[Feedback] Bugs, Sugestions and Ideas

[AngelClaw]

First let me tell the devs that they are in the right track, the game is a jewel, the idea very nice and the gameplay is interesting enough.

That said, I do agree with a lot of people: this game was way too buggy to be on early acess, and it feels more like an alpha or early beta than anything else.

The amount of bugs (some of them game breaking) is something that should not have been overlooked or jumped for the sake of a release. I honestly think that while some of them are not fixed the game will suffer heavily from negative reviews (min is one of them tbh). Also, players will stop playing waiting for fixes and updates and some of them will eventualy forget about the game.

I haven't played as much as liked to (mainly because of bugs), but so far here are some bugs that I noticed, sume suggestion (mainly qol) and some ideas:

== Bugs: ( I will try and post screenshots as I come across the bugs, just as a record of the bug) ==

- [FIXED] Corrupted save file: this is by far one of the worst. The currupted save file bug need to fixes asap! I've seen this bug in 2 ways: when a save file fails to be loaded and when the save loads and then crashes 1 or 2 minutes after;

- [FIXED] Buildings not finishing: this is another bug that need immediate attention. Some of the aspects of the game are already hard enough to manage, so losing a full day worth of workers because a building is bugged is almost adding salt to the injury;

- [FIXED] Deconstruct not finishing / resource node not finishing: another version of the previous bug. I noticed that workers get stuck because when they leave a node they know how many resources are left and if they need to go back but that info is not updated when they reach the warehouse, so they go back and get stuck;

- Ultra strong machette raider squad: in a recent game I've came across a VERY strong raider squad with only machettes. I don't know how but it managed to kill 2 squads fully armed with pistols before it died;

- [FIXED] Vanishing buildings: sometimes after loading a save, some of my building will vanish, returning to abandoned ones. Resources are still inside but I have to readapt them;

- [FIXED] Inventory of buildings in water: sometimes the inventory on buildings in water bugs and when a squad enters it they don't automatically pick them up. It is necessary to do it manually;

== Suggestions: ==

-QOL Center camera on ctrl groups: allow us to center the camera on our control groups when pressing that group key. Ex: if I have quads 1 to 3 assigned to group 1, double pressing 1 would center the camera on them;

- QOL Fire at will: fire at will should also affect squads when moving. If a squad is moving and sees an enemy within firing range, they will stop and fire. It's silly to lose squads because they were moving instead of fighting. For stealth, turn off this option;

- QOL Allow us to lock worker number in a building;

- QOL/UI Instant text: allows to double click any text message to make it instant so we can give the answer and close it;

- QOL/UI Multiple squads side window: squad side windows is way too big and incomplete for it's purpose. Need info on the squad backpack load, button to send that specific squad to hq and 4 icons for weapons, one for each squad member. All of this can fit on that window as it is, but it also needs to be smaller because it actually interfers with viewing the map screen;

- GAMEPLAY Work on rainy days: workers should work on rainy days if the work is inside a building (or if they are in a building surrounded by walls). Makes no sense to have all your production stopped because it's raining and infecteds may show up (also why this doesn't affect builders?);

QOL Lock cars to squads: managing squads and cars can be often hard and annoying. Locking a car to a certain squad would make that squad always use that car to move certain distances. Currently, sometimes a squad can forget they have a car and for some reason wander around without it;

GAMEPLAY Hordes and amount of enemies: even at lower difficulties, at a certain point hordes are massive, and often times this happens before you had enough time to prepare. The way the numer of enemies progresses needs some tweaks, maybe some more options before starting a map ;

QOL/GAMEPLAY Wood: wood can be a very complicated resource to, especially in maps without forests and/or with small building, as pretty much everything uses wood. Would be cool to see some reduced wood cost for some buildings (like the cookhouse for example) or another source of energy for cooking (using fuel, or solar as I've seen mention of it in the game but so far have not seen it being used);

QOL/UI: allow us to rotate the map while on expedition map;

GAMEPLAY Time and distances: although I think the time in the game feels good to play, it often feels like unit movement takes to long. Sending a squad to the end of the street (some 4-5 blocks away) without scavenging, just moving, can take half or more of the day ( you can notice this a lot while playing o 3x speed). I feel that the ingame clock should run a little bit slower so squads and workers can do a little bit more with their days;

== deas: ==

- GAMEPLAY Workers and transporters: every building should have slots for workers and transporters and we should be able to determine values for each so our production doesn't stop because of missing materials;

- GAMEPLAY Fluid weather system: weather should be fluing, not change exactly @ 6 AM/PM. This would make for better planning;

- GAMEPLAY Interview and morals system: would be awesome to have some kind of interview with groups before accepting them. We could be able to see if they are raiders in disguise, or if there are supposedly infected or socyopaths in them, or any kind of people that would pose an internal danger to the zone;

I will keep updating this as I play more and consider more things about the game. Overall I've had fun with it but honestly, I won't be playing as much as I had on the past few days until the build and save bugs are fixed. These have ruined the fun on several ocasions.

But keep up the awesome work, game has a ton of potential!

[MickeyTJR]

EA IS Alpha and Beta Builds and sometimes Even Pre-Alpha. It is meant to help find bugs and help shape the game with devs.

People need to understand what EA is, for years people have bought EA game and expected it to be something that it wasn't.

If you're buying an EA game the complaining about missing features and how buggy it is then maybe you should stop buying them.

