Are zombies too easy now? (because it's so simple to hide from them)

[U.B.C.S. Ravin 326]

Difficulty coming from time or luck is shit difficulty. The difficulty should come from you being good at something not forcing you to just to waste a lot of time. You should be playing WoW.

Shit difficulty? It wasn't that hard then. It's not hard now. A lot of people want zombies to be just as much of a threat as bandits. The debate here is, "Are zombies easier now?" Yes, they are indeed very very easy compared to what they used to be.

Was DayZ unplayable then? No. The difficulty curve actually encouraged players to play at night also, as the visuals were down, and it was a lot of fun to take your time as you knew if you were spotted by zombies it was likely certain death.

And thats how it should be. If a zombie sees you I shouldn't just go "Eh, run through this building, wrap around a corner and BOOM, all better now."

I want the fear of DayZ I had before and the tension that everyone felt.

Noone is making you waste time, this is what DayZ is about. If you don't like it, maybe you should be playing a different game?

I did play WoW, for a long time. I ran in a guild who did alt runs with Premonition back in WOTLK doing LK HM 25man and other raids. I don't know why you brought up Wow besides to distract from the conversation, so lets stay on topic eh?

[SillySil 295]

Shit difficulty? It wasn't that hard then. It's not hard now.

That's not the point. It's an obstacle in your way that you have to "conquer". And an obstacle that only requires time is a crap difficulty. That's why I said it's wrong way of fixing zeds.

A lot of people want zombies to be just as much of a threat as bandits. The debate here is, "Are zombies easier now?" Yes, they are indeed very very easy compared to what they used to be.

I agree. I even posted it in this thread.

Was DayZ unplayable then? No. The difficulty curve actually encouraged players to play at night also, as the visuals were down, and it was a lot of fun to take your time as you knew if you were spotted by zombies it was likely certain death.

There are different mechanics you can use to have this effect. You can make zeds 5 times faster, and break your legs on first hit. Would that be fun? Or you can make them hard but also fun to fight. That's what I'm onto about here.

And thats how it should be. If a zombie sees you I shouldn't just go "Eh, run through this building, wrap around a corner and BOOM, all better now."

I agree. Never said I don't?

Noone is making you waste time, this is what DayZ is about. If you don't like it, maybe you should be playing a different game?

What? What is DayZ about? Not making me waste time? You make no sense. And right now I like the game. You are the ones who are suggesting something that would make the game worse.

I did play WoW, for a long time. I ran in a guild who did alt runs with Premonition back in WOTLK doing LK HM 25man and other raids. I don't know why you brought up Wow besides to distract from the conversation, so lets stay on topic eh?

Because you seem to like when challenge in game comes from how much time you can dedicate to it.

[U.B.C.S. Ravin 326]

What? What is DayZ about? Not making me waste time? You make no sense. And right now I like the game. You are the ones who are suggesting something that would make the game worse.

It never made it worse. If it was worse as you said people wouldn't haven't flocked to it like they did, and still do. Many players don't know Zombies have a LoS, or how the mechanics work. To say "Its going to make it worse." Is false, its an assumption.

DayZ is about taking your time is my point. You stated players don't wanna spend 30 minutes doing something. That's hardly dedication.

Edited August 3, 2012 by U.B.C.S. Ravin

[Jetlaw 1]

The current zombies are fairly balanced and can be dealt with in a variety of ways. Being able to craft your own story is an important aspect of DayZ and these zombies facilitate that aspect nicely. It's a massive social experiment - And I'm pretty sure Rocket is not trying to found out how players react to scripted zombies.

Aggroing zombies alerts nearby players that there's another player somewhere close. Shooting them sends out a pretty legit audible message too.

I do not believe zombies are too easy, I believe they are possibly very straightforward to deal with (straightforward to dodge, shoot or simply infinite run from) but ultimately you have to make concessions between zombies being the focus of the game or players. If zombies were the focus of the game, this wouldn't have a minimum requirement of 40 (30 in underdeveloped internet countries) players per server.

The current zombies encourage player-to-player interaction while still remaining a threat. If you ignore zombies, they will kill you. If you shoot them, they and other players will hear and swarm you. If you run from them, you better hope another player doesn't see you because you'll be in no position to defend yourself with zombies hugging you.

The tedium should, in my opinion, come from dealing with other players - Not from dealing with zombies - As a majority of your interactions will be with zombies until you're geared up to "ignore" them - And if you tune zombies to be difficult for fully geared players then you're eliminating all ungeared players from the game completely.

Ultimately - Zombies are only easy because you've outgrown their mechanical difficulties. If their difficulty was beefed they'd be hard until you outgrew their new mechanical difficulties. That is you as a player evolving - But the game needs to be sustainable and I can't count myself within the group of players who'd love to die 9 times without gear for every 1 time I managed to acquire equipment to fend off zombies. Such an experience would be frustrating and be counter-intuitive to the experiment in my opinion.

The only feature in this game you can't mechanically outgrow are the other players - Out there, there is always another player who'll be able to one-up you. If a single player can't do it, then a group of them will.

So what do I think we need? Fewer servers with more players on each individual server - But that's an entirely different problem.

[Cysquatch 5]

Zombies are just borked at the moment. Once their animations and pathing are fixed they will become a legitimate threat again.

