What do we really want as far as zombies?

[crimsonbzd 247]

You totally got my beans. I am a long time lurker (I watch DayZ since the start of the mod) and finally decided to buy it myself a week ago. I really love gaming, but often I just don't have the time to spare to run around headless. I died by Zeds (glitching though walls, my last rags finished an hour ago), I starved (wouldn't find anything to open a can after 2 hours) and now I finally found a server were not all loot is gone and I am good to go.

But here is what I like: I like to wander around. Alone. I like to set myself targets and they don't necessarily have to do with shooting people or get the good gear. I want to explore the damn map and do it without dying. Maybe I am really a exploration-type player and the (little) survival aspects of the game really add to that feeling of exploration. Heck if farming would be implemented I would be the first to plant some seeds. As much as I think the socials aspects of the game make it interesting: I am a lonewolf and I like this game to be interesting even without other players action. And I don't want this game to be a classical Multiplayer FPS with hard to get items and a bit of survival here and there. That is why I agree with you: there needs to be more than gear. You need your Character to have values you can't just steal or find. I would even say let your chars "talents" be different when you spawn (in a certain margin). Make them visually different. Make everything you can so a player don't wants to loose his bare life.

 

As hard as it will be: there is a need to keep this game enigmatic in some places. This is easy for beginners, but it is hard for players that play the game everyday. Techniques that could add a bit to that would be an implementation of randomness (like generative modelling of houses, places, zombies or even items). So things are not as fixed as they are right now and even seasoned players have the constant urge to adapt to situations. Generative Gamedesign can be hard to design well (so things don't look too boring or too crazy/unrealistic), but I think it could be a way to keep players watching more for the world they are in and valuing the moments they got with their character.

 

I feel our intent in this game is similar.

 

That being said, what you don't want the game to be is exactly what the game is because all the going around and exploring becomes absolutely pointless with the games current implementation of loot/zombies. I know it's going to improve along the developmental schedule, I just really posting this short block of text as a functional bump of my post, but (somewhat) subtly. 

[Byzan 20]

zombies are not really feared in this game, which is one of the reasons why players are mostly just shooting each other.

 

if zombies were harder then players would have to team up and work with others, currently as soon as you have anything better than an axe zombies are just an afterthought in the game.

 

I also want to see more interesting zombie combat, the ongoing theme with zombies is you can blow an arm or a leg off a Z and it will still keep coming.

 

an arm shot will make them less deadly, a leg shot will slow them down or blow both off to really slow them down but to kill them you need a good head shot.

 

bottom line, zombies that are tough, fun to fight and I want to be able to blow body parts off. Is that too much to ask!?

[ImmunePower 26]

Zombies in populated areas. More military zombie spawns in millitary loot areas.

[AsHawkins 96]

 

I also want to see more interesting zombie combat, the ongoing theme with zombies is you can blow an arm or a leg off a Z and it will still keep coming.

 

an arm shot will make them less deadly, a leg shot will slow them down or blow both off to really slow them down but to kill them you need a good head shot.

 

bottom line, zombies that are tough, fun to fight and I want to be able to blow body parts off. Is that too much to ask!?

 

This is awesome, I can picture 8 zombies charging me, with nothing but a shotgun and 6 shells, I blast at one of the zombies, hitting it in the knees, it topples, and the others trample it as it crawls at me.

 

I fire off a shell into the head of a zombie, like a chicken without a head it takes a couple more steps before hitting the ground.

Limbs fly off the zombies till I have only a small axe to use. Then it gets real.

[FatBoyFish 14]

Good post.  To give it a twist, my film inspiration for the way I hope this game somehow turns out:

 

Zombieland - clown zombie
Sean of the Dead - defending a pub
28 Days later - escaping out of the tunnel
Dawn of the Dead (2004) - rooftop celebrity headshot scene (And the 'Have a nice day' music at the start)
Night of the living dead - slow moving dread horror type stuff

 

 

...I also wish that everybody on this and most other forums gave people the same manners they would afford someone face to face...  I know, no chance - but I live in hope!

[discipled 63]

I would also like to add that I think there should be a minimal safe distance for zombie spawns. It's pretty redonk to clear a room and go into the next and have a zombie spawn behind you and attack. But I think we all agree that there needs to be a greater number of them.

[crimsonbzd 247]

 

 

 

...I also wish that everybody on this and most other forums gave people the same manners they would afford someone face to face...  I know, no chance - but I live in hope!

 

I know I do, I'm just a bit of an asshole anyways.

