Zombies Need To Get Worse Before They Get Better (READ)

[Katana67 2907]

DISCLAIMER - I am well aware that this is an Alpha! I am also aware that zombie development is an active area of progression for the developers! I am also aware that the zombie fix in the newest patch is temporary!
 
With the new Stable build, zombie spawns have obviously been tweaked. Let me say, I love it for the most part. I cleared NWAF today and it was actually moderately difficult handling all of the respawning zombies. This is something I've wanted since I first played the mod.
 
The overall numbers are getting better, and I like the feel of it.
 
However, zombies need to be less omniscient (i.e. all-seeing/knowing) before they can ratchet up the numbers. This is essential, and it can't be the other way around.
 
Stealth isn't a factor with zombies. This is now underscored by the fact that zombies respawn in close proximity to the player, only to INSTANTLY have aggro.
 
Zombies need to respect line-of-sight, distance, and silhouette. No tension is created when zombies always aggro, there's no reason to be stealth and try to mitigate zombie aggro. They cannot have MORE zombies while remaining guided missiles with 100% accurate tracking to your exact location.
 
I remember way back, Rocket had said that their eyesight is pretty poor but their hearing is excellent. I tend to disagree with this characterization, but regardless... as of now, it seems that LOS is the sole determinant in zombie aggro, which is a mistake.
 
Summary
- Zombies need to respect line-of-sight, distance, silhouette (i.e. prone/crouch/standing) to a degree
- This needs to happen BEFORE the overall zombie count is increased
- This makes sense (to me) from a development perspective (i.e. troubleshooting/bug-fixing/issue-solving) to finalize how zombies themselves behave BEFORE cranking up the overall numbers/spawns
 


EDIT
 

Hicks_206 (Reddit)
"Also: If you kill a zombie with a firearm, any zombies that spawn in the proximity will know your location on spawn.
Its a rough prototype system, but I do love that its made things very difficult"

 
So, I'm all for making things harder. I want zombies to be a threat.My issue is with the APPROACH used to make them threatening, not the fact that they're now threatening (which I wholly endorse).
 
But this is concerning, a prototype for what? I want zombies to be persistent, not spawning in a la client-side spawns from the mod. This makes the aforementioned "clearing of areas" concept articulated by Rocket impossible. Unless they implement some sort of artificial "limit" on proximity zombie respawns, which would be HIGHLY formulaic, I don't see this being an improvement.
 
The zombies that you draw aggro from (through firing a weapon) should ALREADY BE SPAWNED. How am I supposed to judge a situation and make a reasonable risk assessment if, no matter what, when I fire, X amount (or an infinite amount) of zombies will spawn in already aggro'd?
 
Not to mention that the way aggro's are done in the first place isn't all that great.

Edited March 19, 2014 by Katana67

[Princess Dookie 35]

 

Summary

- Zombies need to respect line-of-sight, distance, silhouette (i.e. prone/crouch/standing) to a degree

- This needs to happen BEFORE the overall zombie count is increased

 

Agreed, however, if it takes too long to fix the other issues, why not test server performance in the meanwhile? That way, they can work on other issues they know about, and we can test to see if new issues arise with the current.

[Katana67 2907]

Agreed, however, if it takes too long to fix the other issues, why not test server performance in the meanwhile? That way, they can work on other issues they know about, and we can test to see if new issues arise with the current.

 

Of course! Obviously, this assumes a linear development scheme (which I doubt they're following). I just don't want the state of things to become accepted as normal (as was done in the mod) when we're working in a flawed system.

 

I would rather they fix how zombies behave, before cranking up the numbers. I would assume that'd be a more wholesome approach to weed out potential issues than have to decrease the numbers later on if an issue was found. However, I suspect that this was more just a stop-gap fix or a test of their spawns (not overall zombie numbers).

[Damnyourdeadman 1045]

Fixing the zombies will be an ongoing process.

The respawning numbers are fair i think.Concerning the line of site distance and silouete

factors,i belive in my opinion that they will fix it.Keep in mind that they still

go through walls and that is kind of a big priority.This zombie respawning engine

is just a placholder because we were bitching about the small threat count.

Little by little i have faith that they will add more to the mechanism.

Edited March 19, 2014 by Damnyourdeadman

[lumo1234 68]

Zombies who are re spawned due to being killed with a loud automatically have aggro on the player.

 

Killing them with an axe or whatever is better. Thought id say this first as i dont know if u played experimental before this last update.

 

But in terms of line of sight etc... i do agree but as you said it is alpha hopefully the team who will be responsible for zombie AI after they have finished the hunting part of the game will do a decent job.

[Princess Dookie 35]

I have faith that it will get better. They know what they are doing. If it is one thing I know is that programmers / coders do unit testing in a particular way. As a programmer myself, I tend to test "weird" things sometimes, just to see what else will happen / what the outcome was.

[Katana67 2907]

Zombies who are re spawned due to being killed with a loud automatically have aggro on the player.

