Ideas and real life factors that could make DayZ more realistic (which could prevent shooting on sight in the long run)

[carbine781 (DayZ) 131]

Ideas and real life factors that could make DayZ both much more realistic and intense (TL;DR SUMMARY AT THE BOTTOM)

Ok here are a few ideas that I had to make DayZ a little more realistic.

 

First, we will start out with the following picture that was posted on the old DayZ mod website:

 

 

Notice something strange about this picture? Probably the strange thing is that this has most likely never been seen in DayZ before; a giant zombie horde roaming throughout Chernogorsk in the late night. Mostly the giant zombie horde part.

 

Most zombie hordes are created when some idiot fires their weapon in a big city. Even then, the hordes don't become this big. I do believe that DayZ should naturally create giant hordes in these giant cities. Maybe even a horde on the country side between you and that one airfield your heading to:

 

 

In the end of the day, I've had some great encounters with players, but I haven't had any real memories of zombies. I wish I had a memory of sneaking around a zombie horde with my friend to loot a city, only to be caught and to have to run and gun our way out. Unfortunately, unless they are glitching through walls, zombies really aren't much of a threat.

 

Completely contradicting what I just said, a problem with zombies currently is also that they are just too powerful... which is weird for me to say. They take forever to kill sometimes, and they make you bleed almost instantly. I think that they should increase the quantity of zombies tremendously, and make them a little 'squishier' (easier to kill).

 

You are probably wondering what my point was just now since i just said they aren't threatening, but they are. Zombies aren't threatening right now because there aren't any around. Maybe a couple tanky ones that you can out run. thats it. If they add giant hordes of zombies, you can't enter a city in general, so they should nerf the zombies and add more of them.

 

 

 

Now, the last thing i want to talk about is sound.

 

I did a little bit of research and based on how loud a certain sound is and the landscape it must travel over, sound can travel very far, sometimes for miles. I believe that sound should have a big impact on gameplay. When you fire a shot in real life, it will most likely echo for a few kilometers. I think that sound in DayZ should have the same effect. Here is a little graph on how I believe sound should work (P.S. it would also be cool if birds flew away from loud sound areas): 

 

 

 

And last but not least, how all of this could affect shooting on sight.

 

1 gun shot in a big city or large airfield or something like that = Giant 50+ horde after you and any nearbye players. You have to run for your life or unload every single bullet in your inventory (and you still might not get away)

1 gun shot in small city = some zombies, nearbye players and zombies. Not as risky, but not safe either.

1 gun shot in forest / plains = sound travels very far, alerting players within a 3-5ish kms of you and zombies within 1/2-1 km. (and possibly some birds will fly up also indicating an area). Although this may not seem like much, if you are at a crashed helicopter in a very wide field and you fire a shot, nearbye players will most likely discover the helicopter also if they follow the sound; also being in a wide open field and having a bunch of players head over to your position where you have nowhere to hide isn't very safe either, now is it?

 

TL;DR SUMMARY - may look long, takes 1 minute to read.

Zombies should not be as tanky, and should be able to be taken down with 1 pristine axe /knife hit. They also shouldn't cause bleeding on a very healthy player instantly (because if you think about it, unless they are Left 4 Dead Tanks, zombies will most likely not grow a bunch of muscles that could act as armor)

 

Giant zombie hordes should spawn. Hordes should mostly spawn in cities, and should be almost unavoidable unless you prone your way through. 1 gunshot shot and the entire 50+ horde is after you.

 

Sound should play a big aspect on gameplay. Sound should disperse over a few kms, and based on how far it travels, affect nearbye players and sounds (diagram above)

 

 

 

 

And that is it for now. Thanks for reading.

Carbine781

 

UPDATED IDEA:

 

If zombies were to be more powerful, I think that they should also flinch/ get knocked back when you shoot or hit them. If you hit them with an axe, they can lose their balance and stumble. If you shoot them, it could slow them for a second and make them flinch.

 

Also, for some reason, i'm a fan of the 'Fast and weak' zombies that are seen in the mod (and movies like 28 days later) then the slow and tanky zombies. Adds more thrill to running away from them in my opinion.

Edited October 7, 2014 by carbine781

[swingbr 18]

Personally, at this very moment, hordes would be terrible. Considering the fact that they are so frakkin quick (current patch), and the fact that they detect you from a gazillion miles away, just... no.

 

Here's what I think, and it's somewhat the opposite of what you are saying.

INCREASE the zombies' health, make it much harder to kill them, fix the zombies' path-finding abilities so they don't glitch through walls, and slow them down. Give them a medium jogging speed when they have been alerted. Once you do all of those things, you can finally create hordes of zombies.  

 

In addition, zombies should not be able to be taken out in 1 hit. Just... no. The only exception to this, is headshots. Now, here's the table that should be implemented for "zombie health."

 

Headshots - 1 to 2 shot kill, depending on the firearm you are using. .22s will need more than one shot to kill a zombie. Axes should kill in 1 hit for headshots, as well as any other good melee weapon (Farming Hoe, Pitchfork maybe) Baseball bats are interesting. I want them to be stronger, I'd say 3-5 hits would be fine for the bat.

