Feedback + suggestion regarding the Hotfix update

[calm tide]

i will go into detail below

WEAPON DURABILITY CHANGES

• Weapon Durability feels good

• lootable Weapons became less as intented and feels balanced

• Overall time to craft weapons feels good, but some craftable weapons feel a bit too strong right now, most notably the Makeshift machete and makeshift knife

• ground executions not using durability anymore is a very welcoming change, as i dont need to de-equip my weapon anymore before doing a ground kill. Very nice quality of life feature

• notable: the weapon durability bar seems weird, as some weapon have high durability and just use more durability than other weapons that have the same durability. This was already the case before but it feels weird.

FIXES

• So far i have not encountered ANY bug, others have but im reading about it less so overall nice work. notable: i personally did not encounter many bugs before the update too.

• casserole now crafts 4 casseroles if you are a good cook instead of 2. Thanks for fixing it but its missing in the notes was a bit confused at first.

ADJUSTMENTS

Reduced the noise of stealth executions. These now make half the noise they did before.

• feels overwhelmingly off, being able to now kill zombies next to each other with a knife and not getting punished for it [also making Penny´s stealth trait kinda worthless now]

suggestion: 20-25% noise reduction

• *Pictures of stealth kills below

Consuming each of these items now plays a cool unique sound: Alcohol, Bandage, Beer, Can Of Dog Food, Casserole, ChilliConCarne, Coffee, CrudeMoonshine, Goulash, HealingKit, JunkFood, Meat, Meat Stew, Medicine, Meat Slop, Vege Slop, Splint, Unidentified Pills, Vege Soup, and Vegetables.

• nice quality of life and immersion feature. just a tad bit too loud

Reduced the additional damage received while a survivor has Bruised Ribs.

• overall feels good

Flesh Wound is now less likely to happen.

• Dont really happen at all anymore, making healing items a bit redundant

*Pictures of stealth kills following

Hatchet kill with hudson - Zombies did not notice, even though they are nearly in me[might be fine because they are background zombies]

Screwdriver kill with Joe[same noise as a knife] - Zombie is right next to this, Did not hear it. I could just walk backwards and close the door and do the same with him afterwards. Way to OP

Knife kill with joe - Zombie in the background did not notice me at all, might be ok since i used a knife still felt like i should have been punished for it

overall: Loud weapons dont feel loud anymore and Quiet weapons now feel Silent, leading to a lot less punishing situations for making a mistake

[shrewd galleon]

Definitely agree with the loudness of weapons. I will also say, I kinda think some of the weapons durability should be tweaked a little bit more (the makeshift knife lasting so long and being so cheap to craft with barb seems like it'd be a meta) but I do like that higher tier weapons last longer.

[grim scroll]

I think the devs outta make weapons that have at max a durability of 2, 3 or 4 executions back to what their durability was before the hotfix. Or at least nerf their durability to some degree. This probably means though they'll have to add more wepaons at the location around the shelter you start off with in ODD. I also think the noise reduction change should be reverted, cause the game start to feel rather easy at that point.

[grim scroll]

Also, on the topic of high tier melee weapons like the combat knife, Sword, Spiked Bat, Fire Axe, Hatchet, etc., I'm okay with how they are currently. Though if there was a small nerf to their durability then I wouldn't mind.

[sand flume]

Yeah, just reading about the noise reduction was a huge turn off. I already could cheese the initial stages after 8~ hours of getting used the game.

15+ hours, sure the loaded zombies levels got difficult but since there's not "much" depth in the zombies, beating the two escape plans doesn't excite me to replay the game since it's easy to cheese these levels now that we know them.

Hopefully they can divide the player base skills by adding difficulty options.

[grim scroll]

Difficulty options are definetley coming in the future. But in the meantime, the devs should try to make more adjustments (probably nerfs/reverts) to low + medium (to an extent) tier weapon durability + availability, and revert the noise reduction change. Preferably within the next week or so.

[sand flume]

I don't know. I thought the overall durability and availability wasn't an issue in the first place. If anything it added more to the suspense. But the biggest, "wut?" moment is the nerfs to the sound mechanics, I'm a huge fan of stealth, especially in a zombie world game. I just think something like this does leave a bad taste to more skilled players.

It already became too easy after understanding the game.

Now it's incredibly easy, although I don't want to dismiss the lower skill based players since playing something like this isn't your typical casual game. I guess I'm just worried that they'll cater to a casual audience but then again, it's early access. Maybe the idea is to captive more players but this move doesn't feel like it's the right direction for players seeking a challenge. We shall see.