Stealth = Always Prone = Not a well-designed mechanic

[ForcefulCJS 16]

Right now if you want to stealth ANYWHERE around zombies you are pretty much forced to go prone there. There are some ridiculous, unintuitive, and unrealistic differences between prones and crouch-walking that should be addressed. The sum of the problem is this: Crouch-walking is now insanely risky for pulling aggro, if you don't have an easy aggro breaker nearby then you might be forced to run a long time to shake aggro and if you don't have a weapon the experience can be doubly frustrating. When I would get aggro as a new player sometime's I'd just suicide because that was preferable to running down the coast for just so I could be right back where I started - in the middle of nowhere with no items.

The disparity is extreme in both night and day. Day = Crouch walking is good at extreme ranges but even at 100m it becomes extremely risky due to small patches of ground that give different terrain bonuses. One of the most common pulling mistakes I've seen is when you're approaching an area from a good distance and suddenly there's a small patch of gravel you step in despite being surrounded by tall grass you will shoot up to 4 visibility bars from 2-3 and instantly pull anything that might have been looking in your direction. At night the sound difference is what makes it absurd. First off it's ridiculous that zombies gain "vision" upon hearing you at night, they should come investigate sound, not instantly gain awareness of your exact location and be able to track you even without line of sight.

Perma-prone as the only safe stealth option is extremely tedious and there are dozens of reasons why crouching should be also be a viable stealth option. I was getting night aggro like crazy in a town earlier when I noticed that crouch-walking on gravel gave off 4-sound bars (almost guaranteed aggro to anything within 150m I might as well have fired a pistol). SLOW crouch-walking gave off 3 bars of sound. Prone? Apparently dragging my entire body through gravel is COMPLETELY SILENT with 0 sound bars but walking over it is equivalent to firing a pistol into the air.

I've greatly improved my chances of survival since 1.7.1 but not by becoming a stealthier or better player. I've learned countless exploits against zombie AI and abused them, as does every veteran player I group with now. Nobody says "let's sneak in slowly", it becomes "Just run in, sneaking it pointless because there will be zombies inside to aggro us anyway because we have to stand up to get over the building entrance, so just run in let everything get stuck up on the entrance, then loot the place and scram". 90% of our zombie strategy involves running to 2-entrance buildings and abusing zombie AI there.

[SLASH-7 27]

Yeah, i'm using the exact same method now and I used to be very into being stealthy and cautious. I guess this is way less time consuming though.

[Banicks 55]

Agree.

The system is flawed now. Even at night time the ability for zeds to aggro onto you is ridiculous. I was inside a building after logging back in this evening took one step and boom, 10 zeds straight into the building.

I dont understand how that works when LOS is meant to play a part in the zed AI? I think Rocket and team are expecting too much from a 5+ year old AI game. It's not working and needs to revert. I can't shake them, I can't shoot them because I don't have a gun.

The only options left for me are to run until I die from food/water exhaustion or log out and log back in.

It's not a learning curve of, ok I did that wrong. It's literally a random thing each time that you can't track. Whether it be aggro through a wall, tree or some random broken LOS thing, we just don't have a chance or 'stealthing'.

I knew this would happen, which is why I said in the 'no start gun' thread that rocket made, yes but only if the stealth system works perfectly. Because if it didn't - it's going to be way to hard. It is, because the stealth system isn't working for many players (and im not a noob player, I dont run into a town expecting not to aggro zeds. I used the tactic ive been using for the better part of a month. adapted to new tactics seeing as crouch isnt even an option anymore, and even prone is no good).

The other changes sure fine and dandy, but zed AI needs the revert, and the stealth system needs attention or to be dropped, because it just isnt working.

[chibigoat 59]

This fucking thread... Rocket needs to see it and fix this problem. This has made me not even want to play but for some reason I keep going back... I just agro every zombie and relog.. no point to being careful anymore. Really sucks, looking forward to seeing 1.7.1.5 in the announcements very soon.

[MrLizard 0]

I think the problem is that the new changes were just too major, zeds weren't that bad in 1.7.0 all they needed was a little bit of refinement to make them slightly more threatening ,these new changes are just too extreme especially when coupled with the lack of a starting weapon.

[Banicks 55]

This fucking thread... Rocket needs to see it and fix this problem. This has made me not even want to play but for some reason I keep going back... I just agro every zombie and relog.. no point to being careful anymore. Really sucks' date=' looking forward to seeing 1.7.1.5 in the announcements very soon.

