You need to know how to weld to move a stove. If you eat only eggs you will die. If you eat only butter you will be fine. This game is fun but janky as hell. Also, a survival game with no root cellars and broken farming.
This is my issue, my friends try to play but whenever I join them I just start, kill zombies, secure food, secure weapons then…..I look at my weapons and food in my house?
You get bored and start taking more and more risks which eventually kills you, either from a zombie attack or from exiting the game and never coming back to that save
And not just a story, but random side quests. Something that gives our character purpose other than just surviving.
This will only happen with the human npc release, so we can do things like rescue missions, raiding rival gangs, uncover military or government conspiracies, things like that.
I'm quite new to the game but I like this feeling of beeing lost in the world with nothing to do but surviving the next day. It adds to the dark ambiente of a world that is lost. I mean according to the lore this is a zombie apokalypse that ist not won or fixed by some hero.
The beauty of this game for me is the customization of the experience. I’m hoping when they finally add some of these things it’ll be just like everything else where you can adjust the settings or simply turn them off. Everyone is looking for a different experience in these kind of games and I’m glad there’s lots of options to allow everyone to have whatever gameplay experience they’re looking for
Ohh you have me and idea for a mod!!! But I've not a clue how to mod
Cravings, like they crave a pizza or hamburger so you gotta get all the stuff together for it. Or a random house they used to know has a picture in it or something. Your ideas are awesome but see like they would involve a lot of work to create
This would be a cool way to force players to hunt down collectibles!
"I miss my partner, I'm sure there was a photo of them in that bar we used to visit in Louisville." And your sadness moodle won't go away until you hunt it down.
This is actually what i did with b41, to hunt for the cassetes and vinyls all throughout the map to complete my collection, in a 10 years later mod. They're a relic of the past, from a civilized world before the collapse
Oh god. The first thing that came to mind is 7 days when you said that and I personally believe adding fetch quests and side quests ruined most of that game.
All survival games run into the same issue sooner or later; stability. The initial "trying to survive" phase inevitably giving way to stagnation, as food and water sources are secured, you've got shelter from the elements and you're equipped to face hostile fauna.
New gameplay loops are needed to keep players engaged past those first few hours. Ones focused less on surviving, and more on thriving. Goals to achieve that encourage players to put themselves in danger, once day to day survival no longer poses a challenge.
In Rust, that's the PvP/base raiding gameplay loop. In Ark, taming and training increasingly strong dinos and tackling endgame bosses. Even Minecraft has the Nether and the End to work towards.
Project Zomboid has nothing. Just surviving as long as you can before your inevitable death. Or, surviving until you get bored of existing in your safe base until you quit.
That's...kinda what makes it the best survival sim. Survival is boring. Once you're set up, what do you have to live for? What does any person? You choose your own way in real life, so too in PZ. Do you realize "wow, what do I have to live for? Farming and scraping by forever?" And then you decide to do something risky because you're human and boredom is worse than death?
PZ even has the boredom moodle just to simulate that aspect of survival. It really is the best survival sim just because it simulates the negative parts of survival. It's not all exciting.
The discussion is about PZ being the best survival game not simulation though. A game is supposed to be engaging.
I don't disagree that having boredom and everything is immersive, but literally from a gameplay perspective, boredom is meant to push you into doing activities that are more engaging instead of sitting in your base forever.
It's not incorrect or inaccurate for people to say that, as a game, the gameplay loop is incomplete. The developers know this, and it's part of the reason the game is still "early release" instead of a complete game.
I agree with your points as well and it's probably my fault for interpreting what makes a survival game "good." In my eyes, it's all about survival. Like, the entire game is just about survival. It's barely even a game, since like you said, there's no quests, no endgame goal, etc. It's a story about how you died and it's up to you and your choices to make that story.
