Grote

But isn't the game's representation inspired by Romero? I'm appealing to Romero because I'm saying it does fit with the game's representation of zombies. The idea that it doesn't is entirely down to a preconception of "zombie-ness". They're customisable, anyway. Sprinters, supernatural strength, opening doors. There's a wide but limited range of what entails a zombie and the devs seem happy to work within that range. Like in the Walking Dead/World War Z, zombies will eat anything alive. Including animals. In Romero movies, they only eat humans. Devs have said zomboid zombies will not eat livestock or wild animals, and they don't currently eat what you trap. Why do they only target humans? If they're hungry, they should target anything. But it's not actually intelligent, on their part, it's just basic stimulus - reaction that obeys an ultimately arbitrary set of rules. Why don't they attack impassable barriers? Maybe it's gameplay, but zombie fiction will rarely show a zombie scratching at a concrete wall when they heard something at the other side, certainly not if there's a wooden door nearby. How do they know the strength of materials? They also know how to get to places. If they see you on the third floor, how do they know how to find stairs and climb up to you? That's complex navigation that a lot of animals would struggle with. Why do they horde? It can be explained by a shared stimulus making an ostensibly social behaviour but you'd expect them to quickly drift from one another. Zomboid has a "horde leader" mechanic which might just be for gameplay reasons, but is also seen in Dawn of the Dead and Land of the Dead. Why no "guts" camoflauge like in the Walking Dead? Hard no from the devs on that topic. How could it be impossible to fool a mindless creature? There's a radio story where a man escapes his zombified sister by swimming from a small lake island. He reurns, later, and sees her standing there still. Why didn't she follow him into the water? Does this mean zomboid zombies avoid bodies of water? Maybe the zomboid devs thought the World War Z image of millions of zombies wandering into the ocean was just a bit silly. The "scientific zombie" explanation is that it's a virus that hijacks the brain, preserving only the most necessary functions for feeding. Why can't avoidance of fire be a preserved instinct? Seems so silly to me that that's somehow crossing the line. Behaving erratically when set on fire implies some sort of reaction to fire, anyway.

It sounds like your problem is that it isn't zombie-ish because it's too intelligent. Which is fine, of course. I think it should be a setting rather than mandatory. I don't really like sprinting zombies, either, but it's nice to have the option. There is a clear dev preference when it comes to zombie lore, like I don't think they'll ever add special zombies as we see in Left 4 Dead, so "zombie-ness" is a relevant factor. The opening doors setting is far more intelligent than avoiding fire imo and probablIy added because it's in Romero movies (and season 1 Walking Dead, but rarely in other zombie media). Why have weaponised fire as an option? Well it'd still kill zombies, just not hundreds upon hundreds of them. You could, for example, fully board up a house, add a sheet rope to the second floor, lure the horde upstairs, close the door to the room you're escaping out of, throw a molotov at the door and escape. Maybe a timed/remote fire bomb downstairs (finally an actual use for bombs). You wouldn't even have to run back to close the door they came in through because they're dumb and will go for the nearest barricade, even though it means their (un)death. Basically, fire would still be a useful weapon, you'd just have to be more clever about it. First time I used fire I did the above method but it was a waste of time compared to the limitless amount of zombies you can kill with fire by jogging around a field. Your other ideas for how to balance fire are good though, I like them. Maybe you could justify it by saying it's because their hearing and vision is consumed by fire so they don't really know what they're following. Would be easier to implement than avoiding fire and would also make it harder to avoid collateral damage from burning zombies.

It's perfect for the game mechanics, though. It's not Romero for Romero's sake, it's something that I think would improve the game and I appeal to Romero to support the idea that it fits the zombie lore PZ is aiming for. I think zombies showing even the most primitive intelligence is so far out of our psyche that people wouldn't even think of zombies avoiding fire. I watched Dawn of the Dead, saw the scene where the zombies avoid fire and thought "oh ya, that'd work". I wouldn't be surprised if even the Zomboid devs just didn't think of it. Some think it isn't "zombieish" but obviously it must be if it's part of Romero zombies. It's also an arbitrary line to draw, that zombies are too stupid to avoid fire, considering that they're smart enough to pathfind, know to break a barricade/door rather than a concrete wall, even know how to climb up a stairs without falling. PZ is very customisable, anyway. It can't really copy Romero when there's options for sprinters and such. I doubt PZ devs will add the ability for zombies to use tools to break windows etc because it doesn't really add anything to the game. Zombies opening doors isn't a default option despite it being Romero, probably because organising your keys and doorknobs so you can lock doors would just be tedious.

Fire is unbalanced in the game because it's objectively the best way to deal with a horde. Sure, it takes a while for the Zs to burn and they can burn down buildings, but you can always drag them out to a field or just keep them focused on you while you run around them. In George Romero movies, zombies avoid fire. Or at least they do in Dawn of the Dead. This makes them substantially harder to deal with, in media or in this game. The campfire trick to kill a horde is cheesy but it would literally work in something like The Walking Dead (maybe it'd have to be a big bonfire, but still). This is aggravated by the depiction of mega hordes in TWD or in the World War Z novel, where one molotov actually probably would destroy thousands upon thousands of zombies. Project Zomboid aims for realism but there isn't any realistic resolution to fire's unbalanced nature in game because the lack of fire as a weapon in zombie media is itself unrealistic. This would make fire bombs and other engineer bombs more useful because they cover a wider area. A firebomb covers a 12x12 area so thrown into a dense horde, it can still dispatch 144 zombies (not sure if it's actually one Z per tile). Other zombies would move away from them, when possible, and try to path around them to get to you. If you set a building on fire, they just move around the tiles that are on fire, but won't preemptively flee the building. They can still get trapped because they're dumb. Could lead to some interesting scenarios. If the only way to you is blocked by a wall of fire, zombies will just wait patiently on the other side until it dies out. Would look eerie. In a desperate play, you could maybe wave a torch in front of you to cut a path through a horde. Might be OP but balanced by a chance of sudden wind/rain extinguishing it, and zombies reach for your rear once you pass them so you can't slow down. And it has a low lifetime and you cannot switch to another torch without putting down the first torch. Zombies that are already on fire wouldn't have an aversion to fire and act as zombies do now. Some people wouldn't like it because it makes zombies a bit smarter so it should be a toggleable option, like zombies knowing how to use doors.