Dayz has just become a little more interesting...

[drewsta 74]

I've just finished playing the new patch after the hotfix on stable and it really was a smooth and fluid experience. Dayz has just become a little more interesting because I'm now looking as hard for zeds as I am for other survivors because they are now are very real threat. You can of course manage them still but it's now a guaranteed shit fight if you get lazy and I'm loving it. Dayz is starting to take on the survival feel again and for the first time since I can recall, players are now just another threat not the ONLY threat. The Zeds seem to have better animations and holy crap they are fast and they can sneak up on you when your not looking too. They also respawn now and although that is still in early stages, it makes for a intense fight at times and you have to plan an escape because they just keep coming! I finished taking a few of them down earlier and ran like buggery to get away and rested in the forest some minutes later. All was quiet and then this military zed screeched from behind a bush and literally jumped on to me and hit me hard. After I spilt my coffee I managed to shoot him without to much trouble and was bleeding after just one hit. It showed me now that anywhere can be a potential threat and makes you feel uneasy which is great fun. I have no doubts that once the zeds are perfected more, players will really start to think twice before blasting away at other survivors out of boredom. I don't think you will ever erase that part of Dayz nor should we but reducing it significantly will have its perks.

 

It started to rain so I right clicked a water bottle in my inventory and spammed the "collect rain" and filled It up which was a nice touch I thought. I tested some of the other things listed in the changelog and they seem to work just fine. Can I just say that for me the last couple off sessions were glitch free and very smooth, I haven't experienced rubber banding yet but I did see a zombie get it a couple of times.

 

Anyways enjoy the madness.

[Etherimp 1323]

Well, one of the things that this patch has done is made it so that anyone who is carrying 2 primary weapons has to either drop their weapon and fight off SEVERAL zeds with their melee weapon, OR resort to shooting the zeds, which in many cases is the more viable option. Last patch and every patch before it you generally wouldn't hear people firing off M4 rounds in a city unless they were shooting another player. Now, I've heard people shooting down zeds on many occasions and even been forced to do so myself.

 

This makes finding other players easier.. and it makes gun fights much more frantic, as you now have to worry about being overwhelmed by zeds.. Looting bodies in high traffic areas becomes a real challenge/risk... Overall, I like it.

[bfisher 561]

I had noticed that too.  After spending a week living off collected rainwater in the attic of a factory in Electro, I decided to skip town.  I was a bit surprised when I got cornered by 5 zombies in a firehouse and had to put them down with one of my pistolas.

 

I don't think they are particularly threatening though.  And the fact that they still warp through buildings and just stand there waiting does take some of the immersion out of the game.  So it feels less like avoiding zombies and more like avoiding zombie spawning traps.