 

Right, but this doesn't make sense... at all. You kill a zombie, another zombie spawns in within 100m already aggro'd to the player, a neverending cascade of aggro'd zombies respawns around you.

[mgc 92]

What if you run?

[Katana67 2907]

What if you run?

 

For one, it aggros/spawns more zombies. Second, it is a high-profile activity likely to be seen by other players. Third, running is not always prudent when one has to loot to survive.

 

Nevermind that a one-dimensional "solution" like running away isn't really in the tense spirit of DayZ, where previously, stealth was a factor in avoiding zombies.

Edited March 19, 2014 by Katana67

[agentneo 337]

Why does it need to happen that way around? to make it easy and not a threat? I'm tired of running around an empty map with pussycat zombies. Bring the pain. Developers, increase zombies x10 please.

[Katana67 2907]

Why does it need to happen that way around? to make it easy and not a threat? I'm tired of running around an empty map with pussycat zombies. Bring the pain. Developers, increase zombies x10 please.

 

You're missing the point of what I'm saying. I want zombies to be a threat, and like that the numbers have increased. I've advocated for zombies being a threat for two years.

 

However, such a change cannot be made in a vacuum. It has to be made after zombie behavior and aggro has been finalized, so that a few things can happen. One, it seems a better approach for troubleshooting. Rather than going back and re-tooling the zombies once they've increased the population, creating the potential for unseen issues. Two, the number of zombies is only ONE aspect of their overall threat. If they're made more "natural" in terms of their aggro generation, then we can actually have a tense stealth mechanic whereby the player has the option to either mow down a horde of zombies or tacitly sneak by.

Edited March 19, 2014 by Katana67

[ScorpiusX 1]

I have been playing DayZ for about 10 days now, and before this update I had just ignored the Zombies as they were laughable. They were absolutely no threat even with the aggro mechanics they had, the biggest threats in the game were other players and glitches. Now the latest patch has changed that, instead of using the fireaxe to kill Zeds I'm finding myself becoming more and more reliant on guns to take them out at range, because every hit now makes me bleed, whereas before I had never bled from a Zed attack. I agree with the OP that the aggro mechanics need to be dialed down somewhat, not too much mind you, and I also agree that issues such as Zeds passing through walls should be sorted soon.

 

I do wonder though wether the current changes will affect the way we play. It seems, to me at least, that the less experienced players (me included) will have an easier time if they band together, having more peeps to watch your back should help, plus never underestimate the power of teamwork - it gives the enemy someone else to shoot at. :) If newer players are banding together more it should also increase the challenge for the more experienced players. If this is so then it can only be good for the game.

[DarkwaveDomina 1099]

I agree with you OP, the zombies we currently have are a farce compared to the ones I remember from the mod. They would respect line of sight and you could avoid them in long grass if you were prone, these ones just have ESP and now they have made them respawn all around you without fixing any of that. *Golfclap.*

Edited March 19, 2014 by DarkwaveDomina

[Katana67 2907]

They were absolutely no threat even with the aggro mechanics they had, the biggest threats in the game were other players and glitches. Now the latest patch has changed that, instead of using the fireaxe to kill Zeds I'm finding myself becoming more and more reliant on guns to take them out at range, because every hit now makes me bleed, whereas before I had never bled from a Zed attack. I agree with the OP that the aggro mechanics need to be dialed down somewhat, not too much mind you, and I also agree that issues such as Zeds passing through walls should be sorted soon.

 

This is where I think a lot of the misunderstanding originates from with regard to "worse/better". You do a good job of detailing it.

 

Zombies can do all the damage in the world, can sprint at me, or rush me in droves... I'm fine with that, and would love it if it were so... but the threat has to be able to be mitigated by the player. Right now, we've got two options.

 

Engage or run away. You either shoot (announcing your position to the world), hack at the zombies and probably take some serious damage (due to the way zombies impart damage, not the level of damage), or run away. There's no middleground of stealthily moving past the zombies, as was in the mod (although it certainly had flaws of its own).

 

I'm not talking about making them weaker folks. Like I said, you can have high damage zombies, sprinters, and a large quantity of zombies... but they have to behave in a way that has more than one dimension.

Edited March 19, 2014 by Katana67

[DarkwaveDomina 1099]

Zombies can do all the damage in the world, can sprint at me, or rush me in droves... I'm fine with that, and would love it if it were so... but the threat has to be able to be mitigated by the player. Right now, we've got two options.

 

Engage or run away. You either shoot (announcing your position to the world), hack at the zombies and probably take some serious damage (due to the way zombies impart damage, not the level of damage), or run away. There's no middleground of stealthily moving past the zombies, as was in the mod (although it certainly had flaws of its own).

 

Exactly this. I wouldn't care if zombies could kill you in three hits and you had to get a headshot to put them down, so long as genuine stealth were a possibility.

