Not a fan of Instant Death Trend

[ZombieHunter]

There seems to be a movement toward instant death at every corner with no player compensation.

 

Zombies with Super Ninja Stealth Mechanics that can walk up behind the player without making noise and biting them in the neck.
New feature where you bat one zombie - the others instantly jump you grab you and you die. ( Which is fair - that would likely happen ) 

 

I don't see anyone enjoying it except for the Super Ultra Sadomachism Hardcore players - which enjoy punishment.

Essentially people whose idea of vacations would be the following, 

 

 

I really don't see how it is fun - without some sort of fair compensation to players. 

 

Reasonable Compensation Mechanics;

 

If zombies are tightly packed - chance zombies near middle and back will fall and trip each other. 
Running Zombies trip over fallen zombies

Running Zombies have high chance of tripping 20% every second running. ( I doubt they tie their shoe laces or keep track of whats on the ground )  

Large Scale Traps to deal with hordes - PItfalls \ Spiked Walls \ 

Limitation to soundtracking by Zombies. - So they don't have pin point idea of origin unless within "X" amount of tiles. 

Faster loss of interest.

Ambient noises drawing away hordes 

Chance of tripping and falling when climbing over short fences - causing prolonged stun

 

 

Cause all that is going to happen now is - person drives a car, walks out.

Meets Horde - Dies

Person goes into building - meets 3 zombies - dies

Person walks into forest, zombie appears from behind tree - bites - dies

 

 

[lemmy101]

I see your point, but if someone is being grabbed by 8 zombies around them, what outcome do you expect from any grounded zombie fiction worth its salt? Point is you're meant to avoid situations where you're overwhelmed by numerous zombies pulling you to the ground, keeping space, don't let them get behind you etc. Instant death is a misnomer, it's 'being overpowered by flesh eating zombies and not being a superman who can do some move to kill them all'

[ZombieHunter]

1 hour ago, lemmy101 said:

I see your point, but if someone is being grabbed by 8 zombies around them, what outcome do you expect from any grounded zombie fiction worth its salt? Point is you're meant to avoid situations where you're overwhelmed by numerous zombies pulling you to the ground, keeping space, don't let them get behind you etc. Instant death is a misnomer, it's 'being overpowered by flesh eating zombies and not being a superman who can do some move to kill them all'

 

Like I said it is realistic, so I have no issue with the mechanic it self.

The problem really is there is no "compensatory" mechanic to balance it out.

 

While it is true that if 2 - 3 zombies would easily grab you.

It is 100% equally true that many zombies near each other trying to grab you will also knock each other down and slow each other down.

 

Unlike Marathon runners that will purposefully try to keep space between runners next to them and beside them - Zombies won't care about those beside and infront and will instead try to run them over. That would balance out the mechanic as it will thin the horde chasing the player. 

 

Other mechanics could be Zombies tripping and falling on failed attempts trying to lunge and grab you. 
Causing other zombies to trip and fall over fallen zeds.

[EnigmaGrey]

The compensatory mechanic is not bumbling into the middle of 8 zombies.

 

 Sneaking, walking, jogging, running, driving, a host of traits that modify character visibility and sounds...

 

 

[ZombieHunter]

 

 

 

 

Just now, EnigmaGrey said:

The compensatory mechanic is not bumbling into the middle of 8 zombies.

 

 Sneaking, walking, jogging, running, driving, a host of traits that modify character visibility and sounds...

 

 

 

That really isn't the problem though. 
The problem is when a horde attacks your base for no apparent reason besides "player construction exists"

 

Typically at night I get like 6 - 7 zombies easily randomly attacking my door. Before I can just go out and take them out. Now it is essentially impossible for player bases.

You try to use a gun all you end up doing is attracting 20+ more. 

 

You go into a big building and go up a stairs and suddenly zombies randomly decide to go through the door. Normally you would have been able to fight them off - now you are fumbling with the GUI ( not realistic ) to make a sheet rope ( fumbling more with the GUI ) to attach and escape. 

 

So this change impacts a lot more mechanics than I feel people realize.

