i do agree the MC to be weak when he first gets out of the shelter, because he has spent a few years in that confined space.
But only 1HP per level up doesnt seem fair. He probably didn't move much or exercise to conserve energy and food while down there so he became weak.
But fighting zombies should give you experience with how to fight them, remove the hesitation from your attacks, better defend against them and move more agile to dodge the zombies predictable attacks. Which in gaming terms translates to more atk, def, spd and luck. Meanwhile running all around town scavenging gives more endurance/stamina which translates to HP.
The rate the armors break so fast i gather like 12 cloth from fighting and i break both armors and have to spend 10 of those 12 on making a new set.
Ive also lost the game a few times because bad rng where i miss a few attacks causing me to die even though i went into a fight with full hp.. that doesnt translate to a fun experience.
For the grindiness argument. just doing clean math, some building projects costs around 50 wood. a tree gives 1-3 wood, that = 25 trees to farm mats. enemy attack rate is 30%, meaning about 8 fights.. even with weapon, you can really just kill 1 zombie per day unless you find some safe way to gather a lot of food. so at best, thats 8 days, though if you get a fight on the 1st tree you chop down, youll probably have to end the day right away, which raises the number to about 12 days. and thats just the wood to build a thing. you also need 24 food and water per person for that period aswell.
I believe the first point i stated can alleviate some of the grindiness of the game.. like if a level up gave 20hp, 2atk, 2def, 2agi, 2luk.
Especially if you plan to introduce stronger enemies in the future, a sense of power scaling is needed. and the increase in strength allows the MC to stay out and work even after just 1 fight.
the thing also that you make zero damage without weapon is bit annoying...
As I've said many times before, the game is only at the beginning of its creation and there are still some details that need to be readjusted. On the other hand, if you tested an older version of the game, some details have already been changed in the next version (example: the stats of the hero and the zombies).
Gain atk, def, or other gain in lvlup will never be added. Considering how I set up the zombies, you'll be invulnerable to lvl14 against all of them.
I found a small mistake with the durability, it should be consumed less quickly for defense in a next version.
Equipment can be repaired.
You have to go exploring, the game map is quite large and there is food everywhere and NPCs to find. In this version => 1NPCs that will fight with you (=2vs1), 1NPCs that provide you with food, and 1NPCs that make potions that heal you, increase your strength, and increase your defense.
There are 2 guns to find and they are quite close to the NPCs to find. Chance to kill in 1 hit using them.
In V0.08, there will be stronger zombies but you will also have better equipment = give bonus stats (and a 2nd NPC to fight with you). The lvl2 equipment will make you invulnerable against zombies around your base.
I'm not talking about planned content, I'm only talking about content that's already present in the latest version of the game. But if you want to know what's planned,
=> there will be even more NPCs (1 who will fetch resources, 3rd fighter, 2 stylists, ...) and other constructions (Shooting range, gym, ... ).
=> Another survivor base with whom you will have to become friends to be able to trade (food for resources and vice versa).
=> An enemy survivor base.
=> And more
For those who have explored the map and the different regions, there is always the same number of resources that can be harvested because the code will be changed. I'm going to rewrite everything so that the farther away you are from the base, the more resources you receive, but the zombies to fight will be stronger. More details in the GameFaq, there's even the map of the areas.
ps: A little tip about defense equipment => each time you receive 1 hit, you lose 1 point of durability but this is random so the more equipment you wear and more the probability of a piece of equipment losing 2 times in a row decreases. There are 8 that can be worn at the same time.