[/quote']

Yea tell me about it. Practically 10 characters later and I still havent found a handgun or primary before I end up aggroing too many and getting trapped.

Giving up on it until Rocket reverts. If he doesn't it will be a pity because I enjoyed DayZ, but I don't find it fun anymore, just frustrating.

[Alexey Zemanov 6]

I think Rocket and team are expecting too much from a 5+ year old AI game.

Nah' date=' i don't think that's the point. It could be 10+ years and still work wonderful. I think it's related to current dev-decisions.

Regarding your comment on learning curve, randomness and no guns but screwed stealth: You are so right, man.

but I don't find it fun anymore, just frustrating.

If it was even that for me, right now it's just a waste of time. I wouldn't even know how to file good bug reports as the server might be running anything.

[militantsausage 0]

Banicks the AI system has been in use for 3 years, with improvements made along the way, not 5 years.

Many people seem to forget the AI are made for military simulation, not zombies, so don't expect the AI to be great with zombies, as they were never designed for them. DayZ has limitations same as any other Arma 2 mod unfortunately.

Also I don't see the point of a thread offering criticism, yet none of it constructive.

[collin (DayZ) 0]

Totally agree here. These recent updates added some great features but zombies are freaking insane. Theres a difference between challenging and impossibly frustrating. The game has lost a lot of its appeal for me and I probably wont be playing until these issues are fixed.

[bjarnidk 9]

I haven't logged in the game since 1.7.1 tbh. I feel it's just going downhill, but we'll see.

[stimpen 0]

agree +1! Boring now to prone the whole time. Dont add any skill it is just time consuming. And when you have proned all the way to a building then the zombies line of sight seem to see through the building because when you crouch sneak around and check loot you almost always get aggro.

and if you escape into a buildning and zombies loose you then the just stand there in the building opening forever. THey should after a while start walking around again.

you dont always want to start shoot and attract more of them or bandits. You may break the standing with a flare but often there is couple of zombies that is not attracted and then they aggro when you try to prone out of the building if its a building where you can prone out.

[Banicks 55]

Banicks the AI system has been in use for 3 years' date=' with improvements made along the way, not 5 years.

Many people seem to forget the AI are made for military simulation, not zombies, so don't expect the AI to be great with zombies, as they were never designed for them. DayZ has limitations same as any other Arma 2 mod unfortunately.

Also I don't see the point of a thread offering criticism, yet none of it constructive.

[/quote']

The general concensus is to revert back to 1.7 or even 1.6 zombie behaviour.

Other than that, there is not much constructive ideas we can come up with, as I and Im sure others arent qualified to develop a program such as this, so we dont understand its limitations.

But one thing is certain, the current use of the limitations arent working.

[dut 21]

As long as zombies run faster than players there will always be problems with them. I like the direction rocket is going, but the only way to lose zombies currently feels like glitching them.

They should be slowed down, and instead of running to you're last known location when they lose visual they should run to your 'predicted location' (last known location + 50 meters in the heading you were running + or - 30 degrees.)

[Andrej Dudev 50]

Yesterday I was crawling to Guglovo to recover some water with a friend.

Even with little movements, perfect timing crawls across the road to avoid LOS we were unable to approach the water pump because some zombies 100 meters away decided that it was time to attack, even without LOS, even with zero sound bars.

We were forced to get up, run inside the first house avaiable and wait just to see... a zombie trepassing walls to attack us.

I feel no pity saying that we disconnected because if the game cheats so hard we have all the rights to avoid death by disconnecting.

[shadowandlight 0]

+ 1. Bring back crouch walking as a viable option in towns that doesnt pull aggro from zombies 50 ft away.

[Chimaera 68]

The reason i started playing this mod was to be able to pit my wits against the zeds and sneaking past were possible.

I'm a solo player normally haven't played online in years as i just hate the damned camping over spawns and ganging up on other groups and all the $hit with online play.

This is the first game in 10 years that has made me want to play with the lads and we work in a team of 4 usually and its great.

If i can get into a town raid every last usable bit and get out without being seen then its job well done, that's the way i play.

But now its just run into town and don't give a $hit, kinda makes it pointless.

But im sure a better way will be found to make this work, we just need to give them time to find a solution.

Here's hoping

[dissaifer 3]

I guess the counter argument to all of this is... if it were easy to sneak around the infected, there would have been no apocalypse.

