itch.io

Oh I am by no means offended at your reply, nor upset at the game. I love the game a lot, ever since the first review I ever did on it. I was not aware of the whip dealing splash damage, that's cool to know and makes sense for dealing with the swarm mobs. As for improved weapons, I still can't see too big a use of repairs in all honesty. Sure if it's very upgraded I can see it's worth in repairing but even then with a slight bit of more resources, just crafting a new weapon is overall better. Maybe some different tiers of weapon repairing could be added. For example with project zomboid, if you are repairing a baseball bat you can repair it with duct tape and it will repair it a bit, but with wood glue it will repair it far stronger as it is a glue specific for wooden repairs. Stuff like that remains within logic and provides more incentive. 

Maybe change in difficulty is the wrong term, maybe a choice of difficulty is better, like loot spawns more often and such so players can have a freedom of choice in that matter. As I have also played The Long Dark and I usually play on Stalker, but even that game has Pilgrim for more casual players as it doesn't not take away from the core which is survival, it only changes how hard you need to struggle to survive. The zombies can be just as brutal, but maybe you have an extra knife or two. Campfires, while I know are good from last time, I could never mentally find it in myself to be worth to place down but that's not a game thing it's a me thing.

Likewise, I agree survival is hard. Which is why I still feel like the character should always draw their improvised weapon first because well, why would you not be armed and ready for a fight. Especially if the player is actively getting ready to fight by either luring or charging in. I can understand if you are surprised/walk into them that maybe you might not draw the weapon at first but would you walk into the frigid cold of The Long Darks winter without a torch or flare ready to be drawn? That's how I view it.

I am also curious on how realistic you wish for the apocalyptic scenario to be as you are taking real life things knowledge for the game, such as steak containing lots of water content. For example acorns. We eat them just fine, but in real life they contain tannins which are potentially poisonous in real life. Or mushrooms, our character seems to pick them and eat them just fine, but mushrooms are notorious for being easily mistaken for their poisonous variants. Look up Destroying Angel(Badass name btw) vs  Field Mushroom. 

I am curious to see the direction you will continue to take as I have been reading your dev logs on your posts as you update. I am invested so I am happy to discuss and give my input as well.

It's never as easy as I think, but I got something prepared today (not published yet).