Z's in the wilderness

[DK McWormfood 10]

I have noticed, in the past week or so, that Z's are spawning right out in the open and in woods. I didn't notice this in any patch notes (I will stand corrected if anyone can find it for me).

Does anyone have an idea about the mechanism the game uses to generate these Z's? Do they spawn at fixed spots when a player comes into range or is it random? If it's random is there any correlation with other players being in the area, or is there a maximum distance from you that a Z will spawn in?

[Anarchyihdi 151]

Its the new loitering mechanic, they spawned somewhere and "wandered" to the wilderness etc

I think.

[smore98 225]

The best I can understand from this is that zombies can travel quite a distance before eventually returning to the path-finding mode they usually travel in. Perhaps this may be a bug that either spawns certain zombies from fences.

[Ratsmon 131]

Yeah, when I was looking for tents, out in the "debug" zone, I noticed how a lot of them spawn there. I had a feeling someone was following me or something, really spooky :o

[frosti 2165]

I noticed them spawn on spaces that have no trees in them. Like cow or goat spawn were replaced with zombie or something.

[DK McWormfood 10]

Just today i have seen 2 Z's spawn just about 50-150m away from me in the open, so I think it's something like the animal spawn. This is pretty cool as it's led to me nearly shitting myself a couple of times as i nearly ran straight into the shambling face-munchers.

I was wondering if anyone had any real data that could be used tactically, like the 200m spawn barrier that the buildings have.

Yesterday, by the dear stands to the W-SW of Stary I heared a player using his AK to clear a couple of Z's, When i looked there were the Z's near the stand (the player had just spawned them in as he approached) and also 2 or 3 in the field wandering around. Seeing as he had killed the Z's from one stand, and i saw the others spawn in, it would appear as tho there is some sort of an area around each player that will spawn a Z according to a chance table along the same lines as loot or animals. I have seen them out to a range of about 400m from me, but i can't be sure A: if they spawned off me or another building/player and B: if they spawned closer to me and we moved apart before i noticed them.

If this is an addition in the latest update, i really like it. it creates uncertainty and opens up another opportunity for PvP and PvE tactics. Rocket gets another tin for his beans pile!!!

Edited March 5, 2013 by DK McWormfood

[Dr. Goner 661]

Its the new loitering mechanic, they spawned somewhere and "wandered" to the wilderness etc

I think.

Nope, they spawn in relation to the player. I've watched them appear. They don't spawn in woods, but will spawn in open fields in the wilderness.

[_Anubis_ (DayZ) 139]

I believe they spawn in the same 'preferred' locations where also animals spawn. Typically open fields and they wander around, sometimes entering in forests. I mostly see them at the edge of the forest or in the open, but never in deep forest.

Those 'preferred' locations are chosen according to the player proximity.

_Anubis_

[Sutinen 635]

I've seen a couple of zeds wandering around in open fields. I also noticed, that zeds wander around long distances. I raided NWAF firestation and when I came back, there was 3 zombies hundreds of meters outside the walls (Not from the deerstand). Pretty cool.

Edited March 5, 2013 by Sutinen

[rn_max 202]

The annoying thing is that in combination with current overdone infected awareness, travel in daylight may well result in repetitive random encounters or exile to forests.

Personally I preferred the relative sanctuary of the wilderness to hunt and recuperate.

Now every hunt kill will likely lead to aggro attacks, as the bloody things sense gutting from huge distances and will spawn within detection range. It is bad enough ensuring hunt kills are far enough away from detection already.

I spawned in yesterday by my tent in the edge of a forest area, then set about selecting some gear. No more than two minutes in game and an aggro'd infected came growling in like a homing missile. Detected crouching between fir trees with only two bars on the vision meter and zero on hearing. This is an annoyance, not a challenge.

If it has to stay, for Pete's sake reduce the spawning chance, increase the radius and restrict it by terrain type. I gave up playing Operation Wolfenstein in the mid nineties.

[_Anubis_ (DayZ) 139]

Deep forest is still safe, the edge not anymore.

_Anubis_

[Hetstaine 10852]

So far all of the random field zeds i have seen produce nearly zero aggro ? And tbh 1.7.6.1 seems sfa different besides zeds wandering further than normal, I have a tent stashed behind a hangar at NW field on one server and can go to it several times in a session with minimal aggro, i also watched a guy crawl from the central tower to the firestation and encounter no aggro, daytime. Are they really harder ? cause i am not seeing it.

[MakeThemListen 51]

So far all of the random field zeds i have seen produce nearly zero aggro ? And tbh 1.7.6.1 seems sfa different besides zeds wandering further than normal, I have a tent stashed behind a hangar at NW field on one server and can go to it several times in a session with minimal aggro, i also watched a guy crawl from the central tower to the firestation and encounter no aggro, daytime. Are they really harder ? cause i am not seeing it.

I've noticed this too, and it seems they are not harder at all. At least the new spawn-system ones? I don't know, they feel pretty easy to avoid.

[Dr. Goner 661]

So far all of the random field zeds i have seen produce nearly zero aggro ? And tbh 1.7.6.1 seems sfa different besides zeds wandering further than normal, I have a tent stashed behind a hangar at NW field on one server and can go to it several times in a session with minimal aggro, i also watched a guy crawl from the central tower to the firestation and encounter no aggro, daytime. Are they really harder ? cause i am not seeing it.

Well, they're ten times easier than 1.7.5. I thought the zeds were great (excluding obvious glitches) in that patch. They hunted, I avoided them and definitely fired my weapon less.

[kitfoo@yahoo.com 13]

One thing I noticed about the zeds spawning in the middle of nowhere....that's where animals are supposed to be. It seems they've taken animals out completely. After this new zed in a field thing, I have seen ZERO animals.

[Sutinen 635]

One thing I noticed about the zeds spawning in the middle of nowhere....that's where animals are supposed to be. It seems they've taken animals out completely. After this new zed in a field thing, I have seen ZERO animals.

Weird, I have seen a lot of cows.

[charley-taylor@hotmail.co.uk 39]

Ive seen this too. Its a great feature!

Ive even noticed animals staying in the same area, i saw a cow wondering around a little field up north i drove past 3 hours later and that cow was still there! This has happened more than once, im liking it!

[Chips- 58]

So far all of the random field zeds i have seen produce nearly zero aggro ? And tbh 1.7.6.1 seems sfa different besides zeds wandering further than normal, I have a tent stashed behind a hangar at NW field on one server and can go to it several times in a session with minimal aggro, i also watched a guy crawl from the central tower to the firestation and encounter no aggro, daytime. Are they really harder ? cause i am not seeing it.

Were you watching me? I did that a couple days ago :D

[Hetstaine 10852]

Only if you got shot ;) After being involved in a few shoot outs up there and nobody wanting to talk over direct i wasn't taking any chances with him.

You will notice all of the trash loot around in the fields which is clearly what they are using to spawn in the wandering zeds, but yes they do definitely have very low aggro for some reason. Me and my partner did circles around a few of them last night for nil response.

[svenbreakfast 231]

Nice to get a chance for some target practice during those long runs.