Smell meter

[WBK 176]

From what I've gathered in DayZ and the general attitude of the community, the Zeds are an entity with poor eyesight and slightly below average hearing. However, other senses play a part in animals hunting and general living habits. Obviously if a zombie is touching or tasting you it's already lights out, and they're not relevant senses beyond the confines of the physical body of the individual anyway. But what about smell? Outside of the comforts of normal life without showers and deodorant etc. people would start to stink pretty quickly. Obviously it's the hormones and such that the zombies would pick up on, but I'm using smell as a cover all. Also, blood has a very distinct scent to predator animals like sharks and so on, so bleeding would greatly increase the 'smell-o-meter'.

 

I'm thinking that it acts like a timed meter, much in the same way the food and drink systems work, albeit it grows with time rather than diminishes. Physical activities like running, sprinting, or bike riding will make it increase faster, sitting/resting (at tent) would make it not grow or perhaps even slowly diminish it. Being engaged in a tense situation for a long time - being in combat, being around zeds, having low health for a long time, etc. - would also make it rise. Bleeding would make it immediately increase, and bandaging a wound would slowly decrease it to pre-bleeding levels. Possible countermeasures would include bathing in lakes (which would make people head inland a little more often too), washing in the rain, applying a masking agent (like deodorant), rolling around in mud (you might stink but it would block the scent of hormones - might also need a negative consequence for doing this otherwise it would just be a quick action to do everytime) and so on. It would require the need for a few more items, soap and deodorant for starters, maybe more.

 

Using the old 5 bar system of sight and sound meters, I imagine that the highest the meter would go without bleeding is 3 bars, light bleeding automatically takes it to 3 and slowly drives it up to 5, heavy bleeding starts it at 4 and quickly goes to 5.

 

I think that this would be good because it adds another aspect to dodging zeds. I mean, you might be hidden, immobile and not making a noise, but if you are bleeding, every zed within a 50 metre radius is gonna get a whiff!

 

As always, I'd love to hear any thoughts, suggestions and criticisms.

[Gwraspe 318]

it's a good idea at heart, but the thing that stops me from totally agreeing is that the zeds are just humans with a disease. humans don't smell blood and hormones in the same way that predatory animals such as dogs or whatever do so why would a human infected with a debilitating disease? also as for the bodily odour, the zeds likely smell a whole lot stronger than other humans - unclean smell as well as hormones - as they have less control over what they conciously do (such as shitting themselves, pissing themselves, getting all covered in blood and other stuff from the world around them) and so they would have to be attracted to each other more than humans under such logic or even not be able to distinguish the scent of something else because they themselves smell so strongly they mask external smells from themselves.

 

*such as shitting themselves* i'm at work, i nearly erupted into laughter when i read this part back :D

 

like i say man i think it's a genuinely good idea but the logic or mechanics behind it would need a serious thinking over in my opinion.

you still get some beans from me though, cause it's nice to see a genuinely good suggestion rather than another post about some server titled 1337 EPOCH SPAWN WITH YOLO OMG 420 LOOT MILITARY SERVER WTF OMG :)

[WBK 176]

Yeah thanks for the feedback. I agree that the zeds are just infected humans, and comparing them to predators like sharks was a bit of a stretch. And yeah the zeds would stink like all get out. But we all agree that zeds don't eat each other because they don't like infected blood. Seeing as they're dumbed down humans with one goal (eat meat), I don't think they're using their eyes to discern that we are meat because that requires conscious thought, i.e. "that person looks relatively clean and isn't spewing blood left right and centre so they must be fresh meat!", and they certainly aren't using their ears to decide that we are tasty. So I think they can smell something different in human blood and infected blood, and following on from that they can also tell the difference between human hormones and infected hormones. Just my take on it.

 

I did love the 'shitting' quote though haha, I woke up my housemate laughing :lol:

[Gwraspe 318]

yeah i never really htought of it like that with the sight thing, hmm. i'd definitely be happy to see it implimented anyway, let's see what other people think on it - either way i like it.

