More Random Zombie Spawns, Moving Zombie Mobs

[catgut 3]

As I think about it more, I believe that the reason players are much more willing to kill each other than cooperate is that the zombie threat is primarily based on stealth and detection. Having another person may help in a firefight, but having another person is also more likely to get you spotted by zombies. You may be more likely to win a fight, but you're also more likely to have a fight in the first place, which can make other people seem like unnecessary risks- and having to give up half of the supplies you find doesn't sweeten the deal any. Until the zombies are dangerous enough that working with other survivors significantly improves your odds of survival, shooting first and eating beans later will be largely the extent of player interaction.

As of the latest patch, zombies are much more dangerous as sneaking has been reduced in effectiveness, but the overwhelmingly most effective strategy is still to sneak, which does not favor groups. Players still prefer to work alone, but waiting for other players to make dangerous town runs before shooting them and taking their newly-acquired supplies is more effective than before.

If, instead of the current spawn system, we had random straggler zombies around the world, coupled with larger mobs of 10-50 roaming around everywhere (not just towns), and the zombies could see and hear well enough to make sneaking past them difficult at best, I think the survival dynamic would be much different. Having dangerous numbers of aware, intelligent zombies possibly lurking behind every corner would mean having to fight or run would be an inevitability, not just the result of botched stealth during a town run. Not having every town chock-full of zed would allow solo players to decide a town is too risky and move on to the next instead of being forced to sneak past very lethal zombies for supplies (keeping the difficulty reasonable), while groups of armed players could hit every town by clearing out the zombies, allowing them to gather more supplies in the same amount of time but with more danger. Lastly, it would add a new dynamic to player interaction, as the possibility that fifty zombies are lurking unseen around the corner or in the forest just waiting to be aggro'd makes the decision of whether or not to pull the trigger on another survivor a much more difficult one.

Better yet, if the groups of zombies moved around, wandering from place to place, just scouting out a town would not ensure its long-term safety, without using a game-y mechanic like having zombies suddenly pop into existence every so often.

In short: Instead of hyper-aware zombies spawning in large numbers in every town, but nowhere more than 100m from a building, have small numbers of individual zombies everywhere (but more likely to be found in towns), as well as larger groups of 10-50 spawning everywhere as well (but again, more likely to be in towns), leaving the possibility that any given town will be empty or contain just a couple of zombies. And have these zombies move around, so that swarmed towns could clear out, or human-controlled ones could be attacked.

Some towns would be crawling, some would be empty, giving players the ability to keep searching for a quiet, 'safe' town to loot, while others could go guns blazing, loot every town they come across, and thus amass more supplies- should they survive, which would be aided by teamwork. Staying out in the wilderness or up in a tower would not guarantee safety. No matter where you are, gunfire would have the possibility to bring an angry horde down on you. Zombies would be less predictable and thus more of a threat without being individually more dangerous, players would have a good reason to think twice before shooting another human but without artificially punishing bandits, teamwork would be much more useful without becoming a necessity.

From a 'realism' standpoint, it makes zombies the omnipresent threat they're supposed to be, makes their locations in the world more random and natural, allows them to have near-human senses of sight and hearing without making the game impossibly difficult, and allows threats to be seen and avoided, not suddenly pop into existence when approaching a town.

What do you guys think?

[catgut 3]

Also, I'm not familiar with exactly how the ArmA 2 engine works, but would it be possible to store global zombie positions and movement in an array structure, then spawn them in to these positions when players come within visual range? It would allow the zombies to be persistent across the whole map without massive server overhead.

[Zalz Torus 1]

Beat me to it, this is almost exactly what I was thinking last night after getting gunned down by a bandit in a town. The choice is so clear when dealing with strangers; shoot them, they are full of goodies.

I do not begrudge pvp or bandits, I am one at times too, but since zombies are so easily soloed, there's no point in getting help, hence casual killing. If shooting someone meant possibly alerting a hoard who could run inside or chase you for a long damn time (not forever) one would think twice about it. Also might lead to tense robberies/stand offs, that would get the heart pumping.

Long story short, make zombies damn near suicidal to solo in towns or high loot areas. Lone wolves (myself) would have to live more like coyotes, scavanging around the edges or preying on lone surviors out in the wilds.

[catgut 3]

Exactly. Increasing the zombie difficulty considerably, and making it extremely difficult to avoid combat by stealthing, would make teamwork much more useful in surviving zombies. But I don't think solo play should be impossible or excessively difficult, which is why having some towns sparsely populated would let the solo players avoid the heavily populated ones. If you're not trying to scavenge enough food and drink for two people, you can be a little more selective about where you hit. The danger of alerting the horde encouraging people to seek interaction that doesn't end in gunfire would be a nice bonus, but without punishing banditry.

[leo235 2]

YES

there should be randomly changing areas of different spawn frequencies for zombies.

thus Your title should be like

"Zombies should spawn in mobs"

or

"Zombies should be randomly concentrated over the map"

Your post should then quickly come to this point. Or have a newspaperlike part summarizing it in the front

Then this would be easier to read for devs and maybe we could try this

[M3MIX 0]

awesome idea!

[Budiak 1]

This would, in effect, turn me into a KOS bandit overnight. If the zombies are too tough to go into town, then every single person I see is getting shot for sweet, sweet beans. FYI, I go out of my way to avoid people right now. Your idea would instantly change the way I play to exactly what you seek to cure.

[catgut 3]

This would' date=' in effect, turn me into a KOS bandit overnight. If the zombies are too tough to go into town, then every single person I see is getting shot for sweet, sweet beans. FYI, I go out of my way to avoid people right now. Your idea would instantly change the way I play to exactly what you seek to cure.

