Melee is now Pointless

[SalamanderAnder (DayZ) 1747]

I've said it many many times before and I'll say it again. 

 

The. Infection. System. Is. Fucked.

 

From a realism standpoint it makes 0 sense and is drastically flawed. Although not entirely specified, infection is probably caused by something other than the "zombie virus". Because their flesh is now rotting, it hosts many nasty bacteria, viruses, and all that rot. The only real way you could catch the infection is if it touched an open area of your body, such as a cut on the skin. I think a percentage chance of actually getting infected would be fair. Sure, there's already a "percentage chance", but 9 times out of 10 you're going to get infected. Another flaw is that it onsets immediately, which also makes no sense. I think it would be fair enough for it to take, say, a couple minutes (10, 15, 20, whatever it may be) to set in.

 

To make matters even worse, antibiotics seem to have gotten even rarer. I went to all 3 hospitals on the map and found only a few bandages and morphine, but not a single box of antibiotics.

 

 

You don't think that human hands can cause lacerations and flesh wounds? Also, what about your eyes, nose, and mouth? They are often completely exposed, and blood would be everywhere. Do you think that in an environment with no shelter, little rest, no sanitation, lots of wreckage, and tons of high risk situations, that you would never get even the most minor of cuts along the way? Preposterous. Not to mention that simply having contaminated blood or fluids on your hands could easily result in you giving yourself an infection later when you forget to wash your hands and go for that tin of beans, sans-fork. 

 

The infections system makes complete sense from a "realism" standpoint. Why do you think doctors have to sanitize every single tool they use on a patient? Why do you think they constantly wear gloves, even if it's just to put a tongue depressor in your mouth? We know that one of the biggest killers in the American Civil War was common infection, because at that point doctors had very little knowledge of germ-theory and infection control.

 

Also, you can tell which zombies are more likely to give you an infection. They are all covered in blood and stuff. Just watch out for them.

[plexico 386]

I've said it many many times before and I'll say it again. 

 

The. Infection. System. Is. Fucked.

 

From a realism standpoint it makes 0 sense and is drastically flawed. Although not entirely specified, infection is probably caused by something other than the "zombie virus". Because their flesh is now rotting, it hosts many nasty bacteria, viruses, and all that rot. The only real way you could catch the infection is if it touched an open area of your body, such as a cut on the skin. I think a percentage chance of actually getting infected would be fair. Sure, there's already a "percentage chance", but 9 times out of 10 you're going to get infected. Another flaw is that it onsets immediately, which also makes no sense. I think it would be fair enough for it to take, say, a couple minutes (10, 15, 20, whatever it may be) to set in.

 

To make matters even worse, antibiotics seem to have gotten even rarer. I went to all 3 hospitals on the map and found only a few bandages and morphine, but not a single box of antibiotics.

 

Go ahead and call me a "whiner", because it just makes you look hilarious and quite frankly I could not care less. 

If you look at the patch notes for 1.7.7.2, they're going to add some of what you said to make it more realistic. Infection won't onset immediately and it will be able to be treated before it starts making you lose blood.

[TheLastEmp 295]

Ok, I had to make an account just to respond to this, because I just needed to let you know that if you're using melee and you get hit by a zombie even once, you are doing something terribly, terribly wrong.

 

Here is how to properly melee:

 

1. Make sure your weapon of choice is up and ready (if it is down just press Mouse1 to bring it up to be ready for attack)
2. Hold down Shift, or whatever is your walk button, and slowly walk backwards while the zombie is approaching you. This is assuming the zombie is aggro'd.
3. When the zombie gets close to you, but NOT right next to you (so about 1 to 2 meters away), immediately swing your weapon. This should be done right before the zombie comes to a full stop, as when they come to a full stop they will immediately attack you and hit you (like you said they attack you in a flash).
4. After hitting the zombie, release shift and backpedal at full speed.
5. If the zombie is dead, you are done. Repeat this process for any additional zombies. If the zombie is still alive, repeat this process anyways.

 

Congratulations! You now know how to melee like a true master without ever getting hit once. What the constant backpedaling does is it makes the zombie continually have to stop attacking and gain more ground, thus it's harder to attack you while you're moving. Also keep in mind that melee weapons have a much larger range than they would in real life so you need to use this to your advantage or things are not going to work out for you in the melee department. This comes from days of experience with melee weapons. They're basically the only weapons I ever have out. Guns are for chumps.

 

EDIT: After reading some other responses I'd like to point out that this method that I described works just as well out in the open as in a building. Obviously in a building you aren't going to full sprint backpedal from zombies because they are slower, but still. People say it's super risky to engage zombies out in the open and I do it all the time without getting hit once.

 

Great Tactics, Orange.

 

TYVM for sharing!!!