Essentially there are a lot of existing issues - which is just going to lead to a potential train wreck in balance. 

[EnigmaGrey]

They're zombies.

 

It's what they do.

[lemmy101]

See when it goes into iwbums, if its not good it will be rebalanced. But you've not even played it yet and are telling people who have about how it impacts gameplay more than they realize.

[Okamikurainya]

It seemed Mark.exe was more distracted than actively playing at times and that led to quite a few cheap deaths. Zomboid doesn't lend itself well to the let's play formula at times, because you have to keep your wits about you. There were quite a few times during the stream where I was twisting and cringing in my seat because I could see what was going to happen, it was wonderful and horrible at the same time.

Outside of a stream, where you aren't focusing on what others are saying and whether you're showing off well enough and such, I don't think there will be as many deaths if you're actively being careful without distractions.

So I don't really have issue with the difficulty, tbh, in fact I find current Zomboid too easy and can't wait for the new build.

That said...
 

8 hours ago, ZombieHunter said:

If zombies are tightly packed - chance zombies near middle and back will fall and trip each other. 

Running Zombies trip over fallen zombies

Running Zombies have high chance of tripping 20% every second running. ( I doubt they tie their shoe laces or keep track of whats on the ground ) 

This should happen, tbh. I've agreed with you suggesting this before and think it's a realistic and great idea.
 

8 hours ago, ZombieHunter said:

Large Scale Traps to deal with hordes - PItfalls \ Spiked Walls \

These are hard to balance... I think they'd always make things either too easy or too hard. If they could think of a way to do them right, well they're a staple of zombie fiction, but I don't know.
 

8 hours ago, ZombieHunter said:

Limitation to soundtracking by Zombies. - So they don't have pin point idea of origin unless within "X" amount of tiles.

This is actually a lovely idea. It should be tied to a zed's age, as well as the distance from the player.
While it's impossible to say, for all we know a Zombie has a magical form of echolocation, I think they realistically wouldn't be able to make a beeline right to the exact origin of the noise all the time.
Have a random dice roll:
Sound coming from x?
Source = x + random(tiles based on zombie distance and age)

Sound's y?
Source = y + random(tiles based on zombie distance and age)
 

8 hours ago, ZombieHunter said:

Faster loss of interest.

Eh... Even in the stream, I could see that the Zeds could lose interest pretty fast anyhow. Off the top of my head, there was a point Mark was playing as a blonde lady near the start and he had two Zeds on him. He killed one and the other forgot about him until he ran and caught its' attention again.
 

8 hours ago, ZombieHunter said:

Ambient noises drawing away hordes

Nah. If a zombie sees meat, they shouldn't be distracted from said meat unless they can't see the meat.
This is a problem in the current build that I hope is rectified. Zombies don't really care too much about the player, being more interested in constructions and magical invisible dogs barking.
Humans are more tasty than doors and walls, zombie!!!

 

8 hours ago, ZombieHunter said:

Chance of tripping and falling when climbing over short fences - causing prolonged stun

This is a thing in the new build already.

[lemmy101]

6 hours ago, Okamikurainya said:

Eh... Even in the stream, I could see that the Zeds could lose interest pretty fast anyhow. Off the top of my head, there was a point Mark was playing as a blonde lady near the start and he had two Zeds on him. He killed one and the other forgot about him until he ran and caught its' attention again.

 

Yeah this was a bug that was driving me mad, not sure when it was introduced but must have been recently, as I was raving about the increased difficulty of build 41 for weeks, then the zombies in that stream had the attention span of a goldfish and it really hurt the panic of having 10 zombies beating their way into your house. Mark had a real easy time of it, but people still seemed happy about the 'increased difficulty' lol - Just put in some changes to testing that hopefully fix this.

