Fast vs Slow Zombies

[Yoba (DayZ) 0]

Slow or Fast Zombies? Which is Better?

I think slow zombies better, because to be more specific slow moving zombies are those that we see in the old George A Romero movies like Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead. Fast moving zombies we got to see in 28 days later, 28 weeks later, and the remake of Dawn of the Dead. I personally prefer the walking dead style of slow zombies. I find it too unrealistic that anyone could survive with fast moving zombies around. I mean they would just spread too quickly and no one would have any chance of survival.

[aLmAnZo (DayZ) 21]

I agree with you totaly on this.

But I still think we should stick with the fast zombies for now, for one simple reason... The only reason zombies are a threat, is becouse they are slow. To compensate for their newfound lack of speed, one would need alot more zombies to spawn, and ARMA doesn't handle that many AI, I am afraid.

I agree that it would be kick ass to have a horde of slow zombies, but it's not really possible in this mod, due to ARMA II's engine limitations.

[therussiandong@hotmail.com 5]

I agree with you totaly on this.

But I still think we should stick with the fast zombies for now' date=' for one simple reason... The only reason zombies are a threat, is becouse they are slow. To compensate for their newfound lack of speed, one would need alot more zombies to spawn, and ARMA doesn't handle that many AI, I am afraid.

I agree that it would be kick ass to have a horde of slow zombies, but it's not really possible in this mod, due to ARMA II's engine limitations.

[/quote']

We all seem to be in agreement.

If there were thousands more zombies, they would need to be slow. Unfortunately the engine can't handle this.

I would prefer the slow ones.. I'll keep on dreaming then ;_;

[jaynic 15]

I agree with you all on the "slow" zombies - but let's define slow before we say it can't handle enough to be a challenge...

My belief is that any rotting corpse woudln't be able to stand up to too much punishment before it started succumbing to the effects of entropy. And any Walker (err... sprinter) would deteriorate faster the more it moved.

Think about it in terms of muscle building. When you work out, you tear your muscles (that's one part of getting sore). Since we are living creatures, our body repairs those tears to be able to withstand the amount of punishment it just received and not tear again (your muscles get stronger).

A Walker would not have the ability to regenerate, but would still succumb to the effects of muscle tearing - even while just walking around. Of course they're not lifting weights, but they're walking 24/7/365! If I go for a long walk, my legs get tired.

All that being said, only the "youngest" walkers would be able to get anywhere NEAR running. The "older" a walker is - the less his muscles are able to even support movement - let alone weight.

My opinion (and that's all this is) is that the sprinting Zombie is too fast. Maybe 1 out of 10 can sprint - but the rest should only be able to walk, fall over, or hobble at a mild jogging pace.

Right now, you can be minding your own business and 4 players sprint towards you with 15 Olympic Bronze Medalist Zombies behind them! Unless you're crafty enough to run in the bushes and hope the players don't drag you in to their mess - you basically will run across the entire map.

All that matters to me is that a player should (9 times out of ten) outrun a zombie. So I say: less sprinters, more joggers

I think we all agree on that - yes?

[hazdude222 0]

fact is we can't have that many zombies to make them a challenge, sorry.

[soLch 1]

I agree with you totaly on this.

But I still think we should stick with the fast zombies for now' date=' for one simple reason... The only reason zombies are a threat, is becouse they are slow. To compensate for their newfound lack of speed, one would need alot more zombies to spawn, and ARMA doesn't handle that many AI, I am afraid.

I agree that it would be kick ass to have a horde of slow zombies, but it's not really possible in this mod, due to ARMA II's engine limitations.

[/quote']

If zombies can't be massed why not make them slow but can only die to headshots, it would make it a lot harder then just sitting on a corner spamming mouse 1 to clear them out.

I agree though on if ANYTHING, make them jogging.

[exetick 11]

the only reason I can see we should have slow zombies in Dayz is they should be harder to kill.

it should be no effect on shot in the chest,stomach or anywhere else on the lower body.

and I already got the answer on this question from one of the developers.

the problem that will be we need thousands of zombies if they all are going to be slow. and arma 2 engine is not supporting that many zombies and activities, not even the server can handle so many AI zombies.

