mrgrendel

Clearly Scottish IMO.

One of the things that disappointed me about the DayZ mod was that it started out strongly as a zombie survival game, but as I played it more, it turned out that this aspect is shallow, or just neglected by the development team. The late game is just a pvp-fest, which is fine if you like that, I suppose, but I would like a zombie survival game, not hardcore mode counterstrike with zombies in the scenery. There is a large disconnect between the starting game and the end game, and I suspect that a fair amount of player loss is due to beginning expectations that are not kept up throughout the game experience. For instance the pvp focus comes through in several things, - Zombies are terrifying early on but very quickly become almost completely ignorable. Engage auto run cross country, get a snack until you see an open door. Attempts to improve this have seemed meager. - Many high tier items are useless on zombies, but not players, ie sniper rifles, ghillies, not to mention fortifications zombies just clip through. You might have craftable flash-bang clusters that immobilize hordes of zombies, etc, and super-dense zombie areas with good loot where precisely that would be useful. - Killing survivors gives you a bandit skin, killing bandits gives you a hero skin... you get nothing for, say, killing zombies in one life, or surviving for n hours. - Zombie AI is dumb. Allowing players to hop in and control zombies/zombie bosses for some form of reward would add spice and tweak the "only end challenge is other survivors" factor in a significant way. I don't follow DayZ forums/SA all that much, so was just curious if this approach in general will be different for the SA and if we can expect to see more of a focus on zombie survival. Maybe disabling attacks meaning that cooperating with others is more likely to save your life. Or more high-end items that work well against zombies, and more "achievement" type things again focused on cooperating, killing zombies, surviving.

1. I'm making the assumption that the SA will be based in some degree on the mod. 2. You'd discount a potentially huge improvement in gameplay for "DayZ zombies should have exactly 15 IQ and not 22, never ever in my DayZ!"? Zombies would still only know when to move and when to attack, they'd simply strike at more inopportune moments/be more random/raise the challenge level to a point where you would be less likely to need to kill survivors to find it. There are animals dumber than cockroaches able to stalk and ambush, let alone have the mental capacity to walk on only two limbs. 3. I'm out, good luck and happy bean hunting etc until the SA.

Aside from the points I've mentioned already, what's the difference then? Simply that one zombie is controlled by repetitive routines and one zombie is controlled by a less predictable and more creative (and dangerous) mechanic? Why does that bother you? If we had this mechanic already, we might have zombies waiting for you in spots you thought safe, following you into forests and waiting to attack until you are searching in your backpack, running at you indoors, sitting in vehicles and popping out at you when you get close, hiding behind doors and around corners, sneaking up on snipers until they are directly on top of them, and occasionally doing all this in packs... it could add a new dimension to the zombie threat, maybe some paranoia, and that's just in the mod, alone, not to mention what could be done in a fresh game being built with this in mind. I don't really understand the nay-sayers, human AI is a much more interesting/challenging/scary opponent than stale, repeating computer AI. If you don't think so... Look at the current state of the mod.

What's not immersive, zombies stalking you, or popping out of unexpected places? Getting attacked at inconvenient moments? Seriously? "Zombies never stalk me in real life. Total immersion breaker."

Noone said they'd be able to read and write. I for one would like them to be challenging.

What about it do you not like? You dislike that some zombies wouldn't be 100% predictable? Or that some zombies would do scary things like stalking or ambushing, or be dangerous? Help me out here.

As you can see, wether players interact or not is not simply a choice that Rocket can make, but rather one that is brought about indirectly by game design and circumstances. It's quite likely that having some occasional player-controlled zeds is part of the solution of ensuring the rest, playing as survivors, interact more willingly end-game, in the sense that players (in this case opposing as zeds) can bring about real challenge in a way that computer AI never can. I'm fairly certain (sadly) that the eventual alternative will be a gradual return of the KOS game mentality, over more or less amount of time depending on how well the survival challenge is fleshed out.

People tend to dislike new ideas. You also wouldn't be forced to actually do this yourself.

Yes. http://dayz.gamepedia.com/Zed#Types_of_Zed

We already have them, they're called viral zombies.

Well, I'm skeptical but also hopeful, I guess we'll see. What will the challenge be once you have survival mastered? Zombie AI will become boring. Other players will still be unpredictable. If other players are only survivors, your remaining challenge will be killing survivors. If zombie AI is stale, as any computer AI always is eventually, any forum of "versus zombies" for its own sake will become boring. I suspect that after some time the end game players will once more revert to the KOS crowd, unless some serious attention is paid to the "zombie faction" of the game and their flaws, primarily lack of intelligent challenge, and lack of rewards in dealing with them.

All it is is an effective way to upgrade AI and replayability of enemies to levels not possible with computer-controlled mobs. Also, please don't tell me you have more player interaction from the bandit that just snipes you from 800m away.

Increasing the survival aspect of the game does not mean it won't still be a pvp-fest end game. I mean, for all I've said about it getting easier to survive as as you learn the game, DayZ is already very survival oriented compared to every other game. However, that did nothing to deter from the pvp aspect, due to the various other points I mentioned. Going back to Dancing's objection to player-controlled zombies in some form, it's a sure-fire way to counter the issue of stale, boring, predictable AI. If you have viral zombies that stalk you, ambush you, wait on loot spots, and do things you generally don't expect, it will do a lot to make surviving against zombies more interesting in the long run.

It's not exactly an untested design option. You prefer idiotic AI or lack of challenge?

The game pushed people in this direction: There's very little late game challenge in surviving or killing zombies... and no rewards. Unlike other players. It's not as simple as saying "the game itself is not to blame for who chooses to play it." No, the game attracts players based on its merits, or lack of. Making zombies more difficult is a step in the right direction, but will it actually reward cooperation for survival? The two are not the same. Just as an example, if stealth is a factor, the more people you have, the more likely you are to be spotted. In this case, having harder zombies and more people will just make screw-ups more likely and more punishing.