 

Fact is though that the panic and danger is something Zomboid periodically loses through builds and builds and changes which subtley affect balance. We always periodically have to step in and do a big injection of 'ohfuckohfuck' - I'm not entertaining ideas on how to make it easier right now from people who haven't played the build, as we're balancing a version of the game that is 100% unlike anything people are playing right now, so you're 'compensations' to make things easier, based on assumptions from us describing the game, short edited videos that are staged to be interesting and are not just slices of a proper play through, or stuff we say in forums, just risk making it too easy unless you're working off first hand knowledge of how the build plays. It may be we need to heavily change balance once its in the public's hands, but until then we can only go off our own experiences playing the internal build, and while all the ideas for compensating for the 'drag player down' may well be workable ideas in the long run, we'll only counter balance if we consider what's there to be too difficult when its in people's hands.

[ZombieHunter]

Again - my issue really isn't actually the difficulty -- I never had the problem with players losing in a 3+ v 1 scenario.
My only issue is there really is no fair player mechanic to actually do something to counter it.

 

Even in Martins Stream he did yesterday there were just large group of zombie blobs every 20 feet. 

 

Other games use creative mechanics to deal with enemy blobs - like throwing stones \ bottles to create a sound source to pull attention away from an Area

TWD \ Zombie Nation put rats in a cage as a distraction mechanic

 

I agree Oh Shit Moments are a great thing to add to the game.
I just feel there are alternative ways to add them, like 2 NPCs running down the street firing off their gun being chased by a large instanced group of zombies. 

 

Previously if I wanted to enter the building I could just fight them off by making sure they didn't surround me and kite them. It felt rewarding - even if it was unrealistic.

Because I risked my life to fight to get my reward. 

 

The new Meta will just be Run and Run some more.  Guns are still off the table.
Knives are now impractical as Martin showed you risk easily dying with a knife.

 

But you are right - it is better to wait for the build to make claims.

But in the end of the day I hope you remember the game should be fun, not Ball Breaking Simulator.

[King-Salomon]

8 hours ago, ZombieHunter said:

Again - my issue really isn't actually the difficulty -- I never had the problem with players losing in a 3+ v 1 scenario.
My only issue is there really is no fair player mechanic to actually do something to counter it.

If i am remembering correct, in one of the future updates after this one  there will/might be a armour system with clothing... this would "counter" your "problem" in some points...

 

with the hunting update, I guess their will be further updates to the combat system, so I have no concerns what so ever about the balancing of this update or mechanics that might be left out for now...

 

As I see it, let's try out the update all together when it is out, run it, test it, break it... and let's make some suggestions for the next "big" update

[EnigmaGrey]

10 hours ago, ZombieHunter said:

 

Even in Martins Stream he did yesterday there were just large group of zombie blobs every 20 feet. 

 

 

You're letting your opinion on this Cloud your judgement...

 

For the last 2 hours of the stream, there was almost no zombies at all because the game hasn't changed that radically. Location and movement still matter immensely when it comes to this sort of thing.

[lemmy101]

Literally all that's changed, in terms of zombies dragging you to the floor, is that instead of the character standing in the middle of a horde, sliding about as he's pushed about inside a blob of zombies comically, getting scratches and bites for 30 seconds, before magically squeezing out the side (not due to pushing through but due to the separation physics of all the zombies bugging out and popping you out close to the side randomly), escaping and dying a couple of days later from a bite. It looks comically bad, is silly, weird, unrealistic and uncinematic,  but has the exact same result. if a group surrounds you to the point you're going to get bit, likely multiple times, instead the character dies dramatically in a cool 'getting eaten alive' moment like they SHOULD. 

 

Seriously, you're reading way too much into this. To reiterate again, you've not played it, come back to us when this is provably something you need to 'combat against'. If you end up inside a group of zombies all stood directly next to you and attacking you, then you've already NOT done the 'thing to counter it' you should have. Any 'thing to counter' at that point would be doing some spin kung-fu kick and downing all the zombies like its some childrens TV show, or having all the zombies make some weird slapstick pratfall to give you an opening to get out, is totally against the ethos of Project Zomboid, a dark, realistic, fatalistic and brutal zombie apocalypse sim. You counter it by not being packed inbetween a group of zombies tearing at you in the first place, I'm not sure why you don't seem to get this.

[EnigmaGrey]

24 minutes ago, lemmy101 said:

I'm not sure why you don't seem to get this.

Rereading it all, he seems to think zombie groups are cohesive units and cannot be separated and killed anymore (or lured from a house) at the heart of it. 