[soLch 1]

So what's the confirmation from developers?

Are they going to be kept the same speed? I hope they stop zigzagging so much though, and at least not chase you across the whole map without giving up =[

[saz 3]

I agree with you all on the "slow" zombies - but let's define slow before we say it can't handle enough to be a challenge...

My belief is that any rotting corpse woudln't be able to stand up to too much punishment before it started succumbing to the effects of entropy. And any Walker (err... sprinter) would deteriorate faster the more it moved.

Think about it in terms of muscle building. When you work out' date=' you tear your muscles (that's one part of getting sore). Since we are living creatures, our body repairs those tears to be able to withstand the amount of punishment it just received and not tear again (your muscles get stronger).

A Walker would not have the ability to regenerate, but would still succumb to the effects of muscle tearing - even while just walking around. Of course they're not lifting weights, but they're walking 24/7/365! If I go for a long walk, my legs get tired.

All that being said, only the "youngest" walkers would be able to get anywhere NEAR running. The "older" a walker is - the less his muscles are able to even support movement - let alone weight.

My opinion (and that's all this is) is that the sprinting Zombie is too fast. Maybe 1 out of 10 can sprint - but the rest should only be able to walk, fall over, or hobble at a mild jogging pace.

Right now, you can be minding your own business and 4 players sprint towards you with 15 Olympic Bronze Medalist Zombies behind them! Unless you're crafty enough to run in the bushes and hope the players don't drag you in to their mess - you basically will run across the entire map.

All that matters to me is that a player should (9 times out of ten) outrun a zombie. So I say: less sprinters, more joggers

I think we all agree on that - yes?

[/quote']

Can't find the quote right now but the zombies aren't dead, so they would not decompose. They are more based around the 28 Days Later infected rather then the old Romero zombies since Rocket thinks it more closely symbolises modern fears.

[soLch 1]

He's right I guess, but the zombies have to stop zigzagging so sharply and stop chasing sooooo long and just be smoothed out and I wouldn't mind so much what so ever.

[saz 3]

Yeah I agree. But that is a part of the Arma 2 AI so its probably alot of work to change (if it is even possible).

[FrIEND (DayZ) 9]

NO for Slow Zombies..

In my point of View: It would have negative effect at Horror aspect of this mod because Zed's wouldnt be that big Threat anymore. Players could probably Run freely inside towns whitout having to worry about them too much, as you could easily getaway by running Couple blocks around.

Zed's might become total joke like in Death Valley (Tv-series) :dodgy:

[raptorak 2]

Well, I believe that the only problem with the zeds is that absolutely retarded running mechanic where they run in random directions towards you. They need to fix that, at all costs. IF they can fix that, they might want to slow them down just a tad (speed of crouch-run player), improve their death animations, and that's about it.

Also, they might want to add some slow walkers, who have abnormally good smell, and will slowly shuffle towards the smell of a living human, without triggering a run animation. Normally in the daylight, you will see him a mile off. But at night, you could have 30 of these slowly shuffling after you and you might not even see them until they are munching on your ass.

This could also be a counter for the "go prone and make sweet love to the zombies without triggering them" playstyle we have now. You would have to get in and get out before the walkers alert the whole lot of them. Or if they were being lazy, they could give this ability to the crawling zombies, that would be so mean of them, but at least you might be able to scout them out :)

[gatman (DayZ) 0]

10% Run faster than you

20% Run the same speed as you

40% Run slightly slower than you

30% You can watch awkwardly stumble their way over (still dangerous in buildings or towns - being overrun)

That would be my suggestion.

[mooncabbage 2]

RE: Slow zombies. They're my personal preference, but I can see why rocket would want to use fast zombies. I strongly disagree with any suggestion of mixed zombie types. Since the zombies are humans suffering from a viral infection, the symptoms are going to be basically the same. They're not magic zombies.

In defence of Slow(er) zombies:

1) Ammo is a precious commodity. Even at a rate of 1 bullet per zombie, if they spawn fast enough and you don't get any good gear from a raid, you come out with an economic loss. Loss of life is not the only kind of loss you can experience. At the end of the day, this mod is as much about resource management as anything else.

