Zombies? What zombies? This is pure PvP.

[z-layrex 175]

So then, the problem with the zombies is even if they can catch up to you, they aren't going to be able to hit you, so there's no incentive to give them any more than a second thought.

Once they figure out how to make the zombies strike while in motion, we're all dead.

I think that's all that needs to happen. They just need to make it so some of the zeds can catch us, and be just as fast indoors and up stairs.

They also need to remove scoped weapons from the game.

[shnoogy 30]

This thread wins the award for the most incorrect spellings of "lose" as "loose". All this talk of "loosing" zombies is kinda turning me on.

[grrinc 7]

OP - I can 'smell' your frustrations. But you have made a massive error in your assumptions.

You say there is nothing left to do except hang around in the woods or grief other players.

Wrong!!!

Avoiding the Bandits in the game is the what makes the game come alive. I love knowing that there is a target on my head and that humanity is the real threat.

I love the adrenaline rush of bumping into another player or a team and wondering what the hell will happen next. Do I hide? Do I keep them in my sites? Or

do I attempt to eliminate them?

That is why I always attempt to find high volume servers - to keep the level of peril up.

That is truly the magic of Day Z and that is why, for all it's faults, it is currently the most heart stopping game out there.

To me, the only fix this game needs is to make items far more harder to get hold of, and even damagable.

[Robert_merello 2]

Why call

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

Understand this. PLEASE.

Why is it called DayZ then? it has it's name in the mod, but they are as big part of the game as tin cans is.

[Gumpnstein 133]

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.

This is spot on...

[AzinGaming 60]

I'm getting tired of these topics. This is bad and that is wrong. Allways complaining and whining about everything what's in the game.

I don't care the f... if you call it PvP or Deathmatch or Game. I only say:

I love it.

P.S.: And if you don't like it. Do us a favor and leave, and play something else.

This is an Alpha. It is going to change massively before it is finished. If you love it like it is now, then you will only be more and more disappointed as it improved over time. Not dicsussing the (daily) changes being made is an option, but the developers will be more than happy to receive feedback. If the only thing you have to say on a forum is "I love Day Z it's perfect" then do us a favour and go waste someone else's time.

OP - I can 'smell' your frustrations. But you have made a massive error in your assumptions.

You say there is nothing left to do except hang around in the woods or grief other players.

Wrong!!!

Avoiding the Bandits in the game is the what makes the game come alive. I love knowing that there is a target on my head and that humanity is the real threat.

I love the adrenaline rush of bumping into another player or a team and wondering what the hell will happen next. Do I hide? Do I keep them in my sites? Or

do I attempt to eliminate them?

That is why I always attempt to find high volume servers - to keep the level of peril up.

That is truly the magic of Day Z and that is why, for all it's faults, it is currently the most heart stopping game out there.

To me, the only fix this game needs is to make items far more harder to get hold of, and even damagable.

You can avoid bandits forever by sitting in the woods with the right camping equipment and eating pigs. The only need to 'avoid' them comes from intentionally putting yourself in a position where they will attack you.

To those claiming zeds have 'impact,' as SillySil has stated, the only impact they ever have is to give away your location to other players; this is clearly not the intention of the creators, and let's be quite clear here:

If you expect the zeds to remain as they are then you do not understand the basic premise of the game. They WILL change.

I would suggest that they should move at 125% of player speed but that as soon as they are in range of you they score a hit, and then when they score a hit you are slowed by 20% for 3 seconds (stacking up to 5 times).

This way, zeds would instantly be a potentially lethal opponent.

They should also just see you when you are crouch running.

[Hypro (DayZ) 6]

Well i must agree with the OP, the fix to me is so simple it is mind bottling. Please just make a few servers PvZ and let the greifers duke it out on all other server. Fix the zombies so they follow you in buildings.

So simple!

The game is not fun at this time when all you do is start over ever few hours. I want a zombie appocalyps MMO not a PvP ganking /greifing fest.

[jonahcutter 51]

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

Understand this. PLEASE.

No.

Zombie-survival is the bait that attract players to the mod.

OP is pretty much spot on in his assessment. The mod, while having immense promise, in its current form is no where near as daring as it thinks it is.

People fawn over the the pvp. But the pvp is just the base game at work. If you like the pvp battles of DayZ, then you'd love ArmA pvp.

I really hope Rocket can actually make the mod something more than players KOSing for the chance to camp a ghillie suit spawn. Or KOSing just for kicks. Because once you learn the mechanics, the zombie-survival aspect becomes a nuisance at best.

Edited July 22, 2012 by jonahcutter

[jetao2008@hotmail.com 175]

I agree with everything you said except the solution you offered.

But anyway, i'm waiting for the full release to see how the game looks like.