[TreeMan (DayZ) 72]

Yeah, that's definitely a good idea. And another thing with smell, when hunting animals. Many animals can smell unnatural scents from hundreds of meters away, so if you have a ghillie suit and are completely still animals could still smell you and run away. Standing near a fire will make you smell like smoke, which makes animals think of forest fires and they run away, but a day old smoke scent means that a forest fire has stopped for the animals, and they don't give a crap, so that's one thing to get closer to your prey with.

[Cormyr 39]

zombies using smell to help them hunt makes zombies more dangerous. if ya stick with zombies just being infected humans and they are limited to that, the game will be boring and there will be little point in having zombies. so some compromise must be made. some unrealistic stuffs added. this is one of those and i would like to see it added.

[Statik (DayZ) 2695]

Interesting idea, but I don't believe the zombies have a heightened sense of smell, as they're just infected humans.

[enforcer1975 1111]

Smell and sound can be carried over long distances compared to air, that's a major difference. Another difference is that water is a fluid and the molecules are dissolved in water and that predators like the shark are specialized in "looking" just for that that, it's not like you dive into bloody water and it smells the same as in a slaughterhouse. Land predators on the other hand usually track your odor trail, they can't smell you in the air unless you really didn't bathe and the wind is blowing their way. Even if people went rabid their sense of smell won't change.

[WBK 176]

Smell and sound can be carried over long distances compared to air, that's a major difference. Another difference is that water is a fluid and the molecules are dissolved in water and that predators like the shark are specialized in "looking" just for that that, it's not like you dive into bloody water and it smells the same as in a slaughterhouse. Land predators on the other hand usually track your odor trail, they can't smell you in the air unless you really didn't bathe and the wind is blowing their way. Even if people went rabid their sense of smell won't change.

 

Yeah good point, I did completely overlook that detail making that comparison.

 

While I think that a zed is just an infected human and their overall sensual capacities remain the same as any other human, they live for one purpose and only care about one thing: blood. So their senses would slowly but surely hone in on locating sources of fresh blood. And seeing as they have shitty vision and less than great hearing, I'm imagining (purely poetic license, but let me have my moment) that their sense of smell would become dominant and in turn, superior to normal humans - at least in recognising the scent of blood and/or uninfected human hormones and general odour.

[enforcer1975 1111]

I like to imagine the DayZ zeds falling for a trick like the ones in the scene in TWD where they fooled them with "dead meat".

At distance zeds rely on their vision, how does the target move? If it was possible to "walk like a zed" i think you can fool them, maybe they might still be interested in you and move towards you. If they still don't identify you they might want to get much closer and smell you, if you smell nice...bad for you lol.

[WBK 176]

Bump.

[AP_Norris 1017]

I don't see smell doing much that your ears can't.

In the case of something especially smelly being nearby, maybe there could be a notification like the hunger ones in SA.

[Fruit_loop87 21]

I have said this in a few post here and their about having the secent of blood on a player after you bandage or do a blood bag, that you should have blood on your clothes and need to disinfect it so wash the smell of blood of so a zombie cant smell the blood, it isn't human anymore all our morle and thinking is gone they go back to what they only have bs that's DNA it's basic survival with finding food been everything to a zombie, wind should play a factor to having to go down wind will get you closer to an zombies/ towns without been smelt. Sight should be strong if they have eyes what work and they will chase down any moving think human or anaimal tht will be sweet you shot an cow to eat and boom 5 angry hungry zombies can smell the blood and when you gut it boom blood on you and no time to clean it off so have 2 eat the cow and the other 3 chase you down. This is a must for a survival.

[Frytek 130]

Dayz-the washing machine simulator.

Smell is a nice idea but it should indicate how clean you are-too stinky means you should wash or you could get disease if the skin was cut or it would make gear behave like infected or whatever. Idea cool though.