[oxymoron (DayZ) 3]

how about making zombies slightly more, not an ''extreme amount''. but give them more health and make them stronger, this seems to be the only way to go for me

[cels 43]

On top of having alot more zombies everywhere.. Zombies should be more than a nuisance.. A shot fired should attract alot.. Personally I would up the challenge of them as well by only letting them be killed by headshots. Will make you think about shooting or going alone.

[AsHawkins 96]

This is what I want as far as Zombies - 

 

[The_Gunisher 10]

I don't know which game you were playing, but at the moment everyone is just running around the coast shooting each other. If you spawn you will most likely see another person within 3-5 minutes. And people stay on the coast because they search for the "Holy shit"-Moments. Surviving? You need a backpack, 5 cans of beans and 5 sodas and you are good to go. You will never die by starvation. I actually never did. I never died by a zombie. I never died by anything but jumping/falling off a roof or by another player. Not ONCE in the SA did I die by any survival aspects.

Now, I am a lone wolf myself (most of the time I play) and I do not expect to be able to have a fortress and 2 helicopters in my base. This won't happen, just impossible. How ridiculous would that be actually? I may steal a helicopter, but repairing one? Maybe I will equire the skill myself.

 

Well a highly trained bandit group is something very unlikely, simply because bandits, and people who tend to go on player hunts, are very likely to die before achieving something great. If I am a lone wolf and I play by myself, carefully, not shooting everyone but evading them, I will be the one with the skills. I will be the one who survived 100hours + because I was as f*cking careful as I would be in real life. I am the one who survives, not some bandits who go around and shoot others. Sure, bandits have their camps and all that stuff and always have better gear, but they won't have the skill, because the avarage lifespan of a bandit is just way lower than the of a expirienced survivor.

 

What DayZ misses is the part of gameplay that let's people go around for their own, evading combat as long as they can. No matter how many features you will add, as long as you do not develope your character more and more and more, people who want to just survive as long as they can, will simple get bored. Why would I go around and survive? What is the point in it? In real life, the point is to not die. In the game there is no point. And this is why DayZ  was NEVER a survival game.

 

Some of us includes Dean Rocket Hall, he wants the game to have character value and indeed he is going to implement a skillsystem. This is not what I was talking about. In my opinion the skill-system needs to be an essential part of the game, it has to be an survival game. It has to be an authentic survival game.

DayZ was never meant to be like the mod is right now. Actually that is what casual players like you, who don't give a sh*t about the survival aspects, turn it into. You are exactly right, DayZ is a massive open sand box style game, nothing more. It is no survival game. If you want to play sandbox casual games go play minecraft. I want to have a sandbox survival game. Simple as that.

 

And really funny how you call us "some of us", as you have not a single person who liked your post, but I have 3 already. Maybe you are the "some of us" part, the part of casual gamers that destroy DayZ. The part of casual gamers that may be more, but are not the main part of this community.

 

You see now your defining yourself as the only person who can have a valid opinion on what the game 'has' to be. But that aside I'll take each of your points in turn.

 

1. The game is incomplete, this argument is therefore irrelevent.

 

2. Almost every time I got killed in the mod it was normally by a bandit group. People tend to group together normally 3-4 sometimes more, and they are often skilled clans too (including survival aspects). Skilled bandit groups would happen, simply because they work well together as a group.

 

3. Point taken, it is currently rather boring on your own, but I would say again wait and see until they add more of the content before making this call. I never said this game shouldn't be more challenging in some respects, but what I would ideally like to see is a stable version of something not dissimilar to the mod. Why? This game and bohemia in general have always had performance issues. You can't currently go into Cherno or any semi large town for that matter without a marked drop in performance regardless of how good your PC is. Whatever the game is or becomes it needs to sort this out before more features can be added. I think it will get sorted, but before I start asking for more content I'm waiting to see how this pans out first. Should helicopters and loads of .50 calibre sniper rifles be added, I'd prefer not, but we shall see.

 

4. As to the point of Dean Hall endorsing a skill system this was the latest I could find from him on the subject:

 

'For anyone wanting skill trees and similar features in DayZ Standalone, Rocket said that this is not something they are looking at because “if you are good at something in the real world, you should be good at it in the game.” Adding skill trees would cause problems with this in that they give bonuses in areas that may make things unfair, so keeping with the system ensures that players learn as they go and become better at survival. The alternative would be allowing the game to compensate for things players aren’t as good at.'

 

http://www.dayzbuzz.com/rocket-dayz-standalone-interview/

 

But I have seen older articles where he talks of learned skills so if you have a newer link by all means post, but given that a skill system is not currently on the planned implementation list I'd say this is still at best up for grabs.   

 

As to the last part, again I'd say your trying to dictate how you think the game ought to be made and played and trying to move it away from what it currently is to suit yourself. You declare simultaniously that you represent the 'real' community based on a couple of likes and that everyone who isn't exactly like you is a 'casual player'.  My friend you are fantastically self absorbed if that is your real position.