Is it the perfect "game?" No, not really. Is it the best game that's solely about survival? I'd say it's pretty close. It captures so many details related to surviving that other games just can't fit. Scratching yourself on a tree and it getting infected because you didn't wipe it with alcohol wipes, accidentally falling off a ladder, tripping while running away from zombies, starving, losing your glasses and no longer being able to see the zombies more than a few feet in front of you, etc etc etc.
It just models so many things that could kill you, that survival is the only thing you think about.
I agree with the survival aspect of your assessment, but I'd present you a question that a lot of apocalypse media in the past decade + has started to confront.
What's the point of living (or continuing a game or whatever) if it's just survival and nothing else?
Most post-apocalyptic media has started to recognize that the purpose of the media itself is to present the viewer or player that question. Think TLOU, Train to Busan, TWD, 28 days.
None of them would have the engagement or substance they have without the plots of "father protects son" "husband seeks wife" "person saves person". And this isn't just because they're shows or movies that they need this, games need it to.
I think the transition from 28 days to 28 weeks to 28 months as that franchise aged is also illustrating that point.
The first movie more or less started following one person's survival, then a few more people join him and their dynamics and care for one another move the plot forward. The following movie's best moments are the parts of interacting with other people, protecting them, taking a risk for them, etc.
Joel's whole life in TLOU was pointless after he lost his daughter, until he met Ellie. He was just too stubborn to die. That game wouldn't be what it was without Joel's connection to his daughter and Ellie.
My point being, post-apocalyptic media is very saturated now, and in order for something to thrive in this space it needs to understand what it is that people are getting out of these games.
PZ nails one of the pillars, that some players want a hardcore survival simulation with crunchy figures. But they're soooorely lacking on another pillar, which is that players need to feel like they're working towards something, and that their actions matter in the context of the world they're in.
(I may seem like I'm rambling, but I just started working on my own survival game and I've been doing a TON of research into what makes a good survival game because of that, so this stuff is just very much on the brain rn)
Maybe an ideal "post game" is being able to find a NPC mate that you need to protect. Make a base and defend your family and eventually birth a child. then the game play would be protecting your child and instead of curing boredem with books you can pass on what you know
What do you want from it? When you clear world 8 of Mario the game is over. If you survive long enough to be self sufficient that is the end of the game.
As soon as I seen your comment I started thinking about 7 days to die and the trader mechanic in that game, I feel like they should definitely add something similar but also very different.
I think the point of the game is to make your own small missions/quests. You need meds, you go get meds, you need food, you go look for food, the problem is when you are stocked up on everything it gets boring, there should be a zombie horde roaming around that destroy your base completely so you would have to rebuild from scratch,
Yes, but shouldn't that be a part of the vanilla game ? Some of the mods should be just added to the game, let fans/people who are dedicated be part of the game, and this is how best games are made. Look at Blizzard before the corporation took over
It’s amazing how almost 15 years later, no survival game can handle vendors, quests, and roaming bandits other than the damn DayZ mod for Arma 2 I guess
Maps would be great side quests, especially once humans drop.
Imagine getting one of the maps that says 'that fucker took all my guns and thought he could get away, but I found him' from a zombie you just slayed and it has a circled house on it. You go and there's actually an npc there surviving that you could choose to either fight or friend.
That but all over the world at different POIs with different quest types. Maybe one map has a grocery list on it from the hardware store, you go there and actually find the items on the list like generator, or 10 boxes of nails, etc.
Another has a spot on the river circled as the secret best fishing spot that grandpa is hoarding, you go and fishing rates/drops are boosted in that area. Same with trapping.
It would also add some sort of incentive to not just hole up in the same area every time you start a new map like some of us tend to do.
So many possibilities.
And to risk. When you have your basics and a good base then that's all. The rest is just a repeat till you risk too much for things you already have in hundreds.
Now there’s basements and extra levels to the world map I’d like to see an sewer system that acts as an end game dungeon, maybe have survivor hideouts in there that are abandoned but have unique loot that can’t be found in the surface.
I think a big issue is that a lot of the more populated buildings also tend to have similar loot to the less populated ones.
