Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 8! My name's Hythrain, a co-host and one of the streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live as I stream your game! If you're interested in seeing my live reaction, let me know and I can send you a link to the VOD once it's posted to YouTube!
But you know this already, since you've been part of this event in the past! Welcome back!
It's funny... I swear this game was easier the last time I played it, yet I can see so many things in it now that hint at the opposite. New equipment, new crafts, repairing, etc. All of it feels good, but yikes does it feel hard! I think this might be because the energy, water and food usage has all been altered. It felt like I was burning through energy so fast for so little gain.
Mind you, I already know why it feels so hard: it's very RNG reliant. RNG decides if you find stuff, it decides what cards you draw when fighting, it decides if your lures even work. I may have mentioned this last time, but if not then I want to bring it up now as I think a lot of my feedback is going to focus in on this.
Now I never got around to uses the new classes, as I needed to give myself a tutorial again to remember how to play and to learn anything new you added, so I can't comment on that. I did read it over and it seemed interesting. Though one supposed downside to the craftsman doesn't seem like one to me? Maybe I misunderstood it.
One last thing before I dive into my true feedback: there's a typo. When I got a tutorial message about a building being infested, it said it was "invested." Which I'm sure the house was invested... long before this plague.
Okay! So feedback time! As I said, I've realized just how RNG reliant this game is so I wanted my feedback to focus on that. The first thing I think could be useful is a way to improve the chance of luring. Right now it just requires time and energy, but what if you could use an item to help out? It could improve the chances of a lure in exchange for using the item, which would be a fair trade off for the player in a lot of scenarios. However, it should NOT be a random item. Instead, it should be one they choose but has a more limited number of choices. For example, the rags and small fruits can't be used because they wouldn't produce enough noise.
To reduce combat RNG, I'd suggest making it that an equipped weapon will always show up in the draw. I'll even give a decent explanation as to why. When you're using other items, you're likely pulling them out of a bag and throwing them. Since you can't know for sure what you're grabbing, this ends up being that you can get various items. However, the weapons are already supposed to be in your hands and thus can be used immediately.
Lastly, to improve searching RNG, maybe have certain locations always have a minimum number of items you'll find. For example, buildings (not including small buildings like outhouses) always have 3 items while vehicles and dead zombies always have 2 items. Note that I'm not saying a maximum number of searches like you currently have; I'm saying a minimum number of found items.
I also have a couple of other small things I want to cover. First, make it that rats can always be lured. It makes more sense for that to work. Second, make attacking take less energy than luring. Luring is something that should take effort to do right, so it makes sense to spend both more time AND energy to make it work. Right now, attacking takes 5 more energy (and if your lure fails, you're only option is to attack anyway). Third, if I'm in a house fighting rats, zombies who are more than one more away from outside the door shouldn't be attracted. Just a personal nitpick. You'll see what I mean in the VOD.
That's it from me! Keep up the great work!