1.7.2 Opinion thread. All your opinions, good and bad, go here.

[bogroll (DayZ) 26]

I for one very much like the new Zed behaviour.

For one, it's refreshing having to revise your approach into a Z infested area - keeps you on your toes big time. More tweaks to the Z's please. Am having fun being a tester.

With regards their perception: If you're unfortunate enough to be in a Zed's 'cone of vison' then he'll see you and come after you. If you are smart and keep pushing forward then you can sift past them. I like this. Plus point here is that you now have the option to run - evading them is much easier and they will give up the ghost if you are smart at it.

To illustrate:

1: Got seen from a good distance. I ran into a building after a small bit of evasive tactics. The single persuing Zed pretty much started sniffing around near the entrance yet did not enter. Before the patch they auto invaded.

2: Got seen from a good distance. I elected to fuck off into the woods. The initial Zed plus 4 more Zeds who joined in were dogged; all Benny Hill style, and I was trying to see if I could occlude their POV against mine by nipping around groupings of trees (like I saw in that video). Aw fuck this- this is stupid, but then I found the solution - I went straight through and out a pair of close together Conifers/Evergreens (they must be a bigger 'itemobject') and that stumped them. They wandered back to base picking their noses. Have done this a few times and hey it works. (Then again maybe they can only run so far from their patrol area? WTF knows - just passing on the info).

Yes Gary..yes. Just keep your eyes out for their view direction. Easy enough and adds more of the fear. If you don't shoot, you can evade the bastardz that saw you and they won't hound you forever. Even if you do shoot, you can still lose em. If not then keep the weapons out and start blasting. Gunfire however, has now been shuffled down the list of DayZ survival techniques.

This all makes sense and am liking where it's going with regards the Zed's behaviour. Easier a bit to hit (but has their HP been buffed slightly?)

BETA: Are We There Yet?

PS: Revelatory post on reddit (sure it's been linked but it's superb so here it is 'again') This gives you aggro-ranges of all the weapons in DayZ. Didn't realise the AKM added 40m on top of the 80m of the other AK variants. Not so good round town. The AS50's aggro range is almost the orbit of Jupiter.

Edited July 11, 2012 by bogroll

[uberwolfe 25]

Zombies are noticebly tougher.

After quietly sucking it up for dieing for some unknown reason the instant my character spawned in the world (losing 8 days worth of gear no less) I snuck into my friendly local Elektro supermarket.

Aggro'd two zombies about 200 meters away while walking through supermarket entrance.

Ran up the back of the supermarket, Found a Lee Enfield and a watch.

Equipped Enfield and proceded to try and take out the two zombies shambling towards me.

Two shots to the head and one to upper chest to kill a zombie about 10 feet away with the Enfield? No thx.

Are the zombies tougher or the guns weaker or what?

Somehow I think the fun has just been taken out of this game....

Edited July 12, 2012 by uberwolfe

[semipr0 402]

Newer player here but I watched a bunch of videos before getting into the game.

Seems to me the zombie spawn algorithm has changed in the last few months, in the videos I was watching there would be thousands of zombies alive/dead. But in 1.7.2, the version I am playing, the zombie population is always around a 10:1 ratio to survivors on the server.

While this is great in theory it presents something of a problem with entering abandoned civilized areas in search of much needed supplies. Previously, in the videos I'd watched, zombies in total radius affected by shot report awareness AI could be cleared out by someone with a weapon and for a short period there was a brief respite in which you could search for the supplies you came looking for.

In 1.7.2, I've literally approached completely abandoned single buildings in the middle of no where, simply to watch 3 zombies spawn from there. If I shoot them all, more zombies spawn....this is exponentially worse in towns and cities because for every zombie you kill another two or three spawn. Basically keeping all areas where supplies are at consistently populated with zombies. Now while I can understand a higher ratio of risk vs reward in Cherno and Elektro, the situation as it plays out in Gvozdno is absolutely unplayable.