[jetao2008@hotmail.com 175]

This is an Alpha. It is going to change massively before it is finished. If you love it like it is now, then you will only be more and more disappointed as it improved over time. Not dicsussing the (daily) changes being made is an option, but the developers will be more than happy to receive feedback. If the only thing you have to say on a forum is "I love Day Z it's perfect" then do us a favour and go waste someone else's time.

You can avoid bandits forever by sitting in the woods with the right camping equipment and eating pigs. The only need to 'avoid' them comes from intentionally putting yourself in a position where they will attack you.

To those claiming zeds have 'impact,' as SillySil has stated, the only impact they ever have is to give away your location to other players; this is clearly not the intention of the creators, and let's be quite clear here:

If you expect the zeds to remain as they are then you do not understand the basic premise of the game. They WILL change.

I would suggest that they should move at 125% of player speed but that as soon as they are in range of you they score a hit, and then when they score a hit you are slowed by 20% for 3 seconds (stacking up to 5 times).

This way, zeds would instantly be a potentially lethal opponent.

They should also just see you when you are crouch running.

By doing this sneaking would be pointless, and people would just continue to run around town aggroing every zombie just to lose them inside the buildings.

Zombies already run at ridiculous speeds, you want to increase it? Hell no. I support increasing their damage drastically, even their numbers, but IMHO their speed should be decreased and they should fix the zig-zagg thing.

Edited July 22, 2012 by Fenrig

[federik21 42]

I think there should be a PvP mod for arma, because there isn't and the ppl that want to deathmatching come to dayZ.

And, there is one important thing:

DAY-Z:

It should be a Zombie Apocalipse survivor, not a Bandit survivor game.

Yea, banditry MUST be part of the game, but not the main part, this isn't a deathmatch (even if my signature says the opposite).

Zeds aren't challenging at all (at now, i hope because it is a alpha). You fear them only because your shots could attract players, NOT OTHER ZOMBIES, and this thing is completely wrong with what we see in every zombie movie or series (except with "The dawn of the dead", where the guy on the top of the armory shoots just for fun into zeds, not afraid about attracting others because they were in every case too much, but not wondering about some bandit could hear him and snipe him with a m107 -just as an example-).

There should be no thermal and night vision, or, at least have to change batteries, and make ammo rarier, triyng to incentive melee playstyle (even if arma is not designed for melee).

I think there should be also a rare vaccine (like the zombrex in DR2) that let you live longer and make you move, it's easy to survive standing AFK into a bush in the middle of nothing in a 10 players night server killing pigs and taking water from lakes.

[jetao2008@hotmail.com 175]

And, there is one important thing:

DAY-Z:

It should be a Zombie Apocalipse survivor, not a Bandit survivor game.

Exactly, the community is probably trying to change the name of the game to DayB instead of DayZ :P .

Edited July 22, 2012 by Fenrig

[khknight 3]

There needs to be more zombies within the towns and cities. How come there are always a ton of zombies circling the city but there are little to none zombies actually inside the town/city. This making makes looting a town fast and easy with little sneaking required. If rocket can't increase the zombie spawns, then he should take all the zombies outside the towns and place them in the towns.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Just two quick things because I don't have the energy to participate in this discussion - the same one that takes place every single day on these forums.

• PvP only accounts for 16% of player deaths, so clearly zombies are doing something. No, the stats do not include positional re-spawns.
  

• rocket intends players to be the main threat in DayZ so complaining that players are the main threat is like saying "I don't want to play DayZ." So don't. There are other zombie-focused mods out there for you.
  

Edited July 22, 2012 by ZedsDeadBaby

[Max Planck 7174]

I think there should be a PvP mod for arma, because there isn't and the ppl that want to deathmatching come to dayZ.

You want a PvP mod for a PvP game, am I reading this correctly?

EDIT:

ZedDeadBaby said:

"a) PvP only accounts for 16% of player deaths, so clearly zombies are doing something. No, the stats do not include positional re-spawns."

This really ought to end this thread.

Edited July 22, 2012 by Max Planck

[entux 0]

+1 @op. exactly what i said a few weeks ago. there's still the chance, this mod is not supposed to be the one i thought it would be... namely survining against zeds, not mindelss noob bashing.

[federik21 42]

Just two quick things because I don't have the energy to participate in this discussion - the same one that takes place every single day on these forums.

• PvP only accounts for 16% of player deaths, so clearly zombies are doing something. No, the stats do not include positional re-spawns.
  

• rocket intends players to be the main threat in DayZ so complaining that players are the main threat is like saying "I don't want to play DayZ." So don't. There are other zombie-focused mods out there for you.
  

OMG, another "look-the-statistics" guy.

In case you don't noticed it, respawning kills count as PvE kills.

Every person who dies then use that botton several times, that's why you read on the chat log:

asda was killed

fasg was killed

asda was killed

asda was killed

fasg was killed

jhkchh was killed

fasg was killed

jhkchhwas killed

fasg was killed

I think in average, i use respawn button like 4 times per spawn.

