Zombies

[noentry45 4]

Hello, Devs!

Just some curious question... will Zombies be improved? I've seen no mention on the subject at status reports, or at roadmap for post 1.0 and it is marked as ready. Although, I would assume ready is meant for Experimental Ready not Release Ready. I do appreciate the improvement and the hordes availability now than before but I think there's still room to improve.

For a game which sell itself as a zombie survival game, I believe it should be focused on along with content update otherwise DayZ  just be considered as 'survival game' which defeats the title meanings, purposes and initial foundation. In addition, DayZ always value immersion and the zombie quality is average, which hurt the immersion itself imo and if you compared to the newly release game we all know. 

After analyzing and making a comparison between the two games, I do think the problem lies heavily on the Zombie animation. There's a noticeable delay between each Zombie actions or pathfinding and the way they transition say from standing stance to crouch running stance or from one chain attack to another. There's degree of stiffness unlike the newly animated player character which is great.

Here's what I'm talmbout from SepticFalcon's video at 0:00 to 0:12: 

You can see the delay after Zombie executed three chain attack. Now granted maybe the delay is inevitable due to technology issue or whatever, but it can be compounded with proper transition animation. Right now after the chain attack, the Zombie goes to jarringly default animation. Maybe have the Zombie slowly stepped back for another attack or make an infinite chain attack to a standing/cornered player condition but lesser damage and slower speed attack applied. I figure the delay could be because Zombies physics are turned off so it got confused when it literally inside the player for performance tradeoff?

Now, this brings me to my next point Zombie pathfinding. Often you see when Zombie tries to turn into another direction, again it uses the jarringly default animation to turn and it skidded across the ground like a true ghost. Again it's missing transition animation before an action. I think that's the major issue for Zombie is that it doesn't have enough animation to justify its existence. I believe it should be ironed out at least at 1.0 or immediate post 1.0 because new people or player will judge the game on based on what they can see. Even if you have a complex zombie and really cool mechanic, people won't notice that after several hours of game, which where the older and loyal player will be looking at, the mechanic depth.

Thank you for reading everyone!

(And the sound)

Edited August 29, 2018 by noentry45

[Derleth 1352]

In the stress test build infected aggro range and behavior has been weird recently, and their movement even weirder. I suppose it has to do with the performance issues, maybe it is even part of the cause. They walk and move/attack jittery and occasionally rubberband back and forth like ghosts in crappy horror films. When killed they fall in slow motion, they keep screaming a couple of seconds after dying and they won't react to rifle fire, so you can calmly walk around a town and pick them off one at a time without aggroing. Fire a Makarov and they all come for you though...

I believe the current sound effects are only place holders though so I wouldn't worry too much about them, but I really hope aggro range and behavior is improved. Also we need more infected. Lots more!

Edited August 29, 2018 by Beavis3D

[noentry45 4]

Yes, it's at sad state right now. Regardless whether the Devs reply or not, I do hope they put some importance into Zombies in their hidden roadmap because quite frankly, my mate wouldn't buy the game because of its jankiness. It's being in the sideline for a long time for a game which emphasis on Zombies. I feel I don't get the full experience out of the price tag because of it....

Edited August 30, 2018 by noentry45