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I agree. The performance can get espescially terrible with high zombie counts. I've seen discussions of various optimizations on the forums which I don't know much about, but at least I personally haven't seen any word on major named performance improvements. A couple ones of note I know of are something about jiggle physics being disabled at certain points, and the previously mentioned window interiors being obscured at certain distances, and unity updates, but as it stands there are still a lot of issues that I'm not sure are fixed for the release. Things like trader walls having horrendous pop-in even on good settings, and brightness turning grass white just to name a couple are some I've experienced. This kind of stuff hasn't really been mentioned, and the release is a month off or so, so performance is definitely a concern. Ideally it comes out performing great, though.

I'm glad we got a roadmap and 1.0 stuff, but I can't help but feel like it's a bit too soon? I thought the stuff was a roadmap to gold, not so much a post gold update cycle, but I guess thats pretty much the same thing. There's still a lot that's being/needing to be updated, so to me this almost feels like their releasing out of ea to help with a22 hype? That's probably not the case, but it feels like it a bit. Just considering how much stuff for the pre gold roadmap isn't in 1.0, I don't know. Just sort of confusing considering the previous roadmap? Could be wrong. I noticed outfit dlcs coming in the q4 2024 update. I don't really like that at all honestly, maybe I'm the only one. Not a fan of dlcs like that in general, but imo would be best to wait until all of the roadmap stuff is done before adding paid dlc, if they felt like it needed to be in the game. Having outfits locked behind dlc feels a bit bad to me, I just applaud games that don't have that kind of stuff. I'm just a bit confused. Feels like this should be a road to 1.0 instead of a post 1.0 cycle, but I'm sure coming out of early access will generate a lot of attention. Does definitely feel too early for a price hike honestly though, espescially given how a22 isn't a particularily major release compared to the future patches purely based on the features that will be implemented. (outside of the console release) Looks like we're waiting another year for bandits.

Yeah, I was actually thinking about it after I came up with the idea, like what would stop players from just refueling/reparing constantly? 😅 Didn't really think it through I suppose. I guess something just bothers me about the current system. I agree that there shouldn't be an easy way to nullify it- the challenge, so its this sort of weird problem where vehicles make it easy, but on the other hand, massively punishing players for trying it feels a bit off as well. Not sure how to explain it in depth.

Well, seems like the majority don't see it as an issue. In that case, this suggestion is redundant. Thanks for the feedback! I apologize for the dumb suggestion 😅

Hat looks sort of like a ranger hat, could be wrong but that's all my small brain can surmise. Actually, on a second look, I got no clue what kind of hat that is. Anyone got any insight? The glasses look pretty cool.

That's fair, but demolishers have a clear blinking light in their chest which at least somewhat communicates an explosion mechanic, or a weakspot/interaction by attacking that part. Cops for instance have a tell for each of their attacks, including the explosion. Even demolishers start a loud noise with a blinking red light before they explode. This immediately communicates to the player that they should get away. There is no tell or warning whatsoever for these special vultures appearing during horde nights when driving a vehicle from what I can tell. There is also much more counterplay with demolishers, from what I've seen. There is a pretty big difference imo, but thats just me, could be wrong.

Super vultures have always felt archaic to me. They feel like a heavyhanded way of discouraging players to use vehicles on horde night. To my knowledge, there is nothing in the way of information on these guys in the game. There is no warning, no tells. A new player could get a vehicle and think about using it to evade the zombies for a time, or just get away from a bad situation, and suddenly they're swarmed by vultures that move faster than their vehicle, and quickly overwhelm them with status effects. I don't believe there is a journal entry nor a ingame explanation for these guys. This sudden attack feels unfair to new players from what I've seen, and to me, too. They immediately attack you moments after getting into a vehicle, and can cause satus effects through the vehicle. It just tells you "Yeah no, you can't do this, go defend a poi or something". Veteran players just kind of know that you cant interact with your vehicles during a horde at all. I think most people are just used to this, so they don't even try using vehicles during horde nights. However, there is nothing wrong with the idea of using vehicles as a temporary getaway, or transporation, or even to kill a few zombies. I'll share a overhaul I came up with that might alleviate this problem somewhat. This is just an idea, though. Allow players to use vehicles without any restrictions, and remove super vultures, but cause gas to drain significantly faster during horde night, promoting using them scarcely as an escape tool. A full tank might last around a minute or two. This could be coupled with a time to refuel. Make it so that it takes a few seconds to refuel, (depending on how empty the tank is) to add some risk. This could even be modified with grease monkey. I think this would be the best balance between fun and gameplay balance. This could be explained away as something to do with the blood moon affecting vehicles. You can even mention it in a journal entry for visibility, and add some text that appears when a player enters a vehicle during a horde, informing them that something is wrong with their vehicle. The high gas cost would also add a resource cost to it, making it something you cannot do consistently without significant preparation. You could even make zombies target vehicles more. As it stands, they don't seem to go out of their way to destroy lone vehicles, going straight for the player. Make it so that players have to invest in a protected place for their vehicles, or the zombies would quickly swarm and destroy them if nearby/unprotected. If a player opts to not use vehicles, they'd have to keep them a distance away during horde nights. This would add a barrier of entry to this strategy, and could also cause tense moments where the player has to use limited fuel to save their vehicle from being destroyed, or somehow get in while the zombies are attacking it to escape a dire situation. I think this would be hard to implement, but would definitely be a complete overhaul to what we have now, and a lot more fun, in my opinion. It would add gameplay variety to horde nights, which I think would be a major plus. What do you think, is this a terrible idea? It very well could be. I've made a poll asking about if you think super vultures should be reworked into something else or not. Let me know what you think. I didn't make this to bash on the current system, but to explore potential evolutions and changes to make it better.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind the nerd set too much if it wasn't for the shorts and shirt. It really doesn't look like an apocalypse nerd, he's wearing shorts and a t-shirt, but this is going to be heavy armor. I don't mind the gear pouches too much, they could look pretty nice. It just looks kind of dinky, and not in a good or endearing way. It's almost a bit too over the top. Throw some jeans under those kneepads, replace the shirt, it'd be a lot better imo. It looks almost cartoonish. Not a fan, when quite a few of the other sets are super sick and make sense this one really sticks out. I'm kind of surprised that they haven't seemed to change or iterate on any of the armor designs at all from when they were previewed. Could be wrong, its been a while. At least give him proper pants and protective gear, this doesn't look much like heavy armor outside of the fallout head cage thing. I think that'd make the design better while not completely remaking it. Not meaning to be rude here, sorry.