Starting running for Kamencha or East coast is boring, better rush into Cherno or Elektro with no fear to lose everything because of survivors.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

I think in average, i use respawn button like 4 times per spawn.

Starting running for Kamencha or East coast is boring, better rush into Cherno or Elektro with no fear to lose everything because of survivors.

Holy fuck did you read my fucking post?

I say it right motherfucking there.

RIGHT THERE.

No, the stats do not include re-spawns.

This has been confirmed by the developers in many threads. Re-spawns are ignored. I was nice enough to point this out ahead of time to try and avoid having to bring it up immediately afterward so thanks.

Edited July 22, 2012 by ZedsDeadBaby

[federik21 42]

You want a PvP mod for a PvP game, am I reading this correctly?

Look at arma2 servers.

All cooperative missions there.

Looks like Pvp servers doesn't exists, they are very rare and not played by anyone, seems they prefere dayz to deathmatching.

[federik21 42]

Holy fuck did you read my fucking post?

I say it right motherfucking there.

RIGHT THERE.

No, the stats do not include re-spawns.

This has been confirmed by the developers in many threads. Re-spawns are ignored. I was nice enough to point this out ahead of time to try and avoid having to bring it up immediately afterward so thanks.

I can't believe it.

I only got killed less than 5 times by zeds, but got killed hundreds of times by survivors.

Everyone shoots on sight.

No matter where you are, no matter how many you are (i managed to kill 2 of a 4 group survivors, and make others to escape).

Maybe it is because people use altf4 and don't get killed, and i am the only idiot that doesn't use this exploit.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

I can't believe it.

You're on stage one: denial.

We'll talk again when you reach stage five: acceptance.

[Larce 8]

Zombies have a use!

Sometimes they drop food, drink. or ammo that I need!

YEAH!

ummm other then that, mostly a nuisance on a new and unarmed character, I don't even bother to avoid them anymore.

[SillySil 295]

Just two quick things because I don't have the energy to participate in this discussion - the same one that takes place every single day on these forums.

• PvP only accounts for 16% of player deaths, so clearly zombies are doing something. No, the stats do not include positional re-spawns.
  

• rocket intends players to be the main threat in DayZ so complaining that players are the main threat is like saying "I don't want to play DayZ." So don't. There are other zombie-focused mods out there for you.
  

Yeah zombies are doing something to people that have no clue what they're doing and they are going to die several times before they learn. And then you have falling down from 3 steps and dying. Stepping on a rock and dying. Dying for no reason at all. Walls and doors killing you. Dieing on another server after getting shot and relogging. Maybe that's where the majority of PvE deaths come from? Because I can't understand how can someone die over and over again to zeds which I can easily ignore most of the time to the point that 84% of deaths would be to zeds.

Players being the main threat doesn't justify zombies being just indicators that there are people in town.

Edited July 22, 2012 by SillySil

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Maybe that's where the majority of PvE deaths come from? Because I can't understand how can someone die over and over again to zeds which I can easily ignore most of the time to the point that 84% of deaths would be to zeds.

Players being the main threat doesn't justify zombies being just indicators that there are people in town.

I'm sure you don't honestly believe bugs & glitches account for a majority of deaths. Hyperbole doesn't advance the discussion. 10% maybe? I think that's high personally. But, even if we give it 15% or 20% we're still left with 60%+ of deaths coming directly from these completely harmless zombies.

And, yes, I'm sure many zombie deaths are concentrated among the newer player population who haven't figured out the zombie detection mechanics yet.

But, shouldn't this be expected and accepted? Veteran players ought to survive more effectively than new players against the game's secondary threat (primary being players).

Look, I'm not arguing against improved zombie behaviors or AI. rocket himself has said on many occasions that their current behavior is not ideal and is in many ways hamstrung by the ARMA 2 engine. For example, their inability to run indoors is not intentional. That's one of the foremost reasons why they are not dangerous. If running into a building while a horde of zombies on your ass just meant being in closed quarters with a horde of zombies, things would get very real very quickly.

What upsets me is that every discussion must needs be predicated on some kind of ridiculous hyperbolic claim that the game is "pure deathmatch" or zombies are "completely pointless."

There's a destination and we're not there yet, but we're somewhere on the road and based on rocket's posts he has plans to keep moving in a good direction.

We should put our efforts into discussing how zombies might be improved, not coming up with elaborate systems that appear to presume zombie behavior will never improve from its current state.

Edited July 22, 2012 by ZedsDeadBaby

[UFO1947 0]

Well you all might have your wish one way or another, the DayZ team posted on facebook another Dev is making a survival zombie game called War Z, it comes out in fall, oh and they admit coming here and poaching ideas from the forum.

Edited July 22, 2012 by UFO1947