DayZ SA: Make zombies a threat

[maninthewall 470]

Right now, zombies aren't really that much of a threat.. They are more kind creatures that are there to annoy you, I know zombies can be very lethal but since they are so easy to get rid of, it's not much of a challenge.

That's why I think there are bandits in this game. To them, the zombies are no threat so they have to shoot other players as soon as they see them, unarmed or not. to entertain themselves..

My suggestion is that zombies become very much of a threat (which is basically the point of the game, the game is not suppose to be a deathmatch) so other players, not just friends but random players team up against them. To help each other eliminate zombies from cities and keep them away (as they do not spawn around players anymore)

Obviously there will still be bandits in the game so you will have to be very cautious. At the moment everyone and everything but zombies are a threat, and does not simulate a zombie apocalypse.

I know this will make DayZ very different, but in my opinion, much more entertaining. At the moment, I don't even feel like playing DayZ because of the people shooting completely unarmed players just for the 10 seconds of entertainment

Do you agree or do you disagree? Tell me what you think.

[Dancing.Russian.Man 1631]

You, and about 200 other people who don't bother searching for the forums agree.

Along with most other people.

Zombies will be fixed/further tweaked in the Standalone.

/thread

Edit; God damn it. Never first.

Edited March 28, 2013 by Dancing.Russian.Man

[GOD™ 2795]

You, and about 200 other people who don't bother searching for the forums agree.

Along with most other people.

Zombies will be fixed/further tweaked in the Standalone.

/thread

Edit; God damn it. Never first.

Yes...but when they get "fixed" everyone will start bitching saying they're too difficult....

[MissSweeney 105]

What the zombies can and can't do in the mod is pretty limited by Arma, I'm sure the stand alone will sort that out. There are other DayZ maps that make zombies pretty lethal, it's worth checking them out if you haven't already.

[Azziax 81]

It varies for everyone GOD.... there will always be whiners!

But IMO... dear OP.... if you are truly interested in this game then you would have seen the Devblogs, youtube vids and you'd be around on this forum long enough to know more details about this......

[killzone_kid 51]

Absofreakinglutely! Make them badass like this:

[Saethkept 134]

^^That's mighty interesting ...

I argued for this for months over on the WarZ forums. For many common sense and genre fan based reasons. Suffice it to say that these days people seem to confuse 'Zombie Apocalypse' with 'The Roadwarrior', 'The Road', or 'The Day After'. Some like elements of both Romero and human cannibalism/monstrosity blended in their zombie genre fun. Not me. Romero ingeniously substituted the risen hungry dead for human evil and taboo of the day. Of course the humans in Romero's films sometimes betrayed one another, but such was more about intricate studies into darker reaches of human behavior, than gaming what horrors men might inflict upon one another in apocalyptic situations. Modern genre examples have hastily and shoddily confused this. A good example is 'The Walking Dead' where men and women far exceed the zombies in their dastardly behavior. Not for me really.

Edited March 28, 2013 by Saethkept

[Dreygar (DayZ) 178]

You cannot make Zombies more of a threat without first addressing other issues of the game, which is a players inability to properly defend themselves (A proper Melee system)

Also making zombies one hit bleed/break legs is just stupid and doesn't make them more of a threat but more annoying. We don't know how powerful they are going to be in the standalone but just that their pathing is being tweaked and they'll have a new skeleton and new animations.

Though we can look at other games (Dead Island) that have zombies sprinting at you and their game is built around Melee.So it works. Melee hasn't even been worked on by the development team per the PAX Q&A and I'll reserve my opinion till we see more on how they will do it. I don't know how much experience Bohemia has on melee, but inexperience should allow them to experiment. Lets just hope it's not as lame as WarZ's Melee... and not as simple as the Mod's melee.

[Imafighter 236]

B-b-but all we want to do is eat your brains...

:(

[Sutinen 635]

I'll explain what they have done, but not directly as a quote from Rocket:

There's a three-stage system for zombie aggro. The first one is unalerted, like in the mod. The second one is alerted, which makes them search for the source of the noise (Probably can see further than the unalerted). The third one is when they start running. That's when they have seen you.

That balances it, because they will run indoors in the Standalone. Gunshots wont send 50 zombies running after you, it will send them towards you.

That is what I learned from the mo-cap Devblog and the gameplay/pathfinding Devblog.

[PaxC4T 159]

I think the zombies are fine as they are, But, Their new pathfinding and ability to run inside will make them more threatening, Thats all that needs to be changed.

now if you REALLY wanted threatening have them go CoD zombies on your ass and kill you in two hits.

Yeah I went there.

[SloopSeanB 12]

As I was playing the other day, I had an idea. What if zombies were made more powerful but had smaller attention spans?

Basically, two changes:

1) Increase the damage from zombies. Not necessarily to 1 or 2 hit kills, but something that makes running into a building with 1 entrance/exit a really bad idea. Obviously, this makes zombies a more immediate threat.

2) Decrease how long they will chase you at full speed. (For those that need real-world science to back up every decision: it makes sense that the muscles of a decaying body will lack the stamina to sprint for extended periods of time.) Now, they would still run and chase you (with the better tracking of the SA), but they will gradually slow down after a period of running. How many times have you ran forever because zeds were on your butt for miles.