[/quote']

This was something I considered. If the zombies were simply made tougher and harder to avoid, as has been suggested before, then player killing would be even more effective and desirable as you say, especially since lone players wouldn't have a hope in hell of being able to raid a town without getting swarmed and killed.

However, if there are some towns that are empty of zombies or at least near-empty, you have an alternative- this would make some towns safe to loot. You could always take the risk of getting shot or attracting zombies and kill other players for their food, but not only would there be another way to get food with less risk (by scouting around until you find a less-populated town), cooperating with other players would allow you to make a raid on the towns crawling with zombies and so be able to hit every single town for supplies so long as you have the ammo.

Compared to what we have now, some towns would be tougher, some towns would be easier. The major changes that increase difficulty would be that zombies would be found everywhere, not just towns, and that they would move from place to place. The increased danger from zombies wouldn't be from them becoming more damaging or faster or better at detection (they're already dangerous enough as of 1.7.1), but rather from how they'd become less predictable, making combat with them guaranteed to happen sooner or later (you had no idea that group was waiting right around the corner, or you didn't spot the mob heading right for the town you were looting, or they were hidden in the treeline) rather than only occurring if you screw up your stealth.

Lastly, with zombies everywhere, killing other players would in no way guarantee your safety. Currently, you can stay out of town and kill survivors, and loot their bodies for the food you need, and as long as you don't go into town your only danger comes from other players. With this proposed change you could still do it, if you choose to, but it wouldn't be the overwhelmingly better choice as it is now. You might kill a guy for beans, only to then immediately run into a horde anyways, or even aggro a horde with your gunfire even if you're out in the woods.

The idea is, you'd run into the zombies sooner or later. They'd be an omnipresent threat, not one inexplicably tied to a narrow radius around towns, and killing other players wouldn't be a ticket to avoiding zombies altogether- rather a short-term benefit of instant supplies, with possible longer-term repercussions when the inevitable happens and you have to fight your way out. Nowhere would be safe, the zombies would ALWAYS be dangerous, no matter what you do, and with that your choices become a little less one-sided.

[Euphe 1]

I think right now zombies are hard enough.

Don't forget that many players just like playing alone. Why ruin the fun for them and make them seek for teams? Leave loners alone.

[catgut 3]

I think right now zombies are hard enough.

Don't forget that many players just like playing alone. Why ruin the fun for them and make them seek for teams? Leave loners alone.

This was another concern, which I addressed in the initial post. If you want to go alone, not only could you still do so, but in some ways it would be easier. Specifically, you could skip towns that look too 'hot' until you find one that is empty or near-empty, and loot that town in relative safety. If you want to try to sneak through a zombie-infested town (like all towns currently are), you could still do so, but it wouldn't be your only option.

What working in groups would offer would be the option to hit every town along your path, zombies or not, clearing them out and fully looting before moving on. They would be able to acquire equipment and supplies more rapidly, but at the cost of both increased combat and of course using food and drink more quickly.

The game would be harder in that you wouldn't be safe from zombies just by staying out of towns and could run into them anywhere, but it would be easier in that not all towns would be zombie-filled deathtraps. The idea is not to make the zombies more dangerous per se, but to spread out that danger and make it less predictable so that you're never truly safe.

[Euphe 1]

Oh, I see your point now. This way I find this idea interesting. Might actually make it even harder and funner at the same time.

[Budiak 1]

Thanks for considering the ramifications of your own suggestion and taking them seriously.

You raised a point that hasn't been thought of yet- some towns just won't have as many. That is quite possible, because it represents the 'horde' idea. Wow. That actually makes a lot of sense. Zombies are like people. In society we follow the money, the Infected follow the food!

Zombies should of course be dangerous, but the idea that even a town with three buildings in it is just as dangerous as Elektro is absurd. There's no reason for there to be 130 zombies pouring out of a town with three buildings and a barn.

While right now you are correct, you can stay out of towns and live off of other players, it is not necessary at all. I frequently go into towns, purposely avoiding other players. With the above scenario you described, with some towns being only partially populated with Infected, it would be a balance between robbing/killing survivors and looting towns instead of only one or the other. The way I read your original post, I would only be able to survive by either killing survivors or by mounting platoon-sized raids on every town I saw. Neither sound like a lighthearted and relaxing evening, really. What you proposed in response to me seems more reasonable.

[catgut 3]

Really it came to me as I was thinking about DayZ in comparison to a 'real' apocalypse. I know that if I came upon a small town crawling with zombies in real life, and I was alone, my first reaction would probably be 'can't stop here, gotta find somewhere else', not to try sneaking in and looting the place. Why? Well, because surely there won't be zombies everywhere, so I can probably find somewhere else that isn't infested.

Because the presence of zombies in DayZ is a predictable factor, nonexistent in the countryside, but always present in towns, they're possible to 'game'. A player can, armed with the right knowledge, avoid the zombies entirely, and every town exploration plays out largely the same, with the main variable being what you find- that's why humans are the main threat in DayZ. It's not that the zombies aren't dangerous, it's that once you learn how to deal with them you're safe, whereas humans are tricky. I think if zombie presence were more random, and players didn't know what to expect, zombies would be more of a perceived threat without actually being more dangerous. Having a one in a hundred chance of bumping into a horde in the countryside or in a seemingly empty town would keep players on their toes, even if it were offset by having some towns be scarcely populated to keep the overall difficulty the same. And nothing gives players reason to keep moving and stay quiet quite like the possibility that fifty zombies are about to move in on the town.