2) Slow zombies would mean people wouldn't have to crawl across entire towns. Right now you can crawl with absolute impunity. And if zombies could spot you if you were crawling, going into town would be virtually impossible, as it's so easy to alert them, and impossible to shake them. Zombies should be a threat, not a death sentence. Basically it goes without saying that slower zombies need to be more alert zombies.

3) Contagious zombies would be a serious threat. If zombies were capable of passing their infection to a player, any kind of hit would be serious, upping the ante and tension in any zombie encounter. I'm not proposing any kind of instakill zombie tag where a zombie hits you, and you become a zombie or anything like that. I'm suggesting that the zombie plague might work a bit like vampirism or lycanthropy in other games. You have a chance of being infected each time you're hit, and once you become infected, you have a certain period of time to treat the infection or you turn. In this case it means, bad luck, game over, you "die", and are replaced with a zombie, start again. The anti-viral medicine could be quite rare, spawning a whole new gameplay goal for you and your friends.

I see slow zombies working as less of a direct threat to players, and more of a cost of doing business. The more you shoot, the more zombies you attract, the harder it is to get into town and get your stuff, and the harder it is to get out. Between the cost in bullets and the risk of infection, going into town becomes less of a leisurely crawl and more of a tense race.

ALL that aside, there are obviously gameplay reasons for faster zombies, but I think the sweetspot is going to be somewhere between the omnipresent shamblers of the movies, and the dumb as two bricks speedfreaks we have now. Honestly in the current state of the AI, it's more believable that the zeds have had a bad batch of meth than it is a virus.

Oh, and as an asside, rocket is always going on about how everything to do with this mod is an experiment, so maybe he'll try slow zombies in a later patch, if only to prove once and for all they don't work. Sounds good to me right :cool:

[skyline 1]

A fatigue system would be great.

As said, some zed should be fast, while others should be slow but harder to kill.

Anyway, I think they should be slower than now, but with a fatigue system you won't be able to out run they forever. Also, they should be stronger, like, the very slow one only die with head shot or 5-6 body shots..

[jaynic 15]

RE: Slow zombies. They're my personal preference' date=' but I can see why rocket would want to use fast zombies. I strongly disagree with any suggestion of mixed zombie types. Since the zombies are humans suffering from a viral infection, the symptoms are going to be basically the same. They're not magic zombies.

In defence of Slow(er) zombies:

1) Ammo is a precious commodity. Even at a rate of 1 bullet per zombie, if they spawn fast enough and you don't get any good gear from a raid, you come out with an economic loss. Loss of life is not the only kind of loss you can experience. At the end of the day, this mod is as much about resource management as anything else.

2) Slow zombies would mean people wouldn't have to crawl across entire towns. Right now you can crawl with absolute impunity. And if zombies could spot you if you were crawling, going into town would be virtually impossible, as it's so easy to alert them, and impossible to shake them. Zombies should be a threat, not a death sentence. Basically it goes without saying that slower zombies need to be more alert zombies.

3) Contagious zombies would be a serious threat. If zombies were capable of passing their infection to a player, any kind of hit would be serious, upping the ante and tension in any zombie encounter. I'm not proposing any kind of instakill zombie tag where a zombie hits you, and you become a zombie or anything like that. I'm suggesting that the zombie plague might work a bit like vampirism or lycanthropy in other games. You have a chance of being infected each time you're hit, and once you become infected, you have a certain period of time to treat the infection or you turn. In this case it means, bad luck, game over, you "die", and are replaced with a zombie, start again. The anti-viral medicine could be quite rare, spawning a whole new gameplay goal for you and your friends.

I see slow zombies working as less of a direct threat to players, and more of a cost of doing business. The more you shoot, the more zombies you attract, the harder it is to get into town and get your stuff, and the harder it is to get out. Between the cost in bullets and the risk of infection, going into town becomes less of a leisurely crawl and more of a tense race.

ALL that aside, there are obviously gameplay reasons for faster zombies, but I think the sweetspot is going to be somewhere between the omnipresent shamblers of the movies, and the dumb as two bricks speedfreaks we have now. Honestly in the current state of the AI, it's more believable that the zeds have had a bad batch of meth than it is a virus.

