Walking Zombies

[whiteboy greg 21]

I did read it. Sure, in confined areas they could be really dangerous, especially if they are tougher in the SA than they are now. And sure, placing all the good loot in confined areas would force us to face zombies with our backs against a wall more frequently. I have some problems with that though:

1: The Zombies could easily get lured and picked off outside those closed spaces by any decent player who know the basics of kiting (assuming those zombies are worth the led I'm spending on them, we don't know what the zombie/ammo ratio will be in the SA)

2: Slow Zombies are still of little worry outside those areas, just run for 40 sec and they will lose your track, I want to feel threatened by them all the time.

3: Fast Zombies can also be dangerous indoors if you have nowhere to run (yeah, really).

Thanks for the time my friend, What your saying is that slow zombies can present a challenge but it's just not what you want.

I'll adress your responses.

1. This could easily be fixed by not allowing zeds to open doors. Meaning a building teaming with zombies would have to be cleared out room by room.

2. Unless your being chased by zeds out of town when do you worry about zeds in the wilderness?

3. Of course silly goose. Now zeds run indoors too so fucking better pick that gear up quick.

[Saecii 12]

1. That would be compatible with any and all zombie survival lore up to now. With two people for example, one would just lure all the zombies and another would loot everything.

2. That would be a way to go no doubt, but what about other players. If you just want to be scared of zombies all the time then that would be feasible, but the fear of the world that's incorporated in dayz comes more from other players than zombies. Players would spend time in uninfested areas like forests rather than towns. In towns you would be threatened by massive amounts of wandering zombies while you search for food and water and in the countryside the threat would be other players.

3. Yes they would, but so would slow zombies. Would it be feasible to have such agility indoors, I would argue not. I'm not sure I personally would care to play a game like that.

Fair enough, I see you point(s). I'll go sleep over it, then we'll see. You have my beans though for an excellent and quick reply.

[whiteboy greg 21]

That's a nice tactic that would require some planning, especially if the zombies would slowly start walking back to the buildings. And in a big city, this would probably not be very effective.

My oppinion is though, that slow walking zombies could only work if cities had hundreds and buildings had a dozen of them.

Yeah, I actually totally agree that slow zombies would need a change to the map that is not reasonable for the SA.

I just don't like people saying "slow zombies too easy" and moving on like it's not even worth discussing.

[MastaJack 2]

Well, I do think their should be slow zombies and running zombies. The thing with slow zombies is that maybe they just keep following and following you. Say you stop at a castle or something and are going to hunker down for the night, but you see somehing coming up the hill. Pulling out your binocular's, you see a horde of zed's slowly shambling their way to you. If I saw this, I'd pee ma pants! Or they could follow you not forever, but just a short amount of time, longer than what they have now.

Edited January 10, 2013 by MastaJack

[mr_chabowski@live.co.uk 2416]

Zed-handling up to this point in DayZ has been a see-saw of stealth or massacre.

This balance will likely be mantained in SA, because it feels natural. I wouldn't instinctively aggro a horde IRL.

In the case of a "shoot 'em all" scenario, fast Zeds clearly pose more of a threat.

Headshots are already a quick solution to the Zed problem, so slowing them all down would be bad for gameplay.

The life-cycle of Zeds is all but confirmed for SA,

In terms of food-sources for Zeds, I imagine scarcity hits hordes all in the same area.

With this in mind, there will likely be entire towns/cities of hungry, slow shamblers, due to lack of player activity.

High player-traffic areas would be home to faster, healthier Zeds.

RE: Jonsse+Co. Responses will be out of order, but it's the order of relevance in my head.

For point #3. If anyone can run indoors, Zeds should too.

#2. Making it more of a challenge to engage Zeds doesn't lessen the likelyhood or impact of PvP combat.

In fact, it adds another element to the engagement. Zeds as weapons/distractions.

Wandering hordes have to play a part, so nowhere is safe. There will be Zeds in forests too. Count on it.

#1. Kiting Zeds to loot may fit in with what contemporary fiction thinks about them, but it'd make for boring gameplay.

[Quartermaine 34]

Like others have suggested, a mixture of the two makes sense. Im sure it will be implemented as part of the zombie life cycle that rocket wants. The slow shamblers would be freshly fed or older zombies, the fast runners would be more desperate hungry ones and newly infected etc etc.

[Maj3stic 5]

The amount of times people have posted this is the amount of hairs I have on my head...

[victusmortuus 1074]

The Zombies are too fast in this game, also I hope they get rid of the crawling ones.

[Talibambi 119]

Id love the infecteds max running speed reduced by around 10%. As well as this it would be good to have actual walking infected mixed in with the running infected.

Why? I dont think that infected should be able to outrun the player for one. But more than that - walking infected mixed with running infected means that if you double back on your position that you are eventually gonna come across a bunch of walkers. Hell could even have the walkers do a wail that attracts the runners.

[victusmortuus 1074]

I just hope we can all agree to have no special Zombies like Boomers or crap like that. Excuse the pun but let's keep the Zombies a side dish.

[PigKiller 26]

The problem with zombies in almost all incarnations (or in this case reincarnations) is that the only way to kill them is a head shot or blow. If you got one running at you, even from a distace and knowing he's coming at you, it's VERY hard to hit in the head. If three are after you and and you're not ready and not a really good shot...you don't have a chance, at least on harder settings anyway.

But if they are a little slower and just walk fast and don't run around like monkeys or trackstars you can get some head shots in and have a fighting chance instead of just running away.

I know you can take them down now with body shots but in the SA and the mod I'd like to see that changed. Shooting one in the heart and watching him go down takes away from the whole 'zombie' feel.

By the way. I've been playing DayZ+ and the Zeds are much more deadly so unless you run or kill 'em you'll end up bleeding to death. The running and monkey zeds make it a major pain but much more challenging looking for loot.

[mr_chabowski@live.co.uk 2416]

Word of god says the infected are still alive, so undead rules don't apply.

Zombie lore chops and changes for every iteration.

There are commonalities and general expectations, but there is not one defining set of characteristics.

"Death is an impediment, not an energy drink"

While I personally prefer the classic Romero's on film, in games they don't provide the same challenge.

Nobody can say "Zombies don't run", considering they are fictional.