I had actually gotten my head around sneaking and everything and had spent almost the whole day alive, making my way north, I'd picked up plenty of supplies but was missing one thing, a box of matches....so after a whole day of picking my way through the country side, Gvozdno became my tombstone cause there were no buildings near enough to it to use pathing exploits to peel zombies off of me, and the more I had to shoot, the more zombies started spawning....eventually I was out of ammo and running for my life, with two useless guns, an alice pack full of meat I wanted to cook and still no damn matches and no way to get any either.

Eventually I ran out of blood while running, passed out, and was a tasty snack....all cause I wanted some matches. And its because the way spawns work now are directly relative to player activity in an area. If you scope a barn from far enough out with binoculars, there won't be any zombies there, but if you get within 1000 meters of it, sure as sunshine, here they come a-shufflin.

So, sorry for the long post but....if I kill all the zombies in an area, shouldn't I get a little break for the ammunition I had to spend? That stuff isn't easy to come by after all....and you'd think it would take longer for more zombies to find the area I was at...or rise up out of the ground...or shuffle out of a toolshed, as they seem to be doing.

[Qassie 7]

I'm not impressed with this patch so far, seem to have brought TONS of bugs.

Not to mention that the hive server seem to be messed up, me and my friend drove from Pusta to Devil's Castle, checking out deerstands, heli crashes and towns... 3 hours later, server restart, ok great. Logging on 5 minutes later only to find out I'm back to Pusta where we started, everything I looted is gone and the veichle we used is gone..

Not to mention the 2-3 hours of spent time doing that trip........

Aggro range is FAR too high, it was good before the patch.. With this Zombie Range you encourage tons of snipers in towns like Electro and Cherno, because we need to be stealther than ever, we basically need to crouch walk or prone through the entire city making us super easy targets, smart players will obviously don't give a damn about the zombies, and just run safely into a building to not risk getting shot..

I used to crouch run, crouch walk on occasion in cities. But NOT until they fix this....

[Psyl3nt 125]

I've noticed the zombies are extremely hard to avoid now, since the update, Every time I get close enough to buildings there are zeds inside / outside, and they aggro from a long way away.

Sure I could Crawl my way around, spend 3 hours crawling from spot to spot until I maybe find an axe, but then there is now usually zeds IN the buildings aswell so upon entering it's "Broken leg" and then death. I know this game is supposed to "hard" and all that, but it is supposed to be "fun" aswell, and since this update, I'm not really having much "fun"....

Before this update, I didn't have any troubles avoiding them, if I was quiet they didn't aggro, now they aggro while I'm standing still making no noise at all.

Spawn players with a hatchet at least . . . . This idea of having no defence what so ever is a bit much, pretty sure the first thing I would do in a zombie apocalypse is grab a "pointy stick" or something like it, and if I was being attacked I would be fighting back with my fists / feet, not just standing there going "oh well, you got me, guess I'll just stand here until you kill me".

Currently it's not that much fun at all, it's just frustrating because you cannot go near buildings to get anything, and you can't go anywhere else because well, you need food / drink, (which you can't get.

Is there some "new" strategy that I am missing or something ? - up till now it's been a case of stay low / quiet and get in an out and generally your all good, but now it's just insane, and the ONLY thing you can do when they aggro is run, which in turn aggro's everything in a square mile radius, your only option here is to run out bush, (where there is nothing), and then they break off the chase, rinse repeat, disconnect / play Arma II.

Might leave this for a while, till that either changes or is said to be working as intended, 4 spawns, not a single item gained yet, this is the first day I've played since the update, I expect to see the "life expectancy" drop dramatically.

I think the zombie aggro mechanics were a lot better in the previous patch, this patch seems to have turned them into "super" zombies. Which may be fine if they are "supernatural" zombies, but I thought these are just infected humans with no super powers etc ?

Edited July 12, 2012 by Psyl3nt

[thecrackmuffin 22]

I think people are over exaggerating the distance at which zombies can aggro. I ran into cherno and started to test how many meters it took for me to be spotted by a zombie in prone, crouched and standing positions. It seems that the vision tracker on the bottom of the debug monitor roughly translates to the meters at which you can be spotted, as I found myself frequently being spotted at 50m while the vision ticker showed 49.5. Also, the new line of sight feature makes evasion really easy, as I was dead on sprinting passed a few zombies who had merely turned their heads for an instant, allowing me within 70 meters while in full motion. Those who are drying their tears with their keyboards as they slather the forums with BAWWWWW just need to be a little less gung-ho about barrel assing into towns and take a little time to observe zed movement and cones of vision.