The rest of the wall you posted welp, I didn't really read as I understand this is a EA game.

[leftbehind]

If you want something to complain about, go look at Cities Skylines 2, which was marketed and priced and sold as a finished product but turned out to be pre-Alpha dev build where almost every major game mechanic was blatantly bugged, not to mention terrible performance, missing core features, and crash bugs. Then the devs and publisher of that game doubled down on trying to gaslight and censor the community for pointing out how bad it was. After 6 months they've barely fixed anything, and instead chose to release a DLC which is currently the worst rated DLC (96% negative) in the history of Steam store.

Meanwhile, IFZ was clearly labelled as Early Access, with a clear statement stating the game is still in development. When the game opens, it lists a bunch of stuff that's on the roadmap for eventual release, and the devs have been pumping out updates every few days since release, many of which have already fixed some of the most glaring issues (and the next update will likely fix most of the crash bugs). The devs have also been active in these Steam forums, replying to questions, suggestions and bug reports, and being honest about what they can and can't/won't be doing.

As far as I know, generating a 3D game map from Open Street Map data is another first for this studio, having already successfully released two 2D games which were much simpler. It's a major step up in complexity and they've already got the basis of a great game. Never in my life did I imagine I'd be setting up a gun workshop in my local cheeseburger store, or turning the local bargain booze store in to a cannery to help survive winter. If they achieve even half of what's on their roadmap, this game will be freaking awesome.

[AngelClaw]

Originally posted by MickeyTJR:

People need to understand what EA is, for years people have bought EA game and expected it to be something that it wasn't.

Couldn't agree more with you. But also, people should also understand that EA doesn't not exempt games from being criticized, that's how a game grows, by the feedback and suggestions of the players :)
You're basically saying that since it's EA it's OK to miss features and that's wrong. Especially if it is such crucial features to a correct gameplay. EA means an incomplete game from what it's supposed to be on it's final state. It does not mean missing basic crucial functionality. One could always argue that not being able to play a saved game could be the same thing as not being able to play it. I'm not the only one pointing out, the reviews, other posts and the steam charts also point to this.

Originally posted by MickeyTJR:

If you're buying an EA game the complaining about missing features and how buggy it is then maybe you should stop buying them.

As I said above, this makes no sense. Buying something even on EA and not complaining or giving feedback is actually counter productive, as the devs base a lot of patches and fixes on community feedback. Asking people to remain silent abount issues with the game is probably the worst thing that a player could do. :)

Originally posted by MickeyTJR:

The rest of the wall you posted welp, I didn't really read as I understand this is a EA game.

I understand now why a lot of what you said makes no sense. You tried to join a discussion without reading the discussion, so you basically have no argument or nothing to add to it. You want people not to complain and you immediately dismiss feedback in favor of your opinion that since it's an ea all manner of problems are ok. If you don't want to give feedback or don't think other people's opinions matter, don't join the discussion, It's also counter productive.

If you don't want to read critcs or feedback from other players, don't join the discussions.
Just play the game and let people who have feedback give it. Don't worry, you'll benefit from it eventually too. :)

Originally posted by leftbehind:

If you want something to complain about, go look at Cities Skylines 2, which was marketed and priced and sold as a finished product but turned out to be pre-Alpha dev build

Didn't played it, so I wont comment, especially since it has nothing to do with what I said.

Originally posted by leftbehind:

Meanwhile, IFZ was clearly labelled as Early Access, with a clear statement stating the game is still in development.

As I said above, ea does not exempt games from critics or feedback, it actually depends on it. Furthermore, there was nothing on the roadmap saying "implementation of save games".
As you pointed out, there is a roadmap and that's the missing features that will be added in time that justify the EA. Having problems with core basic functionality was indeed an oversight that shouldn't have happened.
That's why I mentioned it and that's why a lot of people pointed it out and that's why it got kinda fixed already. It's a natural part of the ea process.

Originally posted by leftbehind:

As far as I know, generating a 3D game map from Open Street Map data is another first for this studio, having already successfully released two 2D games which were much simpler. It's a major step up in complexity and they've already got the basis of a great game. Never in my life did I imagine I'd be setting up a gun workshop in my local cheeseburger store, or turning the local bargain booze store in to a cannery to help survive winter. If they achieve even half of what's on their roadmap, this game will be freaking awesome.

Couldn't agree more. This is actually one of the features that made me buy the game and I also agree that they nailed this about 99%, that's why I don't even complain about it.

[Akhorahil]

It was. Early access is for games that aren’t finalized, not ones that aren’t playable due to crashes and corrupted saves.

[jojo draakje]

I can see how many games do this however this is certainly a different scenario, the devs have STRESSED multiple times they did not want to release the game already into early access because there was still a lot to work on, however the community just kept spamming them, they did give out some keys and had early adaptor packages, but as the game kept blowing up on youtube the people just really wanted to be able to play it. But they have stressed many times the game is far from complete, which the community acknowledged and said did not matter

[AngelClaw]

I'm actually very excited that the saves are fixed and the building stuck are gone. This has made the playtrough a lot smoother.

Originally posted by jojo draakje:

the devs have STRESSED multiple times they did not want to release the game already into early access because there was still a lot to work on, however the community just kept spamming them,

I'm pretty sure "a lot to work on" didn't refer to the saves, but with content. Still, all is fixed now.

[Rider]

Thanks for the suggestions!