[daspope 146]

If you make Zombies harder, IE, they can attack you while chasing you, they can run in buildings, its harder to shake them off you in the woods... you will get players that bitch about them being too hard.

no matter what you can never make everyone happy by making a change.

as a new player (almost 3 days in) big groups of zombies are still kind of intimidating, but I am learning the tricks to getting by them unnoticed or shaking them off me when they give chase. often times I dont want to have a big shootout at the OK corral with 20 zombies, mainly because I want to conserve ammo, dont want to attract more of them, dont want to attract other players or maybe im just unarmed.

Zombies are enough of a pain in the ass for newer players, making them harder would make the game that much harder on a new player when there is already a really steep learning curve.

I for one like that they walk indoors because when if I am not perfectly lined up in the center of a doorway my character tends to have a panic attack or some crap and gets stuck trying to get out making me have to back up, realign and try again.

what would probably be best, is to have a type of unseen leveling system, where when zombies target you they can see what level you are and adjust their tactics accordingly, dumb zombies for newbs, hard zombies for vets.

thats my $0.02

[Anton17 97]

Since 1.7.2.4, no way in hell are they too easy. They aggro from much further away if you aren't proning through grass (even with 0 visibility they can sometimes spot you), combined with their added damage and hugely increased chance of status infliction (bleed, broken bones, unconscious) I'd go as far to say they're borderline over-powered as they stand. If the status infliction super-punch rate was knocked down a little bit to a lower and more random percentage I'd be very happy with the balancing of zombies.

Lately I get killed by zombies more than players, which is attributed both to their huge boost in the latest patch and that you simply can't use the run-in-carelessly tactic as employed in versions prior.

[Jetlaw 1]

Overall, perhaps a small concession would be to have an "adrenaline" mechanic. When zombies aggro on to you, you start to "use" (ie. Lose) adrenaline but your maximum run speed is temporarily increased. When you run out of adrenaline your body just gives out on you and you collapse to the ground for 5 or 10 seconds (similar to a broken leg) while you recover. It won't drain while you're not running, but won't recover for as long as you've got a zombie aggro'ed to you.

Make it last say... 30 seconds from full adrenaline to dry (and it should take a reasonable time to recover, say 10 minutes to full although you can also put adrenaline shots in hospitals). If someone wants to round up all zombies in a town then they're forced to race against the clock because your adrenaline is pumping and a candle that burns twice as bright only lasts half as long.

The mechanic should allow you to shake zombies easier in shorter bursts but has a heavy price to pay if you're repeatedly running from zombies. It won't affect your ability to cross-country sprint normally and will only trigger on zombie aggro.

Then you don't have to make zombies harder - You add a reasonable limiting mechanic to the player that is tied intrinsically to pissing off zombies. You piss off a zombie and your blood's gonna rush a damn sight faster when you try to high tail it away - But eventually something will give and if it isn't the zombie then it'll be your legs. Taking it slow and steady you won't be running and your adrenaline won't be draining (but won't be refilling when you're under zombie aggro) so you can still keep it topped up.

[daspope 146]

Overall, perhaps a small concession would be to have an "adrenaline" mechanic. When zombies aggro on to you, you start to "use" (ie. Lose) adrenaline but your maximum run speed is temporarily increased. When you run out of adrenaline your body just gives out on you and you collapse to the ground for 5 or 10 seconds (similar to a broken leg) while you recover. It won't drain while you're not running, but won't recover for as long as you've got a zombie aggro'ed to you.

Make it last say... 30 seconds from full adrenaline to dry (and it should take a reasonable time to recover, say 10 minutes to full although you can also put adrenaline shots in hospitals). If someone wants to round up all zombies in a town then they're forced to race against the clock because your adrenaline is pumping and a candle that burns twice as bright only lasts half as long.

The mechanic should allow you to shake zombies easier in shorter bursts but has a heavy price to pay if you're repeatedly running from zombies. It won't affect your ability to cross-country sprint normally and will only trigger on zombie aggro.

Then you don't have to make zombies harder - You add a reasonable limiting mechanic to the player that is tied intrinsically to pissing off zombies. You piss off a zombie and your blood's gonna rush a damn sight faster when you try to high tail it away - But eventually something will give and if it isn't the zombie then it'll be your legs. Taking it slow and steady you won't be running and your adrenaline won't be draining (but won't be refilling when you're under zombie aggro) so you can still keep it topped up.

I dont know about you but I can sprint for over 30 seconds without falling on the ground like a bitch lol... and I am a smoker so my lungs are not the best. If I were being chased by zombies, I promise you I would run longer than 30 seconds lol... I dont think my legs would give out before I gave myself a heart attack haha

[cragzeek 29]

For me they are insanely easy. The fact that I can run around town all day kiting them absolutely destroys immersion.

[geegee (DayZ) 5]

The Zed difficulty doesn't come from the zeds themselves, but the other players noticing you aggoroing the zeds, running away from them or shooting them. For example if you try to loot a heli crash site, anyone in 1000m radius will see first the zeds spawning in, then you sneaking there or killing the zeds so if there is anyone nearby you are in immediate danger.

If you weren't able to lose zeds by running into houses or LoSing them you would be pretty much dead every single time you aggro one near higher populated areas or a zombie randomly spots you from 200m away. That would be just shit, nothing but shit.

[neo2157 21]

They are easy up until one sneaks up on you, falcon punch's your leg off, knocks you out and takes you down to 1000 blood. I just had this happen to me today and it was not fun.