very excited about this update and after playing it for a little while I'm still disappointed. I'm not sure why the developers think making the game more tedious somehow makes the game better. I'm not even against muscle fatigue either, but the way they implemented it and the other systems just make the game more frustrating than anything. Plenty of things that worked fine in B41 were changed for seemingly no other reason than change's sake.

I agree. They should focus on adding what's missing instead of tampering what already worked.

[jinx20001]

i think its a nice update to the game, i dont think it presents itself as 2 years in the making though, especially considering a lot of the newer features are not finished. They can call it unstable and think that makes it all ok... and, it is... but its still disappointing how much still needs work, looks jank or is outright broken.

I think its a prime example of trying to do way too many things at once... had they put the last 2 years into half of what they did we could be looking at a supremely polished experience for those new features but instead its all a bit of an unfinished mess, massive amount of changes but so many of them are just not quite there, smells like 2 years of working a few hours on a weekend rather than 5 days a week graft.

That might be completely unfair, its hard to say how much work they needed to do for the engine upgrades and stuff we just don't see and overall im feeling positive about the update, i think they did a great job on the lighting, crafting, sound is amazing, i even liked the artwork but understand their position on that. The gunplay has been ok, clearly different but they tried to pre-prepair us for that and did expect it would get some kick back and it has.

muscle soreness and fatigue is absolutely fine honestly, you should indeed get tired and slow when continuously bashing zombies, however the deep onset of fatigue needs to be tweaked in its stock form, perhaps even just being adjusted to happen the next day so if you decide to go crazy killing zombies you can have fun with it but need an alternative strategy the day after to account for the recovery your guy/gal needs.

I look forward to the tweaks they make post massive feedback, they seem a little quiet on everything really, particularly here on steam.

If they see these comments though i wish them well, happy holidays and i hope they keep their heads up and celebrate what is mostly a job well done i feel.

[Zenopus]

Originally posted by Malu:

Originally posted by Morbs:

Tbh I was not very excited about this update and after playing it for a little while I'm still disappointed. I'm not sure why the developers think making the game more tedious somehow makes the game better. I'm not even against muscle fatigue either, but the way they implemented it and the other systems just make the game more frustrating than anything. Plenty of things that worked fine in B41 were changed for seemingly no other reason than change's sake.

I agree. They should focus on adding what's missing instead of tampering what already worked.

What's sad about that is the crafting system got the short end of the stick because the developers decided to focus on stuff that already worked. I remember reading their blog posts about how B42 was gonna be the crafting update but instead they make combat a complete slog.

They keep adding more and more features that nobody asked for which end up creating more problems than they solve. Even ripping clothing takes longer and the changes to XP gain and leveling make it seem like the devs just want their players to have to grind 24/7. I'm just not into those kind of games anymore and if that's the way PZ is going then I'll probably stop playing, which is a shame because it was very fun.

[Estellese]

Originally posted by Morbs:

What's sad about that is the crafting system got the short end of the stick because the developers decided to focus on stuff that already worked. I remember reading their blog posts about how B42 was gonna be the crafting update but instead they make combat a complete slog.

They keep adding more and more features that nobody asked for which end up creating more problems than they solve. Even ripping clothing takes longer and the changes to XP gain and leveling make it seem like the devs just want their players to have to grind 24/7. I'm just not into those kind of games anymore and if that's the way PZ is going then I'll probably stop playing, which is a shame because it was very fun.

Combat did not work in B41 though. It was among the things that didn't work and needed to be changed.

A game with absolutely zero challenge and difficulty will become a boring and tedious slog for average and above average players. It was one of the biggest problems with long-term play in this game.

Once you learned the basics, it stopped being a zombie game and started being just a looting and building game. Like minecraft creative mode, but with bigger limitations. Combat needed to be changed to bring it back to being a zombie game, where zombies actually mattered.

[Zenopus]

Originally posted by Estellese:

Originally posted by Morbs:

What's sad about that is the crafting system got the short end of the stick because the developers decided to focus on stuff that already worked. I remember reading their blog posts about how B42 was gonna be the crafting update but instead they make combat a complete slog.

They keep adding more and more features that nobody asked for which end up creating more problems than they solve. Even ripping clothing takes longer and the changes to XP gain and leveling make it seem like the devs just want their players to have to grind 24/7. I'm just not into those kind of games anymore and if that's the way PZ is going then I'll probably stop playing, which is a shame because it was very fun.

Combat did not work in B41 though. It was among the things that didn't work and needed to be changed.

A game with absolutely zero challenge and difficulty will become a boring and tedious slog for average and above average players. It was one of the biggest problems with long-term play in this game.

Once you learned the basics, it stopped being a zombie game and started being just a looting and building game. Like minecraft creative mode, but with bigger limitations. Combat needed to be changed to bring it back to being a zombie game, where zombies actually mattered.

I agree that it was too easy for people with some amount of experience but the new system just seems to go too far in the other direction. Muscle fatigue is fine as a mechanic, I just wish it was implemented differently (I'm aware it can be changed in sandbox settings but I'd still like to see the default setting changed) and the aiming is something I don't like at all. If they could've fixed the issues of aiming in B41 without making an entirely new system, that would've been great otherwise I wish they had kept it the same.