Slower zombies, increased numbers.....

[KyrieLucas 2]

I tend to agree that the zombies should absolutely not, under any curcumstances, ever be able to sprint. I grew up with the slow moving masses in games like Resident Evil, and that certainly has a far dearer attraction to me than Left4Dead style zombies, but that's not actually why I think these zombies should, at the fastest, job slowly towards the player.

No, the real reason is that they are WAY TOO OP; they were ridiculously annoying in Left4Dead, and they're ridiculously annoying now. 90% of the zombies I ever see actually run AWAY from me, then do a u-turn and chase me down to maul my face. There is no possibility of running away from these damn things (unless you have a building nearby and then it's all fine and dandy, maybe. depending if the stars align and there's an butterfly nearby and you're wearing the colour blue; my point here is that the tracking for the zombies is incredibly broken and unpredictable).

Since you no longer start with any sort of weapon (awesome decision), and for SOME reason you can't punch or kick, the combination of being 100% defenseless and being completely incapable of running away from zombies means that if a zombie spots you (ALSO a very broken and unpredictable event) before you manage to find a weapon then it's time for you to give up and start over. I suppose you could exploit corners or docks to get the zombies to lose you, then bandage yourself up, then slink away and try to find a weapon again, but as soon as you run out of bandages (read: after the first zombie attack, assuming you survive that) you are completely fucked. You WILL die the second time you get attacked simply through bleeding out. I'm not saying that's a bad thing but the zombies being impossible to outrun makes the beginning (when you have no equipment to deal with zombies) way too difficult.

Plus they're not really scary when they're all up in your face, they're more just annoying. They give you absolutely no time at all to put bullets into them before they're causing you to bleed and forcing you to use up more bandages. You're pretty much forced to take damage in every encounter until you have a decently ranged weapon, which makes it pretty much impossible to ever live long enough to get that decently ranged weapon. I can understand how difficulty makes this more entertaining, believe me, but having such a ridiculously steep difficulty curve does not.

[vukster@gmail.com 75]

I love this, so places that are heavily fought over for resources would have the highest zombie concentrations. The dead are therefore created by conflict. So players in the long run are making life harder for themselves by killing others.

Totally agree, zombie % should be based completely on number of players killed for each player killed 10 zombies spawn for that player, they like shooting so give them more targets. THe more you kill people the higher your zombie spawns. This is not to discourage PVP but to make it more challenging.

[zipper 69]

Before anyone suggests slow zombie with a greater number play this mod, http://www.armaholic...age.php?id=9207 , It is for Arma and has exactly that slow zombies in a greater number. And these zombies are way more lethal than DayZ ones if they get close to you. And it is still ridiculously easy, you can run rings around the biggest hordes, or shoot a few, run back, shoot a few, repeat. Trust me when I say this would make the only threat to players other players, looting towns would become even easier than it already is. Zombies would become a non entity almost they would be that nonthreatening.

You misunderstand. It is easy to get away from zombies because you can just run away. If you were restricted on your ability to sprint, and were no longer a 10 time gold medal Olympic runner, you would be forced to deal with the zombies since you wouldn't be able to get away as easily. You make the zombies move at the same speed you run. This isn't making them slow, it just stops them from being unreasonably fast. I don't think it needs to be headshot kills either, it would remove the balance that already exists between the guns.

[pwnage13371 147]

Honestly, there is no reason to have zombies chase you all over the place. They don't catch up to you, so this idea makes sense.

[Lapis 4]

They are infected. Not zombies, So therefore they act as infected. This isnt a zombie game :C

[Evan858 3]

They are infected. Not zombies, So therefore they act as infected. This isnt a zombie game :C

But its Day Z, Day Zombie not Day I. i understand your point bit thats exactly why people are suggesting stuff like this

[pwnage13371 147]

They are infected. Not zombies, So therefore they act as infected. This isnt a zombie game :C

*Looks at main page*

*Sees "Zombies killed" meter*

CONTINUE?

