Recent reviews by Jonnoc

Played from start and having 3 proper playthroughs up to update 6.

tl;dr: Good game should play.

More detailed review plus some suggestions/things I'd like to see:

One thing people should understand is this is an early access game. I played from the start, experienced all the crashes sometimes one every few minutes and it is to be expected. What is good about it is that the developers are constantly updating the game so my experience went from multiple crashes in my first playthrough to none in my 3rd. Sure there are still bugs but as opposed to other early access games I've played, updates for this is relatively quick plus the developer also takes feedback quickly and does listen as opposed to others.

My first playthrough I died alot and I believe you are supposed to die. Medals you get help you and make things alot easier for when you restart. I didn't know about the time limit though and had days doing nothing and ultimately was disappointed with the bad end. I'm assuming I wasn't alone as the developer added more days in an update which to be honest got me bored through the 2nd playthrough as I had about 5 days to burn doing nothing but base jobs. My last playthrough was one that I decided to keep for maybe continuing when they update the story.

The problem for me is the game gets trivial quickly especially once you get a decent amount of armor. Every enemy except for the elite ones will start hitting you for 1 damage once you get heavy armor. A lot of items in the game are also useless and once you figure that out money won't be a problem for you.

I still find the game fun and enjoyable but once I got to day 20 on my last playthrough I was done with the quests and got the heavy armor. I still had 13 days to do whatever so I was simply grinding/farming, completing my gear for the stat buffs as the increased defense doesn't do anything (everything still hits for 1).

I am still excited though to see where the development goes and to be honest I'll probably play again from the beginning once this game launches ver 1.0.


The problem I have with stats is the random leveling which will be resolved(?) in the next update so I'll wait and see that. I also find the power stat useless. It only helps conversation (which you will get enough of with gear anyways) and with the engineering and hunting skill trees which I will discuss below.

The skill trees are lack luster. There are filler points that don't do anything except eat your skill points to get to the next ability and to be honest a lot of these abilities aren't that useful. The non combat skills are essential for the world events and base stuff but the combat skills need something more to be worth using (except for the 10 points last skill in alertness. 10 points to up your chance for complex locks from 75% to 90%?? waste of skillpoints). Why would I use a skill that uses 2 ap for less damage and a lackluster effect vs just attacking 2x?

To be fair I think debilitation shot and liquid courage is useful in the pistol tree and I only use adrenaline shot because its faster than normal attacking 3x. The shotgun tree is good except for the last skill (200% damage for 3 ap?). The rifle tree is all useless since in my opinion rifles are still not worth using even with the update (high ammo usage+skills too random and not good). These "ultimates" do have a 33% buff after the skill is used but it would be worth using these skills if the buff is applied WHEN the skill is being used rather than after.

Engineering is ok. the large turret is good if you want to get that far but the grenades are only really used to get rid of the armor plating which makes smoke grenade in my opinion a good go to. Hunting is largely useless except for the tiger which is really good but even then only in the early game and with the survivor that starts with high hunting already. This is because the traps only trigger when the backline is attacked. It should be adjusted to trigger when the frontline is attacked too that could actually make the traps good and also make enemies using traps more deadly.

I think a lot should be reworked but lacking that maybe add a stat increase for the filler points? like for example strength increase in the melee filler areas so thats a max of +8 str if a player chooses to max out both blunt and blades. Perception increase for the gun skills and power for eng and hunting. The noncombat skills can give power/endurance maybe even defense. I don't think a +4 in a stat (if the tree is maxed) would be too powerful. This would give the players the ability to diversify each character. Make enemies stronger to balance it out if it ends up too strong.

If its possible, have enemies grow stronger? Maybe an increase in 5 levels every 10 days in all areas? This would make it more challenging and worthwhile to still go around the nearby areas. On day 20+ in my playthroughs I was just going around the mountains or the desert area for good xp/challenge.

List of other suggestions cause I'm running out of space:
-Wait command in combat
-Seeing how much xp you gain in an encounter along with loot
-attack option in events (merchants, civilians)
-craftable zomboid (although tbh I've only gotten infected ONCE in my 3 playthroughs but the option would be nice)
-craftable respec stim or similar
-training room in base

To end I'd like to give my full support to the devs this is a great game and will be looking forward to the next updates and release.

A great GoT fix if you are a fan of the show. It's like watching new episodes with a whole array of new characters. Needless to say this game does contain spoilers for those who aren't updated with the series and there are also some things you might not understand if you play this without watching the show but if you are one of these people I would tell you to go watch before picking this game up.