 

The starting video didn't come off as someone trying to get themselves killed deliberately (a good ending) and that Marks deaths weren't just the result of being distracted for a moment, I guess.

[Blake81]

4 hours ago, EnigmaGrey said:

The starting video didn't come off as someone trying to get themselves killed deliberately (a good ending) and that Marks deaths weren't just the result of being distracted for a moment, I guess.

THIS!

 

I'd say Mark wasn't exactly playing the game with long term survival (or even basic combat capabilities) in mind; he did lots of things I myself would've considered madness (not killing lone zombies that got far from their horde, not checking passing tool sheds, etc) as IMHO that wouldn't had made for the most interesting Stream.

 

That said tho, the idea of zeds having a hard time to get up, or even sometimes being unable to do so (depending on age, maybe?) could be a great idea.

 

Another thing that certainly could make hordes easier to deal with would be to give them some kind of "falling damage"- In State of Decay (you guys must be tired of me making this comparison, but I gotta anyway  ) if you pushed a Zed over a fence that was waist-height or shorter, there was a CHANCE (wasn't always a thing) that the Zed would stumble back, fall backwards and smash its head against the ground, killing it. It wasn't a mechanic you could count on 100%, but it certainly helped to spice things up and give you a small edge on some fights.

 

Just a thought...

 

 

[EnigmaGrey]

2 hours ago, Blake81 said:

THIS!

 

I'd say Mark wasn't exactly playing the game with long term survival (or even basic combat capabilities) in mind; he did lots of things I myself would've considered madness (not killing lone zombies that got far from their horde, not checking passing tool sheds, etc) as IMHO that wouldn't had made for the most interesting Stream.

 

That said tho, the idea of zeds having a hard time to get up, or even sometimes being unable to do so (depending on age, maybe?) could be a great idea.

 

Another thing that certainly could make hordes easier to deal with would be to give them some kind of "falling damage"- In State of Decay (you guys must be tired of me making this comparison, but I gotta anyway  ) if you pushed a Zed over a fence that was waist-height or shorter, there was a CHANCE (wasn't always a thing) that the Zed would stumble back, fall backwards and smash its head against the ground, killing it. It wasn't a mechanic you could count on 100%, but it certainly helped to spice things up and give you a small edge on some fights.

 

Just a thought...

 

 

tbh, I think a lot of this would just make it too comical or easy.

 

Not totally against the occasional zombie falling, or getting in a kill by shoving a zombie over an obstacle, but I really don't want to see the game "make hordes easier to deal with" as PZ does a rather good job of encouraging you not to waste your time trying to lay them to waste, as is.

[BoogieMan]

I imagine it's something you're going to have to experience first hand to really get a feel for it and how much it affects you personally.

 

Although thanks for reminding me of this scene.. Applicable, I'd say. When you want a deterrent, it's a good one.

 

 

[Exercist]

On 9/19/2019 at 8:43 PM, ZombieHunter said:

The problem is when a horde attacks your base for no apparent reason besides "player construction exists"

 

Typically at night I get like 6 - 7 zombies easily randomly attacking my door.

 

You go into a big building and go up a stairs and suddenly zombies randomly decide to go through the door.

Does this actually happen? By design? I'd consider this an issue worth resolving (if it exists). Zombies shouldn't be biased against player-made things. I'd understand if a zombie heard something through the wall, or saw the player and felt going through the wall was the most efficient method of pursuit. However, zombies randomly attacking doors or walls should be the result of them seeing or hearing something.

 

From a few years back, I do remember zombies attacking my walls without cause. Hope that this isn't the case anymore.

[ZombieHunter]

1 hour ago, Exercist said:

Does this actually happen? By design? I'd consider this an issue worth resolving (if it exists). Zombies shouldn't be biased against player-made things. I'd understand if a zombie heard something through the wall, or saw the player and felt going through the wall was the most efficient method of pursuit. However, zombies randomly attacking doors or walls should be the result of them seeing or hearing something.

 

From a few years back, I do remember zombies attacking my walls without cause. Hope that this isn't the case anymore.

