Combat should be made harder, not easier

[Zapp Brannigan]

Looking at the newest blog post, I'm a little confused. Why is 1-1 combat being made easier? Zombies are already so much easier than they were a few years ago. Their animation's been slowed down and their hit registry feels off to the point I can stand in one place, let one keep doing its thing at me, and not get "hit" for a good 2 or 3 seconds. Especially on higher strength or speed settings zombies should be dangerous. If anything, they should be buffed. More pulling, clawing, punching, and tackling with the new animations, better hit responses to where if they do their animation, you get hit. You shouldn't be able to treat even small groups of zombies like a joke, but you can right now and apparently the group buffs are being dialed back. I don't think this is the way it needs to go, or maybe there should be a zed difficulty setting added that changes exactly how powerful they are more than the vague options we have now.

 

My suggestion would be to either revert whatever nerfs or changes are coming to make individual fights easier, keep whatever group buffs there are after tuning them, and implement more concise, effective options for zombie difficulty. Superhuman strength should let them pull you down and hit you hard when they hit. Higher sense should give them better reactions. That sorta thing. I remember back in the DayZ days people complained zombies were too hard and they nerfed them big time, and in the recent game Hunt: Showdown similar complaints led its zombie-ish monsters to get nerfed into pointless distractions. I don't want that to happen with PZ.

 

Zombies should be a threat you have to be careful with and learn to manage, not something you can easily strafe around and stunlock solo or even in groups, which you can do now. One shouldn't be instant death, not at all, but it shouldn't get any easier than it is right now.

Edited September 14, 2019 by Zapp Brannigan

[Okamikurainya]

I've seen a lot of people making the same oversight.
If you read what the devs have said, the combat in the current developer build is insanely difficult. They aren't making it easy compared to what we have so far, they're making it easier than what THEY have so far.

Edited September 14, 2019 by Okamikurainya

[EnigmaGrey]

Because they're zombies.

[ZombieHunter]

10 hours ago, Zapp Brannigan said:

Looking at the newest blog post, I'm a little confused. Why is 1-1 combat being made easier? Zombies are already so much easier than they were a few years ago. Their animation's been slowed down and their hit registry feels off to the point I can stand in one place, let one keep doing its thing at me, and not get "hit" for a good 2 or 3 seconds. Especially on higher strength or speed settings zombies should be dangerous. If anything, they should be buffed. More pulling, clawing, punching, and tackling with the new animations, better hit responses to where if they do their animation, you get hit. You shouldn't be able to treat even small groups of zombies like a joke, but you can right now and apparently the group buffs are being dialed back. I don't think this is the way it needs to go, or maybe there should be a zed difficulty setting added that changes exactly how powerful they are more than the vague options we have now.

 

My suggestion would be to either revert whatever nerfs or changes are coming to make individual fights easier, keep whatever group buffs there are after tuning them, and implement more concise, effective options for zombie difficulty. Superhuman strength should let them pull you down and hit you hard when they hit. Higher sense should give them better reactions. That sorta thing. I remember back in the DayZ days people complained zombies were too hard and they nerfed them big time, and in the recent game Hunt: Showdown similar complaints led its zombie-ish monsters to get nerfed into pointless distractions. I don't want that to happen with PZ.

 

Zombies should be a threat you have to be careful with and learn to manage, not something you can easily strafe around and stunlock solo or even in groups, which you can do now. One shouldn't be instant death, not at all, but it shouldn't get any easier than it is right now.

 

The Blog posts clearly states
While 1 v 1 is easier - even the developers are dying non stop vs 1 vs multiple.

 

Previously players could easily take on 20 + solo with a meele weapon and not even suffer a scratch ( i have done it so many times ) 
They increased the difficulty by having zombies bite you from the back on your neck - causing instant death clock ( in next build ) .

 

Essentially this was not fair to the player - so they are now reducing that particular difficulty so players have an actual chance to survive when multiple zombies approach the player.

 

On a side note, this is not "rage zombies" they don't have "super human strength" - these are classical zombies. 