[Moriarti 8]

Why not make zombies alert other zombies? Like, when they see you, they moan, and other zombies come to investigate. Prolonged conflict would drain valuable ammo, careless stealth calls a horde, teamwork and spotting/communication becomes essential. Shooting a gun in a city to kill another survivor would turn into you getting swarmed. Using sound and light as weapons becomes a possibility. Distractions on one side of a town allows group members to grab supplies on the other side.

This may not be a "zombie" game, but it could be a damn good one if it wanted.

[mgoolong 0]

agree with the fact that zombies should rule the world more than they do at the moment. you be a guy who try to survive in this world. zombies are stupid, some walk if they see you, some run and some do something bitween, because they are zombies. the zed speeds should be some like in CoD zombie mode maybe. yes increase the number and let them also spawn everywhere, not only in cities. you feel save to often in the game. the zombies should force the players working together, of course there should be space for bandits, but not enought to make the zeds unimportant and creat something like bandits against survivors. if you have a group of survivors they can run easy throught the map without any problems, far to easy. and for them there is to much ammo for the zombies running arround.

the zombies should force the players working together!!!

[Carlos Hathcock (DayZ) 0]

I imagine implementing a simple three level aggro system to the infected AI that represents an animal like "excitement" of how close they think they are to catching you. It is based on the Zs closest travel distance to the survivor.

If a Z spots you on a rooftop or or outside of 50 meters (extremely long travel path to reach you, trough building, up ladders) they will go into the lowest tier of aggro, where they "moan" (and like Moriarti suggested, potentially alert other zombies to close in), shamble slowly towards you and eventually start "looking" for a path to reach you (start traveling the closest path to your position, this might result in them loosing aggro if you stay passive).

The mid tier aggro would be Zs spotting you at a distance but with less than a 30-40 m path to you, where they would start a aggressive shamble/jog towards to, hissing and screaming (hopper aggro speed).

If a Z spots you or reaches you on level ground at a distance of 10 meters or less, they will hit the highest tier of aggro, where they go absolutely mental and stumble head over heels towards to (foooood!). If a Z spots you within this distance they would quickly cycle trough the lower tiers, giving you a split second to react before they come at you full speed.

I imagine the final tier movement looking something like the first zombie seen here: http://youtu.be/KYbQ88oFuxM?t=1m16s

If you loose a Z, using standard Z loosing tactics, they would go into the search mode already implemented before going back to normal.

Reactions to gun fire and other noises would be volume based, triggering one of the three levels of aggro towards the spot where the sound originated from (since the infected are said to have superior hearing). A Lee Enfield going off close to a zombie is an instant tier 3 aggro on the shooters position.

TL:DR, Three aggro speeds triggered at >50 meters, 50-10 meters and <10 meters of travel distance to a player. Gun fire and noise aggro to the spot where the sound originated from, aggro speed based on loudness of sound.

Edited July 18, 2012 by Carlos Hathcock

[Madfast 22]

You misunderstand. It is easy to get away from zombies because you can just run away. If you were restricted on your ability to sprint, and were no longer a 10 time gold medal Olympic runner, you would be forced to deal with the zombies since you wouldn't be able to get away as easily. You make the zombies move at the same speed you run. This isn't making them slow, it just stops them from being unreasonably fast. I don't think it needs to be headshot kills either, it would remove the balance that already exists between the guns.

I think you misunderstand. I always play with ACE, when not on DayZ, which does have a realistic stamina system, some could argue too severe a stamina system. I agree zombies moving the same speed as you, under those circumstance would provide a challenge, but not traditional slow zombies. Even in very large hordes they provide no challenge, just a gentle jog 100m, stop for 2 minutes thin them out and repeat. And that is the kind of zombie the OP was talking about, traditional Romero zombies.

