B42 - One simple trick to fix it. You wont believe how it easy it is with....

[skinnywattie]

TLDR - Its all about the settings.

No apologies for the clickbait type heading. It just felt right to cut though all the rage posts about B42.

Im shocked at the amount of angry posts about the B42. One guy posted that there is no Veteran character and lots of folks talked about that. I dont post much, but that was enough to cause me to write.

Yes, there is a veteran. All the OP had to do, was to look at the game. It takes less time to check the game than to write a post.

Its really weird. I dont understand why folks are like that. Apologies if it seems a bit personal.

Almost everything about B42 is in the settings. But do people look at that all?

Here is a list of rage complaints I've seen people post about and how to fix them

Zombie numbers ---> its in the settings
Loot numbers ---> its in the settings
Muscle strain ---> its in the settings
Panic ---> its in the settings
gun noise ---> its in the settings
Character types ---> its in the settings
targettings skills ---> its in the settings
Thirst rates ---> its in the settings
game play style ---> its in the settings


On gameplay style, people forget that this is supposed to be a horror game, in the style of classic zombie films, and modern tales like The Crazies and 28 Days Later. Thats what the default settings are all about. You are supposed to be sh*t scared and rubbish. This is how you died.

It was never meant to be an action game, like a Rambo vs The Undead.

If thats your type of game style, cool!

But thats in the settings too. Even down to how weak the zombies are so you can mow them down and how strong you are, you can even tweak the amount of trait numbers to play with if you want to be a megabuff chad. All cool and lots of fun too.


I'd say about 85% of the complaints about b42 are down to the settings, which seems to show how little people pay attention to these.

Most of the settings are set to *default now. They arent set to *normal and there is a big difference between the two. Default loot spawning is different to normal loot spawning.

My thoughts are that the default setting is to minimise a lot of activity in the game (ie loot spawning) while it is in unstable mode. Everyone has been told by the devs that this is the unstable mode, but I guess folks got too excited to look at what that means.
Anyhooo
TLDR Its all about the settings.
Settings are your friend.

[🐱‍💻]

You can turn PZ into the sims with the settings. When a new feature is added that isn't fun/sucks or is implemented poorly the "fix" is not to just disable the feature in the settings. I don't think most new players are going in and tweaking a hundred variables in custom sandbox, and are probably playing a difficulty setting or scenario. Difficulty settings and scenarios give us an insight into how the game should be balanced in the dev's eyes. If their balance feels too tedious or sucks the fun out of gameplay, I'm sure they'd want that feedback.

[Mister]

Exactly, I'm pretty sure that most players go to Apocalypse and not Sandbox. You only go to Sandbox because the Apocalypse settings are dumb...
In B41, even on extremely rare settings, you could find tons of guns. Now, you can't find books on rare.

[skinnywattie]

yeah, I think you are right.
Looking at posts, it seems a lot of folks think Apocalypse is the standard setting and the way to play the game. Other folks (like me) think Sandbox is the standard setting and the way to play the game.

Im not sure who is right, but i think the Apocalypse folk are the ones complaining the most.
Ive always though the Apocalypse settings were silly.

[Mister]

And at the same time, we all started on Apocalypse because we thought it was the way the developers wanted the game to be played...
And like I said, when you find more guns and ammo than food, you start questioning those settings. It's because Apocalypse is so dumb and unbalanced that we all play on Sandbox now.

But that doesn't mean the developers have to keep sending random and dumb settings all over the place either; it's not an excuse, we are just fixing a broken experience.

[lavurnums]

project zomboid is absolutely one of those games where you're meant to customize the difficulty to your liking, i think it would make more sense to remove the difficulty selection screen and have it go straight to the sandbox settings with the difficulties still accessible from the presets dropdown, that way new players will see that they can tweak the settings rather than them thinking that apocalypse is the 'intended' way to play

[Mikaze]

in my opinion, apocalypse mode is not designed for long-term play. i seem to remember that the description says so.

[skinnywattie]

Originally posted by lavurnums:

project zomboid is absolutely one of those games where you're meant to customize the difficulty to your liking, i think it would make more sense to remove the difficulty selection screen and have it go straight to the sandbox settings with the difficulties still accessible from the presets dropdown, that way new players will see that they can tweak the settings rather than them thinking that apocalypse is the 'intended' way to play

nailed it!
I think this sums it up very well indeed.


Overall I think the settings are like a menu.
With Sandbox and B42, you have a LOT more choices on the menu. Its up to us to decide what we want to eat. Just because another dish has been put on the menu, doesnt mean I need to order it.

With apocalypse mode, its basically whatever is in the chef's pan, whether you like it or not.

Me, I like the menu.
Giving people the menu first would defo solve a lot of unhappiness from players.

[Akadai]

I honestly wanted to understand why people don't just use sandbox to better cater the game to their style. When I saw all the massive complaints about muscle strain I asked my self "did they not see the sandbox setting to change that?". Muscle strain to me seems like such a non-issue considering it can be tweaked

I personally always run my own sandbox settings, though I went with a lot of defaults for B42 for testing and feedback purposes (including aformentioned muscle strain). There are however some settings I will always change to be more to my liking. Such as hunger and thirst rates, as one example. I also cranked up loot, because I wanted to make sure I saw all the new stuff

I don't really intend to play the game on a serious level until the game leaves unstable. The feedback is still important however, but if people really don't like something that can easy be changed on their end, then they should switch to running a sandbox game rather than a default setting

[jinx20001]

i mean, they give you the jester but i don't see much wrong with what you said.

[Quineloe]

My gun is jamming too often, help me OP.

[skinnywattie]

Originally posted by jinx20001:

i mean, they give you the jester but i don't see much wrong with what you said.

I'm not complaining. I saw what they did to Jesus
:P