Do Zombies Dream Of A Good Nights Sleep? (Zombie feedback)

[sai (DayZ) 137]

Wikipedia only covers some of the background to the zombie concept. I'm gonna have to get back to you after the weekend however. I'll provide you with some neat history, and you'll see what I mean.

 

EDIT: Note that I perfectly respect your preferences when it comes to what you think a zombie should be like. All I'm saying is that there are several different variants of zombies, all different, but all are zombies.

When you say zombie to most people they think of the classic walking zombie.

 

The only definition that matters is the one most people use. Just like if most people use a word thats not in the dictionary it becomes a real word and is eventually added. 

[Elle 562]

omfg are we still defining what a zombie is or isn't?? we, the players call them zombies because we assume that's what the Z in DayZ stands for and its convenient for us - I can't say what it stands for one way or another - the creator of the game, you know that Dean Hall guy?? says they are infected people that are not dead - seems he quizzed his brother or some such who is some kinda medical type before he conceived of the whole infected scheme. apparently he was hoping for something that was at the very least plausible in the real world and this is what we have now. once and for all they are INFECTED people that are still ALIVE. gees just had this conversation on another thread...

 

 

 

now can we return to the topic of their behavior?? please???

 

as to this...

 

The only definition that matters is the one most people use. Just like if most people use a word thats not in the dictionary it becomes a real word and is eventually added. 

the only definition for the game that matters is Dean Hall's definition. his creation so his definition.

Edited March 26, 2014 by Elle

[ImageCtrl 719]

Post Patch Zombie Feedback

As per the latest changelog, post your feedback here. Keep it constructive.

 

I see them spawning... dislike it.

[sai (DayZ) 137]

omfg are we still defining what a zombie is or isn't?? we, the players call them zombies because we assume that's what the Z in DayZ stands for and its convenient for us - I can't say what it stands for one way or another - the creator of the game, you know that Dean Hall guy?? says they are infected people that are not dead - seems he quizzed his brother or some such who is some kinda medical type before he conceived of the whole infected scheme. apparently he was hoping for something that was at the very least plausible in the real world and this is what we have now. once and for all they are INFECTED people that are still ALIVE. gees just had this conversation on another thread...

 

 

 

now can we return to the topic of their behavior?? please???

 

as to this...

 

the only definition for the game that matters is Dean Hall's definition. his creation so his definition.

 

 

 

 

 

The definition of zombie is clearly not set in some peoples minds, but this game is without a doubt sold and presented as a zombie game.

 

 

[zombie1 (DayZ) 0]

Only if you're in their designated spawn location after you kill them. Which all of this is just tentative.

that is not true from what I experienced. Ran across a long field into the woods from a town, killed it and one spawned on top of me right after the kill. Could just be a bug I have experienced, though.

[Elle 562]

-snip-

go watch world war z - those critters are called zombies too and they are worse than our zombies - hrm come to think of it 28 days later was billed as a zombie flick, they were alive kinda like our zombies - its a general term, live with it.

[LaughingJack (DayZ) 767]

Just lazy classification, doesn't make super people with a cold a zombie. 

 

 

The definition of zombie is clearly not set in some peoples minds, but this game is without a doubt sold and presented as a zombie game.

 

This is like what happened to resident evil, sure everyone liked it at first when it changed from zombie to crazy people. But it ruined the franchise. It destroyed something special. 

 

What killed resident evil for me was a) the movies (god I HATE Milla Jovovich. Her acting is like Kristen Stewarts. Two facial expressions, where the difference an open mouth is. And don't get me started on the german synchro of her, let's just say they found someone matching that acting...) and b ) going from horror to action. Which had nothing to do with fast or slow zombies...both can be enemies in an action game or an horror game.

 

I just finish this, if you don't mind:

You think saying DayZ is a zombie game is false, because the Zombies don't match your definition of a Zombie, which is, as you say, the definition of the most people. (I'm not gonna argue about that because as we know, 83% of all statistics are made up)

Others say it doesn't matter if the Zombies are slow or fast, infected or dead, because "Zombie" is not strict an undead corpse for them, just a thing that was once a human and now...well looks like one but with the intelligence of a mindless but very hungry predator.

So...yeah. If, for you, the Zombies of DayZ are not Zombies you have two options: a) Deal with it and call them "Infected" or whatever you want or b) Leave the game because it annoys you too much that other people imagine Zombies not only as slow undeads.

Or c) continue arguing here, but I'm out now, since this discussion about "what a Zombie is" is running in circles....and not for the first time in this forum.

[srgntpepper 85]

I really like how much more of a threat they are, that being said I think there are a lot of tweaks that should be made.