[fml 29]

I pulled aggro @ 150m, then the zombie next to him didnt run after me until I got to about 40m. May have been because the second zombie was crossing the road. (a bug I suppose, where they wont run after you until they are done crossing a road?)

[pkolbo 16]

I'm still intent on trying to figure out a new strategy as well, since 1.7.1.5 was so much fun, I do not want to give up on this game. I do get aggro on every visit to town, UNLESS, I'm fully prone. It seems to be the only way to get around town without a 100% chance of detection. The good thing about the aggro is that you can now lose the Z's pretty easy. I'm getting better at it. But what it comes down to breaks the whole reason I played this game.

1st. I HATE playing this game with bushes in my face constantly. Trying to plan routes and understanding what's around me is futile while prone.

2nd. Aggroing easily + losing aggro easily is BORING. It basically encourages players to ignore the Z's completely. It's so much easier to run into town, lose them in the supermarket. It takes the fear out of aggro completely, since it happens constantly.

In the 1.7.1.5 patch, sure it was easy to avoid getting aggro, but when you got it, you had better have an amazing escape plan. THAT was fun. The Z's were much more part of the game and were scary. Now its like. I aggroed. who cares, I'll just windsprint or shoot them, its not that big of a deal. I think that was so much more fun. It should be Low chance of aggro that is NOT randomized, but based on skill coupled with a near impossiblity to lose the z's once aggroed. Then I fear the Z's. That is fun.

My last issue is the spawns. If you are going to have Z's with binoculars strapped to their domes, they can't just magically appear ahead of you 20m or behind you in an area you just cleared out. But thats not that big of an issue because Z aggro just doesn't matter any more.

[leeballington@tiscali.co.uk 6]

Since the patch, the infected are weird now. Yes they are a lot easier to agro, you can be assessing a situation while squatted, with Zeds miles away when you'll see one hauling it's arse at you. This isn't a major problem as they are a lot easier to lose now, running in and out of buildings, zigzaging through and behind trees before hitting the floor in prone just to see your pursuer with that "Where did he/she go?" look all over his face.

The DayZ team have said not enough people were killing zombies so either players were really good at avoiding them or they weren't threatening enough, making the game a full PvP shootout, so they changed it. BUT, for me this has made it more a PvP shoot-out than before.

In patch 1.7.5 zombies, although a problem, could be avoided with stealth tactics, especially key in early game with no weapon. Now when people spawn near a town, or what I do anyway, is just run in upright and at full speed, I'm going to pull zombies anyway even if I try stealth so there doesn't seem any point in wasting time getting half way in just to pull one and end up running anyway. Head for buildings I can get in to see if there is any loot then run out with my train of zombies following me like a Benny Hill show. I can lose them easily so it doesn't matter how many of the blood crazed nasties are nipping at my heels. In 10 mins of finding a built up area I can usually find a gun and some supplies with zombies now seeming more of a nuisance than a threat.

Zeds were supposed to be more threatening, but in the latest patch they may as well not be there and we'll have a kind of Army MMO of people looking for guns before blasting away at other players. The Mod is still good but I prefer patch 1.7.5 where the Zeds were more relentless when chasing you and didn't agro as easily.

Give me back the game when finding a can of pepsi was an accomplishment rather than getting kitted up in 30mins with a conga of Zeds behind me just for me to run through a large barn to lose them all in one move.

[pkolbo 16]

Lee, I couldn't agree more. Ironically, I felt more engaged with the zombies in 1.7.1.5.

[fml 29]

My sentiments exactly

[kirai 18]

If you weren't from Sweden, I'd say come play with us, but I imagine your ping would be rather high on a TX server... Also I'm not sure of your money situation but all it took for me to get my friends to play, was gifting my friend with the "loudest mouth" Arma over steam, shortly after the others joined in...