[Tusk (DayZ) 4]

Since the zombie culture's evolving all the time, it should be implemented with both-sides wishes (slow - fast zombies). Simply by making use of the regular-veteran difficulty levels, renaming them Romero and 28 days later would satisfy most of the fans, and this could be done easily. Now to keep the difficulty intact it could be Regular Romero, Veteran Romero, Regular 28 days, Veteran 28 days. Or name it Zombies and Infecteds. The difficulty you set should remain for your character's life-time of course. For a more advanced and long term solution it should be a separate server-side option leaving the difficulty alone. I mean this way people would not flame against the zombies nor infecteds and both side could play the same game on different difficulty, depending which one they like. Of course there could be a slider around the numbers, so fast zombies equals low spawn numbers with zero teamwork (when pathing is finally reasonable), and slow zombies are higher spawn (much-much higher talking about 500-1000 zombies for a player) with teamwork of getting to you in a group and as said trying to get you down.

In both cases there should be a stamina bar, limiting the movement, but when you're "panicking" cause you're running away you could run for a longer time, losing a lot hydration in the process and getting hungrier by every second you run for. Maybe even get a little gameplay mechanics that when you stop, you can't start running again instantly, even when panicked cause you're body needs some rest, which causes the stamina bar to refill from a negative value. This sounds pretty realistic to me game-wise, probably even making both sides happy.

I'm on the side of slow zombies so those should be implemented as a default since the game calls them zombies, they should not run, maybe jog with a chance of falling down on their asses.

Also by making them slow, does not mean you can outrun them for a long time, even by running away you can be cornered by running into another horde. And about shooting them, there's not much ammo, but like real life, if you have an armory you can play cat and mouse for a bit of course, but since you're shooting you're attracting more zombies from a radius, that's a circle, are you sure you're going to love to shoot them when they are coming for you from every part of the town? Grabbing you and making you unable to move (grabbing by chance like 25% of success you're grabbed) which stalls you but not them, and they are coming... for you.

Edited July 24, 2012 by Tusk

[dobrowney 55]

Here is my idea for zombies.

1. slow down there running speed. When a zombies is running and a player is running in front you can not tell the differnce. Make them run with there leg dragging or something to set them apart from a player. Yes i know they zig zag, but that is not enough.

2. Zombie Count. Add zombies to the world based off the population in Chernarus before the infection started. So say there was 5000 people in Chernarus before and you can hold 100 players in a server. Place 4900 in the world. Do not do respawns. As long as the server is up do not spawn more zombies. leave the count at 4900 minus what players killed.

3. No Respawns. Do not allow the servers to do respwans . Respawning Zombies or Gear. This is not real life. Lets try and make it more like it really would be.

Edited July 26, 2012 by Dobrowney

[Diabolic Tutor 2]

Yeah, abit slower zombies, its silly how they move trough walls and doors now...and those monkey zombies just look retarded, zigzagger running nutbolts looks even sillier...since when zombies has started avoiding bullets by zigzagging?

And that about having both kind of zombies, fast and slow ones...why not?

ALOT of slow ones, few runners from time to time.

[CerebralZombie (DayZ) 151]

Pft, here is another Arma II Zombie mod with running Zombies too.

Since so many people think the slow zombies are ideal... This looks way better then slow zombies.

Edited July 26, 2012 by CerebralZombie

[SHOWTIME! 21]

Honestly, the problem with zombies isn't that they're fast, it's that they are wild and unpredictable in their pathing (in an unrealistic/glitchy way).

Once you draw up your iron sights on a fast approaching zombie, all of a sudden they are behind you and chewing on your ass.

[CerebralZombie (DayZ) 151]

Honestly, the problem with zombies isn't that they're fast, it's that they are wild and unpredictable in their pathing (in an unrealistic/glitchy way).

Once you draw up your iron sights on a fast approaching zombie, all of a sudden they are behind you and chewing on your ass.

Yeah I don't know why the creator of DayZ didn't just use the run animation for the players on the zombies. My video two posts above show zombies running smoothly just like our player run.

[spunkybd 0]

Slow them... PLEASE!!