The "Zombie Threat"

[Ramzzzeee 17]

First off I have not read every post so please forgive me if this is similar as suggested before, but based on the post I have read and my in game experience I'd like to give a few Ideals on how to make Zombies more of a threat.

 

the obvious thing (and it has been suggested over and over) is spawn more, while I do agree with that and from my understanding it is being worked on I think there are a few other things and can/should be done to make zombies more, well.... ZOMBIE like.

 

Zombie Bites (and scratches)

  as of now you can melee a zombie with no real risk other than blood loss, even with your fist 1v1 a zombie doesn't really pose a true threat (now as far as it being worth the time to kill one that's another issue).

there are a number of suggestions on how to make zombies harder (some already in play such as making certain types harder to kill) which I'm all for. I think we are over looking a basic tent of Zombie Lore.

in most zombie movies ect. the danger from zombies (other than them over powering you and eating your brains) is that there BITE is almost always DEADLY (there are few exceptions).

 

most the time bites turn people into zombies, however the other option I would like to explore is what I have come to believe is the case in "The Walking Dead"  Tv show. where it seems every one has the virus (so they aren't so much "catching" it from the bite) and the zombie bite is just a catalyst for their death, while zombies are fictional (right? RIGHT?!...) it would make perfect sense for the bite/scratch of a walking corpse to cause sever life threatening infections.

 

 My Suggestions.

 make all zombie attacks that cause bleeding (break the skin) have a SMALL chance to cause a infection that if left untreated would kill the player (fairly quickly) also give zombies a special attack (maybe call it a bite) that if it lands has a HIGH chance of cause a infection.

 

now clearly you don't want to make it where you can't melee zombies but it needs to be risky, and pretty much deadly with our proper gear.

 as I said Melee'ing zombies needs to remain a option (and maybe even a preferred method) of dealing with the undead, how ever it should not be with out risk, basically you should never pick a fist fight with a zombie and expect to walk away with only a little blood loss to show for it. 

 

This is where 

Gear comes into play

already we have melee weapons that make dispatching the brainless walkers faster/safer and if there is a threat of contracting a deadly infection with every swing/bite dealing with them quickly becomes even more important,

but I think that's only have the equation (the offensive part), the other half should be in protective gear to mitigate the chance of getting bitten/scratched, clearly a leather jacket would provide a better barrier between flesh and chompers than a T-shirt, a motor bike helmet would be harder to bite/bash through than a baseball cap (or nothing) ect.

 

a lot of the gear is already in the game all that would need to be added is some invisible stat that reduced the chance of zombie-borne infection, but this also opens up other gear possibilities (such as riot gear, which of course should also have drawbacks... perhaps movement speed/ stam depletion )

 

well there you have it a few of my humble suggestions, if you have any feel free to add them.

 

 

Edited February 23, 2014 by Ramzzzeee

[Slyguy65 499]

ya when they let zombies give sickness and have them either go faster or give us stamina they will be a threat

[guppy22143 1081]

This isn't the Walking Dead Online.

[Ugly (DayZ) 79]

I'm sorry I need a tl;dr.

[Mullraugh 1151]

I think what Dean had in mind was that all the people that survived the initial outbreak are immune to the virus. Now that's not 100% confirmed, but it seems logical to assume.

The bleed thing never made sense to me. Zombies shouldn't have the ability to punch you in the face, and suddenly a massive fountain of blood pours out of your forehead. Sure it should make you bleed, but not enough to make any noticable difference to your blood level. When was the last time you got a cut on your arm and your vision litterally went gray and blurry? Silly dayz logic.

I would like the ability to possibly contract the zombie virus via bites. That would just completely overhaul people's outlook on zombies. Let's say you have an hour after beim bitten to fall

Over dead and turn into a zombie. The reason most movies, books and tv shows about zombies have such an emotional impact is because most of the time the survivors have to end up killing their friends or family.

Edited February 23, 2014 by mullraugh

[Mullraugh 1151]

This isn't the Walking Dead Online.

Now, I've never watched The Walking Dead, but the name implies the zombies aren't virus based. Meaning everything the OP is talking

about has little to zero connection to The Walking Dead, since those types of zombies don't infect people, they just kill them.

Not to come of as rude or anything, but if you dislike the idea, at least give a reason

Edited February 23, 2014 by mullraugh

[Ramzzzeee 17]

This isn't the Walking Dead Online.

I understand that, I can't say I know the back story of DayZ (is there a official one and where can I find it) I was just going by basic Zombie lore and using The Walking Dead as a reference.

 

I think what Dean had in mind was that all the people that survived the initial outbreak are immune to the virus. Now that's not 100% confirmed, but it seems logical to assume.