[TOPMO3 119]

Summary

- Zombies need to respect line-of-sight, distance, silhouette (i.e. prone/crouch/standing) to a degree

- This needs to happen BEFORE the overall zombie count is increased

- This makes sense (to me) from a development perspective (i.e. troubleshooting/bug-fixing/issue-solving) to finalize how zombies themselves behave BEFORE cranking up the overall numbers/spawns

 

This harks back to my topic that we've had multiple exchanges on Katana, and I will re-iterate some of the things I've already said.

 

After some consideration based on feedback from my thread, I would say that before ANY real change to zombies can happen, they MUST respect collisions with buildings and environments. They must have more simplified LOS, and have better hearing. This would allow for stealth to a certain degree. Basically how they were in the mod, minus the walking inside buildings etc.

 

I think harder zombies are a must, but server stability must be better before we talk about 1-2 hit bleeds, and 5-6 hit kills. With server lag being as bad as it is, you can lag out, and be dead when the server catches up.

 

I miss seeing a mob of zombies run through the streets, it was an obvious tell that someone was either in trouble, or on the run. I haven't seen that in the SA. I also haven't seen zombies shuffling or walking. Miss it.

[lumo1234 68]

Right, but this doesn't make sense... at all. You kill a zombie, another zombie spawns in within 100m already aggro'd to the player, a neverending cascade of aggro'd zombies respawns around you.

 

Thats the point at the moment. It makes life harder, its good - well i happen to like it anyway.

 

Besides at the moment the system in place is very basic and at the early stages of development, so it will change over time.

[TOPMO3 119]

Having zombies randomly spawn around you because you're engaging other zombies might be a bad idea. I think having endless waves of zombies who instantly know where you are isn't a good thing. Having 10-20 zombies chase you, and then give you a breather before more spawn in would be better, I feel.

[Katana67 2907]

Either way, I don't want zombies SPAWNING in close proximity to me. I'd rather them just be spawned in the world already, which was the entire point of revamping them from the mod in the first place.

 

Now, with this temporary spawn system, it's almost the same as the client-side spawning that we had in the mod. But it's worse, given that the zombies spawn aggro'd already. Which is fine, as it's in-development.

 

But, if they ever decide to keep a system like it... they'd have to artificially impose limits on spawns then, which I don't like.

 

It'd be a case of this...

- 5 zombies exist in this space already, 20 zombies can spawn around the player once he/she engages one zombie.

 

OR

 

- 25 zombies exist in this space already, if the player fires, the existing zombies may get aggro'd.

[mgc 92]

For one, it aggros/spawns more zombies. Second, it is a high-profile activity likely to be seen by other players. Third, running is not always prudent when one has to loot to survive.

 

Nevermind that a one-dimensional "solution" like running away isn't really in the tense spirit of DayZ, where previously, stealth was a factor in avoiding zombies.

Yeah, stealth is important for the atmosphere.

[MagneticToast 102]

Zombies definitely shouldn't make you bleed every time they tickle you until the melee gets improved and that they aren't all seeing and all knowing or the t1000 where they can come through walls.. If one comes into a house through the wall and you try hitting it you are just going to hit the ceiling or anything around the zombie while it jiggles your love handles until either you glitch out of the house or bleed to death

[hannibaldaplaya 1095]

Completely agree with OP 100%

[beedubbs 7]

Agreed with op 100% as well, and for the love of god pleaseeeee please fix the collision issues, so many issues with zombies running through walls, players glitching through walls on purpose, bullets hitting imaginary surfaces when fighting on hills, inability (or almost inability) to melee attack a person or zombie when inside a house or thin hallway.

The game is coming along but there's so many MAJOR issues which need to be addressed (IMO) , and are more important then say, adding spray paint cans to the game, or adding in a new hat.

Also the fact that I play for 2 mins, get "Session lost" and have to wait 5 mins to join a server again, only to get kicked for session lost another 3-4 times with 5 minute waits in between every server join attempt... meh

I love the game so much, i've had the MOST fun in this game compared to any other game, and the MOST frustration compared to any other game.

 

In my honest opinion , this game has real potential to be one of the best games ever, but so much work needs to be done its unreal. I just hope that I actually do see the day, where this game plays the way that it should.

Can you imagine playing dayz, with like 90% of the bugs gone? And the game reacting properly and quickly when you try to do something? Having firefights without glitchy bullshit going on?

 

This game could truly be ridiculously good, and I hope it gets there.

[beedubbs 7]

I remember when league of legends was like this (to a degree). It had so many bugs, and server issues, and downtime. The game finally did pull through though , and delivered what it was meant to deliver. I hope dayz is like that, and it's just a matter of time before things start to just come together.

[komadose 190]

zed spawning is shit (they can spawn right next to you) at the moment, but i like that there's so much more of them!

 

also, the desync problems make it really frustrating to fight them at the moment, but i expect that to be fixed soon.

 

i agree with your post pretty much 100%, but i think spawning and desync are top priority. after that, i don't really care how long they work on the other aspects. it would be cool if they'd remove the zed wallhacks someday :)