New Zed mechanics

[Statik (DayZ) 2695]

So your saying a zombie witha 10 ft reach that can see you through walls, and hit you through walls is not broken!

If not then I guess it's just a matter of opinion, you'll probably always be wrong

It's buggy. Not broken.

You guys have a weird definition of broken. Just because something in an alpha is buggy, that doesn't mean it's broken. And like R4ZOR said, I would like to see from video/pictures of this happening.

[Thugy 0]

you can't play pvp anymore because zombies are everywhere

[Jamz 253]

The zombies are just being tweaked. I expect in the next patch either infection chance will be lowered or antibiotics spawn chance will be raised slightly, but otherwise the actual zombies are perfectly manageable still if you have patience. In fact there seems to be less of them in towns (unless you fire your gun). They are buggy for sure, but more threatening than zombies in any other game because of it...

DayZ should be three parts as equally balanced as possible imo, You, other players and zombies - zombies are catching up.

[veryevil 4]

You can't actually be serious saying the the zombies in Dayz are NOT broken. They've always been broken and as you so elegantly put "fucked up", however their glaring deficiencies are painstakingly obvious since they can now hit you whilst moving, knocking you over and infecting you.

Thats actually great. The problem is they detect you too easy, and you can hardly shake them off anymore

Edited June 16, 2013 by veryevil

[Imafighter 236]

Nope I want them to stop trying to make the zombies a major threat in a game were they are quite clearly broken. The fact they can hit you whilst running from quite a distance, whether that is from behind you, side or front you get hit which results most of the time in you hitting the floor face first. Now also add in the fact you are likely to get infected then it becomes a problem.

I 100% love the game of Dayz being a challenge but when all these things are combined the game is unplayable and definitely not fun. The thread I made explains why also.

Broken as in clipping through walls to hit you, knocking you down, infecting you, leaving you to play Dayz Antibiotic quest. As well as other players aggro'd zombies hitting you because of this new mechanic.

Go prone and don't attract zombies. Stop crying because they're actually difficult now.

[need matches 84]

Another thread turns into an "I've been playing longer than you" thread. What a surprise.

Listing things you don't like about the patch IS constructive. I haven't read many posts that haven't been at least a little constructive.

It's the "sorry you can't CoD anymore" posts that ARE NOT constructive in the least. A portion of the DayZ players, yes PLAYERS, are finding problems. This doesn't mean that they don't want a more difficult game or more survival.

Simply, FOR ME, what grabbed me and mesmerized me about the game is gone. The nearly 8 ways that zombies have been "powered up" is not a tweak, it is, as I read by someone on YT, a kick in the nuts. Especially with melee still horrible. Then they make it harder to find hatchets at the same time. Take away backpacks. Reduce morphine and antibiotics.

This is unbalanced any way you slice it. You can love it all you want and laugh about noobs getting mad, etc. But 1.7.7 is not fun for a lot of people.

I've always played cautiously. Carefully. Friendly. Killing game and boiling water and covering the landscape. Again, a lot of us "complaining" aren't complaining about the patch being HARDER. We are complaining about the implementation. There's a difference.

And this doesn't mean we don't appreciate the work that it takes to release a new patch. I love dayz and the community.

This unbalanced release feels like an April Fool's day joke.

EDIT: spelling

Edited June 16, 2013 by need matches

[smokeyassassin 21]

Images of this happening would go down nice :-)

Images wouldn't really cut it. I will have to see if I can put a video together, but frame rate issue would put pay to that. I'll post back.

[Hutch (DayZ) 116]

So, to get this topic back on Track.

My goal here was to figure out the new zed behavior.

I'm having a hard time keeping the Zeds off me and finding it nearly impossible to lose them once they agro.

Zeds seem to spawn all around me by the dozens in a non-stop parade.

I wait in a doorway for them to pass by and clear out but they never do. They just keep spawning or they turn around and come back or go in circles. There's literally no way out without being detected.

So, I learned, My fault for going into the building too quickly before all Zeds have spawned. No way out is a realistic scenario, so is patience and waiting longer for them to clear a path out.

When I get tired of crawling and stand up, even in the middle of the night with one bar of visibility, I get Zeds on me from 30 meters away.