The bleed thing never made sense to me. Zombies shouldn't have the ability to punch you in the face, and suddenly a massive fountain of blood pours out of your forehead. Sure it should make you bleed, but not enough to make any noticable difference to your blood level. When was the last time you got a cut on your arm and your vision litterally went gray and blurry? Silly dayz logic.

I would like the ability to possibly contract the zombie virus via bites. That would just completely overhaul people's outlook on zombies. Let's say you have an hour after beim bitten to fall

Over dead and turn into a zombie. The reason most movies, books and tv shows about zombies have such an emotional impact is because most of the time the survivors have to end up killing their friends or family.

 

good to know, and to be clear I wasn't suggesting that zombies should infect people with the "zombie virus" (though I wouldn't be opposed to that either) but more that they should harbor bacteria and maybe even bloodborne pathogens which would make sense if they go around attacking any living thing. I'm also not suggesting a incurable infection but rather a life threating one, there are meds already in the game this would just make them all the more valuable.

[Ramzzzeee 17]

I'm sorry I need a tl;dr.

zombie bites kill you if left untreated (infection sets in), wear thicker clothes and don't think you can fist fight zombies

[guppy22143 1081]

Now, I've never watched The Walking Dead, but the name implies the zombies aren't virus based. Meaning everything the OP is talking

about has little to zero connection to The Walking Dead, since those types of zombies don't infect people, they just kill them.

Not to come of as rude or anything, but if you dislike the idea, at least give a reason

Sorry, it just really grinds my gears when people compare DayZ to the Walking Dead. Implying they are related in any way whatsoever. <_<

[Proper Gander 45]

Now, I've never watched The Walking Dead, but the name implies the zombies aren't virus based. Meaning everything the OP is talking

about has little to zero connection to The Walking Dead, since those types of zombies don't infect people, they just kill them.

Not to come of as rude or anything, but if you dislike the idea, at least give a reason

Actually the Walking Dead zombies are virus based, and bites do infect people.  Also (spoiler to anyone who hasn't watched the show), in the show, EVERYONE already carries the virus; when ANYONE dies, they become a zombie.

 

It seems to me that this scenario is more like the movie "I am Legend" with Will Smith, which premiers a virus that either kills people OR turns them into a "zombie" with a swath of survivors who are immune to both (although this percentage of "immune" people is quite small).

[ld-airgrafix 403]

They do have vaccines as loot, so contracting a disease from zombie could be a future thing, I still say leave as they are just add more of them

[Wolfguarde 108]

I think what Dean had in mind was that all the people that survived the initial outbreak are immune to the virus. Now that's not 100% confirmed, but it seems logical to assume.

The bleed thing never made sense to me. Zombies shouldn't have the ability to punch you in the face, and suddenly a massive fountain of blood pours out of your forehead. Sure it should make you bleed, but not enough to make any noticable difference to your blood level. When was the last time you got a cut on your arm and your vision litterally went gray and blurry? Silly dayz logic.

I would like the ability to possibly contract the zombie virus via bites. That would just completely overhaul people's outlook on zombies. Let's say you have an hour after beim bitten to fall

Over dead and turn into a zombie. The reason most movies, books and tv shows about zombies have such an emotional impact is because most of the time the survivors have to end up killing their friends or family.

 

I'm fairly sure it has actually been confirmed. Not sure where you'd find the post, but I've heard quite a few people say that info came from Rocket.

Bleeds are simple. You're not necessarily being punched every time a zombie swings at you; open-hand strikes with even blunt fingernails (which, given the zombies are apparently still living beings, would continue to grow after infection), are going to stand a pretty steady risk of drawing blood. Admittedly, probably not the fountains of blood you're used to in DayZ, but everything that realistically requires attention (such as hunger and thirst) has been sped up to add risk to the gameplay. It fits.

Lastly - and this relates to the OP's post as well - I believe Rocket has also mentioned that he doesn't want NPCs/reanimated survivor zombies in the game. Might be wrong on reanimated survivors, I think I read it somewhere a couple of months back though.

 

I understand that, I can't say I know the back story of DayZ (is there a official one and where can I find it) I was just going by basic Zombie lore and using The Walking Dead as a reference.

As I've come to understand the game, there isn't actually meant to be an immediately discernable story. Like Dark Souls, you find little hints and scraps of information throughout the game, pieces that together resemble a cohesive story but apart seem almost meaningless. It's part of the immersion value; nobody really knows what happened. You washed up from sea, into a part of the world that's forgotten its humanity. You need to dig if you want to find out what happened.

[liquidcactus 719]

One of those source zombies mods had a feature where zombies would bite you and latch on and you had to wiggle them off, Something like this would be nice to see in dayz

[Ramzzzeee 17]

One of those source zombies mods had a feature where zombies would bite you and latch on and you had to wiggle them off, Something like this would be nice to see in dayz

That's a interesting ideal, like the games where you have to rapidly tap a button to break/defeat a powerful attack.