 

Yup its been this way for a long time, and its pretty hilarious to watch.

 

Build a log wall in the middle of the street and watch zombies attack it. 

Sometimes the random log wall will have so much agro they prefer to attack the wall than you, even if you stand behind them and shout.

 

Essentially Zombie Ai always knows where you are - and will attack the building you are in - especially in multiplayer, but doesn't always "go after you".

 

I remember another case where me and my friend - we didn't build anything and we were hiding on the 1st floor of a bar. We essentially had 4 doors between us and the enterance. Roughly 1 am Zombies start hitting on the main bar door, 2 break through the window. Then they roam around the bar, then start attacking the Stairway door. 

 

Keep in mind though we are standing perfectly still, there is no sound \ light \ or anything triggering them. Yet somehow they knew we were up stairs. 

 

 

[Blake81]

On 9/21/2019 at 5:02 PM, EnigmaGrey said:

Not totally against the occasional zombie falling, or getting in a kill by shoving a zombie over an obstacle, but I really don't want to see the game "make hordes easier to deal with" as PZ does a rather good job of encouraging you not to waste your time trying to lay them to waste, as is.

 

Exactly- making the hordes EASIER to deal with isn't the idea. But wouldn't it be great if a big, tightly knit horde of Zed behaved more or less like a similarly tightly knit horde of rampaging people (in say, Black Friday)? Tripping and falling and shoving each others.

For instance, as of the PZ available right now, when you hit a zombie in the head with say, the axe, one of the following things happen:
 

-Head burst, Zed dies

-Zed knocked back slightly, quickly regains balance and resumes its chase

-Zed is knocked back so hard it trips, falling to the ground and staying there for a moment before it gets up again to resume its chase

-Zed is knocked back so hard it trips, falling to the ground but fails to get up and becomes a crawler, resumes its chase

 

Those are fine and dandy, but wouldn't more options be great? Specially if said Zed is accompanied by 12-20 friends? For instance

 

-Zed is knocked back so hard it trips, falling to the ground, but before it gets up, another Zed trips on it, also falling down. Both get up again without issue and resume their chase

-Zed knocked back slightly, quickly regains balance and resumes its chase, but steps on the untied shoelaces/long dress of another Zed, knocking both of them down, the impact against the ground is so hard that one shatters its head and dies, the other just gets up and resumes its chase

 

Those are two Zed getting knocked down and one dying. Would that make such a dent on the difficulty of dealing with a 12-20 Zed horde? I don't think so. I'd simply add two more toppings to the PZ Pizza (PZza?) in the sense of variety.

 

..... And you know... the possibility of "tripping down" a zombie could be quite handy both as a defense feature and as a delaying one. I think I'm gonna make my own tread for this.

[Livio Persemprio]

zombies don't always go for you, there is a system in place where you get challenges if nothing happened for too long, which is quite essential if you want to deal with zombies in this zombie game. the thing is, if you live outside the city it might take months for zombies to show up at your door so you were probably living in the city, which is dangerous and should be so. it's not good game design to allow players to easily live close by to anything they need for survival. 

 

about the tripping zombies idea, it is very cool, but would be fitting only hordes so large they would still pose a big threat anyway, hell, it would even be scary to see that even if many of them trips and fall the group will follow you to the gates of hell

[EnigmaGrey]

9 hours ago, ZombieHunter said:

 

Yup its been this way for a long time, and its pretty hilarious to watch.

 

Build a log wall in the middle of the street and watch zombies attack it. 

Sometimes the random log wall will have so much agro they prefer to attack the wall than you, even if you stand behind them and shout.

 

Essentially Zombie Ai always knows where you are - and will attack the building you are in - especially in multiplayer, but doesn't always "go after you".

 

I remember another case where me and my friend - we didn't build anything and we were hiding on the 1st floor of a bar. We essentially had 4 doors between us and the enterance. Roughly 1 am Zombies start hitting on the main bar door, 2 break through the window. Then they roam around the bar, then start attacking the Stairway door. 

 

Keep in mind though we are standing perfectly still, there is no sound \ light \ or anything triggering them. Yet somehow they knew we were up stairs. 