 

If you want the game tobe hard,  Developers have let you do that through Custom Game Settings;

 

• make all zombies sprinters,
• with the highest health with
• 3x starting population.

Edited September 14, 2019 by ZombieHunter

[Zapp Brannigan]

14 hours ago, Okamikurainya said:

I've seen a lot of people making the same oversight.
If you read what the devs have said, the combat in the current developer build is insanely difficult. They aren't making it easy compared to what we have so far, they're making it easier than what THEY have so far.

That's my bad, I wasn't aware. I thought they were making combat easier from Build 40, not 41's own overhauled combat system.

 

4 hours ago, ZombieHunter said:

On a side note, this is not "rage zombies" they don't have "super human strength" - these are classical zombies.

If you set them to Superhuman strength, I meant. Even then have you ever seen Day of the Dead? Peak classic Romero zombies? Even one or two of them can easily overpower an adult soldier if they get the drop on them. If Romero's what the standard settings aim for, they're pretty damn strong by merit of exerting as much as they can with no regard to strain, pain, or tiredness.

[ZombieHunter]

23 minutes ago, Zapp Brannigan said:

That's my bad, I wasn't aware. I thought they were making combat easier from Build 40, not 41's own overhauled combat system.

 

If you set them to Superhuman strength, I meant. Even then have you ever seen Day of the Dead? Peak classic Romero zombies? Even one or two of them can easily overpower an adult soldier if they get the drop on them. If Romero's what the standard settings aim for, they're pretty damn strong by merit of exerting as much as they can with no regard to strain, pain, or tiredness.

 

They really couldn't - unless it was a poorly trained soldier. 

Well trained Grunts learn Close Quarter Combat Techniques like a Grapple Hip Throw then follow through. 

 

Ideally, you would want to throw one zed into another ( not practical for the game ) so you can temporarily disable two and gain distance and ideally a weapon. 

More importantly, a lot of movies are not realistic toward zombie mechanics which may sound like an oxymoron but it actually has to deal with they don't want their actors injured.

 

But we can see the issue I am talking about in real life when a human stampede happens - for example in the New York and Vegas shooting, or Temple Festivals in Asia. When there is a mass group of people running in an uncoordinated manner this results in people tripping over each other.  Zombies realistically speaking would not be able to coordinate with each other meaning the bigger the group the more likely zombies would be knocking each other down and bumping into each other causing them to fall. If they wanted a more accurate portrayal you would see something more similar to animal behavior we see in the wild of competing predators ( One Jurassic park movie actually did this beautifully because they researched animal behaviors in certain scenes ).  The Two zeds instead would knock each other around while trying to get the body. Again this is limitation as you don't want actors to hurt each other as they constantly bump into each other forcefully - hence it is rarely represented except in movies where Zombies can be replaced with CGI ( Train to Busan ). 

 

So when we talk about classical zombies - it essentially means zombies without special powers. They are simply an "undead human" and lack the ability to feel pain. Hence they can move in a manner limited to human physical limits without pain.

Edited September 14, 2019 by ZombieHunter

[Okamikurainya]

14 minutes ago, ZombieHunter said:

Zombies realistically speaking would not be able to coordinate with each other meaning the bigger the group the more likely zombies would be knocking each other down and bumping into each other causing them to fall.

This would actually be an epic effect for the game, IMO. Seeing them tripping over each other as they congeal towards you could add an aspect of desperation to them which could be terrifying.

[ZombieHunter]

5 minutes ago, Okamikurainya said:

This would actually be an epic effect for the game, IMO. Seeing them tripping over each other as they congeal towards you could add an aspect of desperation to them which could be terrifying.

Yes - its one feature you don't see in most zombie movies because its done by real actors. Meaning there is a potential for a lot of injuries.
So you only see it in CGI handoff movies - Train to Busan as I mentioned does the scenes beautifully in a few occasions. 

 

The Korean TV Series - Kingdom also does it really well.

 

Edited September 14, 2019 by ZombieHunter