Only here you could have to rapidly tap Q and E, I can see it now, we must WIGGLE for the zombies! Wiggle wiggle wiggle, wiggle wiggle, wiggle wiggle wiggle!..... :-)

But seriously i think some active key press combat could spice things up a bit.

[Pandema 352]

I'd wait till they get zombie numbers to the final levels before we cry about them not being hard enough.

[entspeak 374]

I also would love to have zombies that could grab and hold you. It would make melee so much more risky. The DayZ lore, as I understand it, is that survivors are immune, but this doesn't mean wounds can't get infected if untreated. I liked what was happening in the original mod just prior to SA's release. There you would get bitten and it would warn you that you would get infected and if the wound was left untreated, you got sick.

I'd love to have something like that here. If you get a bleed, you should run the risk of infection - for any wound (zombie attack, gunshot or melee attack). And it shouldn't tell you anything until you start getting sick (it should be common sense to clean a wound). And then, 20 minutes later or so, you get messages like, "you feel flush...", "you have a fever..." Then they can add some visual effects like they're planning for drugs. The risk should depend on how bad the wound was. The bigger the wound, the greater the chance of infection. Then, people would have to clean their wounds before bandaging to avoid that risk.

Edited February 24, 2014 by entspeak

[Gdaddy22 299]

What's bad in Dayz atm is that this game's difficulty level is far below easy. Other people are a big threat but it's not enough for the game, and often people play on low pop servers where they don't meet any players.

It's like - you are playing on a 1/40 server - you win the game, you can't die, go ahead and do everything you want. There should always be a threat in the game even when there is no other people on the server

Edited February 24, 2014 by Gdaddy22

[- Karma - 75]

Wasn't there Brain Flu or something in the Standalone?  I saw something on one wiki where is was saying like a 1% chance existed to contract a terminal infection from every zombie/infected attack.  There really wasn't more info then that and I didn't investigate further because infections weren't/still aren't live.  Got the impression it was incurable too.

 

So yes, I would love to see infections - not the kind that turns you into the monster - but from a filthy wound.  These could come from zombie/infected, PVP melee attacks, crafted traps once live, probably even gunshot wounds (no expert, imagine any untreated wound has a risk of becoming infected).

 

And yes to whomever suggested grappling - 1v1 zombie/infected don't pose a huge threat to a moderately well geared person at the moment.  Hell, even fresh spawns can just run away.  If the AI ever gets to the point that the zombies/infected can try and corral and corner you in groups that would be fantastic.  If one could grapple you to slow you down while the others moved in the mob you, this would become a huge threat.  I also think that the zombies/infected on whole should be tougher - one headshot to kill fine, should take three, four, or even more rounds from a pistol or M4 to do enough body mass damage.  The same rules that apply to the players should apply to the NPCs regardless of whether they are zombies or infected humans or whatever.

 

I also made this post in this thread regarding zombies:

 

http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/176086-zombie-changes/

 

"If you want to make the infected a threat in this game, it really isn't a matter of toughness, damage output, or speed.  All of those could work, but the best way is using the fear of the unknown. 

 

Imagine if in the world there hundreds of thousands of bodies.  Some sitting against walls or in cars, some lying down, some in brutally grotesque and twisted positions.  Now imagine if some of those bodies were the same infected we face. The point is take at least half of the infected and have them be dormant.  The other half can slowly roam or do otherwise as is the case now.  You would walk into a house a see what look like three dead bodies.  Well guess what, one of them isn't.  Did you turn your back on it and make some noise?

 

Even the most careful, "I will put an axe in every body I find just to make sure" person will eventually slip up and take that body for granted.  Hell, they just might not see it while dealing with the three infected that are coming from the front.  All of the sudden, there are two more right behind you and you're trapped.

 

That is what they should do.

 

tldr: allow for some infected to hide among non-animated corpses and spring traps"

Edited February 24, 2014 by - Karma -

[guppy22143 1081]

Abooouuuuut infections and the treatment of NPCs as players...

We already have this. Infections, though not called infections, do occur. I've seen it happen most often, when someone uses unsterile bandages. You can sterilize a bandage using tincture or disinfectant spray. When infection does occur, it has varying stages, and if left untreated can and most likely will lead to death. On zombies acting like players, yes we already have a system like that. They are vulnerable to crippling and blunt trauma. So if you shoot a zombie in the knee, it will stagger instead of run. If you punch one in the head, it will fall over for a few seconds. These same rules apply to characters.

 

EDIT: 100TH POST! WOOOOOOOO! *pops open a bottle of brandy and grabs his glass*

Edited February 25, 2014 by Guppy the DayZ Medic

[Dopey2k 0]

I just think there should be alot more zombies.

 

Right now there are so few they are no real threat.

I hope they add so many we will have trouble getting around.