my experience with the new zombie behavior (1.7.5.1)

[siew 53]

i decided to make a thread out of this very long post.

it is only the impression from my perspective and i know that the game wont feel so intense

if everyone would play like me.

crazy, blood hungry bandits are part of the game and belongs there.

personally i like the slow stupid zombies more than the running screaming ones, but for dayz

they fit better.

to be dangerous they have to add 5 or 10 times more of them and thats not going to happen i think.

i haven't played the mod since middle of december.

with the new patch and that zombie behavior change, i got curious and gave it a try.

the main reason for me to pause playing was that the zombies wasn't the threat

that they schould be.

with some experience it was way too easy to deal with them.

it is still easy to fight them because of much slower movement in buildings, pathfinding and laggy reaction times.

they only kill me atm when bugging through stuff.

"you have to trust your ears"

with the peripheral dots being removed i noticed that the combat icon is almost doing the same thing...

i dont like the idea of being warned by the game that someone/something is attacking me.

maybe only showing it for 10 seconds when trying to disconnect.

zombies are grunting while roaming and scream if they see or hear you.

in a specific range this scream is noticed by other zombies of course.

zombies have nothing other to do than chasing humans and eating brains,

they will go investigate the noise.

if they see or hear you, they also scream and attract more of its kind and so on.

i think this is a big improvement and the right step in the direction of having little hordes in game.

its nice that you have a huge problem if you shoot a unsilenced weapon inside a town.

zombies will hear that and go investigate for the next brain burger.

i usually take some empty cans and bottles to lure zombies into the building im currently hiding.

kill all i can with my axe while slowly moving backwards until its silent again, hide the bodies

and move on to the next enterable building.

for me its very important to disguise my presence from unknown players to be "safe".

for example closing doors you have opened and hiding bodys.

but that kind of hiding bodys by simply disappearing into the ground feels wrong.

dragging them into a dark corner would add much more immersion and possibilities.

you could set up a trap by lure inquisitive players with a trail of dead bodys.

finding a pile of dead zombie bodys in a dark place would freak me out.

a good excample for what i mean is what happened yesterday in cherno

i reached the center of cherno, seeing some dead zombie bodies.

it has to be another player around because i always hide them.

i heared gunshots, automatic rifle, so i decided to hide for 5 minutes and hear how the situation is developing.

changed to pistol and aiming at the backdoor.

gunshots stopped and lots of zombies was coming out of the building slowly roaming.

so he must be dead, disconnected or is still hiding in there.

slowly i went in with my pistol and shaking hands, and found a dead, well equipped, bandit.

took his awesome NVGs and M9 SD and went away.

i decided to not take the AK.

its awesome that you now have to consider more about the consequences of every thing you do.

it adds more danger, fear and paranoia.

and more danger always means its good to team up against a common threat.

the big problem now i see is the lack of silenced and especially melee weapons.

thanks for reading and the nice patch.

im sorry for my english.

[Beanus 61]

For hiding bodies, you have to blame ARMA II for that.

[siew 53]

but dragging players is possible.

[victusmortuus 1074]

They run in buildings a lot now. ..

[siew 53]

i remeber one or two of them doing this... bug or feature? xD

[Pokey (DayZ) 103]

I don't actually see any issue with finding silenced weapons, simply because of the fact you don't have to find them. All you you need to find is any variant of the M4 or M16 (off the top of my head: M4A1, M4A1 CCO, M4A3 CCO, M4A3 Holo, M16A2, M16AXM203, M16AXACOG). Any of those weapons, when loaded with SD ammo, give silenced shots. It's quite easy to find one of those weapons, after that you only have to worry about other players hearing your shots.

[janus0104 212]

i remeber one or two of them doing this... bug or feature? xD

Bug. Indoor movement for the AI is likely as good as it's ever gonna get before standalone, we'll have to deal with it for the time being.

[Dreygar (DayZ) 178]

For anyone who thinks Zombies should sprint indoors, you are absolutely 100% retarded. Try to combat 20 zombies outside, while they are running at you/hitting you. Now imagine that in a close-quarters environment. The game is way too clunky, animations are way too glitched, and the melee system is pitiful. You want Zombies to run indoors? Those things need to be addressed.

Like I said, I challenge anyone to run through a city and attract some aggro and then try to combat them all with your hatchet out in the open and let me know how that works for you. I suspect you won't make it, and if that is your idea of "hard zombies" then ... well, I don't know what else to say to you.

[gernia 7]

Well if you are realistic and you manange to attract 20 zombies in a zombie acapolypse where the zombies run your odds off survival drops fast... :P So I want them to run innside if they still see you, but pause and go quietly around if they dont.

Edited February 7, 2013 by Gernia

[Dreygar (DayZ) 178]

Well if you are realistic and you manange to attract 20 zombies in a zombie acapolypse where the zombies run your odds off survival drops fast... :P So I want them to run innside if they still see you, but pause and go quietly around if they dont.

Zombies, in every sense (less you have some kind of I am Legend or War Z Zombie running at you...) will never be practical in causing an apocalypse anyway.

Though, it's still pretty simple. Next time you're playing and you get Zombie aggro, don't run into a building or a bush. Combat them with your weapon. You will either A ) Run B ) Die ... Pretty high chances of C ) Killing the Zombies and surviving if it is in small numbers... but most likely have either a loss in health, broken leg, and/or an infection. Zombies running indoors, with a poor Melee system, is as stupid as it gets.

Arma was built around shooting, not melee. Games like Dead Island were built around melee, and so zombie's running at you can be easily contained in small numbers and really difficult in large numbers. I am really curious as to what the development team is doing in these regards to the Standalone since it's been confirmed that Zombies will now run indoors. We know animations are being fixed, pathing is being fixed, zombies glitching through walls will probably be fixed, but melee needs a serious overhaul still and those changes are still unknown to me.

Edited February 7, 2013 by Dreygar

[Josh225 129]

Zombies running indoors with the current "clunkiness" of the game is indeed a stupid idea.