[MoOnKat 24]

Yes! It's still pretty easy to melee zombies in this game. But come on, who would want to melee a highly contagious zombie?? :D

[Bludy 324]

i read half the topic comments...

it was a bit i didn't play but i think i got something:

 

''dirty'' infected can infect you

the infection slowly kills you

antibiotics are always a pain to find

the only melee weapons worth the effort are hatchet and machete (i had a baseball bat, but suddenly understood it was crowbar's sister)

 

i still have two questions:

 

is the blood gained from food decreased by being infected?

where are the medical boxes in the hospital? maybe it's private hive matter, but it seems they are gone for me.

 

intopic, i had the occasion to try only the baseball bat, but i'm sure that one shotting zombies with the ol' hatchet is pretty safe as before patch..just know where to fight and how do it.

[JustThatEpic 72]

The only thing you have to do now with melee is be careful. 

 

In a zombie apocalypse, you wouldn't be running around a city recklessly and not expect to be eaten.

 

The game is getting harder, and that's a fact we all have to accept.

[Vicco 123]

The real problem here is infection. Most people don't like it, for a number of reasons.

1. Lack of sufficient cure.

2. Glitching zeds.

3. The infection algorithms are flawed. I've been infected many times by "non-viral" zeds who glitched from 10 feet away, whacked me, and infected me.

The axe is OP, and easy to master. You can stand inside any hospital and practice on the zeds outside all day long.

It's useful inside where you have some room to maneuver.

But you'll get infected. Then play the "eat meat" game until you die.

A Winchester, even drawing more zeds to you, is a safer way to prevent infection.

Of course for PvP it can draw other players. Still probably more safe than worrying about zeds infecting you and being distracted from noticing other players.

Some people like the hell out of infection. I have no problem with that.

Not me, and not many others. I put many hours into it. Didn't like it.

Nobody even makes YT vids of vanilla any more. They were tailing off doing other mods anyway.

There are multiple ways to make zeds a threat without infection. Double the hit cost. Double bleeding rate.

Or anti-biotics less rare. Many, many ways.

I walked away from public vanilla. Still love the vanilla game, but only play it on my own server, where I control the AB loadout.

So everybody can play what they want. And express their own opinions.

It is what it is.

[Vicco 123]

The only thing you have to do now with melee is be careful. 

 

In a zombie apocalypse, you wouldn't be running around a city recklessly and not expect to be eaten.

 

The game is getting harder, and that's a fact we all have to accept.

Nope. I don't accept it. I simply quit playing vanilla servers. Easy.

[rn_max 202]

i read half the topic comments...

it was a bit i didn't play but i think i got something:

 

''dirty'' infected can infect you

the infection slowly kills you

antibiotics are always a pain to find

the only melee weapons worth the effort are hatchet and machete (i had a baseball bat, but suddenly understood it was crowbar's sister)

 

i still have two questions:

 

is the blood gained from food decreased by being infected?

where are the medical boxes in the hospital? maybe it's private hive matter, but it seems they are gone for me.

 

intopic, i had the occasion to try only the baseball bat, but i'm sure that one shotting zombies with the ol' hatchet is pretty safe as before patch..just know where to fight and how do it.

 

Yes, the infection drains the blood gained from food, at the rate of 3 points per second.  At full health of 12000 blood, it will take 4000 seconds, or 1 hour, 6 minutes, 40 seconds, to die without food or transfusion.

 

That's real time in game.  Just over an hour.  Of which the last 13 minutes 20 seconds (under 2400 blood?) will be spent unable to see anything except blurry grey blobs and randomly fainting.

 

So realistically its 53 minutes 20 seconds before being effectively blinded and incapacitated, plus suicide isn't an option ... so go and take a dump and make a cuppa, because there's plenty of time otherwise spent staring at a blurry monochrome screen before respawn.

 

It is also plain to see from the numbers, that with the anti-stacking eating mechanism, where a time delay is needed between eating each item to get the most blood benefit, canned food just isn't going to save the day.

 

I managed to survive over four days game time, by eating half the animals in Chernarus and it was very time consuming, slaughtering and cooking enough meat to keep going.

 

In fact, if it wasn't for the motorcycle, I doubt that there would have been enough time for hunting on foot and scavenging enough locations for antibiotics, without a serious dose of blind luck.

 

In the end I died in a motorcycle crash, chasing another distant meal-on-legs to stay alive.  After four days of endless looting of every location I reached, hundreds of them, with no antibiotics.

 

 

As for hospitals and med boxes, I have seen them, but very rarely.  The spawn probability appears to be much lower now.

Edited August 15, 2013 by RN_Max

[JustThatEpic 72]

Nope. I don't accept it. I simply quit playing vanilla servers. Easy.

 

Alright then, that's your decision. 

 

It's not really something worthy of "I'M GOING TO STOP PLAYING". You only spend maybe 3% of your player's life using a melee weapon, and then you get a gun and keep progressing. 

[Bludy 324]

mmm seen what you said, 53 minutes before death seems a bit fast..

 

i see that devs could have implemented this to give the feeling of a spreading infection..

 

but with all the pvp and the gearing rushes in main cities one of the two things is unfit for the games..

 

 

more antibiotics would give a lot of balance, with players dealing with infection and zombies in a serious way, but with infection not being a game breaking factor..