Zombies? What zombies? This is pure PvP.

[AzinGaming 60]

Dear fellow survivors,

First of all this mod is in Alpha, so it's going to change, probably fairly dramatically, before there's a final product, so if you're just coming here to post 'I love it as it is now, shut up,' then you've already assigned yourself to the losing camp. Even if you do love the current game state, it won't (and can't) persist in a way that a sellable game requires.

Why am I writing this post? Because my first 12 hours of gameplay on Day Z were amazing; a truly exciting and frightening experience. But after 12 hours, when I'd done the airfield, learned some things about zombie mechanics and could fully rearm in 30 minutes after a respawn, the game has lost all its pazazz for me.

Here is the problem with Day Z right now:

Zombies have no purpose in the game at present, and could be removed with little change to gameplay

Evidence to prove the point:

1. As long as you hold down W you cannot die to zombies.

If you have played the game for more than 12 hours, you should have worked this out by now. When you respawn, you just run around Chernogorsk or Elektra, pick up 5 zombies, then head into a building and lose them all. This is much better than sneaking; it makes you harder to shoot, and you are immune to zombie attack whilst running. Once you go through the building and ditch them, you can loot up and get a handgun.

2. Once you are armed, you are not only immune, but can remove them all from an area without any penalty.

Ok so making sound brings zombies, but what do you care? Just shoot the ones that turn up. But frankly, let's just move on to point 3:

3. Zombies are just irrelevant

There is not a single area worth going to that has any zombies in it that you actually NEED to kill

Stary Sobor, the NW Airfield, all the major towns - there is not one zombie in any of them that requires killing. It's totally fine to run around these places unarmed because the zombies, provided that you crouch run, will never see you.

4. Crouch Run makes you invisible

You can get absurdly close to zombies with this and they'll never spot you. If they do, then of course you just stand up and run away until you get to a building.

5. "Survival?" Then what next?

You all know what I mean. Got a water bottle, a knife, a hatchet and some matches? Go and live in the woods. Forever. Hunting pigs and eating pork every day. Hell, not much variety there, but at least you run zero risk of ever encountering a zombie or a human again.

At the point that you acquire a water bottle, a knife, a hatchet and some matches you have completed the game; there is nothing left to do. However wait... I've got an idea lads... let's...

6. Grief other players! There is nothing else to do late game.

So you've got your MA401, FAL or whatever your preferred Stary/Crash site weapon might be. You've got an Alice Pack with all the survival gear. You only have 2 choices. Sit in the woods, pondering why you've bothered to log in, or go to town and murder every Lee Enfield packing noob who pokes his head towards the power station/appartments/hospital/medical tents.

And why the hell not?

Killing other players turns a single bullet into a massive loot spawn. It's easy to do, gives some exciting gun battles at times when you come up against someone with the right mindset and is fun.

And yet, despite it being fun, I can't help but feel that something is missing from my current gameplay.

7. If you don't shoot every survivor you see on sight, you are doing it wrong.

I would much prefer that there was some kind of choice to this, or that I was wrong in mystatement, but ultimately if you don't kill on sight, you are a fool and you will be killed by some twitchy guy with a Lee Enfield. Sorry, but that's a fact. If the game does not punish banditry, then just as if stealing was not punished IRL, then it's going to be the normal action for the majority. The term "Punish" can be used loosely; there needs to be a big incentive for players to work together, to trade items, and to have something to do other than kill each others.

Whether or not you should kill players is not even a debate; I don't need their help to do anything. I do want their stuff. I suffer no penalty for murdering them. I don't care about the other gamer. And I expect them to do the same to me.

Take all the zombies out of Day Z and for anyone who has played more than 12 hours, the game is exactly the same; players are the only threat to you at any time.

Potential solutions:

1) There needs to be something to do. Something to give you an incentive to enter more and more dangerous areas. I love the idea of creating your own stories, but there simply isn't enough scope to do so unless it involves killing other players. Once you find your first machine gun, the zombies have no relevance to you any more. So...

2) YOU HAVE THE VIRUS.

Every player starts infected and requires increasing doses of antidote; antidote is only found in extremely dangerous areas. In those areas, there are five times more zombies and they can all take three times the punishment of other zombies because of their mutation. And they see you from miles away. If you aren't heavily armed and able to get in there then you're going to turn zombie yourself. And you know what? Going alone just is not an option because of the zombie numbers. You need four or five guys.

