Throwing my two cents regarding the zombie numbers into an already overflowing melting pot, but what the hey... [edit - turns out to be more of a 'my experience with Day Z prior to and after the patch'.] I started playing DayZ about a week before the patch. Absolutely loved it. I played solo at first, getting my bearings, running around completely lost most of the time... eventually I plucked up the courage to enter some buildings. I scouted a small village but none of the buildings were enter-able. I followed a dirt road into the countryside and cleared out 5 barns and a couple shacks, racking up about 20 zombie kills. It was terrifying at first, and the game is really unforgiving. As soon as I got my Lee Enfield, and realised Zombies couldn't run indoors, it was easy as sin. The two nights before the patch rolled in, me and a friend set out together, each feeling confident since we had survived solo for about 5 days. Clearing out barns was easy, except a minor lag spike occurred and we got swarmed. I was down to 2000 blood and had entered 'shock'. Not knowing that 'shock' was 'shock', I proceeded to eat all of our food supplies hoping to get over 4000 blood would remove the effect. It didn't go away. I was effectively incapacitated and any more zombie encounters would mean my death, unless my buddy had my back 100%. After the patch... for some reason I spawned on the absolute South-Western most beach. The maps end, as it were. I ran for hours seeing nothing until I reached about half a grid-square west of Kamenka. I scouted out the town to see it literally sprawling with zombies. I lay prone, considered my options. Out of the fuckin' blue some guy comes up behind me and starts popping me with his Makarov. So I get up and shoot him in the face with my Lee Enfield. Twice, for good measure. I bandaged myself up, and noticed about 12 zombies were running towards me. I dropped three of them, and then ran. I ran for ages. Pretty much to the edge of the map again. Zombies glitched out? They sort of ran ahead of me at times then disappeared so I would stop and catch my breath. I eventually gave up running and killed them all. Bandaged myself, took painkillers, ate food, drank water, checked my supplies... decided that was a bit too close to comfort for my liking, I would log out. So I did. On returning, there were about 3 players around the hills/beach area all shooting at each other and I just so happened to be in the middle of their crossfire. I barely hit 'z' before my char got shot and knocked down. I regained conciousness just in time to get shot again. Dead. 5 days played, first death. (So, 5 days... translates to about 8-9 hours of actual playing.) So I respawned, the beaches are crawling with people since more zombies = more deaths. I made it to the hills and got picked off. Two respawns later I made it farther inland, tried sneaking into a barn, aggroed one zombie, shot him down, got eaten by the rest. In short: Before patch, I played the game, I had fun, I was shit scared. After the patch, I got bandit-killed repeatedly, I didn't get any loot. I got frustrated. I honestly think the higher zombie count has increased the number of bandits, since, killing a player is easier than going after the horde. And everyone wants to be killing shit. Okay, I've rambled on enough. Here are my thoughts: Zombie numbers prior to patch were a little on the low side. Zombie numbers after the patch are okay, except the distribution is fucked. Zombies should spawn proportionally to their environment/location. For example, a barn might have 2 or 3, whereas a small town might have 40+. Zombie AI is severely lacking. I think this is where the true problem lies. You can shoot a zombie from ~500 meters outside, and cause every zombie in the vicinity to charge straight for you. Let's take a step back. Zombies are undead. They are not highly intelligent, usually they are portrayed as slow, lumbering and, frankly, thick. I think an interesting tweak to experiment with, would be as follows: All zombies should be harder to take down. Across the board, all weapons. Perhaps some distinction between particularly tough (fat?) zombies and weaker (thin) zombies. Headshots become pivotal. Makarov becomes? (more ?) useless. All zombies should WALK. Even when aggro'd. When a zombie reaches low health, or has attacked a player he enters a 'frenzy' and can then RUN, as in current game speed of running. Perhaps if a player is bleeding, then zombies targetting that player begin running. Firing pot shots at zombies should not aggro the zombie horde, attracting player attention is bad enough as it is. With this 'durable' zombie idea in place, it becomes much more of a mission in conserving ammunition, supplies etc. We can play with some ideas like lighting a fire to attract zombies away from a building so that you can loot what is inside, or similarly throwing a smoke grenade to distract zombies. I am aware the game currently has these dynamics to a certain degree. Anyways, these were my thoughts. I know the game is still in alpha, so don't harp on about that. ps. First post here... Great job Rocket and I hope your hangover ain't too bad today (do people still drink at 31?) :) pps. I have a nasty habit of keyboard bashing epically long posts. Stupid 120wpm.
