Sneaking Tips?

[sidekickman 15]

I'm relatively new to DayZ, and I was wondering if anyone had some tips on sneaking past zeds? I always survey my surroundings, circle towns before entering, and crouch-walk. I feel that, no matter which difficulty server I choose, I get spotted. I've never successfully raided a town without running for my life to the woods or getting trapped in a shack, and having a friend help. Any help would be appreciated. :)

[Ped 80]

There is an Eye and an Ear icon on the right of your screen. These are your stealth meters. More lines to the left = easier to detect.

Zombies cannot see at Night, you won't have any lines to the left of the Eye in any stance. So be quiet!

Zombies have trouble hearing when it rains...but can see you if it's daylight.

Going prone and crawling is a good way to sneak past zombies.

[herrjon 478]

Go prone if they get really close. Do your best to keep their backs to you. Use alt+look to turn your head without moving your body to survey your surroundings, limiting noise. Do your best to predict their wandering path. All else fails, run through a building with two doors and lose them easily.

[sidekickman 15]

All else fails, run through a building with two doors and lose them easily.

That's a good tip. I'll make sure to try it. But what if I collect a tail on my way out? I always seem to get tailed at the beginning or end of my looting raid.

[Ayashiki 2]

To be entirely honest with you, if you want to "Sneak" past the zombies you need to play on a night time server. Sneaking during the daytime is barely an option and not one worth pursuing. You're better off learning how to lose Zeds during the day.

During the Day: Remember that zombies only run the same speed as you (sort of, they seem to have had unlimited sprint until 1.7.2.5 and every once in a while still do,) and they also have to stop moving to attack. Just keep running and they'll pretty much NEVER hit you unless they come from the front. Second, you need to learn zombie behavior: Zombies will keep chasing you until you get extremely far away, and since they keep pace you can pretty much never lose them running in a straight line. What you need to do is break their line of sight. Run around the corner of a house, then zip behind a fence. Once you break line of sight, zombies run to the last spot they saw you, they then either see you again and continue chasing, or they hear you and run to where they last heard you. Just keep running behind things and you'll lose them.

A better option to running behind things is to run THROUGH buildings. Zombies HAVE to walk in buildings (except when they glitch and start running for a split second starting up their attacking stance/animation,) the only exception to this is airfield hangers, don't try to run around in those and get zombies off your tail. So just run through a barn or something and every zomie following you will run in, start walking and be miles behind you by the time they walk out on the other side. If you pick up a zombie or two on the way out, and you really need to GTFO of dodge, run into the forest and start zagging behind trees and bushes, once you're confident you've broken line of sight (because you can't see them with alt look or the 1/3 keys on your keypad,) run behind one last tree/bush and drop to prone and crawl the hell away. If you still have one zombie, it's only one zombie, hatchet to the face works every time.

Special side note to the hatchet to the face comment: If you don't have a hatchet, or other weapon to finish that last zombie, why did you leave the town? ;)

At night: You're pretty much invisible to zombies. Your visibility will be 0 at almost all times. You just need to pay attention to your sound meter (the ear) you can crouch walk, or crouch run almost anywhere and only have 1 (or better, zero) noise level, as long as you're not walking on roads. STAY AWAY FROM ROADS AT NIGHT they WILL get you killed. If you must cross them, Slow crawl or combat roll. At 1 noise level you'll be heard maybe 20 feet away, so you can be pretty damned close to them and not have them start up their boxing routine.

Zombies only detect you via the sight/sound meters. If they are at 0 zombies can WALK INTO YOU and they won't start attacking you, so just keep that in mind. As long as they're not already fighting you, you can drop to prone mode and be perfectly safe at night. Also, zombies can only see in like, a 75 degree or so cone in front of them, so if you must run, do it through grass so you make little noise and pay attention to where they are looking and you should be fine.

Edited August 14, 2012 by Ayashiki

[BigFatJohnSon 16]

All else fails, run through a building with two doors and lose them easily.

that all was works and remember when you get about 200m from a loot spawn zeds start spawning go's for town to i think Edited August 14, 2012 by BigFatJohnSon

[Riku.exe 5]

They will never see you if you are proning everywhere, unless of course you run right into them haha by far the safest way to do it right there, but I doubt you want to prone everywhere. Find a building with two doors you can lose them there, or just run into a building in general, at least have a weapon before you plan on going to the high profile loot places, like a hatchet at the least. One trick my friends found out is zombies won't be able to hit you if you are in a big bush or tree i.e one that covers your whole body and bottom half those big green pine trees or the big orange ones. They will just stop their aggro and walk away slowly.

[InfectiousFTW 24]

Who really sneaks?

Sprint balls to the wall into building, lose them.

Rinse.

Repeat until ready to leave, then leave.

[belesis 14]

Who really sneaks?

Sprint balls to the wall into building, lose them.

Rinse.

Repeat until ready to leave, then leave.

I used to sneak everywhere when I first started playing, now I've learnt that sometimes its better & quicker to sprint in alot of situations.

[Aaron_C 3]

Brilliant tips in here, Ayashiki's post especially. Thanks guys!

[Gormonk 1]

from sprinting...and i use this alot for zombie hideing once agroed(yes i have mannaged to loose agro from a pack of z's) hit z, it will get you prone realy quickly, doing this doesnt disturb grass, and if you do htz where the zombies cannot directly see you(excludeing foleage) there will almost de agro every time

[Johnny AK 1]

One thing I found playing on a night time server was if you are being chased, just prone and they de aggro :/ walked over to me and carried on walking by

[Ped 80]

Zombies have been tweaked dramatically since I first started playing. They used to run faster then you!

Anyway, you can lose them fairly easily through trees and bushes now a days. So if you have a train/trail of them, sprint through pushes and thick trees!

[DR@GON (DayZ) 20]

it's good to know both how to sneak past them, how to avoid aggro... but it's also important to be good at loosing the aggro when you have it.

In general large buildings with multiple exits are the easiest way to loose them, and give you time to bandage if you're bleeding from a hit. I also like to loose aggro without stopping by running thru a pine forest and weaving between the trees to break LOS.

Also, as of right now, they cannot hurt you while you're in a vehicle.

Edited August 14, 2012 by DR@GON

[indure 0]

Best tips I can give:

* biggest hint: get used to using the numpad for camera control while stealthing. It gives a great deal of awareness and allows you to track zombies without changing which way your character is moving.

* Prone is much more effective then crouch-walking.

* There is a major noise difference between walking and running.

* The surface you are moving on makes a big difference, only crouch-run on grass safely.

* Zombies' eye-sight is a lot better then it use to be, so line of sight is more important.

* Zombies seem to be attracted to movement and sound, I've stood still before and had one walk a foot away from me with out aggroing.

* Zombies can be distracted with flares, lights, and smoke gernades. Throw them if you want to quickly get past a lot of them.

* Lots of people like stealthing in prone because its more effective, but if you stealth in crouch-walk and you pull aggro, you can instantly switch to a full run to loose the zombies, while if you're prone you have to come to a complete stop in order to switch to a run, which many times will cause you to get hit.

* Like many others have said, many times it is better to just run past zombies and enter buildings (with two exits) to loose them. My philosophy in early game is to "enter towns fast and leave slow". Gear wise you have little to lose early game, and if you know what you are doing you can quickly get into towns, loose zombies, raid gear, and then slowly work your way out to avoid getting tailed by zombies or other players.