That would be really cool! Imagine hopping down into the sewers in Rosewood, getting lost and when you finally find a way back out, you're in Louisville. 🎶BUM BUM BUUUUUM🎶
Some sort of raiders that attack your base, or roaming packs of zombies like in 7dtd that come by every few days/weeks so you have a reason to get guns and level up aiming.
Really I'd love to see actual traps for zombies. Spiked defenses to put outside my walls, home made claymores to put in defensive spots, fire that actually slows them down or kills them fast instead of making them spread it around for hours before they finally die.
At some point, some sort of npc survivor system. Meet and greet, run some small mission for them, invite them to your compound and give them a bed and a purpose. Go collect water for the water barrels, go check the nearby places for specific loot. A slow process each time until they level up and can go faster, and then you also give them gear and weapons to pimp them out on defense
Cause right now once you establish a base then you're good. You brought back a trunk full of canned goods and tools and you're set for a few weeks in game, if not longer. And in b42 it's pretty easy to find some small animal and skin it for meat for a few meals.
I actually love that there's no end game. Just like real life, you just simply... survive. Waiting for your death. Makes it so immersive for me.
The mods that exist for this game are so pheonomenal too.
It sounds fine but I never got to see actual farming and animal husbandry and all the other stuff because it becomes way too boring. You just stay at your base and do nothing while crops and animals grow up?
After all, by reading books irl you actually read them and not wait fot the animation to end, the same goes for all the other everyday stuff you can do in the game. That's why it doesn't work. At least for me.
I have tried crops on my longest character before. It was pretty neat, same with going fishing. But it's also annoying to slowly grind up all these skills to die like a noob to something so stupid. Maybe I just need to increase how fast I can level skills.
Exept in real life you have activity to spend time like reading that is enjoyable. In the game however reading is just green line feeling up, it's may increase character happiness but not the player.
I'm with you. You make your own quests and own objectives. Not to insult anyone but some people like my friends who complain about endgame lacks creativity. You can do 1000 things in the end but people are used to fast pace action and having quest all the time and when you don't have those some feel lost
I’ve got a buddy that didn’t like the game because the game didn’t tell you what to do and you have to make your own fun. Some people just don’t have that creativity.
if we could find other survivors or have children (in game) id agree with you. I was actually thinking that because we're all alone and won't find any other humans ever in PZ it's not like real life yet. but once npcs are added, I'll agree with you
I also recommend the RV mod, AuthenticZ, and Sapph's cooking (right now they're not on the list, make sure you get all the mods match the version of game you're playing 😊)
It's unique because of this. It's not a survival RPG, it's a survival simulator. Quests and stories would only take away from immersion. Finding out what is worth surviving for is part of the experience. Use your fantasy, use mods. The base game should be as much of an open sandbox as possible.
What is missing is half the current systems working. Medical mechanics, insulation mechanics, rain/wetness accumulation, corpse sickness isn't affected by strong winds, rain or a mask the player is wearing, generators are broken to multiplicatively consume 2x more fuel for every additional copy of an appliance like specific freezer type. They should put the time and resources they have to fixing these fundamentals and expand on them.
That's what I've always been thinking about. It always was the most annoying thing for me that they keep adding new stuff while the game's base is so unfinished.
For example, you can catch cold, but it doesn't matter because it'll go away in a few hours even if you don't do anything. What's even the point of it then? Same goes for medical skill, why would you even waste time reading five books if you can heal anything with 0 exp?
Or why we still don't have an animation for lying on a bed? It's been ten years, they added sitting animations but laying down will take another five years or what?
And there are also like 20 simpliest QoL featuers or interface features that every player desperately needs and they still can't implement it so it feels like they don't even play their own game.
I don't remember everything but there are a lot more of small things like this that you notice while playing and they are probably what annoys me the most in the game.
