Melee changes to make zombies more threatening & melee pvp more interesting

[WOLFGEIST 122]

I was just discussing melee with some people on Reddit and someone suggested I share this idea, so here I am!

Currently, killing zombies with melee is too easy, there's little incentive to shoot zombies, and I find the heavy attack to be a little too bland (it stuns the enemy and does slightly more damage for a small amount of stamina).

Here's a possible solution to these issues (as well as making the map feel smaller by making players shoot guns to give away position and making melee more interesting in general) - Standard melee attack can only temporarily knock zombies down after several hits. To kill them, you must use a heavy attack multiple times to the head or a single shot to the head from a firearm. The heavy attack should cause more damage and use a larger amount of stamina, maybe 1/2 (or adjusted along with damage for each melee weapon).

This would strongly encourage players to use the more reliable bullet to kill the zombies rather than risk being caught without stamina to coup de grâce them via melee.

This would require additional balancing of melee for pvp. In pvp, light attack should do a short stun (which can be broken with sidestep). Blocking a light attack should take a little stamina and give the defender a small amount of shock damage, adjusted for each weapon. Blocking a heavy attack should take a significant amount of stamina and more shock damage (adjusted for each weapon, some weapons should be better at blocking than others) - dodging an attack should be far more rewarding than blocking, especially against a heavy weapon.

This would make strong attacks more useful in pvp and would give them a higher risk to reward ratio and would raise the skill ceiling in pvp melee.

Also, (i'm sure this is being worked on but figured i'd mention it here anyways) we need distinct blocking sounds in melee. Currently when you block an attack it is kind of confusing as to whether the attack was blocked or not.

Thanks for reading!

[OliverPlotTwist 458]

My only problem with this is that it does go against the established "lore" of the DayZ Infected. The Infected are alive just... infected. And I'm not sure if they devs would change that.

I think the "only being killed by destroying the brain or removing the head" route is a no go. Maybe having Infected being really resistant (but not immune) to damage from all areas apart from the head and the heart. Like the Infection is sending so much adrenaline through their bodies that anything other than a fatal shot/hit to the head or heart will just knock them down for a bit.

[Arman R 5]

cool idea, only thing i would rather, when using heavy attacks, you can kill zombies from any body part.