Riot Gear

[Alphalfamire]

After seeing the scene from TWD where the group encounters zombies with riot gear, and their usual machete/bat to the head tactics didn't work. And I thought, "Hey, that would make an awesome gameplay mechanic in PZ!" Adding groups of zombies with riot gear, would not only be a smooth way to implement riot gear itself and make zombie combat have more variety, it would also add more sense of immersion (which PZ already provides so heavily) by seeing the dead riot squad that tried to take on the horde. Now that the explanation of the idea itself is out of the way, we can move on to combat. The riot zombies would be EXTREMELY resistant to blunt and shard weaponry, and because of their bullet resistant clothing would take more 4-7 shots to kill. Now, before you say its to OP, listen to this. Earlier, I mentioned a scene for The Walking Dead...now I will annoy you all by doing so again. After the group encounters the riot gear zombies, the soon realize they can stab them through the chin up under their glass visors. That is how i think they should be in PZ as well. So the best way to kill them, is with a knife, whether it be a kitchen knife or any of the other knives added later on. It would be instant, like with other zombies. Although it sounds easy, it leaves you vulnerable to other zombies and is not advisable when in combat with many zombies at once. Now, a few more things and I'll be done. The Riot gear slows the wearer down quite a bit, both players and zombies. With zombies there is an equal chance for their visor to be up or down. If it is up, it is much more vulnerable to all attacks and can be killed with one shot to the head. If it is down, it cant bite you, just grab you leaving you open to other zombies to sink their teeth into you until you push them off. Well ok, that about covers this suggestion, and as always I'm open to criticism and suggestions.     

 

http://oyster.ignimgs.com/wordpress/stg.ign.com/2013/04/riot-gear-zombie_the_walking_dead.jpg

[RingoD123]

once we have the military in the game, you can expect to find military gear, such as weapons, armour etc. But obviously some soldiers may have been turned, meaning they could definitely be wearing helmets and/or body armour, making them more difficult to kill but also unable to bite you (if wearing a helmet), without them being super zombies.

Basically anything the player can do/wear will be do-able and wearable by NPC's and therefore zombies, making for more variation and intense situatiuons.

[Alphalfamire]

once we have the military are in the game, you can expect to find military gear, such as weapons, armour etc. But obviously some soldiers may have been turned, meaning they could definitely be wearing helmets and/or body armour, making them more difficult to kill but also unable to bite you (if wearing a helmet), without them being super zombies.

Basically anything the player can do/wear will be do-able and wearable by NPC's and therefore zombies, making for more variation and intense situatiuons.

Cool, thanks! I really think this is a good idea 

[Suomiboi]

I do agree that it would be interesting to have situations where you'd have to approach the zombies differently, but I don't think it should be done in a way that adds certain "types" of zombies (riot police zombies, police zombies, military zombies etc.). Rather have a system that adds gear/clothing to random zombies. So for example if you implement a bicycle helmet there's a certain chance that a zombie has that worn. And then have a propability increase of having more clothing of the same type eg. cycling shorts. So when the game streams a zombie it does it dynamically rather than as a type. Or something like that.

 

Now this sounds a heavy toll to the system and it might be. I have no freaking clue! But if it isn't, it would be how I'd like to see it happen.

 

Also it might be quite a task to create the dependencies. Buuuut just a thought.

[RingoD123]

I do agree that it would be interesting to have situations where you'd have to approach the zombies differently, but I don't think it should be done in a way that adds certain "types" of zombies (riot police zombies, police zombies, military zombies etc.). Rather have a system that adds gear/clothing to random zombies. So for example if you implement a bicycle helmet there's a certain chance that a zombie has that worn. And then have a propability increase of having more clothing of the same type eg. cycling shorts. So when the game streams a zombie it does it dynamically rather than as a type. Or something like that.

 

Now this sounds a heavy toll to the system and it might be. I have no freaking clue! But if it isn't, it would be how I'd like to see it happen.

 

Also it might be quite a task to create the dependencies. Buuuut just a thought.

It will most likely be some combo of both, you will get random zombies wearing random mixes of all the clothes available to players, but your also gonna have different zombie types (military zombie, police zombie) or you will just end up with a zombie wearing a policemans hat but with cyclists shorts and vest etc. The different "types" of zombie wont spawn in hordes etc however, so you wont see a horde of police only zombies coming towards you, but if your in a military area then theres a good chance a lot, if not most, of the zombies will be military zombies.

[Alphalfamire]

 

I do agree that it would be interesting to have situations where you'd have to approach the zombies differently, but I don't think it should be done in a way that adds certain "types" of zombies (riot police zombies, police zombies, military zombies etc.). Rather have a system that adds gear/clothing to random zombies. So for example if you implement a bicycle helmet there's a certain chance that a zombie has that worn. And then have a propability increase of having more clothing of the same type eg. cycling shorts. So when the game streams a zombie it does it dynamically rather than as a type. Or something like that.

 

Now this sounds a heavy toll to the system and it might be. I have no freaking clue! But if it isn't, it would be how I'd like to see it happen.

