Zombies smell blood and eat corpses?

[Smiric 11]

First off, I know there are a few threads similar, but I've not seen one that's the same as this. (Although correct me if I'm wrong).

~The Main idea(s)~

1) Increase the amount of Zombies. (Obviously this has been suggested many times before, but I have included it anyway, as this would make the other ideas more effective)

2) Include a smellometer that is ONLY affected by blood, and make zombies very sensitive to this.

(I've seen some suggestions for this but for sweat as well, but personally I think that would be annoying rather than fun, although you may disagree)

3) Zombies eat corpses/damage the equipment on them, leaving behind a skeleton (or manky skeleton with a bit of flesh - lovely!)

~What this will do~

This would encourage player co-operation, whilst at the same time discouraging needless player-killing.

~Example Scenario~

You come across a player that is a short distance away from you.

You kill him with a gun/melee.

Zombies in a LARGE AREA hear the shot, and smell the blood and start *WALKING* towards the scent.

You now need to get out of the immediate area QUICKLY.

You CANNOT come back for the stuff on the body as it will be DAMAGED by the zombies once they eat the corpse.

If you used melee you need to use a water bottle on yourself to remove scent - no water bottle? Good luck!

Things that will make SNIPERS think twice before killing needlessly:

1) The body will be eaten, and equipment damaged - therefore no loot.

2) Make zombies A LOT more sensitive to GUNSHOTS (not all sounds) - make them *WALK* towards it. - Snipers gotta keep on the move then!

3) Decrease the amount of sniper ammo spawned.

What you guys think? Let us know if you disagree with anything/have anything to add. =)

[Tsyn 215]

I believe some of what you're talking about may become true on a PvP scale when Rocket introduces canines.

Not a bad suggestion though. I'll give you beans.

[JamesButlin 108]

I like it! I think it'd go hand in hand with more zombie states (other than just passive/active) like "aware", "alert", "curious".

[Gapi182 21]

i think first of all they should fix them. I'm in crouch in cherno. There are around 20 zombies infront of me. And the one that is the furthest away behind a house in the distance notices me. This has to be fixed before they add anything. But i trust rocket will do that.

[Dancing.Russian.Man 1631]

Things that will make SNIPERS think twice before killing needlessly:

1) The body will be eaten, and equipment damaged - therefore no loot.

2) Make zombies A LOT more sensitive to GUNSHOTS (not all sounds) - make them *WALK* towards it. - Snipers gotta keep on the move then!

3) Decrease the amount of sniper ammo spawned.

What you guys think? Let us know if you disagree with anything/have anything to add. =)

1. Most snipers shoot others for fun, not for loot. Great example is Cherno and Elektro.

2. They can just pull out their side-arm and kill the approaching zombies. Most snipers that come back south just to kill most likely have a silenced weapon with them.

3. We(Any DayZ player) can still dupe ammo and items quite easily.

If everyone was playing legit, these would be great suggestions. But sadly, there are exploiters and assholes.

[Senection 6]

1. NO

2. NO

and 3 NO

[Smiric 11]

1. Most snipers shoot others for fun, not for loot. Great example is Cherno and Elektro.

2. They can just pull out their side-arm and kill the approaching zombies. Most snipers that come back south just to kill most likely have a silenced weapon with them.

3. We(Any DayZ player) can still dupe ammo and items quite easily.

If everyone was playing legit, these would be great suggestions. But sadly, there are exploiters and assholes.

Fair play to those comments, to be fair I knew it wasn't a bunch of full-proof ideas... but then again didn't want it to be, as I don't want to eliminate people sniping totally, it'll just be some other slight reasons not to snipe people needlessly. If the amount of zombies were increased they might not have enough ammo in there side-arm to kill them though, so they would probably be better of moving still, rather than camping.

[Smiric 11]

1. NO

2. NO

and 3 NO

Thanks for that insightful reply, care to elaborate? (And don't think you're clever and just put 'NO')

[Bozo 18]

I'm not a fan of it, but I wouldn't cry if it was implomented.

[charlietomato 3]

It just sounds like a bad idea in general.

A feature that lets yourself be known to nearby zombies because they can smell blood? How would you get blood on you? Would you be able to wash it off? How?