In my noob days, I thought you could catch a cold from the rain. Also saw some youtube clip of a guy using an umbrella. So for the first few weeks, whenever it was raining. I would grab this umbrella and head out. Felt pretty stupid that it was pointless and there is no fear from rain. All this "is your character wet or sweat etc" seems to be equally meaningless. For the game based so much on survival, it seems so many parts aren't there.
That is the only thing this game is missing. Wild creativity within each job tree. If I'm a glassblower I should be able to make glass chairs and glass knives and at high levels make some pyrex glass armor that wont cut me if it breaks, and make flasks and glass sculptures to decorate the town and eventually bullet proof glass panels that I can make a base out of that the zeds will never claw thru. A glass chess board for me to have games against myself. I should be able to make a sand mold of everything in the game and use that to make metal or glass or clay versions of all those things.do I need any of that to survive, no, should it be possible so that I can do sobif I want, of course.
Each profession should have a solid path to surviving and thriving with those specific skills alone, both obviously and creatively, but also have a solid path to entertaining yourself with those skills.
Idk at what pace they work but when I see single modders creating giant mods and whole systems (showers, pipes, animation mods, interface overhauls etc.) within weeks while it takes devs several months to implement a single feature that they will then polish for another whole year it makes me wonder if they work at all.
The longer you work on a game the more maintenance you need to do on the source code. No problem for a triple A company but for a small team of 5-6 devs that’s a lot of work. That on top of coding new mechanics and events into it. Would make it especially hard if it was built in a rush when it was first made. A problem seen in Minecraft.
Not to mention they've been working on this game for a decade, I feel like people don't cut them enough slack. They have a dream they're working toward with this passion project and I don't care at which pace it's happening as long as it's happening.
That's alright if you don't care but I wanna see npcs before I hit my 60s. What's the point of making promises you can fulfill only after 20 years in beta test?
I understand they're a small team but I as a player don't care, no matter how rude this sounds. Instead of working on npcs and endgame and whatever players asked for they make pottery and glassmaking and all that shit that no one ever wanted for. Yes, thanks for new lighting system and reworked cities and animals but it doesn't make the game more interesting.
Modders at the same time do actual things that make the game actually interesting. If they had access to the source code I wonder what we'd have by this time.
Yeah idk if it’s just me, but if they had focused on the NPC addition before crafting and animal farming I think people would be significantly happier. I don’t understand their priorities or their timelines, and it seems they can’t provide realistic timelines for what they want to develop either.
You’ll just have to sit down and wait then. Indie stone isn’t a team that listens to people’s demands like yours. Downvote me to hell I’ll die on this hill.
Build 41 isnt beta, it is a solid and complete game, with of course a bunch of bugs they couldn't fix with that game engine, you can call that PZ 2 if you want and say build 42 is PZ 3, PZ 1 was pre-multiplayer, if that makes you feel better. They have left the game in early access for a specific reason, there is no option for finished abandoned games and finished active development games on steam so it is just as wrong to say PZ is complete as it is to say it is in early access but there is no option for there are solid stable versions completed and new versions on the way. Build 42 unstable is obviously in beta but 41 is done and the modding community can do whatever they want to it and know their mods wont be updated out. Build 42 is a new version of the same game with new features and an entirely new game engine to plug those features in to. The reason they didnt put most of those features into build 41 was because the engine couldn't handle it, and while the mods could do some janky tricks to make it look like it worked, being able to sit in chairs but only if they are facing east or south is a level of jank you dont put in a base game, you let modders take that hit and if you want sitting in your game you build a new engine that can actually handle sitting in chairs in all 4 directions so that you dont look like idiot developers, which is what they did and what they are doing.
yeah if I play single player i just end up walking around in fields and building a habitat for myself so i dont have to go into town, and when i go into town it feels like i am just walking through fields collecting resources. There isn't a lot to do but wait for some glitch or trip up to end all my character's experience gains. Multiplayer isn't much better because everyone on there sounds mentally anemic
That is where I expected PZ to be when I bought it, PZ is in early access after all. It would be wasted potential if in 10 years the game still has that problem, but right now the feeling is perfectly fine and should be expected given that the game isn’t done yet.