Oh, and as an asside, rocket is always going on about how everything to do with this mod is an experiment, so maybe he'll try slow zombies in a later patch, if only to prove once and for all they don't work. Sounds good to me right :cool:

[/quote']

Well said!

Can't find the quote right now but the zombies aren't dead' date=' so they would not decompose. They are more based around the 28 Days Later infected rather then the old Romero zombies since Rocket thinks it more closely symbolises modern fears.

[/quote']

Ok, accepted. But then they should all be pretty much starving to death unless they eat eachother / drink water. So they should be weak, low blood sugar - basically unhealthy.

I understand the limitations of the engine, but the issue with not having enough zombies being the excuse for their high speed doesn't make sense either. (Personally I think there are PLENTY of zombies)

To get away from a zombie, the player simply runs into any building he can find.

So we're fighting one engine limitation with an engine exploit. I don't think that's what the developers want either.

I played Dead Island on hard - those guys couldn't run, and there weren't any more than there are in one area in Chernarus - and it was a tough game.

[mooncabbage 2]

Yes that's something that bugs me. There isn't much consistency to zombies. I can RP away the fact they mill about the bottom of ladders, but the way they sprint across a field in a mad zigzag, only to politely stroll at you in buildings is a bit ridiculous.

And again, mixed zombies is a terrible idea, leave that crap in L4D. Consistency is key.

[jaynic 15]

Heck, here's a crazy idea!

What about making this server configurable?

A Zombie attributes class - set how many can climb ladders, set how long they will chase you until giving up, set max speed, set sprinter %, set jogger %, set crawler %

[Shimmler 4]

The thing is, adding slow shambling zombie kilalble by only headshots to the mix would be awesome, cause once a lone survivor has done shooting down runners and hoppers, he'll realise taht he's surrounded by those tough bastards. Would be cool imo

[iamsheppard@googlemail.com 7]

I will probably get told to "lolol go play CoD you noob" but I emailed the devs and they said maybe post it in here so they can keep track of all the suggestions.

I did post in another post somewhere but it seems to have been buried.

First the sob story, I work stupid hours and I might only have an hour or so a day if that and I don't want to have to spend that hour crawling around on my stomach dodging zombies just to get a can of beans. I realise ARMA is about realism but there is a fine line between realism and fun.

1.5.7 is unplayable for me and I realise the zombie spawn and increase in zombies wasn't complete intentional but if that is the future of the mod then I don't think I will be playing it at all.

Its clear that the fast vs slow zombie issue is split, what is tiring are all the people that are pro-fast zombies being arrogant and condescending against those that are anti-fast zombies.

So what I was wondering is that seeing as there are two types of servers, regular and veteran, would it not make sense to please everybody by making it so that the regular servers have less, slower zombies and veteran servers have more, faster zombies, everyone is happy and it cuts down on the animosity of all the hardcore ARMA players towards casual gamers such as myself?

[gatman (DayZ) 0]

Supporting one server is hard enough at the moment, halving this would be difficult and I can't see the regular ones being filled. This is a survival game, not your average death-match fps, despite it appears that way these days with the bean-wars.

If you're struggling with Zombies man, just head inland and steer clear from major cities, I agree they're crawling, but smaller towns have much more manageable amounts, if you simply don't alert them all at once you can easily clean out a small town with 3 clips of a makrov, if anything that's unrealistic haha

No animosity towards you bro but there's easier solutions to your dilemma than that of others right now - Personally I've got huge beef with the way they spawn in front of you randomly, can walk through walls and refuse to register being hit straight away (not server lag - hit register lag)

[RealSourLemonade 1]

I think it would be funner if the zombies were like in the book World War Z (Slow)

but my computer probably couldnt even handle 3000 zombies and to make slow zombies a threat youd need loads at every single area.

[luckyloser97 0]

I think there should be a mixture of both as well as the addition of rare special zombies which are either faster and weaker or very slow with lots of hp.

[TeaLeaf 5]

Slow zombies aren't scary, threatening or realistic. How the hell did everyone get infected if they only move at walking pace? You can just walk away from them.