Muscle Strain is totally fine to be in the game.

[Toxo]

Do I like it? Absolutely not. I'm a melee enthusiast, and while I enjoy most of the immersive features, muscle strain simply turns the difficulty of the game too high for me, and sucks out a great deal of fun for me personally.
BUT, I don't mind it being in the game. I can turn it down to a more reasonable value or turn it off entirely in the settings, and while I personally will likely keep it at 0 forever, some people enjoy it for one reason or another. So, let them have it.
As long as we keep the option to turn it off in the final build, I'm totally fine with introducing new difficulty options for the realism enthusiasts out there.
Keep experimenting with new features, making the game easier or harder. As long as it stays customizable down the road, I'm grateful for all the work the devs put in, to deliver us one of, if not the best zombi survival sim on the market.

[lumen]

I know you're not complaining but swinging weapons is hard, I was doing some tests with some of the things I have in my attic like a baseball bat and a rake and (I may be weak) it was pretty hard to swing with some force after a while.

[Toxo]

Originally posted by lumen:

I know you're not complaining but swinging weapons is hard, I was doing some tests with some of the things I have in my attic like a baseball bat and a rake and (I may be weak) it was pretty hard to swing with some force after a while.

Yea, as I said, it's absolutely fair to want this feature in. And I would complain, if it were mandatory, since it only leaves sneaking around / gunplay as valid playstyles. But alas, it's not mandatory, so I'm not complaining.
What I'll say tho, is that it's not very realistic at all currently, as traing (increase of fitness / strength stats f.e.) doesn't tune it down. And yes, swining weapons repeatedly is hard, but so is hammering in a bolt into a rail, or smithing a piece of metal, yet people (with routine and training) can do it for hours eventually. Sure, it tires you out, and having strained muscles after a hard day of work is totally fair, but we already have the exhaustion system, training fatigue and overheating for that.
I'd rather see muscle strain only occuring (to this degree) on underwight / untrained characters. Well fed, buff and trained people shouldn't suffer so easily from it, if the design goal is realism at all, that is.
If they just want to nerf melee and turn up the horror dial, they certainly did good.

[wirewitch]

Agree with the OP.

The more I played the previous build, the more I adjusted the settings for more challenge. I can see the "MAX MUSCLE STRAIN. LV SPAWN. x16 POP!!" runs now lol

[Higuera]

Originally posted by Toxo:

I'd rather see muscle strain only occuring (to this degree) on underwight / untrained characters. Well fed, buff and trained people shouldn't suffer so easily from it, if the design goal is realism at all, that is.
If they just want to nerf melee and turn up the horror dial, they certainly did good.

Pretty much exactly this, yeah.

[Quineloe]

Originally posted by lumen:

I know you're not complaining but swinging weapons is hard, I was doing some tests with some of the things I have in my attic like a baseball bat and a rake and (I may be weak) it was pretty hard to swing with some force after a while.

Endurance already covered that. Muscle strain means you can't do it again after resting for an hour. I'm pretty sure if you had just rested for a bit you would have been swinging that baseball bat just fine again.

Also, actual pain doesn't kick in right away. As someone who has actually worked out into muscle strain, it takes HOURS before I actually feel pain.

Muscle strain should kick in considerably later, Endurance is what should stop you from killing while you're killing, not muscle strain. It's just not how the human body works.

[Hozz]

Originally posted by Toxo:

I'd rather see muscle strain only occuring (to this degree) on underwight / untrained characters. Well fed, buff and trained people shouldn't suffer so easily from it, if the design goal is realism at all, that is.
If they just want to nerf melee and turn up the horror dial, they certainly did good.

While I agree on the premise that a well trained or fit person will not suffer so much strain I think the idea is still good if a little unrefined (but it's the unstable branch so it's OK to fine tune things). Let's just hope the devs tweak it a little...

[Quineloe]

Originally posted by wirewitch:

Agree with the OP.

The more I played the previous build, the more I adjusted the settings for more challenge. I can see the "MAX MUSCLE STRAIN. LV SPAWN. x16 POP!!" runs now lol

have you tried max muscle strain yet? You go into full agony from shoving a zombie twice.

[Rigben]

I like it and think it should be in the game. I think it needs to be balanced better but that will come with time, this is just the first iteration of it.

[wirewitch]

Originally posted by HoneyBadgerBuddy:

Originally posted by Quineloe:

have you tried max muscle strain yet? You go into full agony from shoving a zombie twice.

Sounds like a cool challenge run. :D

That's the point I was making, but seemed to have gone over his head xD

[wirewitch]

Originally posted by HoneyBadgerBuddy:

Originally posted by wirewitch:

That's the point I was making, but seemed to have gone over his head xD

Yay, you're a freak like me!
Did we just became best friends? :D

Happy challenging yourself! :)

I'm up for anything other than sprinters xD

Good luck out there! *salute*

[Overheadace]

i wonder if muscle strain gradually gets better the more proficient you're on that specific type of weapon. Like the more long blunt you have the less strain.

[LIMP BISQUICK]

My best advice for them is to scrap it. Not to sound like a douchenozzle but I'm willing to take the hit. Genuinely feel is not worth the time to flesh out. They can nerf it, buff it, expand it, whatever, it's diminishing returns. Not even sure what they're trying to accomplish with it really.

I don't say this out of difficulty either as I find this build to be easier in most ways when we talk about zombie interactions. Most of my games usually involve modded joggers. I love the pacing and tension. I like how it places me in situations where it may be best to climb through broken glass or jump out of a second story window or blockade a room to recover from exhaustion or injuries. If I'm dealing with exhaustion it's cause I just went through hell trying to fight off or run away from zombies. Not cause I didn't level up some melee weapon or something.

This whole laborious approach in this build won't come close to giving experiences like that for me. (Not implying default should be joggers) It won't enhance my immersion cause there many flaws in other areas. I appreciate a game like vintage story with their design but won't tolerate some of the grind in this game. The whole "adapt, get good, need to adjust are just writing off the red flags. You can still slaughter many zombies here, you can still lure them around. You can still do most things you could previously but a lot of it feels like a poor version of itself IMO.

[Gena Cider]

there's no point in keeping something pointless in the game... should've spent the development time elsewhere

[Frogging101]

Originally posted by cralo:

there's no point in keeping something pointless in the game... should've spent the development time elsewhere

The sad thing is this mechanic probably didn't take much development time, but it's overshadowing all the stuff that did take a lot of effort and is unanimously considered good (like the map update).

I think B42 would have been better split into different parts. Map update and new features first, then combat updates, etc. These things can be worked on separately and then cherry picked into a branch for a release.