[jasher11 67]

in terms of zombies heres what i want:

1. Moar, if there is loot round, zombies should be there, in the forests there should be very few. i want some zombies to make them a problem, but not to many to feel as though the game is ruined ( i would still like to be able to stealth around them)
2.  
3. hoardes, roaming the roads around large and medium towns and some in the countryside would make for a cool encounter
4.  
5. NOT special zombies, just plain old normal zeds, maybe more body shapes though, so maybe some fat ones or some short ones etc
6.  
7. zombies a little bit faster, not too fast because if you have noticed the player runs at absurd speeds, so i just want the player to be slower
8.  
9. Finally recognise distance should be changed, if they hear a loud sound they should go towards it, if they are within ''smelling distance'' they should lock onto you and follow you for quite a while, but if they only see you at a distance, they should be easy to lose by running round the side of a building and so on

Edited February 3, 2014 by jasher

[General Zod 1115]

May I suggest to first make zeds unable to see and walk through walls ?

[crimsonbzd 247]

May I suggest to first make zeds unable to see and walk through walls ?

 

the reason they have the current dynamics is because the ai is a placeholder.

the reason for the poll is to gather information from the community that has paid to have their input heard to see, specifically, how many zombies we'd like to see and their presence.

[discipled 63]

I would also like to bring up a point that does coincide with zombies and this game. The purpose or drive to continue. If the purpose is Survival then what pushes us to drive our characters to survive. It's totally fun to grab guns and blast away, but currently most hover around the coast, as some have pointed out, and take out other people. Everyone agrees we need a ton more zombies. I think their running speed needs upped a smidge. Game content needs to be added, like being able to make baracades (but destroyable with enough zombies pushing on it). Survival requires food and water. It's a calorie game, like my two favorite Survivalists have say, Dave Canterbury and Cody Lundin. There is far too much food. I have never starved or run out of water. It's always been stupid choices and getting eaten or bleeding out. (On that note, player characters who die should turn into zombies, and I'm not saying they have our items or even look like our characters but get replaced by a zombie.) People want to stay close to the coast, and can, because there is so much food. What if the water spickets ran out of water? Players would need to find another, purify some lake/river water, or move on. Same with food. Running from massive Zombies, looking for food and water, should be the driving forces to keeping players moving about the entire map.

 

Picture this, you're slowly searching for food, because you've run out and hungry, and mostly you can sneak and whack a few on the head without alerting the herd. But you turn a corner, one sees you and begins to bolt at you, yelling. The yelling alerts the others, who just begin to look about shuffling curious. You can either shoot it and alert the 20-50 nearby in the town and buildings or run away, being seen by a few who happen to be around various unseen corners or hatchet the one coming at you but you still have others who are shuffling out of their holes looking for what made the scream/yell. They should have a very short eye sight so you can see them easily before they see you, but their hearing should be sharp.

 

Currently the choice to roam is out of curiosity, discovery, new items, guns, or bandits. Zombies have little effect. They need to be a much larger driving force to why you don't enter a town/city alone. What needs created is a reason to trully fight to not die and it's hard for me to see skills, though possibly, being the driving factor.

[cj14 189]

Not just lots of zombies but difficult, fast, agile zombies too.  I think that could help with the zombie count limitations. A moving mass that keeps on coming no matter what. A force to be feared and avoided unless lots of ammo is involved and badassness included.

 

zombies should be (at least the 90% of them) really slow, like the ones on walking dead or resident evil 1, 2 or 3...they should follow you and spawn inside buildings and in the forest...Also be in massive numbers all across the map

[AP_Norris 1017]

zombies should be (at least the 90% of them) really slow, like the ones on walking dead or resident evil 1, 2 or 3...they should follow you and spawn inside buildings and in the forest...Also be in massive numbers all across the map

That sounds like a terrible survival mode where they're always there, always easy to kill but more and more goddamn zombies keep on spawning.

Definitely not what I want.

[General Zod 1115]

the reason they have the current dynamics is because the ai is a placeholder.

the reason for the poll is to gather information from the community that has paid to have their input heard to see, specifically, how many zombies we'd like to see and their presence.

I know, but devs are already adding more of them and new tougher variations, and that's not good. 

[xtharkusx 7]

Personally i like the ammount of zombies there was in the mod, that was a balanced ammount.
 

I have some points.
* im ok with the ammount of zombies but the developers must add the " STEALTH" part into the game, like in the mod. to be able to have chances to move into a city and have chances of not being detected if you know how to. (like in the arma2 mod)
because right now.. it seems not working to me.