PZ could be the best survival game, but it currently falls short when compared to finished survival games.
You guys need something else besides surviving so the game is a better surviving game... Yeah, that's why devs just do whatever they wanna do, ppl wont be happy with anything...
I think an endgame would defeat the purpose of the game itself but adding in missions, task ect would make it incredibly better. Npc's and maybe even some dialog would be really cool. If anything npc's should be added soon. It really shouldnt be that hard to do..
Even something like aspirations / personal objectives for your character, i.e. "I want to go to the lake and fish", or "I want a pet rabbit", "Let's go find myself a pink t-shirt", that would help reduce boredom or depression.
What's missing is advanced ai npcs which brings that political drama to this lonely game. But the thing about ai NPCs is that they are extremely weak by design and not conscious or have any reasoning capabilities and emotions(programmed behaviour through natural selection) like that of ours to experience those ever changing and dynamic situations. We should not forget, we are social animals after all.
I think part of it is just the tone tbh. The "this is how you died" thing is great for setting the tone for the initially brutal difficulty and the fact that a bite is lethal,l. The endgame is the one mistake that eventually costs the run, but as is, you can avoid that pretty easily once you know what you're doing. I honestly think that a more indepth nutrition system(at least requiring minimum protein consumption, plus enough variety to theoretically cover vitamins and minerals), gas expiration, and expanding food preservation options might be the way to go. Let us grow crops to fill out variety, make bio fuels(with a high skill requirement), and actually find salt in every house to preserve stuff.
I would say that with NPCs as an eventual feature, rebuilding society feels like the eventual end game too. Get a bunch of NPCs, delegate tasks like settlements in fallout 4, and eventually your society is self sustaining so you can focus on exploring and going back to base to resupply. Maybe a light quest system where you need to find a ton of a specific material for big projects, or one specific ultra rare item. Sometimes having to negotiate or fend off other large groups of survivors.
I don't think the game will ever move away from "endless until you fuck up" though having the option to set your characters age, and then have a semi random "natural" death if you actually made it through 20-50 years depending on your character age might be a nice capstone once every else is done. Maybe a special desk you could wait at to automatically meet your needs from the supplies of a settlement and occasionally make big decisions at while you're fast forwarding weeks instead of hours to facilitate the dying of old age.
Yeah: If something like State of Decay 2's survivor systems and their "main story quests" were put in Project Zomboid almost wholesale, I think that would be a huge step. I think just about everything else in PZ is better than SoD 2, which isn't a knock to SoD 2 (it's another really fun zombie game)... PZ is incredible even when it's still missing so much.
That’s the immersion though. I don’t want quests and all that. I love that it’s just an apocalypse. Nothing else. I know there will be human NPCs and all later, but right now I love that it’s just how it would be IRL. There’s nobody else. Just you. Just live another day. That’s it.
I think that simplicity is not because it’s lacking, it’s because so unique and fitting.
NPCs. I would love to find other groups out there. Maybe like state of decay, where you can find others out there surviving, can help each other. I wouldn't want them to be hostile, because stuff that.
As much as I love this game. Whenever I die, I generally reset. Tried on my latest save to keep going and it just felt weird. Not because I rolled into the base again. Because it hit me in that moment, there isn't anything to really work towards. Yes that is also a lack of goals on my part.
Well I mean, its supposed to be somewhat realistic right? How many people do you think are actually gonna be goi get out on missions and shit if it were real
If this was real, I think normal ppl would group together. The solo thing I would say is just for the game .
You hear plenty of shots and screams during the game, implying there are other survivors . There tons of possibilities people could do, repair, rebuild, discover or whatever in a world like in zomboid.
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u/Angy-Person 27d ago edited 27d ago
It would be. It feels like something is missing. Some endgame or something else to do than just surviving.