Oh no the nerd armor 💀 Thanks for the list! The transparency is really appreciated.

Thanks for the reply! That's great. Apologies for all the critical posts recently. I guess I keep having these random ideas about potential additions. I think l4d2 would be a good game to look for sucessful archetypes/concepts that function well in mp. I think about the game's potential, and I get a bunch of ideas, espescially for some of the gameplay, since I see big potential for the evolution/development of the game 😀 I'm personally hoping the bandits aren't super scripted with triggers and such, I'm really not a fan of them- but that's just me. Dynamic spawning in cities or at random locations would be cool. I think I'm the only one who thinks they should purely be a random/natural spawn. 😅

Yeah, its kind of a neat idea. More special enemies/gameplay elements would definitely be a plus. I personally am curious why they added the mutated zombie, since we already have an acid spitting archetype, and they dont really do anything other then do some radiation splash damage, and I'm pretty sure spider zombies dont climb up walls anymore? Could be wrong. Variety is good, so I'm happy we have them but these things make me think of more unique possibilities, my mind immediately goes to l4d2's zombie subclasses. Imagine a zombie that can displace you and bring you into dangerous situations like the smoker, or a zombie/screamer that if you disturb, summons a horde? Which would add some caution when exploring pois. You could even use displacement to your advantage in a tricky situation, adding some fun gameplay complexity and risk as opposed to just shooting. As it stands, I think the tier 5 pois are kind of meh is because the whole challenge is purely due to absurd numbers of zombies, at least from what I can tell, could be wrong. Hopefully tfp learns something from Blood Moons no matter how it performs, even though they're not the developers. It also really tanks performance in the higher tier pois, to facillitate the sheer amount of zombies, so I'd be all for more individual threats over sheer numbers.

Ah, okay. That makes sense, I'm stupid.

Yeah, I agree. The thing that weirdly bothers me though, what even is a "strength mod"? Is it just going to be a unexplained mod that boosts strength for no reason? I think it made at least a little bit more sense to have like, certain pieces of clothing/accessories give certain bonuses, like how shades gave perception, not just a item for the sake of a stat boost without any kind of reasoning. It'd feel weird to me if instead of shades, we had more of these mods which are literally just "perception mod" or something. I don't know, it's hard to explain.

Hi, dumb question; Will they be like, an actual item or accessory? Feels a bit weird if they're just like, random magical stat cubes you can find in loot that aren't actually equipment/gear, at least to me. Or is the picture/title of the strength mod that we've seen just a placeholder? Just curious since I don't know much about them. Thank you!

I mean, true, but I think it would be a benefit overall. Lots of fun, too. Could add an element of tension as someone could be stealing your car or sneaking into your base if you aren't vigilant. I don't really play multiplayer, so it'd be cool to hear what mp players think of it, but I think its a great idea. Maybe make it require high intelligence and maxed lockpicking. Could add a multiplayer setting for whether lockpicking bypasses land claim blocks. I think it's a pretty neat idea 😀

Yeah, good point. It probably is tedious. I guess the only reason I liked it was due to immersion, since I'm not a huge fan of loot bags, but given the larger zombie counts, it definitely would be a bit annoying, sorry. I don't know how to explain why I like it. I guess its just a mechanic I've always liked. Also made it rewarding for killing certain enemies with contextual equipment, like how I believe you used to be able to kill lumberjack zombies for axes. I always thought that was neat. That's good to see. looking forward to it. Thank you! 😃

+1 from me here, really hope we get this at some point. Would make lockpicking a lot more fun, and would let us go through pois in a less linear manner. Maybe make it exclusive to certain types of doors, or make it upgrade as you level up lockpicking, maybe starting with wooden doors and progressing from there. it'd be cool to pick garage doors even though that makes no sense, since garage doors have an absurd amount of hp usually.