 

 

 

They attack it because you make noise assembling it. Well, unless you're going out of your way to put them where a zombie will path (like between two none player built walls). I've disproven thus before by building walls in Admin mode...

 

Can't speak to the stair thing. Manly when I see people complain about it it's because they were spotted and they ran up the stairs got in there now upset that zombies are just so smart and then figure out how the path towards them. ..

 Because it would be just such an interesting game of Zombies couldn't do that.

 

I just can't wait for the unending complaints about Voodoo zombies finding me wherever I am when a smell system is finally added. Ugh.

[ZombieHunter]

3 hours ago, EnigmaGrey said:

 

They attack it because you make noise assembling it. Well, unless you're going out of your way to put them where a zombie will path (like between two none player built walls). I've disproven thus before by building walls in Admin mode...

 

Can't speak to the stair thing. Manly when I see people complain about it it's because they were spotted and they ran up the stairs got in there now upset that zombies are just so smart and then figure out how the path towards them. ..

 Because it would be just such an interesting game of Zombies couldn't do that.

 

I just can't wait for the unending complaints about Voodoo zombies finding me wherever I am when a smell system is finally added. Ugh.

 

You could be right it might be a pathing bug, but It definitely wasn't between me and the zombie as I was in the other side of the building.

https://map.projectzomboid.com/#0.5582829769818652,0.28732220644312845,825.5680177679069

 

 

They attacked the pink wall, while the rest of the space was completely empty. 

The wall wasn't being built it was made roughly 2 days earlier ( game time ) we left the area due to the helicopter event. When we snuck back the next day we horde decided to Come to that building - even though we made no noise and made sure we didn't pull any zeds while approaching. I think roughly 10 - 15 zombies spread out. 

 

8 -9 on coming from Direction of Red Arrow, and another 7 from below - near the bottom door moving up toward the side with the log walls by the road but not attacking it.

 

About 3 - 4 zombies were attacking the door the other, 2 at the window, and 2 attacking the log wall randomly.

 

 

As for the Bar it happened here,

https://map.projectzomboid.com/#0.5071802900217744,0.3199308193404544,500.9564238489497

 

We had a Courtin on the window so no light should have bled out. Yet around 7 zombies came at night around 1 am and started attacking the building. Keep in mind this Bar location is pretty remote, nothing to simulate zeds to come there. 

 

 

 

There is something attracting Zombies to player made construction and players in general without stimulation. It may not be intentional but the issue does exist.

[EnigmaGrey]

They're going to be "attracted" to it because any zombies moving from the north or west towards the doors, windows, or around the building will intersect with the wall. Player built constructions basically do not exist to zombies until their desired path passes through them, in which they thump.

 

They also move somewhat randomly in their groups, increasing the chances they'll just go at a wall, or whatever.

 

Where there could be a bug is with the sound system, but we've looked before.

 

Meta events can also Target the player or areas nearby, causing zombies to move.

[ZombieHunter]

2 hours ago, EnigmaGrey said:

They're going to be "attracted" to it because any zombies moving from the north or west towards the doors, windows, or around the building will intersect with the wall. Player built constructions basically do not exist to zombies until their desired path passes through them, in which they thump.

 

They also move somewhat randomly in their groups, increasing the chances they'll just go at a wall, or whatever.

 

Where there could be a bug is with the sound system, but we've looked before.

 

Meta events can also Target the player or areas nearby, causing zombies to move.

 

I think that itself could use some work. when it comes to pathing. 

If you clicked the link you will notice its a pretty large building, for zombies to be attracted to me walking inside with curtains on all the windows - means there is something else attracting them.

 

For example, Thumping something a few times and moving on if the Zombies receives no further stimulation.  Instead of the current trend of keep thumping until it breaks because the object happens to be thumpable. 

 

Me and my friends love this game and have put thousands of hours into it.  So we had the opportunity to see a lot of these quirks of zombie behavior because we like doing unconventional things.  

 

 

 

Anyway, excited for Thursday. 

Hopefully IWUBMs date will at least be announced.