This stuff is very trivial. An odor feature isn't that great of a thing to include to the mod. It doesn't add nearly as much depth and importance as the thirst and hunger features do, which is something you should be looking for instead. It needs to be as important as those two things to work. Temperature doesn't necessarily work all that well, even though there's some features and items that revolve around it. It only feels forced, and doesn't feel like it's as important as keeping yourself fed.

[Smiric 11]

I'm not a fan of it, but I wouldn't cry if it was implomented.

Fair enough, could you give reasons why you're not a fan? =)

It just sounds like a bad idea in general.

A feature that lets yourself be known to nearby zombies because they can smell blood? How would you get blood on you? Would you be able to wash it off? How?

This stuff is very trivial. An odor feature isn't that great of a thing to include to the mod. It doesn't add nearly as much depth and importance as the thirst and hunger features do, which is something you should be looking for instead. It needs to be as important as those two things to work. Temperature doesn't necessarily work all that well, even though there's some features and items that revolve around it. It only feels forced, and doesn't feel like it's as important as keeping yourself fed.

I'm not saying they can smell you all the time, just when you have blood on you. To get blood on you, you either kill someone with melee (or at very close range with a gun) and when you loot dead players, I thought I said that in the initial post but no worries if I'm mistaken! You can wash it off using a water bottle ... that's something I definitely did mention in the initial post!

Obviously the thirst and hunger features add a lot of depth, but this would add a little more.

[charlietomato 3]

It's fine, but remember that it's extremely important to think out ideas like this. Think out every scenario or problem you can with it and go from there, and see if it's still worth implementing to the mod after that.

[Smiric 11]

It's fine, but remember that it's extremely important to think out ideas like this. Think out every scenario or problem you can with it and go from there, and see if it's still worth implementing to the mod after that.

It's impossible to think out every scenario (that's what the alpha/beta testing is for! =P) but I can't see any problems that jump out at me. It would be mainly for reducing needless killing, and encouraging player co-operation.

[Smiric 11]

Bump, any more thoughts? =)

[Rigor Mortis (DayZ) 141]

I like the idea of zombies coming to eat a fresh corpse, assuming it wasn't killed by zombies. If it was, I would expect it to reanimate (pref. with some small percentage of the original gear) and attack anyone who comes to loot (or at least wander the area for a while).

I _really_ like the idea of smells being incorporated, but I think most ppl don't give that idea the credit it deserves. I mentioned in another post the idea for a 'smell bar' at the bottom of the screen.

Imagine the scenario: You are running through the woods and your scent meter just has a pine tree indicator in it, fairly solid (i.e. strong) and suddenly you notice a second icon appear in the smell bar, faint but visible. Just as your guy in game would notice a new smell, you can glance down and see that you can now smell rotting meat. Is that a rotting player corpse or a group of zombies nearby?

What about if you're running and you see the BO symbol appear? Kind of humorous, but an obvious indicator that a very alive and active player is nearby. You could also smell propane/gasoline when near fuel tanks.... I can think of dozens of applications of this.

I know this game isn't real life, but it's a sim and it seems to me that to simulate survival in this scenario (zombie apocalypse with bandits) a sense of smell would help more than ppl think... and since they're making this game into a stand alone, I think this would be a great feature to include.

[Zamary 0]

Idea 1).....Nty, unless the spawn rate between zombies dying and new ones spawning is fixed. Or if there are alot of dead bodies in the area there could be alot more zombies than normal that wont respawn near the bodies once killed.

Idea 2) AWESOME idea and I like the *WALK* part because the zombie always running is annoying as hell, they should only run to the corpse once it is in their immediate vision range.

Idea 3) Also a good idea but there should only be a percent chance that they will damage the equipment on the body (the larger the item the higher change it has to get damaged or something like that). After they eat the body the zombies should hang around for a bit kinda like they hang around hele's or something.

If anything I said was posted before sorry I just read the main post.

[Smiric 11]

Thanks for the replies guys,

I like the idea of zombies coming to eat a fresh corpse, assuming it wasn't killed by zombies. If it was, I would expect it to reanimate (pref. with some small percentage of the original gear) and attack anyone who comes to loot (or at least wander the area for a while).

Imagine the scenario: You are running through the woods and your scent meter just has a pine tree indicator in it, fairly solid (i.e. strong) and suddenly you notice a second icon appear in the smell bar, faint but visible. Just as your guy in game would notice a new smell, you can glance down and see that you can now smell rotting meat. Is that a rotting player corpse or a group of zombies nearby?

