Gideon

Very fine list of ideas.

So, what I'm seeing from your comment is that if I'm actively trying to break spawns so that things appear out of thin air, then I can break spawns so that things appear out of thin air. I'm not saying it is okay that spawns can be broken so that things just appear, I just want to be clear. It breaks because you're trying to break it.

Hang on here. Why don't they just, you know, not run? Technically speaking, couldn't they start their looting, crafting, base building, whatever fairly close to their start point and later go find the trader? Quests are kind of optional to surviving, in my experience.

Interesting ideas. Would probably require a mod of some sort. I doubt this is within the plans for main development. Mind you, I'm all for more realistic and logical systems in the game. So, I support having this as part of it.

I more carefully reserve certain items to help alleviate debuffs from critical hits.

More roaming zombies is easily accomplished by tweaking some of the xml files. I'm not saying you should have to, just that it is easily achieved. I think the sleepers jumping out of things/falling down is supposed to represent a horror movie sort of jump scare. As for zombies appearing out of thin air behind you, I've seen people complain about this for quite a while, and never ONCE experienced it myself. Every time I have had a zombie come up behind me, it is always in circumstances where I didn't clear a room completely or they pathed in to me from outside if I'm in a building already.

I like the new critical hit system with its various debuffs. I dislike the continuing trend towards a simplistic representation of various game mechanics (such as crafting).

I'm old enough to remember that TV and movies took GREAT liberties with weapon handling and tactics used by police and military on screen. As time has moved on, I've noticed that the general population has an increasingly greater depth of understanding of how weapons, police, and military actually work. At the same time TV and movies have been forced to update themselves to more realistic portrayals of these things. I suspect that the OP's comment originates from a similar set of factors. The OP knows how these things really work, and so when a game does something cheesy with them, it bugs them. For the record, I'm kind of in the same boat. I'll let the game get away with it as I don't care quite as much as the OP, but I agree it looks really silly due to its unrealism.

I do the intro quests, find or build somewhere to hunker relatively near the trader but also a short distance from water of some kind, then loot small POIs for food and basic resources (cook pot, etc). By day 4 I should have some basic sustenance established (some meat and/or canned goods, some clean water) and can focus on a modest amount of wooden spikes with reinforced wooden walls to make it through the first 7 day horde. I can usually be reasonably set by day 6, and can spend the rest of the time on looting and chasing food.

I'll have to double check, but I'm pretty sure you need a workbench AND to have the recipe unlocked. If not, I'm overjoyed. We're locked behind needing a wrench right now in our game. Not that we don't have recourse to address this. Just have to knock out quests to build up dukes so we can buy them if they don't drop from loot.

I find I can run everything at high/ultra, turn texture resolution to half, and things are buttery smooth. Oh, and motion blur to off. That can go right to hell.

My wife calls the new zombie with the long red hair, Karen.

Turbo chicken!

Interesting. Might be something to do with late game content not being implemented yet.

Workbenches also require a wrench, which can only be built at a workbench or looted. Some things seem to require a recipe to unlock, or to be looted. Several things are only available through loot. If you like to use game settings that cripple your ability to find things through loot, then it might just be a limitation of your play style that you have to accept.