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Corpse piles


muscamole

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tl;dr Corpses should become corpse piles that have actual physical presence and depth

 

Corpses become a major part of the environment, but they feel like an afterthought in the game. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of good things about the corpse system that you don't see in a lot of games. Corpses don't just disappear. You get sick if you're around them, they act like speed bumps on the road, you hear flies buzzing around them. But even when you are surrounded by corpses, it never really feels like you're surrounded by corpses. A pile of 100 zombies is essentially the same as one zombie.

 

The problem is that corpses don't actually take up any space, at least in the Z plane. I understand that it is probably very computationally expensive to give each corpse its own depth, but this isn't necessary to implement depth to corpses. One way this could be implemented is if corpses that are clustered within the same tile automatically enter a new container type, the "corpse pile" when there are enough corpses. As more zombies die within the vicinity of the corpse pile, the corpse pile has the potential to grow into a larger corpse pile, which has a greater height and extent than the previous level. You would be able to walk over these corpse piles similar to stairs, with significant movement penalty that ramps up as the height of the pile increases. 

 

This type of system would add so much to the atmosphere of the game because corpses would physically change the landscape as time goes on rather than simply being there and being a nuisance. A pile of 100 zombies would be an imposing sight that blocks your movement and your vision. Smaller corpse piles could be used for the player's strategic advantage. Players could lead zombies into small corpse piles, which they would potentially stumble over. But the movement penalty could get you killed, and also killing too many zombies in the same place could create impassable barriers as the pile's height grows.

 

It would also eliminate some of the tedious aspects that people often complain about when it comes to corpses. Instead of clicking each body and clicking "add fuel" and burning them, you could just burn the corpse pile provided you have enough fuel. You could also just destroy segments of the pile with regular attacks, at the cost of unhappiness and sickness chance. 

 

It could also eliminate some of the cheesier game strategies and set up some amazing unscripted gameplay moments. Window camping is a highly effective method against zombies in the current build. It absolutely should be highly effective because that would actually be a great strategy for fighting zombies IRL, but it shouldn't be unlimited. Eventually you'll either block the window or have to move. That could be good for you if that was the only side they were coming from, but what if you needed that escape route more?

 

This could also affect the safety of high fences without giving zombies the ability to destroy them directly. Zombie piles would have to be actively cleared in order to keep yourself safe because if the pile gets too high, the zombies can simply stumble over the fence and land in your backyard.

 

I would also love to see this combined with the ability for zombies to damage other zombies when they are downed. Imagine getting surrounded by a massive horde in your normally safe gated Rosewood home. You jump the fence, thinking you have made it. But you turn around and see that outside the fences the horde still sees you, and is in desperate pursuit. As the horde pushes against the fences, some of the zombies stumble, and they are trampled by the rest of the horde. Slowly you watch the piles of the dead grow, and you gaze in horror as the zombies reach closer and closer to the top of the fence. You realize that no place was truly safe after all. This will be how you died.

 

I don't know, maybe its just me but I think changing corpses to have some kind of physical presence should be one of the top priorities for future builds. What do you think? Is this something that is planned? Is this something that has already been scrapped?

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Hm, as far as I am aware, there IS something like this already in game, albeit on a small scale.

 

Try piling up as many zeds as you can on a pile at least the size of a car and then try walking over it; you'll see your char struggling a lil' bit, as if in a forest. Then try driving a car at fast speed over it, touching it only with the wheels of one side and you'll see the car flip.

 

I do agree, however, that they could use a bit more of a Z plane; piles are still too flat, and corpses sometimes feel like cardboard cutouts.

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The slowdown is nice, but I guess my point is I don't want it to just be a movement slowdown and better visualization. Enough corpses would become a new entitity, a container that has Z height that can be walked on. So if a pile gets too big next to a high fence eventually zombies would be able to go over it. You would also have to pull individual zombies out from the pile to loot them since now they are held within this "pile" container.

 

A slowdown and visual change is not enough. Currently you can basically endlessly chop up zombies inside a little room with a window. I'm all for window camping because it makes sense, but it doesn't make sense that you can chop up 100 zombies in a neat little pile by the window. Sure there may be slowdown if you walk on it but you are camping by the window anyways and not moving. If piles had a greater physical presence, like a piece of furniture, you couldn't do this anymore because eventually the movement path would be physically blocked by the pile, as if you had put a fridge or something in the way of the window.

 

It also would greatly simplify burning bodies since you could just dump fuel on the entire pile rather than individually.

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I think the part I like most about your proposal was about simplifying the process of clearing up large numbers of corpses. The biggest pain after killing 100 zombies that busted into your back yard is you now have 100 bodies to bury or burn if you don't want to suffer the health penalty and stare at all the identically posed death sprites forever. I have asked them for more physicality between zombies in groups, knocking and tripping and trampling each other like you said, but I think they have issues with large numbers of zombies having to share skeletons and whatnot, resource problems idk. Might be waiting a while before we see them forming zombie pyramids to scale walls yet.

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