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An honest opinion on Zombie luring (for the Devs and whatnot)


littleblueboxes

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After roughly 300 hours with the steam version of this (great) game I've come to a decision about how zombies sense/lure to certain triggers.

Honestly, the concept of having large numbers drawn to house alarms and gunshots sounds good on paper, but doesn't really work. The IDEA works, but it's taken too far in the game.

Alarms and gunfire should draw zombies- a large number if they're around- but the reach of the draw is too much. I'd say it could safely be halved and still achieve the same panicked results, keeping guns very dangerous to use and whatnot, but without making all surrounding areas far too easy and that one zone a complete no-go for weeks at a time.

 

In short, I agree with the idea but I think its radius needs to be made shorter. Same effect, less harmful to the experience. That's my two cents.

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I fully agree with the OP. With the sole exception of the Shotgun (which might be noisy, but is far more effective than any other gun), the guns of PZ are pretty much ''Dinner Bells''; all you need to do is to shoot a Pistol in a random parking lot, and two thirds of the local Zed populace will come out of every bush and floorboard to chew on your goolies, which isn't precisely a good idea.

 

More than once I've found myself encountering a massive 50-some horde between me and my safe house while carrying no more than an almost broken Ax and a handful of Butter Knives, but also a Shotgun and 2-3 boxes of its ammo, so I had to choose either slowly luring some Zed away and melee'n them to death one by one until the horde was diminished or just pulling out my boomstick and while shouting ''Groovy''. And every time I went boom instead of slash, I winded up ''corpZed''....

 

Also taking a look at other Zed games with a similar sound mechanic could help as well. State of Decay did a very good job on this; sure, using silenced weapons is much better, but using a shotgun or a revolver (which couldn't be silenced) didn't set two thirds of Trumbull County after my survivors, although it drew more than usual Zeds, enough to make you not use them recklessly.

 

So yeah, a reduction not only in the range but also of the maximum number of Zeds that can be attracted.

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  Honestly, I don't have a big problem with the gun shot noises. Maybe they could tweak the sound radi of the guns depending on the bullet caliber if they haven't already? Because if a pistol and a shotgun attract zombies from the same distance then that's definitely not correct.

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I guess I'm weird, being bothered by 5k worth of zombies in a town, population 1.5k, a week or four right after the end of the world.   Perhaps I need to increase the difficulty off normal for more hordetastic fun.

  As it stands, I use house alarms and gunfire to draw them in. :P  The only time house alarms are scary is if I've ignored my "This is how we're clearing this block safely" plan, which always gives me one direction I can flee in that will have minimal zombies.  E.g. clear the street/front yards of the street you're looting,  circle back, clear the back yards on both sides, start entering houses from the direction you initially came from (which is presumably cleared.)  House alarm goes off?  Beat feet in the safe direction, pick off stragglers, work your way back to the pile of Zs around the alarm house.  Cautiously thin the herd.  Don't forget to check for valuable cash and prizes, er, loot on your new Zed carpet.   Bonus points for using being lazy and using gunfire to lure zombies out of buildings so you don't have to go in after them.

 

Full disclosure, I run OGRM's gun mod, but generally don't roll with suppressors unless I have a "loud" gun with me, too.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 2/28/2017 at 8:38 PM, Blake81 said:

I fully agree with the OP. With the sole exception of the Shotgun (which might be noisy, but is far more effective than any other gun), the guns of PZ are pretty much ''Dinner Bells''; all you need to do is to shoot a Pistol in a random parking lot, and two thirds of the local Zed populace will come out of every bush and floorboard to chew on your goolies, which isn't precisely a good idea.

 

More than once I've found myself encountering a massive 50-some horde between me and my safe house while carrying no more than an almost broken Ax and a handful of Butter Knives, but also a Shotgun and 2-3 boxes of its ammo, so I had to choose either slowly luring some Zed away and melee'n them to death one by one until the horde was diminished or just pulling out my boomstick and while shouting ''Groovy''. And every time I went boom instead of slash, I winded up ''corpZed''....

 

Also taking a look at other Zed games with a similar sound mechanic could help as well. State of Decay did a very good job on this; sure, using silenced weapons is much better, but using a shotgun or a revolver (which couldn't be silenced) didn't set two thirds of Trumbull County after my survivors, although it drew more than usual Zeds, enough to make you not use them recklessly.

 

So yeah, a reduction not only in the range but also of the maximum number of Zeds that can be attracted.

That's absolute bullshit if you have trained level 10 aim(Which everyone with a gun tries to do). Pistol + Red dot + Laser with level 10 aim can kill a zombie at max zoom on the other side of the screen. Pistol sucks until you hit level 4 AIM but then its effectiveness goes up remarkably. At level 10, you have a headshot submachine gun.

 

I can take out thousands of zombies with a pistol, 40 cases of ammo and a few bombs. In fact, its the only gun which lets me carry 2 bags at once and pick of stray zombies who avoided the blast. The only caveat is to carry 3 spare pistols in your bag due to how often the break. With shotty, I can do it with 2 shotty's and 30 cases of ammo, but have to get up close and personal and carry a lot of beta blockers.

 

If I take the time to use hardcore reload and fill Magazines, its even faster, but with more prep time involved.

 

 

Rifles are actually god once you hit level 7 Aim with an 8x scope, Recoil pad, Fiberglass stock and ammo straps. I kill 3-4 zombies PER SHOT, without getting close like you do with SHotty. You kill stuff you can't even see at Max zoom. But the best use of Rifle is to kite a horde into a straight line on a long road, then throw a bomb. Rifles sound seems to travel further and attracts more Z's

 

The only good shotty is an AMMO strap + Choke tube Full shotty. Choke tube improved sucks for killing and just gives you the knockdown power, but not the damage. I dismantle every shotty I have and equip it with ammo straps and choke tube full. less spread, but maximum damage, kill 5-6 zombies per shot. But you have to get close.

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You'll have to get to level 10 aim first. It's not as easy as you make it sound like. So if you start out with no aiming skill at all, you can  pretty much forget about the pistol... Shotgun is your only friend and it's loud and will lure the whole neighborhood to you, making it useless for anything other than luring zombies away.

 

As a non-pro player, I pretty much agree with littleblueboxes. Especially in early game, guns aren't even useful for a last resort protection, because you likely won't hit anyway and just draw more zombies towards you.

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On 3/14/2017 at 0:31 PM, Lexx2k said:

You'll have to get to level 10 aim first. It's not as easy as you make it sound like. So if you start out with no aiming skill at all, you can  pretty much forget about the pistol... Shotgun is your only friend and it's loud and will lure the whole neighborhood to you, making it useless for anything other than luring zombies away.

 

As a non-pro player, I pretty much agree with littleblueboxes. Especially in early game, guns aren't even useful for a last resort protection, because you likely won't hit anyway and just draw more zombies towards you.

And I disagree with him that the radius that it attracts zeds should be decreased. A shotgun shot really only pulls zombs from 2-3 blocks away and that is realistic. I have tested it on max zombie settings and zombies 2-3 blocks away have not come attracted to the sound. Any less and guns lose their usefulness as bait to lure large hordes out of town.

 

Reducing the sound radius to make guns easier to use seems silly to me. Guns SHOULD be hard to train and have drastic consequences to use in a world where the only sounds are zombies. No traffic, no cars. They would beeline to the first noise they heard. If you start as a police officer, Veteran or have the hunter skill, you get aim points and bonuses. But truthfully, Axe is your best friend to quietly kill.

 

But if it bothers, you can adjust zombie hearing in Sandbox

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