Moan more please, let me grab some popcorn. :D

I've had none of these issues.. I might suggest reading the server name/info before joining, to make sure they're running the correct update/alpha. As for your gear, deal with it! The mod is in alpha, unfortunately we will all have to deal with these losses/bugs/etc... We are all testers, not players.

Thanks for the thought though. No my economy sucks so can't do that but one friend of mine bought Arma 2 combined operation today to play Dayz so now we only have to get this fucking game working, have spent 7 hours trying, with mine I had no problems.

[Bribase 251]

I had a couple of hours on a server just now, my first real playthrough with the new mechanics. I think I'm getting used to them!

I spawned in Kamenka and made my way directly to the deer stands. Knowing full well that while evading Zs in large cities is easier with the labyrinth of streets and enterable houses, evading the now teaming numbers of Zs in the smaller towns without proper weapons is now the real challenge. The deer stands were a cinch because the Z's tend to move downhill, away from the treelines that I used to conceal my approach. They never saw me coming right up to the point where I was walking up to a deer stand that looked abandoned when three Zs spawned right under the platform and sat there!

The update seems to be filled with strange spawn patterns; Zs would flicker into existence and switch through skins before my very eyes before teleporting to some other spot. I would clear a deer stand only to turn and find three more military Zs guarding it again.

That said, the new zombie behaviour, aggro range and all is beginning to make sense. Survivors should never have expected to crouchwalk into a major town like say, Zelengorsk and not catch some aggro. You can use cover to infiltrate parts of the town but at the end of the day it's a major town and aggro is expected as you find yourself in the open fields leading into the town. This is where players are applying the fears of the previous patch when they needn't. If a Z catches sight of you just dispatch him as quickly as possible, the sound of your weapon is unlikely to bring the whole horde down on you. They'll be attracted to your position but moving quickly and clever use of cover will ensure you won't aggro any more. they don't zero you as soon as they hear a gunshot like in the previous patch, they'll investigate but if you're smart you'll be long gone before they reach you.

I think that on the whole, the new Z mechanics have turned Day Z from a crawling simulator to a far more dynamic and fluid game. it's beginning to favour faster and smarter movement over what was essentially a game of Grandmother's footsteps. It needs tweaking, that's for sure. Like capping the aggro range and making zombies that see you investigate at a medium pace before aggroing, buffing the cover provided by bushes and trees and making the landscape itself a factor in whether a Z sees you, not just distance and visibility.

But something has to be done about these new bugs with Zombie spawning.

[lesmith 0]

Zombiw spawned within 3 meters of me, attacked me from behind.

[Psyl3nt 125]

I haven't tried just running into buildings yet, will give that a go, not a fan of having to prone everywhere though, it's quite painful.

[Nitram (DayZ) 7]

I'm still intent on trying to figure out a new strategy as well, since 1.7.1.5 was so much fun, I do not want to give up on this game. I do get aggro on every visit to town, UNLESS, I'm fully prone. It seems to be the only way to get around town without a 100% chance of detection. The good thing about the aggro is that you can now lose the Z's pretty easy. I'm getting better at it. But what it comes down to breaks the whole reason I played this game.

1st. I HATE playing this game with bushes in my face constantly. Trying to plan routes and understanding what's around me is futile while prone.

2nd. Aggroing easily + losing aggro easily is BORING. It basically encourages players to ignore the Z's completely. It's so much easier to run into town, lose them in the supermarket. It takes the fear out of aggro completely, since it happens constantly.

In the 1.7.1.5 patch, sure it was easy to avoid getting aggro, but when you got it, you had better have an amazing escape plan. THAT was fun. The Z's were much more part of the game and were scary. Now its like. I aggroed. who cares, I'll just windsprint or shoot them, its not that big of a deal. I think that was so much more fun. It should be Low chance of aggro that is NOT randomized, but based on skill coupled with a near impossiblity to lose the z's once aggroed. Then I fear the Z's. That is fun.

My last issue is the spawns. If you are going to have Z's with binoculars strapped to their domes, they can't just magically appear ahead of you 20m or behind you in an area you just cleared out. But thats not that big of an issue because Z aggro just doesn't matter any more.