* extreme ammount of zombies will be = to extreme ammount of fps drop, so, im against it unless the developers find a way to keep good fps while the ammount of zombies grow.

[bigchocolate 1]

with a map this big, and having the view distance for the player at such a long distance, having tons of zombies would cause a lot more lag then instead of having a select say 900-1000 threw out the whole map, meaning have a herd of them near towns and such, and only having that amount with no zero respawn's until a server restart since that would cap on a more realistic factor, maybe have different types on zombie to meaning some crawling, and what not. 

[Wolfguarde 108]

zombies should be (at least the 90% of them) really slow, like the ones on walking dead or resident evil 1, 2 or 3...they should follow you and spawn inside buildings and in the forest...Also be in massive numbers all across the map

Short of having the sort of numbers you see in that Walking Dead episode where the main character is cornered in a tank, you will never, ever see zombies of that sort be a realistic threat to anybody. (For reference: Large city intersection, 100m visibility each way. Four lanes. Completely and very densely packed with zombies: walls of flesh on all sides)

It would be nice to see variation in walking/running speed though. Consider the idea that the fresher a zombie is, the better its motor functions and general functionality will be. Its body parts haven't had time to decay. Most of its ligaments and muscles are still intact. It runs fast. On the flipside: Its body looks like a motley patchwork. You can see inside in places, sometimes to the bone. He's been through a lot, a real survivor... but he's not getting anywhere quickly. Or if he does, he's not going to be hitting anyone very hard. If at all.

They should also be able to spawn in driveable vehicles, along with dummy zombies (decoy bodies). Same thing with normal spawns - have some spawns that are just dead zombies, persistent until restart. Some zombies obviously start lying down and not moving, so it adds another element of risk to the game. Sure, it adds to resource consumption, and so will probably have to wait for a lot of optimisation to be done, but the idea's there.

Lastly: I mentioned the idea of zombies grabbing and tackling you. I would like to expand on this a bit.

Crawlers, when they reach you, aren't going to get up and start belting you in the face. They will wrap their hands/arms around whatever limb is closest to them and start trying to eat it, or bashing it with/into whatever they can do so. Crouchers will bite/beat at legs or feet, potentially causing enough damage to limit or prevent walking/running. They can also pounce from their crouched position, crash tackling the player to the ground, into props/furniture, or into walls, dealing damage depending on the surface and speed of collision. Runners will simply bowl into the player, striking, biting, etc... usually after having knocked the player (or players, depending on proximity upon collision) to the ground with their initial charge. Good co-ordination means they will be able to pivot on heels or quickly recover if they miss on a charge/pounce/other manouvre and immediately try again.

Zombies could additionally drool or spit when they make their more agitated noises, potentially infecting a bleeding or heavily wounded player.

[The_Gunisher 10]

Personally i like the ammount of zombies there was in the mod, that was a balanced ammount.

 

I have some points.

* im ok with the ammount of zombies but the developers must add the " STEALTH" part into the game, like in the mod. to be able to have chances to move into a city and have chances of not being detected if you know how to. (like in the arma2 mod)

because right now.. it seems not working to me.

* extreme ammount of zombies will be = to extreme ammount of fps drop, so, im against it unless the developers find a way to keep good fps while the ammount of zombies grow.

 

Spot on I don't mind more or harder zombies, so long as that is matched by the stealth element of the game.  For instance needing LOS and only turning to investigate noises, not instant aggro. Even gunshots in my book should only draw zombies to the area, not directly to the player though if you keep firing they get closer until they zero. If you can hide in time you can evade, otherwise as it stands now (and as it stood in the mod) as soon as you fired you had aggro and players could quite often zero you off the back of it.

 

And again yes on performance, definately needs to be improved before more of anything can be added.

 

You have my beans.

[crimsonbzd 247]

zombies should be (at least the 90% of them) really slow, like the ones on walking dead or resident evil 1, 2 or 3...they should follow you and spawn inside buildings and in the forest...Also be in massive numbers all across the map

 

the zombies in those stories are slow because they are, in fact, un-dead. They are a corpse that has been re-animated, and thusly is at some level of decomposition, and can hardly move because of it.

 

The zombies in DayZ are infected living humans. Violent, ferocious, but just as alive and able to sprint as you or I.

[Naiceratops 1]

I think they should test multiple methods and see what sits the best with the community. Also at the moment there is no reward for fighting zeds.

[cj14 189]

Zombies everywhere would turn this game into a multiplayer old school resident evil, having to fight all the time, having a purpose to spend the 6 m4 magazines I have and adding that creepy envoirement that would be so fucking sweet...and that mixed with bigger proper cities will make this the best game ever <3