So I learned, My fault for standing up. One bar is one bar. They are not blind anymore.

So I run and they follow. They follow my exact path like a bloodhound on the scent.

One time, inside a building, a Zed wandered in at random but did not agro. He came directly toward me, so I moved, Silently.

My visibility and audibility were zero. Yet he continued to follow my every move. Slowly, without agroing, just as if he was wandering, but every place I moved to he followed.

I moved in a deliberate figure 8 pattern and he followed like a dog following a scent.

If I had a hatchet I could have easily killed it, but I didn't so I was forced to leave the building.

So I learned, Zero bars is not really Zero bars. Even at zero visibility/audibility, there's some small number that zeds can detect if they are close enough.

This has always been true actually. Even at Zero bars in pitch black night, if a Zed wandered close enough, they would agro.

One Agro shedding tip for all of you I have learned ...

If you have agro and are kiting one or more into a building. Wait inside the building until they have entered, then leave.

If you leave the building before all of them have entered, the ones still outside will not enter, they will pick you up on the other side (where they can't even see you) and run around the building.

I suppose, they can hear your footsteps as you leave the building, so when you do leave, do it as quietly as possible.

Let's not hear any more about how they are broken. PLEASE.

There are plenty of other topics on that subject.

Broken or not, we have to deal with them.

This is a game with rules. Now the rules have changed and we need to figure out the new rules.

Constructive observations and tips are what we're looking for. Thanks.

I'd really like to figure out how well they can hear and see now. What distance can they hear/see one bar?

You learn this instinctively as you play the game, but knowing it ahead of time helps make the game less tedious.

Edited June 16, 2013 by Hutch

[need matches 84]

SRY. Didn't realize I had just posted. Kind of repeated myself. Please delete this if you can.

Edited June 16, 2013 by need matches

[FreshmeatDK 22]

I have lost quite a lot of zombies in the new patch. You need to abort immediatly if you raise aggro and head for the woods and steep slopes. Yes, it might take more than a quarter of an hour, but it is doable. Once you got a melee weapon the game changes completely, just get them on a stair and you can kill them by the truckload, filling your precious supplies of beans and coke.

The important thing is risk assesment. When I crawl towards a target, I _abort_ if I consider the number of zombies to great, because they will eventually spot you. And once you are on the run, you either spend a long time running or risk infection from melee.

I agree the zombies are buggy as hell. This is part of what makes them dangerous, and I would rather have zombies dangerous and buggy than weak and buggy.

The new distribution of loot and the increased zombie difficulty is a severe hindrance to PvP. The hot spots are insanely difficult now, so players will soon distribute themselves over the entire map just to survive. So PvP will probably soon be more opportunistic banditry instead of premediated fights. While this may sound snobbish, I honestly think that Wasteland offers far better opportunities for PvP playstyle and dedicated PvP players ought to try it out. Both mods are great, but there is no point in both mods catering to the same audience.

So quick tips:

-Slow down. A DayZ session will take at least an hour, more if complications arise.

-Crawl when you approach loot sites.

-Check for other players. If hostiles are nearby, looting is impossible.

-Abort if the number of zombies are so great that you cannot steer clear of them.

-Rather a can of beans in Tulga than getting chased out of Berezino. Loot has increased tremendously in the villages.

-Do not go into Cherno, Elektro or Stary unless you are a group. While I have not tried, I guess that one guy covering with an automatic while another guy loots could work out.

-Antibiotics are a lie. If you face zombies, you are gambling with your life.

-Melee is best conducted from the top of a stair.

-Do not shoot unless you absolutely have to. And if you have to, kite the aggroed zombies out of hearing range of other zombies first.

[Hutch (DayZ) 116]

Images of this happening would go down nice :-)

This happened to me yesterday. I didn't get an image of it but I think know how and why it happened.

I ran around a blind corner and passed right by a Zed close enough to bump into him.

I ran past him and then was hit and knocked down about 10 meters away.

Had to be server lag. Loot was laggy that night and hits on Zeds with my hatchet were taking a couple of seconds to register.

He must have hit me as I ran past and my game client didn't register it for about a second.

But now that I think of it, aren't the Zeds and their actions all handled client side?

Edited June 17, 2013 by Hutch