 

1. The fact that there is no wall detection is crazy annoying, there should be wall detection so they cant see you through walls and come running through them in all directions

2. Sound, I understand if a gun is fired, that would alert zombies, however, they shouldn't hear melee attacks from 150m away, maybe more like 30m

3.  When a new one spawns after a player kills it, the zombie should not turn and attack immediately, it's almost as though they remember you killed them last time, so they turn and instantly run to you again.

4. When they do their leap attack and hit you while you're running, a lot of the time the animation somehow hits you, even from like 10 m away, maybe show a smoother or more realistic animation if the zombie actually hit.

 

All that combined makes endless streams of zombies attacking the player for like 5 minutes, just because one zombie was aggroe'd.  I've had this happen to me in the middle of a forest; there's one zombie, I hit him in the head with an ax and all of a sudden there are endless waves of like 3 zombies attacking me.  It does make them more of a threat, but in a way that doesn't feel right right now.  I think maybe add more zombies, give wall detection, have them hear melee weapons a little less, or maybe put them on alert after they hear a melee weapon, so they have to look around and if the player is visible, then they attack.  Have them spawn at least 150m and at most 300m from where they were killed, and at least 50m from any players.  You could argue that having them spawn at least 50m from a player and at most 300m from where they were killed would cause problems in spawning, but if the amount of time they have to respawn is anywhere from like 10 seconds, to 2 minutes, I guarantee there will be pockets of spaces for them to spawn in.  If they are allowed to spawn next to each other, then there could be pockets of highly congested zombies.  If after two mins there is still an issue with having space for them to spawn that is 50m away from a player, then just have them spawn as close as possible while still being 50m from a player(just because its weird seeing a zombie just appear right next to you...)

 

 

Also, as a side note, it would be cool to have crawling zombies too, maybe have them crawl pretty fast, like the sprint crawl in arma 3 (lol), and they could be very silent, so as to sneak up on snipers, or just people who are camping out.  Maybe, instead of them making zombie noises, their mouths could be mended shut and the player can only hear them crawling.

Edited March 26, 2014 by srgnt.pepper

[sai (DayZ) 137]

What killed resident evil for me was a) the movies (god I HATE Milla Jovovich. Her acting is like Kristen Stewarts. Two facial expressions, where the difference an open mouth is. And don't get me started on the german synchro of her, let's just say they found someone matching that acting...) and b ) going from horror to action. Which had nothing to do with fast or slow zombies...both can be enemies in an action game or an horror game.

 

I just finish this, if you don't mind:

You think saying DayZ is a zombie game is false, because the Zombies don't match your definition of a Zombie, which is, as you say, the definition of the most people. (I'm not gonna argue about that because as we know, 83% of all statistics are made up)

Others say it doesn't matter if the Zombies are slow or fast, infected or dead, because "Zombie" is not strict an undead corpse for them, just a thing that was once a human and now...well looks like one but with the intelligence of a mindless but very hungry predator.

So...yeah. If, for you, the Zombies of DayZ are not Zombies you have two options: a) Deal with it and call them "Infected" or whatever you want or B) Leave the game because it annoys you too much that other people imagine Zombies not only as slow undeads.

Or c) continue arguing here, but I'm out now, since this discussion about "what a Zombie is" is running in circles....and not for the first time in this forum.

 

 

I'll just quote what i've already posted here.

 

"I agree. The threat of zombies should be numbers, and your stamina. You can only run so far, where as the zombies will constantly march towards you. Meaning if you don't plan it right you are going to be forced to barricade <<<(remember dynamic base building) yourself in a small house in town. Attacking the zombies thu the windows, or waiting for them to leave, maybe jumping out the back window of the house, climbing onto the roof of the building, making ramps to others buildings to get away from the swarm of zombies crowded around and clawing at the old house you ran into.

 

These are the kind of experience you are robbing yourselves of and me. The gamne will be NOTHING like that with these fast zombies. "

 

 

What it really depends on is if you have the forsite to see how this effects the game long term, fast zombies will ruin any chance of this being a great game.

[srgntpepper 85]

I'll just quote what i've already posted here.

 

"I agree. The threat of zombies should be numbers, and your stamina. You can only run so far, where as the zombies will constantly march towards you. Meaning if you don't plan it right you are going to be forced to barricade <<<(remember dynamic base building) yourself in a small house in town. Attacking the zombies thu the windows, or waiting for them to leave, maybe jumping out the back window of the house, climbing onto the roof of the building, making ramps to others buildings to get away from the swarm of zombies crowded around and clawing at the old house you ran into.

 

These are the kind of experience you are robbing yourselves of and me. The gamne will be NOTHING like that with these fast zombies. "

 

 

What it really depends on is if you have the forsite to see how this effects the game long term, fast zombies will ruin any chance of this being a great game.