Damn, i can't agree with you more :)

[vasudan 5]

I've no problem crouch walking around zombies like I've always done, I don't find the 1.7.2 zombies anymore alert than the 1.7.1.5. Being in front of them will always cause issues... even then you can still get quite close. As long as you stay to the side and behind it's fine.

Having said that, 1.7.2 introduced some superzombies and I generally find a couple in everytown. They spot you from anywhere. I've come out of buildings and seen them spaz out and run from the side of town, I've skirted towns quite some distance and suddently heard one running up behind me that has flipped out from some 200m away. I believe they are unintended and should be fixed in the next patch.

If your getting around okay and but always seem to pull a random, you might just be getting unlucky with these guys, it's not your fault. You don't have to prone everywhere, that's unessesary.

The 'normal' Z's seem okay to me.

Vas.

Edited July 12, 2012 by Vasudan

[Wallberot 37]

Couldn't log in much since the patch. But, tonight I haven't had a problem. I like that the zeds are tougher(aggro range/etc). It's gotten harder. I like it.

Other than that, I haven't noticed much.

[datguy (DayZ) 157]

ah ok since english is not my first language i couldnt make any sense to the "exponent driven probability"-part (if i translate it, it still doesnt make any sense to me)

It means there's a chance, based on a percentage linked to your visibility and audibility, that a zombie MIGHT spot you from much, much further away than normal. The idea is it stops people from being able to say "Oh look, a zombie. He's too far away, I can run through his field of view and he won't see me." now, the zombie might see you outside his normal range anyway. Sometimes.

It won't be a problem if you remember they spot forward. Wait for a zombie to turn around or change directions before you try to sneak through their field of view "too far away from them to see you."

[InfectiousFTW 24]

New zombies are a good thing.

Hope they make them harder TBH.

[Powell (DayZ) 734]

Love the new, tough zombies

[MalleusX 9]

To put it bluntly the game went from being fun, to being a chore to play. Zombies should be an obstacle yes, but not a completely irritating annoyance. Sneaking around town and avoiding zombies was actually possible and somewhat entertaining in 1.7.1.5...now it is either run thru town like a like a madman looting at light speed or rolling into a town with a 10 man group armed to the teeth. Stealth no longer plays any factor at all.

On top of that the sheer amount of glitches this patch introduced turned what was a refreshingly stable mod into a buggy mess. Gillie suits and skins delete inventory, random deaths and respawns, breaking legs next to tents, vehicles not saving...

I will not be playing until the next patch or until a rollback of some sorts, as this mod has taken a very large step backwards with 1.7.2.

[Powell (DayZ) 734]

To put it bluntly the game went from being fun, to being a chore to play. Zombies should be an obstacle yes, but not a completely irritating annoyance. Sneaking around town and avoiding zombies was actually possible and somewhat entertaining in 1.7.1.5...now it is either run thru town like a like a madman looting at light speed or rolling into a town with a 10 man group armed to the teeth. Stealth no longer plays any factor at all.

On top of that the sheer amount of glitches this patch introduced turned what was a refreshingly stable mod into a buggy mess. Gillie suits and skins delete inventory, random deaths and respawns, breaking legs next to tents, vehicles not saving...

I will not be playing until the next patch or until a rollback of some sorts, as this mod has taken a very large step backwards with 1.7.2.

you just aint doin it right man

[zeroexe43 1]

I loved this game, but this new patch is just horrible. The new zombies have completely ruined it. It is ether I switch back to 1.7.1.5 or I stop playing entirely. It was never "fun" to play before but I get no joy in playing anymore. I get spotted behind buildings when I'm crouched. I understand getting spotted if you are doing something dumb but now it punishes players when they do everything right.

And to the assholes saying just run and such. I dont want to play like that and I'm sure a lot don't ether, Thats not what DayZ is to me. Its a zombie similar not a marathon simulator.

[jerald_b 2]

........ EVERY TIME THE SERVER CRASHES.... I lose everything. It doesn't matter what I do, I take numerous breaks through my playthrough to allow my character to "save" but every time a server crashes and I go join another. I start out with nothing. It's bullshit. I don't know if anyone else is experiencing this but every character I make is not saving.