 

Also it might be quite a task to create the dependencies. Buuuut just a thought.

It will most likely be some combo of both, you will get random zombies wearing random mixes of all the clothes available to players, but your also gonna have different zombie types (military zombie, police zombie) or you will just end up with a zombie wearing a policemans hat but with cyclists shorts and vest etc. The different "types" of zombie wont spawn in hordes etc however, so you wont see a horde of police only zombies coming towards you, but if your in a military area then theres a good chance a lot, if not most, of the zombies will be military zombies.

 

yeah, randomizing the clothing/gear like that would have the same effect just be more complicated, as say spawn them as a different variant of zombie under the hood, but it just seems like a zombie wearing those clothes

[doomblood66]

once we have the military in the game, you can expect to find military gear, such as weapons, armour etc. But obviously some soldiers may have been turned, meaning they could definitely be wearing helmets and/or body armour, making them more difficult to kill but also unable to bite you (if wearing a helmet), without them being super zombies.

Basically anything the player can do/wear will be do-able and wearable by NPC's and therefore zombies, making for more variation and intense situatiuons.

Awesome! So we can get military grade clothing and weapons??

[Kajin]

Military grade weaponry, if we DO get it, will likely be super rare and hard to come by. I kinda figure that the military used up all of the good ammunition trying to fight the hordes, so any weapons you do find would probably be useless.

[asmodeus]

Imho, giving zombies special equipment or clothing randomly does not make a lot of sense given the current scenario. Zombies do not equip themselves but rather wear what they had on them when they turned (or at least whats left of it) - and why would a random person grab, say a policeman's hat or uniform?

 

So the only people wearing only parts of such gear would be other survivors & their zombified counterparts who looted stuff like that in times of need. Imo it'd be way more realistic to only encounter turned policemen, because that's what they were (and wore) during the apocalypse.

Uniforms and such should therefore be excluded from the randomly equipped zombie.

[Kajin]

Imho, giving zombies special equipment or clothing randomly does not make a lot of sense given the current scenario. Zombies do not equip themselves but rather wear what they had on them when they turned (or at least whats left of it) - and why would a random person grab, say a policeman's hat or uniform?

Disguise? Panicked survivors are more likely to listen to a guy in a uniform, so someone might want to take advantage of that? I know for certain that I'd loot the crap out of firemen uniforms if given the opportunity in an apocalypse scenario. Stuff is fireproof, roomy enough to wear a bulletproof vest under, and a guy in a firemen uniform swinging around a firemen's axe strikes an imposing figure.

[asmodeus]

absolutely, but you'd be among the few lucky ones that stumbled across

a ) a dead fireman (that has not been looted yet)

b ) a firestation with spare supplies (that have not been looted yet)

c ) a fireman-zombie whose clothing survived all the bites and scratches to a point where it is still useful

 

anyway, in this case you'd end up wearing a complete set of fireman's gear and not only parts of it, so it does still prove my point

and not all uniforms are meant to be this useful.

[Suomiboi]

The point in my post was that they would very likely spawn with all of the clothing, equipment but might miss some non essential ones.

 

This is the theory:

If for example you get a zombie spawn initiate with a certain clothing that is tied to a profession etc. you'd have a high chance of spawning other such equipment initially.

 

But as RingoD123 said it, it makes sense having them both in for immersions sake. So it won't look like all of the military zombies are all exactly the same and have the certain types but that they are dynamically created.

 

I just dislike the idea of hey let's have a zombie swat team patrol the streets in a formation (to over exaggerate a little).

[Alphalfamire]

wow, had no idea my post would get people having discussions on it.

[Suomiboi]

wow, had no idea my post would get people having discussions on it.

Well it's your fault writing an interesting topic.

[sajuuknightfall]

if anything it just means you will have to swing that bat a few more times to get them down and finish them off. something like State of the decay try to do but fail because the zombies could get killed by one shot from a bat. so in short make it so i need to hit the Zed more times and ill be happy. 

[armyman_83]

So long as they are visibly wearing a helmet so I know who to avoid--I am cool with that. If you can't tell that would be lame.  

[Alphalfamire]

 

wow, had no idea my post would get people having discussions on it.

Well it's your fault writing an interesting topic.

 

haha, thanks! 

if anything it just means you will have to swing that bat a few more times to get them down and finish them off. something like State of the decay try to do but fail because the zombies could get killed by one shot from a bat. so in short make it so i need to hit the Zed more times and ill be happy. 

when i say resistant i meant more like 15-20 (4-8 with visor up) hits with a bat, and about 8-12 (2-4 with visor up) with an axe, if you've ever held a riot helmet you'd understand why. this is why knives would be used, because that way you can stab up under the visor. 

So long as they are visibly wearing a helmet so I know who to avoid--I am cool with that. If you can't tell that would be lame.  

Lol yeah it'd suck if you couldn't distinguish them from other zombies. 

[doomblood66]

So long as they are visibly wearing a helmet so I know who to avoid--I am cool with that. If you can't tell that would be lame.  

yeah