Not only that but maybe at any one time there are four potential locations for the one dose of antidote; you won't know which until you've shot your way in.

But the antidote only staves things off so long and a few days later you better get back there.

[Askur 1]

Well.. after I found out that this game is all about (boring) PvP I left after a week....

[Max Planck 7174]

Do you sneak around the zeds?

-Then they have an impact on the way you play.

Do you shoot them sometimes?

-You alert players to your presence, again impact.

"Take all the zombies out of Day Z and for anyone who has played more than 12 hours, the game is exactly the same; players are the only threat to you at any time."

Simply not true. Zeds might not be much of a direct threat, but they affect you all the same.

Try playing as if they didn't exist, they'll eat you.

[Emmu 18]

You think to much bro.

[Übermensch 5]

No, no, no and.... no.

Best argument evah!

[Private Poptarts 23]

I liked the zombies in 1.7.2. They could spot you from far away, but they were loseable. Now they're also loseable, but they don't spot you as easily... just keep out of their field of view and you can give them a neck rub if you choose to :V

BUT once you get to the point you don't care about them you will get gang banged by them and die. True story.

There was a suggestion of a dynamic zombie spawn rate for major towns. Once a place is frequented enough, the spawn rate will go up there. Spawn rate is lower for other places until frequented, and eventually major places would be unreachable for a while.

This game needs... dynamics

Edited July 22, 2012 by Private Poptarts

[LumberBack 43]

the impact the zombies have, is that i dont shoot them at all, as that will get me killed by some sniper hiding in the woods...

[chingi 0]

Actually we have a fiction Z-apoc world made by fiction writer - Andrei Kruz. And he solved this problem in his books, by making zombies, which killed people (and ate them) stronger and stronger, and called them "morphs".

On the late phases of mutations, those ones were extremely fast, and almost invulnerable - and of course there were a lot of them, in intresting places. So you had to be a team of 5 ot 10, to get into such places, because you were always in danger of meeting morphs

[Caviano 287]

Player vs player IS the excitement of DayZ. Zombies ARE THE CATALYST.

Understand this. PLEASE.

[razghul 2]

Before all the senseless haters start posting i´ll quickly jump in and say:

Yes Sir, OP is completely right, but i haven´t lost hope that this will change (at the latest when DayZ goes standalone).

[LumberBack 43]

Player vs player IS the excitement of DayZ. Zombies ARE THE CATALYST.

Understand this. PLEASE.

Not really, there are a shitload of players that all they want to do is shoot some zombies...

[X1Alpha2 10]

Well.. after I found out that this game is all about (boring) PvP I left after a week....

A. Beeing killed by players cause they're better then flaming on boards pvp is booring ofc -.-

B. We all know pvp is the most thrilling stuff there is without pvp this game would be left for dead with bean eater aspects

C. Leaving the game but still beeing on the forums...

D. And nothing of value was lost.

Edited July 22, 2012 by X1Alpha2

[Catalogue 39]

Day Z is a pretty nice Sniper simulator.

[Daddy'o (DayZ) 146]

I can't even be bothered to list all the issues with that antidote thing, but namely imagine the amount of snipers camping those locations, and large groups of people taking ownership of the locations. Imagine the server hopping around the antidote loot piles....

I have a much simpler solution. Think about what I say here:

How are zombies now?

- They're just as fast as you

- They don't relent unless you manage to lose their line of sight and sneak away

- They hit really hard, cause bleeding, broken legs and uncosciousness

In a word, they ARE dangerous. They kill lots and lots of noobies. Why?

Because noobies don't have weapons or not enough ammo to counter them.

Why do older players find no problem with zombies? Because they either DC every time they get aggro to despawn them or they have enough ammo to kill any amount of zombies, after which they just exploit the ammo replenishing bug via DC.

Fix these two things:

-No more ammo replenishing from DC

-No more insta-safe from DC

This would mean carefully avoiding zombies, conserving what little ammo you have, and if you aggro, you either have to make do with the ammo you have or be witty and lose them via line of sight and sneaking.

Finally there needs to be a reason to enter zombie infested towns. As you said with a canteen and hunting gear you can survive infinitely in a forest.