We can't have "walking" zombies because of latency issues, obviously, but these changes might reinforce the fact that zombies are most deadly in close quarters and in hordes.

[DemonGroover 8836]

@Killzone_Kid - that's a very interesting video. I wouldn't mind coming across a rare zombie or two that is swinging an axe or machete. No guns though!

As for zombies in the SA - from what i understand there will be at least 3 major changes which will make zombies much more of a threat. There will be much more of them, they will follow you better and they will be able to run indoors.

Those things alone will make avoiding zombies much more of a necessity rather than running through towns popping through the closest building to avoid the zombie conga line.

I think the game needs to reach the point where zombies are to be avoided at all costs otherwise you are in a world of hurt. Unless you are Chuck Norris at no point should there be an option where you think running through Cherno and alerting zombies is a good idea. Aggroing a zombie should give you the feeling that a blood curdling cannibal is on your tail rather than a bothersome mosquito.

[-Gews- 7443]

I think the game needs to reach the point where zombies are to be avoided at all costs otherwise you are in a world of hurt. Unless you are Chuck Norris at no point should there be an option where you think running through Cherno and alerting zombies is a good idea. Aggroing a zombie should give you the feeling that a blood curdling cannibal is on your tail rather than a bothersome mosquito.

Agreed, even the zombies in Shaun of the Dead were more of a threat than the DayZ infected... :lol:

This is more what I wanna see... grab you and eat you in seconds.

[bfisher 561]

The other thing is that zombies will be centrally controlled on the server in the SA instead of spawning when players come near. So instead of acting as a sort of player early warning system around towns while the woods are completely safe, the zombies will migrate all over the map. And they'll be a lot more of them. I read somewhere they have tested upwards of 4000 zombies on the new Cherno map. There's still going to be PvP of course. But it will be a different gameplay dynamic if snipers can't shoot with impunity from outside the zombie zone or gunfire attracts a herd of 50 zombies that will chase you to the ends of the Earth.

[DemonGroover 8836]

The other thing is that zombies will be centrally controlled on the server in the SA instead of spawning when players come near. So instead of acting as a sort of player early warning system around towns while the woods are completely safe, the zombies will migrate all over the map. And they'll be a lot more of them. I read somewhere they have tested upwards of 4000 zombies on the new Cherno map. There's still going to be PvP of course. But it will be a different gameplay dynamic if snipers can't shoot with impunity from outside the zombie zone or gunfire attracts a herd of 50 zombies that will chase you to the ends of the Earth.

Now that i would like to see. Snipers shooting down on Elektro getting their ass handed to them as they aggro 50 zombies to their location.

[shadowboxer (DayZ) 6]

everyones gotta understand zombies are already a threat always have being, always will, the reason people think otherwise is because they cannot run indoors,and once they can in the standalone i can assure you peoples opinions on them being "under powered" or "not a threat" will change very, very fast. IMO for me at least zombies having the ability to run in doors, is a major threat on its own.

Edited April 3, 2013 by shadowboxer

[p4triot 207]

Agreed, even the zombies in Shaun of the Dead were more of a threat than the DayZ infected... :lol:

This is more what I wanna see... grab you and eat you in seconds.

This would not be a threat, this is more like a death sentence and game over. Zombies like in Resident Evil/Walking Dead is what I consider a threat. If you let your guard down youre dead, but if you don't, you can usually get away alive. Making zombies a threat isn't about making them absolutely lethal, no one would survive long with this. Is about making them enough of an obstacle to force you quit your objetive and run away if you fail at sneaking and/or killing them. This is more than enough for zombies becaming the major concern of players wanting to raid a town.

But for this, 2 things are needed. First, zombies need to be zombies (only headshots work), need to be certainly dangerous, be able to hit you even if you're moving, so as grab you and also beat you with a high personal cost (like bleed, or broken bone), be a LOT of zombies, be even more zombies if you shoot, with infinite respawn if you keep doing loud noise, never loosing you (unless for distance), surrounding you inside buildings (would be fun if they had to break doors/windows to gain enter).

And second, they should walk. Because if they can do all this and they run, you're dead and game over. So if you make zombies run then for making this game playable you need to make them looseable, and then this is what we have: Useless zombies. This is why as I already said once I think Day Z screwed game balance since day one.

Edited April 3, 2013 by p4triot

[killzone_kid 51]

@Killzone_Kid - that's a very interesting video. I wouldn't mind coming across a rare zombie or two that is swinging an axe or machete. No guns though!

As for zombies in the SA - from what i understand there will be at least 3 major changes which will make zombies much more of a threat. There will be much more of them, they will follow you better and they will be able to run indoors.

Those things alone will make avoiding zombies much more of a necessity rather than running through towns popping through the closest building to avoid the zombie conga line.

I think the game needs to reach the point where zombies are to be avoided at all costs otherwise you are in a world of hurt. Unless you are Chuck Norris at no point should there be an option where you think running through Cherno and alerting zombies is a good idea. Aggroing a zombie should give you the feeling that a blood curdling cannibal is on your tail rather than a bothersome mosquito.

funny you say this, this is exactly how we had it set up. zombies with melee weapons were very rare but it made people scream and giggle every time they saw one lol