Too few zombies?

[pekhe 4]

Anyone else think that there are way too few zombies in towns?

Right now the gameplay seems to rely entirely on PVP combat, as zombies don't cause any real threat. 1 bandit is more dangerous than 20 zombies.

Taken from the "About" page:

Heavy Optimisation - The DayZ server has been designed to give the best play possible. Custom coding and edits have created a smooth running world which can easily have thousands of zombies spawned at once!

I've seen a maximum of 460 zombies in the debug monitor. Why doesn't it spawn more Zeds if it's possible?

[tajin 17]

The total number of zombies depends largely on where the players are and how much they're spread out.

I theory you'd get the maximum total number of zombies If every single player on the server is within the spawn-radius of a different city/village.

Not sure if theres also a maximum number, I guess there is.

I've seen numbers much higher than 460 though.

[Limeni 7]

Zombies dont cause a real threat? Ok, try fighting of 20 zombies on open ground. :)

[rocket 16567]

It only spawns zombies per player. In a fifty slot server, there will be many, many more zombies than on a server with only 5 or 10 people.

Currently, the system will stop spawning zombies around you when there are 20 around you. However, if you move away more can spawn with the others still spawned. The system is very careful with zombie numbers and removes locally spawned zombies on disconnect.

There are many competing schools of thought on the zombies currently, and where such disparate viewpoints exist I tend to leave the system alone until a compelling argument exists - hence what I have not done much with this area. If, for example, I remove the random chance that a zombie will knock you out - zombies become even less of a threat. As many have found out, it only takes one zombie with a lucky hit to kill you.

ArmA2 has a limitation on the number of agents/units it can support. We have had over 1800 on a server before, but this is very problematic with warping and all sorts of desync issues.

It is the kind of thing that will be tweaked and developed going forward. Remember that games like L4D also have rather low limits on the quantity of zombies, its just the way they come in that makes it seem like large numbers.

[tajin 17]

The system is very careful with zombie numbers and removes locally spawned zombies on disconnect.

Aye, thought so. I seems very optimized and yet the spawning/despawning is barely noticable. Having worked on a similar script for a domination-like arma-map, I think you did an quite impressive job with that. :exclamation:

[GigaHobo 0]

I think it is pretty spot on as it is. Sometimes when the numbers are low (I don't know if its a palcebo effect) it does feel like there are not many zombies about at all.

Sometimes I have seen as low as 200 zombies spawned a full server. Last night though I saw over 1000 zombies!

[Grey2ham 1]

Just to mention that I find vehicles can cause issues with the loot/zombie spawning. If you approach an isolated building (think barn etc, not a city/town/village) at high speed (like 60mph) the game doesn't seem to spawn the loot/ zombies inside. I presume because you get there before they can be spawned compared to when the client checks the building?