"Fallen Survivor" loot mechanic?

[Bukethead 96]

Much like the fallen survivor in L4D, I'm thinking zombies should occasionally have some spiffy loot on them, such as an ALICE, ACU pack, or a low level firearm such as a Makarov, shotgun, Enfield etc.

It would be reasonable to think that since the zombies were at one time regular people, they would have had some sort of gear on them before they were infected, they could have been a survivor at one point and were met with an unfortunate circumstance.

To a small extent this has already been done, what with some zombies having bandages, Makarov mags, beans etc in their inventory, but I'm suggesting we add in even more items to this.

Keep in mind this would not be every other zombie or even every 100th zombie, I would think somewhere in the neighborhood of every 1000th or so zombie should have a decent amount of gear on them. Obviously I know nothing about how this would be implemented but I'd imagine it'd be done in such a way where it does not invalidate/replace any other current method of gear finding, it would just add another way to get gear but in a very happy accident/dumb luck sort of way (i.e. running across that rare zombie that has loot)

This would give players more incentive to shoot zombies, rather than avoid them and run away. It would add an interesting new level of decision making, weighing risk with reward such as "That zombie has an ALICE pack which I need, do I shoot him and risk having an entire horde after me, or do I just forget about it and move on?"

I'm also thinking the loot could be connected to the type of zombie. For example the police officer model has a holstered pistol that you cannot currently pick up, why not make it so these zombies have a Makarov in their inventory?

Same could be said with military zombies, who would be likely to have an ALICE pack.

Edited August 16, 2012 by Bukethead

[prestondemaria@gmail.com 65]

Or you could find the loot in buildings and it'd be 10000x easier

[Bukethead 96]

Or you could find the loot in buildings and it'd be 10000x easier

That really depends on your playing style, it's not the general consensus. Some people are terrified of venturing into one of the larger cities to find decent loot, others don't really care or maybe desire and strive for any sort of conflict they might run into.

Just as with the humanity system though, this would add an additional way to play the game, from what I've read rocket doesn't want this to be a cut and dry preplanned sort of zombie survival game. He wants it to be a make your own path style thing, and the more options we have, the more varied and interesting it becomes.

Edited August 16, 2012 by Bukethead

[indominator 95]

why low level gun if most players can easily get an akm, ak or just an m16.

Please put, when loot gets rebalanced, by being dumbed down a lot, then the low level weapons will get interesting and your zombies owuld get interesting due to harsher loot spawn

edit: nobody is afraid of pvp, just find an empty server, i do this all the time to gear up, then i jump into an crowded one to pvp, cant people understand crowded ones are almost just for pvp and hackers?

Edited August 16, 2012 by indominator

[Bukethead 96]

why low level gun if most players can easily get an akm, ak or just an m16.

Please put, when loot gets rebalanced, by being dumbed down a lot, then the low level weapons will get interesting and your zombies owuld get interesting due to harsher loot spawn

edit: nobody is afraid of pvp, just find an empty server, i do this all the time to gear up, then i jump into an crowded one to pvp, cant people understand crowded ones are almost just for pvp and hackers?

I've addressed the issue of the absolutely ridiculous amount of AKM/other spawns in another thread, again this is all assumed based on YOUR playing style, you aren't considering how other people approach the different situations they are met with. I can tell you right off the bat you're wrong about people being scared of PVP. If that was the case people would not Alt-F4 as frequently as they do and cause so much QQing.

As for an empty server, good luck finding one that isn't pitch black night, and now with DayZ Commander, you no longer have to join a server to see what time of day it is, so any empty daytime server is going to fill up quickly.

Edited August 16, 2012 by Bukethead

[indominator 95]

well, actually, you wrong, servers dont fill that fast, this game is popular, but there are also many servers. If a server has 5 players, most are jsut travelling around the world minding their own business, and the probabilty to find one of them is very small, if it happens just shoot. Secondarily, just dont go to servers like this with players sharing tags. even 13 players means you have a little chance to bump into a player, a higher, but still small.

[Bukethead 96]

well, actually, you wrong, servers dont fill that fast, this game is popular, but there are also many servers. If a server has 5 players, most are jsut travelling around the world minding their own business, and the probabilty to find one of them is very small, if it happens just shoot. Secondarily, just dont go to servers like this with players sharing tags. even 13 players means you have a little chance to bump into a player, a higher, but still small.

Full servers or not, you still have the chance that someone will spawn in behind you in one of the major loot locations. It's happened to my group of friends and I about ten times or so. It's not all that uncommon to go to an unpopulated server and run into someone server hopping, looking to snipe.

That's besides the point though, this argument that people should only play this game one way is absolutely absurd. It comes down to the player's choice and adding a further taste of realism into the game.

Edited August 16, 2012 by Bukethead