So... Zombies?

[Artophwar 42]

I came back to the game to see how things have come along. How are the zombies?? Ill be playing more to check the game out but just wanted to know what people have to say about zombies in DAYZ currently.

[blacklabel79 949]

Still not a threat.

 

Still in what i whould consider "placeholder" state.

 

Pathfinding got a bit better but..

 

Still wonky.

 

Still by far not enough of them.

 

Still Alphurrrrrrrr

Edited November 25, 2014 by {Core}BlackLabel

[ErichZann 28]

Yeah... A bit less buggy I would say, but what annoys me is that they can see you from like half a kilometer away, even when you are prone or lying.. So no use in trying to be stealthy in my eyes... And so few that they are not really a threat, but can be annoying since you can't avoid them anyway.. So that changes what I once thought was more of stealth game into a "shooter", where I have to kill every zombie i come across...

[zupsero 1]

sometimes im on a huge building and scout the area. ill see a zombie from 240 meter (rangefinder tested), what appears to be further away as one think. apparently, when i scope on them they sometimes get aggro and run to the building i am, while i am laying on the ground and dont make any noise. I dunno, dont think its supposed to be that way.

Edited November 25, 2014 by Zupsero

[Evil Minion 943]

How are the zombies?

We are fine, thank you! Unless we get murdered by crazy maniacs for no good reason. Good thing they mindlessly kill each other as well, unlike us.

[DocWolf 146]

Still in placeholder state:

• extremely low numbers
• able to bypass certain (most?) closed doors
• with an in-built radar (once they lock on you they'll know where you're going even if buildings are in the way)
• with super-glitchy aggro system (sometimes they aggro when you scope their back from afar, sometimes they ignore you unless you jump right in front of them)

Probably in order to compensate for those (and many other) problems, they have supernatural sight/hear so they could pass as (slightly) more dangerous on paper. The good thing is the dev did a good job in working out hitboxes and attack animations: now they hit where their arms and hand hit and could be killed aiming at their head, torso and arms/legs without fearing inexplicable misses. The infected crawling on all four apparently was even more glitchy than his brothers and sisters, and now it's gone.

[call him Steve 46]

The Z's can actually be locked in/out of a building now, however sometimes one makes it thru the doors. But a LOT less Z's running thru walls but it happens sometimes. 

[DocWolf 146]

The Z's can actually be locked in/out of a building now, however sometimes one makes it thru the doors. But a LOT less Z's running thru walls but it happens sometimes. 

 

Infected running through walls are not a problem since 0.49, possibly even earlier. Infected NPCs ignoring closed doors and glitching through it, otherwise...

[call him Steve 46]

Infected running through walls are not a problem since 0.49, possibly even earlier. Infected NPCs ignoring closed doors and glitching through it, otherwise...

 

Walls, doors, it doesn't matter. You're just splitting hairs now.

 

But agreed,  much better since .49 at least. And I am so glad the hitboxes got worked over, too. 

[Cap'n (DayZ) 1827]

They've improved massively since release, but for now are definitely placeholder.

 

Pathfinding is good, and they no longer phase through walls and can be locked indoors. They aren't necessarily a threat alone, but large numbers of them can be a great hassle and possibly result in injury/death. However, large numbers will only ever be encountered in larger cities.

 

They are better than what people give credit, but still need some massive improvements.

[DocWolf 146]

Walls, doors, it doesn't matter. You're just splitting hairs now.

 

But agreed,  much better since .49 at least. And I am so glad the hitboxes got worked over, too. 

 

Not exactly hair-splitting...glitching through walls is a huge problem: means the model can glitch through everything, and will do just that. Glitching through certain doors means the model have problems only with certain kinds of interactables, or with only certain locations. That's a huge difference from a developer point of view, and IMHO a great difference even from a user point of view too.

[Death By Crowbar 1213]

As far as zombies go:

• Hoppers disappeared with .50
• You can now lock them behind doors in buildings, the respect doors *most* of the time but certainly not all
• They don't really clip below the floor much anymore (if at all)
• Navmesh changes have made them more reliable and less glitchy
• Their hitboxes are still a bit sketchy
• You can still zombie bowl them down hills to kill them
• You can still easily avoid them by running in a circle
• There's a few more common weapons that are effective against them, such as the hoe, pickax, and sledge hammer... I don't get all frantic looking for an ax anymore because of those weapons.
• It's funny watching them trying to kill cows and deer and stuff
• The concensus is that they're still a work in progress - the biggest progress that's been recently made is the respawn algorithm and the navmesh changes

[ZomboWTF 527]

Yeah... A bit less buggy I would say, but what annoys me is that they can see you from like half a kilometer away, even when you are prone or lying.. So no use in trying to be stealthy in my eyes... And so few that they are not really a threat, but can be annoying since you can't avoid them anyway.. So that changes what I once thought was more of stealth game into a "shooter", where I have to kill every zombie i come across...

yeah, loved the stealth element of DayZ Mod where you could "infiltrate" a city full of zombies

they were almost completely blind and reacted to sound and fast movement, which is a very good way of doing this

 

when inside of a city with zombies around you, you can very well use them as a "player detector"

as most player don't give a damn if they are followed by zombies

shotting those guys into the legs made them have little time to regret it

[WolfgangErikson 127]

yeah, loved the stealth element of DayZ Mod where you could "infiltrate" a city full of zombies

they were almost completely blind and reacted to sound and fast movement, which is a very good way of doing this

 

when inside of a city with zombies around you, you can very well use them as a "player detector"

as most player don't give a damn if they are followed by zombies

shotting those guys into the legs made them have little time to regret it

 

I really hope they put some more focus on zombies to bring them to this state. They are doing quite good on content generation and I'm excited about upcoming vehicles. I feel like they should focus and hammer out these zombies soon. It's a huge part of game-play and in my opinion, real zombie threa is one of the best catalysts for interesting player-player interaction, and one of the fundamental building blocks of the game.

Edited November 25, 2014 by WolfgangErikson

[BugZ (DayZ) 49]

Zombies totally useless still hitting / runing through doors walls such a bullshit.

[BadAsh (DayZ) 1513]

The navmesh was a big improvement, and the respawn mechanisms are also getting better. Their AI is still the same old placeholder AI as it has always been, but it is being worked on. In exp they have recently experimented with adding more zombies to the server, I didn't get to try that particular build, but it was reported to have greatly added to the zombie apocalypse feel of this zombie survival game.

[Artophwar 42]

Thanks for all the answers. I played a bit last night and it is nice that the zombies have better collision detection with objects. Still think I wont be playing a lot until the game is closer to completion as it doesnt really feel like a zombie apocalypse survival game yet.