You can still deal with those zombies in the same way, right now, if you run in a zig zag, they have a harder time hitting you and at some point will lose interest and stop chasing you.  So you can still deal with zombies in the same way....barricade youself, shoot through windows, etc etc. (once they add in wall detection that is....)

 

I dont think they should add in stamina as a factor for running until vehicles are added in.  Otherwise being a freshspawn will be impossible to survive without help, since you spawn with no weapon and are hungry.  Adding in stamina reminds me of State of Decay.  Interesting idea, but we wanna keep things original in the DayZ SA.

 

Maybe if they added in a spawn point in the woods, after hunting and berry picking are added in and working.

Edited March 26, 2014 by srgnt.pepper

[AlphaDogMeat . 493]

I swear to Ged the next mention of endless spawning or bitching about the definition of a zombie, I'm going down to the coast and execute a new spawn. Maybe two.

[sniperdoc 251]

that is not true from what I experienced. Ran across a long field into the woods from a town, killed it and one spawned on top of me right after the kill. Could just be a bug I have experienced, though.

It's not just a small 5x5m spot... the zone could extend from 5m all the to a 100x100m... ;) Who knows? I don't have the exact numbers... but I have seen that the zones can span a large distance. Cities probably smaller and unpopulated areas probably much larger would be my guess. 

[brazorf 46]

Pro

- more zombies is a better thing.

 

Cons

- chasing speed is ok, but combat animation speed is not. they keep turning around and around (with a very low hit rate), making melee combat BORING

- run from them seems flawed, hard to break their LOS

- spawn policy should however allow area cleaning, even if for a short time

 

In short:

1) keep a good amount of them

2) slow them down until physics, collision and proper detection LOS fix

3) the real threat should be finding yourself outnumbered. Strengthen them in 1v1 makes them poor conceived zombies

Edited March 27, 2014 by brazorf

[srgntpepper 85]

I swear to Ged the next mention of endless spawning or bitching about the definition of a zombie, I'm going down to the coast and execute a new spawn. Maybe two.

Yo this is a zombie feedback thread. The devs need feedback from everyone, even if the feedback is the same-especially if the feedback is the same.  If the feedback is the same(ex endless spawning) then the devs get to hear everyone's opinions on it, even if the opinions are the same.  This is how gaming feedback works, if anyone should be tired of hearing that same stuff, it should be the devs and they're probably more tolerant of it than you.  At least you can stop following the thread, but they can't.

So just remember that and chill.

[pillock 850]

 

I swear to Ged the next mention of endless spawning or bitching about the definition of a zombie, I'm going down to the coast and execute a new spawn. Maybe two.

Yo this is a zombie feedback thread. The devs need feedback from everyone, even if the feedback is the same-especially if the feedback is the same.  If the feedback is the same(ex endless spawning) then the devs get to hear everyone's opinions on it, even if the opinions are the same.  This is how gaming feedback works, if anyone should be tired of hearing that same stuff, it should be the devs and they're probably more tolerant of it than you.  At least you can stop following the thread, but they can't.

So just remember that and chill.

 

One - maybe two - new spawns will die unnecessarily now. I hope you're happy. You have blood on your hands, sir.

[urvile 20]

Whats with the zeds having an "area of effect" attack now? I keep getting hit by zeds who have their back to me. I also get hit by zeds after they are dead. And by zeds who are WAY too far away to be able to hit me. Through walls too, but that's part of the clipping problem.

[srgntpepper 85]

One - maybe two - new spawns will die unnecessarily now. I hope you're happy. You have blood on your hands, sir.

ahahahaha, I don't really care, if he's the type that likes to kill freshies, that's on his hands, they'll just respawn with their same flashlight and battery somewhere else anyways.  Just seemed like he forgot what the thread was about.

[AlphaDogMeat . 493]

ahahahaha, I don't really care, if he's the type that likes to kill freshies, that's on his hands, they'll just respawn with their same flashlight and battery somewhere else anyways. Just seemed like he forgot what the thread was about.

Don't put this on me. You signed the execution orders.

[srgntpepper 85]

Don't put this on me. You signed the execution orders.

lol, hey man your the one pullin' the trigger.  I didn't ask for this!

[pilgrim* 3513]

the Zombies are OK

they do not run too fast

 

= WE MAINLY NEED STEALTH =

At the moment, it's fight them or run, the mod's stealth option was perfect - exciting, dangerous, immersive.