Yeah, true. it's not the end of the world, just a qol thing. I don't see them changing it, but it would definitely be nice if we could have some kind of middle ground, or setting. Its cool to see them open after looting, and is convenient for people quickly wanting to ascertain whats looted and what is not. I just get a bit of ocd whenever I loot a kitchen and the ovens, cabinets, etc are stuck open, and I can no longer use them, unless I remember to use the little trick. There's probably some middle ground, but yeah like you said not many people seem to care that much. But if there's some way to make it even better down the line, why not, right? On the topic of qol though, what would be really nice would be able to have multiple crafting trackers at once, with a trader quest active simulatenously. Runner up goes to an option to disable the poi difficulty indicator. Those are what I'm hoping for in terms of qol.

True, but in many cases you do loot everything. Ideally you wouldn't have to do that (put something back in). And it would instead remain a container after being looted. There's also no way to reverse it once you loot all. But yeah, that is a way to avoid it. It's just a little bit janky in the current implementation imo. Don't mean to be rude or anything.

Ah, sorry. That makes sense. For some reason I thought it was the assassin set.

I (think) it's called the assasin set? I had a picture of someone finding a low tier hood in loot that looks simillar to that, but I'm not 100% sure.

That's good. It's just a small thing that gets to me sometimes. Espescially if I want to use a locked open door as my entrance. I'd honestly prefer if it was just unlocked from the get go in every case, but that's just me. I also just think it hurts immersion/intuitiveness a little, since you'd expect the door to just be unlocked when you grab the key, but for now, they just magically open as soon as you grab the key without even touching the door.

More pictures courtesy of Dollishdes's pax streams on twitch. Looks like the old loading screen with some old zombie models remains. Looks like the inventory item lock hasn't been changed either, which is kind of diappointing since its a bit awkward. but its still a while before summer. Honestly, I was kind of hoping for more gameplay changes. But I guess stuff could change as we approach summer. The key racks by doors are still a thing, they still seem to be locked (open), and you can't pick them but I still hope for a lockpicking overhaul, and a removal of some weird/jank aspects, like doors being stuck in an open state after grabbing the key. Still no zombie body looting, looks like it won't be returning, sadly (I'm probably the only person who cares about this, but I think it'd be nice. Still think it'd be cool if the game got back some of its scarier/immersive elements, like the raw meat attracting zombies system. Looks like furniture items such as cabinets and appliances still become un-interactable after looting, so still a bit of an annoyance for house refurbishers, but I think I saw some cabinets staying interactable after looting? So, there's a chance, but I only saw that with someone reading a magazine in a cabinet, so it might be different from taking all the items. Seems like mostly a visual update outside of armor changes, at least from what I've been able to see, but this could change in the coming months. I haven't seen any footage with the new pigs, boars look the same. Not sure if interior lighting has been improved. Some shots make it look like it has, hopefully the sudden darkness in rooms with open windows or massive holes in the walls goes away, or at least gets improved. Could only get that one screenshot of the skill screen, not sure if anything's changed. Blood moons menu looks pretty standard. Has a store, so microtransactions? Oof. Once again, sorry for the quality.

Yeah, I guess you're right. These are publicly avaliable through youtube/twitch. Guess it was a bit dumb to worry. Courtesy of Shema & Spartan 85 on youtube / Dollishdes on twitch for these. Surprisingly: Redone crates? Could be wrong, I haven't played in a minute, but I swear they look different. Looks like you can get armor from any chest too. Sorry for the quality.

So, given this new information that armor sets will have the set bonuses, is mixing and matching armor pieces going to be worthwhile? I don't really like the thought of using a full set always being better then using a mix, is there some overlap? Will there be some additional considerations to armor choice? I just think these small decisions in games (like deciding between say- a chestpiece that has 50 defense vs one that has 30, but resists a status effect), are fun. I'm worried set bonuses would have an impact on variety/choice. Main concern is needing to carry around armor sets for various tasks due to the set bonuses likely being highly impactful. Could be wrong though, this is merely speculation since I haven't played myself. I just hope it turns out to be fun. Based on some videos I've seen, lighting looks better. The new zombie albedo variants look pretty good. It's nice to see gloves on the character's hands. New block placing animation by the looks of it. Looks like there are 4 armor pieces, head, gloves, pants, feet. Doesn't look like there's any others. The armor pieces still have quality. Not sure what this means for the temperature system, but it looks like none of the old clothing items are returning? That's only an assumption based on what I've seen, since there dont appear to be other slots. Saw an item called an "armor crafting kit" from another stream's videos. I assume you might require that to make armors. I also saw a youtube video from pax that had the "legendary parts" in a crafting recipe. Honestly, not sure how I feel about that. I really hope they make it so the yellow lines on the roads aren't solid objects anymore. It's been like that for a while. Also, seems a bit weird to me that a cigar is a mod, not like, a seperate slot for an accessory. Not a big deal though. Not sure if I'm allowed to put in photos of the video I saw from pax so I'll hold off on that for now.