What about if you're running and you see the BO symbol appear? Kind of humorous, but an obvious indicator that a very alive and active player is nearby. You could also smell propane/gasoline when near fuel tanks.... I can think of dozens of applications of this.

I really like these ideas- I too hope they are implemented once the game becomes stand-alone.

[Daerk 8]

I agree with Rigor Mortis's suggestions.

Although the "time" factor needs addressing with the smells. For example, infected shouldn't be able to smell blood that was just spilled from a gunshot wound... FROM A FOOTBALL FIELD AWAY. That's ridiculous. Instead, the radius of area effect should slowly grow over time (in a circle around the source at the very LEAST, but it'd be better if it followed the wind currents, drifting out away from the source and spreading wider in a cone as it moves away from it).

In addition, the smells should dissipate over time, slowly decreasing in odor strength in addition to the area of effect SHRINKING back down to the source.

-- Daerk

[Rigor Mortis (DayZ) 141]

I also think it would be pretty cool to be able to use a blood bag as a zombie magnet... just throw it hard and it'll splatter somewhere, attracting the horde :D

[El Barto 227 25]

beans for interesting suggestion (instead of something like "I WANTZ TEH STARTERZ PISTIL BAK!")

not sure how effective it would be ingame, but an interesting idea.

[Smiric 11]

Although the "time" factor needs addressing with the smells. For example, infected shouldn't be able to smell blood that was just spilled from a gunshot wound... FROM A FOOTBALL FIELD AWAY. That's ridiculous. Instead, the radius of area effect should slowly grow over time (in a circle around the source at the very LEAST, but it'd be better if it followed the wind currents, drifting out away from the source and spreading wider in a cone as it moves away from it).

In addition, the smells should dissipate over time, slowly decreasing in odor strength in addition to the area of effect SHRINKING back down to the source.

-- Daerk

I also think it would be pretty cool to be able to use a blood bag as a zombie magnet... just throw it hard and it'll splatter somewhere, attracting the horde :D

Both of these are great ideas which I hope will be considered for the standalone game =)

[Bobcomss 189]

This would be a great idea...worth expanding on...

All I can think of is the scene from "The Walking Dead" when they cover themselves in Zombie guts to get to there van, it starts to rain an washes the blood off making the zeds smell and notice them, so you could even cover yourself in zombie blood for easier movement around highly infested places? but would make you more of a target to player and snipers as this would make you stand out more and you wouldn't be able to run or crawl :) crouch or slow walk only :P

But washing blood of yourself could be done by a quick swim in the sea or lake, using water bottles (2-3), rain.

water bottles would have to have help from a second player to fully get it all off..eg around your back....

Blood "splatter" would only be effective from a melee or very close range shots..like >1m?

I like this idea, and hope to see this in future...

[twix (DayZ) 24]

okay

[paradox. 12]

First off, I know there are a few threads similar, but I've not seen one that's the same as this. (Although correct me if I'm wrong).

~The Main idea(s)~

1) Increase the amount of Zombies. (Obviously this has been suggested many times before, but I have included it anyway, as this would make the other ideas more effective)

2) Include a smellometer that is ONLY affected by blood, and make zombies very sensitive to this.

(I've seen some suggestions for this but for sweat as well, but personally I think that would be annoying rather than fun, although you may disagree)

3) Zombies eat corpses/damage the equipment on them, leaving behind a skeleton (or manky skeleton with a bit of flesh - lovely!)

~What this will do~

This would encourage player co-operation, whilst at the same time discouraging needless player-killing.

~Example Scenario~

You come across a player that is a short distance away from you.

You kill him with a gun/melee.

Zombies in a LARGE AREA hear the shot, and smell the blood and start *WALKING* towards the scent.

You now need to get out of the immediate area QUICKLY.

You CANNOT come back for the stuff on the body as it will be DAMAGED by the zombies once they eat the corpse.

If you used melee you need to use a water bottle on yourself to remove scent - no water bottle? Good luck!

Things that will make SNIPERS think twice before killing needlessly:

1) The body will be eaten, and equipment damaged - therefore no loot.

2) Make zombies A LOT more sensitive to GUNSHOTS (not all sounds) - make them *WALK* towards it. - Snipers gotta keep on the move then!

3) Decrease the amount of sniper ammo spawned.

What you guys think? Let us know if you disagree with anything/have anything to add. =)

+ 1