 

Damage - they hit from too far away, but the player has to be in their face to hit them back (melee)

they wreck your clothes fast

they wreck a lot of the gear in your clothes,  I guess that can be tweaked at some date

 

Line of Sight - they agro from too far away, they see through houses and trees. Distance can be tweaked, sight line needs something serious doing about it

 

Independent Movement - they should move around over a reasonable distance and change direction - walk around in town, around buildings, down streets, sometimes walk through houses even when no player is present. They did this in the mod and it was cool. Zombs sometimes came into buildings and upstairs without even knowing you were there.

 

Spawn - They must always spawn out of sight of the player, and move in, not spawn (as sometimes it seems) suddenly 2-3m away, and they should sometimes spawn non-agro, this can be implemented as a parcel with Movement

 

Bottom Line -   = WE NEED A STEALTH FUNCTION WITH ZOMBIES =  

 

For instance the zombie looses agro a little while after it looses sight of you (eg if you hide, dodge corners, or lie down) it searches around where it saw you last - so it has to move independantly - and you have a chance to stealth out of the danger zone - then it gives up if it doesn't come close enough to see you, and eventually it goes back to its routine wandering the area. This was more or less the mechanism in the mod, wasn't it? This means zombies can't see you when you are lying down, unless they are close to you. And they have to walk around areas, so that sometimes they GET close.

 

xx pilgrim

Edited March 28, 2014 by pilgrim

[BaconCrash 0]

Pros:

-Zombies are slightly more of a threat, but only if more than 4 rush at you.

-Spawning of Zombies makes it seem like there are more all over the place. Nice post-apocolyptic feel to the game

-Killing a Zombie with a gun spawns a zombie that knows where the last gunshot was, causing them to run to that location, and most likely attack the shooter. Makes it seem like they are swarming (which is neat, but it could be done better)

 

Cons:

-Because of infinate spawning (or what seems like infinate spawning) you can no longer reliably clear an area. Zombies should be able to be wiped out of an area, at least for a little while, before comming back.

-Sometimes they move too fast for their own good. I've had 4 or 5 attacking me at once and missing me over and over again by simply side stepping like an inch and watching them flail wildly past me. Epic lulz, but deminishes how threatening they are.

-Still clip through walls. Makes looting on the ground floor of buildings dangerous for all the wrong reasons.

-Can sometimes be annoying for newly spawned players if there are no melee weapons readily available.

[charlieatlas 2]

I agree with much of what has been said - for me the Zeds should be very aggressive and dangerous, otherwise where is the Zombie Apocalypse?  Having said that, Zeds walking through walls and closed doors, hitting you through floors and ceilings, and respawning in your face, is the overriding ridiculous situation (imho) that is keeping many servers empty (or very low pop).  DayZ has been a triumph so far, but the Zed thing is vastly reducing my enjoyment and I am far less keen to play now.

 

I realise that it is encouraging greater group play to survive and that is a great addition to the game, but some folks (including me) like to lone-wolf it sometimes, just for a change and that has just about become impossible with Zeds 300 metre sight and hearing at present. I suggest:1) bad eyesight, but good hearing for the Zeds. 2) being able to sneak past in crouch 20-50 metres away. 3) being able to sneak past in prone 10-20 metres away. 4) Zeds not running through walls. 5) Zeds respawning after 30 seconds and at the location where they died. 6) I like the earlier suggestion of different types of Zeds, some fat and slow, some old and easier to kill, and how about some children Zeds to add a possible moral issue to the game?

 

Finally to those who say STFU, it's still an Alpha - I say Rocket and the team have asked for constructive feedback, so here is my tuppence worth.  See you at the Airfield (any one of them).

[Tathagata 0]

Has anyone else experienced a one hit death from zombies?

Had this happen twice to my partner last time we played. She wasn't full health, but certainly was ok. Both times, one hit and 'you are dead'.

It was not another player, I was there with her.

 

Admittedly, one time she had her back to the zombie, so maybe a super hit to the head? The other time she was facing the zombie, but the way they glitch around maybe it got behind her? dunno, either way just thought id see if anyone else has noticed this.

[barnabus 1708]

I swear to Ged the next mention of endless spawning or bitching about the definition of a zombie, I'm going down to the coast and execute a new spawn. Maybe two.

This???? This is your feedback on the Post Patch Zombie Feedback thread? Wow.

[barnabus 1708]

Has anyone else experienced a one hit death from zombies?

Had this happen twice to my partner last time we played. She wasn't full health, but certainly was ok. Both times, one hit and 'you are dead'.

It was not another player, I was there with her.

 

Admittedly, one time she had her back to the zombie, so maybe a super hit to the head? The other time she was facing the zombie, but the way they glitch around maybe it got behind her? dunno, either way just thought id see if anyone else has noticed this.

I did have this happen to me. All I saw was the leaping shadow of a zombie from behind before the screen went black with the You are dead message. It was the day of the patch outside Electro.