Add something to towns players can't pick up, but something you need. A static item you can't carry, but need to visit every so often.

This forces people to enter towns, conserve their ammo and actually handle their aggro, and suddenly this is zombie survival again!

Edited July 22, 2012 by Daddy'o

[BEsnake 1]

the antidote places are worse then the main citys lol its not gonne stop people camping them nothing is gonne change

[Max Planck 7174]

Before all the senseless haters start posting i´ll quickly jump in and say:

Yes Sir, OP is completely right, but i haven´t lost hope that this will change (at the latest when DayZ goes standalone).

Disagreeing is not the same as being a 'senseless hater'.

How about arguing your point instead of just saying 'OP is completely right' without explaining why you think so?

It's called debating, you should try it.

[StealthyBrayden 6]

So much anger!!! :P

[X1Alpha2 10]

Day Z is a pretty nice Sniper simulator.

Dont run over open fields. Really atm on a nohop server with global chat i always see people running over fields it's like a magnet for noobs after i kill em from 500m away they flame what a sniper pussy i am they never try to come through the woods. I got that sniper by engaging the guy who had the sniper first in close combat and that was possible by running as little through open fields as possible.

[suspense 210]

Honestly, i stopped reading when the first big block of red letters said Zeds had no impact.

Let me just say, THEY DO HAVE IMPACT. They might not have the desired impact, but thats not up to us to decide, thats up to Rocket. And as its still Alpha, they are being worked on all the time.

As long as you,

1, shoot a zombie

2, sneak around a zombie

3, move slower because of a zombie

4, repositions in order to kill a player, because of a zombie

5, avoid killing a player because of zombies

6, avoid looting a house because of a zombie

7, move quicker out of a town because you had to take a shot at a zombie

zombies effect your gameplay, and most of above are things that WILL happen to just about any player, unless they obviously sit in the elektro grocery store and shoot people, in which case its actually likely to happen aswell.

[Thortimer 37]

"I can't even be bothered to list all the issues with that antidote thing, but namely imagine the amount of snipers camping those locations, and large groups of people taking ownership of the locations. Imagine the server hopping around the antidote loot piles...."

"Finally there needs to be a reason to enter zombie infested towns. As you said with a canteen and hunting gear you can survive infinitely in a forest.

Add something to towns players can't pick up, but something you need. A static item you can't carry, but need to visit every so often.

This forces people to enter towns, conserve their ammo and actually handle their aggro, and suddenly this is zombie survival again!"

Its funny, these two things sound surprisingly similar...

[The Batman 75]

There are so many posts each day stating the same things...It really does get boring to read after a while.

[Daddy'o (DayZ) 146]

Its funny, these two things sound surprisingly similar...

Yes they do! But instead of having certain locations with antidotes that players can pick up and 5x the amount of zombies, have most towns have something you CAN'T pick up and just the normal amount of zombies.

Edited July 22, 2012 by Daddy'o

[beavaroo 90]

... just as if stealing was not punished IRL, then it's going to be the normal action for the majority.

You really should consider moving to a better neighbourood.

[Worrun (DayZ) 108]

Zombies should run at 75% of the speed of the player.

[SillySil 295]

Agree with OP on everything except his suggestions for lategame. Imo this game needs more team oriented PvP. Like 2-3 factions fighting each other. Less FFA DM.

Do you sneak around the zeds?

-Then they have an impact on the way you play.

Sometimes I crouch run instead of sprinting. So much impact.

Do you shoot them sometimes?

-You alert players to your presence, again impact.

90% of the time I don't even have to shoot them. I just loose them. The other 10% is when I can't be arsed to wait few seconds for them to pass or I'm just too lazy to loose them so I kill them.

"Take all the zombies out of Day Z and for anyone who has played more than 12 hours, the game is exactly the same; players are the only threat to you at any time."

Simply not true. Zeds might not be much of a direct threat, but they affect you all the same.

Try playing as if they didn't exist, they'll eat you.

It's like saying flies seriously affect you. Yeah you do flail your hands at them sometimes but they don't change anything.

Zombies are trifling. Without them I just wouldn't crouch run for few seconds after passing through a bush or running around a corner. The only thing zeds do is slowing you down a bit. Gameplay without them would be exactly the same for experienced players.