[Genki Dama 49]

I agree, the zed's are just too insane, with no weapons and all that, it can be pretty hard for a new player, just starting out. In my review of this update the majority of the time was fighting of zombies who knew exactly were I was even if I moved to a different room in the house.

I'm a Dragonball Z fan, and there was this DBZ mod that would constantly get updated. What they did was just say that 1.X.X.X was the most stable build and that 1.7.X.X was the most recent. It worked well for that, so I think it work well on this.

Here my review if you want to see these super saiyan zeds (See what I did there:cool:)

[hivemind (DayZ) 3]

I guess the counter argument to all of this is... if it were easy to sneak around the infected' date=' there would have been no apocalypse.

[/quote']

And the counter argument to that is that the zeds are at high risk areas where food and other supplies are. So we are constantly forced to be around them. You make mistakes. Added are other survivors wanting the same supplies.

I feel that the current mechanic could still be there, but you have to reduce the speed of the zombies. That would be interesting.

I would love to be chased more and over long distances but it should be an endurance race, not a speed race.

[osiriszoran 33]

Zeds ability to sweep your leg in 1 hi or bite your jugular when you're at 12k blood already makes them tough SOBs.

[MagicGunner 2]

Agreed. Super aggro is too much and honestly too random. There's no skill involved in zombie avoidance anymore. The only way you see people going through town is in prone or mad dash. I'm sure many of you have walked through a field in crouch. You'll see your sight and sound bars jump anywhere from 0 to 4 almost randomly. It's nonsensical.

I went to a hospital and a zombie aggro'd from probably 60ish meters away whilst I was in mid slow crouch, I had to book it or risk bleeding aka the noob killer. Three minutes later and 2 mags later, I'm at 40ish zombie kills.

I don't mind stronger zombies. However, a new player in the current environment (No gun and one bandage) is dead in the water unless they know the tricks of more experienced players. I was lucky to have found a weapon in the first building I raided but I happened to find a fresh server. Imagine the despair of somebody combing through a town already ransacked. Spending several minutes proning between each building hoping he doesn't have half the town up his rear. It isn't fun, it's depressing.

[RJLupin2 3]

God dammit, it seems the general consensus is that no one likes the stealth. Fuck... I love it. It took me an hour to get from the docks of Cherno to the Military Hospital towards the back! I love that! In real life, you wouldn't be able to be as reckless in a city like Cherno as you could be in previous patches. The amount of Zombies and the amount of risks you'd take even taking a misstep would be enough incentive. I think what it's at now is good enough, or at the very least somewhere in between this patch and 1.7 is.

Either way, it'll probably get nerfed, but what I'm really hoping for is zombie mechanic buffing to make stealth almost entirely necessary.

[sofaplayer@hotmail.com 22]

Hi, first post here after being reading for a while.

I think the biggest problem is sound detection. I understand that a zombie will see you from 50 feet away while crouching and therefore going prone is necessary, but the fact that zombies hear through walls and that crouch walking is heard from far away doesn't make sense.

Crouch walking (= sneaking) should have same levels than being prone, 0, while walking while standing should have 1, same level than crouch running (you're swapping speed for stealth).

Also running shouldn't have more than 2 bars, a person can hear "loud" steps when they are close, but not at a medium range. And walls/buildings should muffle sounds, I can run behind a wall/corner and nobody will notice.

I think the LOS is well the way it is, maybe i'd tweak how aggro works, like sight from afar will trigger attention and the zombie will move towards you (maybe a new, faster walk for the walkers?) but aggro wouldn't happen until zombie is sure you're food (closer range).

And it'd be nice to see that direct communication channel is heard by zombies. Lots of pple would switch to TS or general channel, but for the real DayZ experience to have to shut up when Z's are nearby i think it's a good idea, if this is doable.

[RJLupin2 3]

And it'd be nice to see that direct communication channel is heard by zombies. Lots of pple would switch to TS or general channel' date=' but for the real DayZ experience to have to shut up when Z's are nearby i think it's a good idea, if this is doable.

[/quote']

Everyone would just use Skype and there'd be no interaction between people. It would defeat the purpose of a lot of the implementations that have been added recently.

[DemonGroover 8836]

Stealth does need a rethink. I dont think that merely going prone should be an Invisibility cloaking device that it once was, but neither is the super spidey senses of the current Zeds realistic as well.

As stated by Rocket in another thread http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=16919 the current system will be rectified.

Lets wait and see eh?