project zomboid heal infection

Maybe you're referring to me, because it's kind of similar something I wrote and I like talking about game design and zombies. Basically the core of my argument was "as long as any encounter with a zombie is potentially fatal if I make a mistake, the game will stay interesting at all times". If any mechanic allows you to kill zombies with no risk (assuming you don't do anything really stupid of course) the game becomes very dull IMO. But let's not go into that discussion again, and we just assume that with the mechanics you mentioned, fighting a single zombie is appropriately dangerous even without zombification.

I agree with you that zombification is a boring mechanic right now in PZ. I think infection rate is 97% from bites, but still, once you see the anxious moodlet you know that you're dead and there is no point in continuing playing. However, someone getting bit, slowly getting worse despite all first aid attempts and finally turning into a zombie to attack their friends is a *very* important theme in most modern zombie stories. One important difference between zombie movies and PZ is that in the movie nobody know that their friend is doomed, so it always comes as a surprise when the person turns. Another things is that in PZ you can just start a new character, while in a movie/real life you have all the motivation to never give up hope (and you might even try to conceal the bite if you're afraid the group might abandon you).

I want zombification to stay, not only for the difficulty but also for the zombie theme of the game. But with that said, I think it could be made more fun in one of two different ways:

First alternative is to make it so that you never know for sure that you'e going to die. One option here is to add a "miraculous recovery", by introducing for example 20% chance to survive despite getting to the anxious stage, and something like 10% chance after you reach the queasy state. The numbers would have to be large enough for the player to think it's worth continuing but small enough to keep bites/zombification feeling like a real threat. Another option could be to reduce the risk of initial infection and add more sources of anxiety and queasiness, so that the player doesn't know if the moodlet means that they're going to die or if it's caused by something else. The recent change that you get queasy from hanging around corpses is good in this regard, but we also need something to obfuscate the anxious moodlet. I think it would be fairly realistic if all wounds inflicted by zombies generate some level of anxiety for example. I mean wouldn't you feel a bit uneasy if a walking corpse bit you, regardless of infection stage?

The second alternative is to give players a reason to continue playing even though they know they're not going to survive. I think this would be easier if it was some sort of objective based game, so you would give your friends a better chance of success by staying around, but might be difficult to get into PZ. Even in multiplayer there's no real advantage to keep playing instead of instantly rolling a new character at the moment, but maybe something could be worked into the game when we get NPCs.

The first alternative would be much easier to implement, but I think it chooses gameplay over zombie lore which some might not like