 

Body shots - Depending on the caliber of the gun, a kill should be 2-10 shots to kill. For example - 3 .22 rounds should not be able to kill a zombie. Sorry. You'll need quite a bit of ammo to take down a zombie with .22 rounds. For 7.62 caliber guns, I think 2 rounds is a good amount to kill. For 5.56, It should be 4-5 rounds to kill. .45acp should take 4-5 rounds - .357 should be 2-3, 9mm should be 6-8. And the exception to the 2 shots to kill is the shotgun. As long as you are fairly close to the zombie, you should be able to kill a zombie in 1 hit. Perhaps they'll bring back Slugs to make the shotgun a much more attractive weapon in the future.

Melee weapons... oh, 2-4 hits for axes, depending on what type you are using, baseball bats might take 8-10 hits, farming tools might be around 4-6 hits, etc etc.

 

 

Now, personally on your whole "sound stage" graph, it would put too much strain on the engine and in my opinion is just not possible with this engine.

 

 

To close - you're trying to make it easier to kill zombies and increase their numbers, but why not give bambi's the ability to run for them and "geared" players a challenge, whether or not they are actually looking for one or not (sneaking through a city and accidently getting detected). The only thing that I want them to remove is the unlimited sprint feature. Now, there shouldn't be a stamina bar - but instead there should be a "I'm having trouble breathing" notifier when you have sprinted for a long time, or "I can't breathe" when you continued to run after you got the first notification. Zombies should be a little bit faster than your jogging speed, but they shouldn't be as fast as the sprint speed. Sprint distance should be reasonable, but not too reasonable.

 

Anyway, that's my two cents on what you just said.

Edited March 25, 2014 by swingbr

[SGT. Kalme 106]

I don't want to type more walls of text for others to read but I would be delighted to see a horde going nuts, chasing me down in cities and towns. Would make it much more immerse to sense the danger that they would possess.

 

Right now (as of previous patch, haven't yet tried out new one) I could have distracted zombies in few minutes in woods and on hills, no big deal. Since I don't interact with players that much and if I do, I do it the way they couldn't threat me right away, I feel like zombies could be much bigger danger. Especially because with right now, looting high-value loot spawns is easy without player encounters.

 

However, they still should be strong. Like, no superhuman strong but not just like body shot = instant death. Headshot in one shot would make sense.

[agentneo 337]

Support the OP, yes , great idea. it needs to become a real zombie apocalypse, not a bandit PVP-deathmatch which is where it currently is.

[Kenny Kyle 138]

@swingbr: booooring

 

 

>zombie horde+rag doll physik+ car.<

 

you need no wall of text XD

[Snivel 12]

Why not having both types of zombies ?

Could be interesting having a zombie horde with fast fragiles zombies (most likely unequiped civilians) and slower, hard-hitting and harder to take down ? (will most likely be military zombies with body protections and helmets)

This opens for a wide variety of tactics, for example one human aggro the horde, drives them away while his friends kill and loot (when this will be implemented) the military slower zombies without having to worry about the faster group. This will also force the players to adapt their tactics, playstyle to the encountered zombie(s).

 

The slower and faster zombies should not apply only to hordes, also to the lone zombie appearing in small towns.

And of course, military zombies would be more common in military zones.

[willhelm 85]

The developers misunderstood at what I think the community wanted. We don't want to shoot a zombie and then eighteen more come, we want slow moving, large hordes of zombies and maybe one or two stragglers

ATM, this would kill day

After optimisation and when sound/no clipping is fixed, yes

[thefriendlydutchman 159]

YES you sir got my beans, also zombie spawns in appartment buildings (for awesome jump scares) and when cars get implented the possibility for zombies to hang on cars

 

 

 

[carbine781 (DayZ) 131]

A little update to my opinions:

I am also a bigger fan of the fast and weak type of zombies (such as the ones seen in the mod and in 28 days later) then the slow and tanky zombies. Personally, running away from them adds more of a thrill as you can't really stop and think or they will catch up to you.

 

Also, as for my sound idea, I just think it would be cool if I was walking with a friend throughout a field somewhere up north. It would be night time, and we would think we were alone until we heard an echo of a gunshot far away. I think adding stuff like this (basically my sound idea) would be really fun, but as @swingbr pointed out, it could be intensive on the engine. However, and excuse me if I'm wrong, but if this was all run on the servers and not individual clients, it wouldn't be so computer intensive. Like when a sound is made, a lets say 1 KM and 3 KM radius is formed, and people/ zombies within those certain radius' will be affected differently (ex: A player will receive a sound file of a far away gun shot).

 

I also believe that zombies should get knocked back/flinch/stumble from the force of a bullet, axe swing, etc.

 

Sorry for the additional text wall. These are just my thoughts.

Edited March 26, 2014 by carbine781

[thedogfoodyayho 295]

I like lots of squishy zeds. 4-5 .45 shots sound good untill there are 70 in Olsha and 400 in cherno,  at which point looting is impossible and guns would be yseless

[charliepow 100]

You raise a very good point about zombies in large cities, because the majority of KoS deaths occur in hotspots like that. This would make city looting a lot more dangerous and you wouldn't be able to shoot at players because you'd most certainly die.

[carbine781 (DayZ) 131]

You raise a very good point about zombies in large cities, because the majority of KoS deaths occur in hotspots like that. This would make city looting a lot more dangerous and you wouldn't be able to shoot at players because you'd most certainly die.

I agree with you 100%. I also think people will have to resort to following a survivor out of a city or into a building and then instead of killing on sight, they will have to rob them for loot.

[carbine781 (DayZ) 131]

I like lots of squishy zeds. 4-5 .45 shots sound good untill there are 70 in Olsha and 400 in cherno,  at which point looting is impossible and guns would be yseless

That is something that military guns could provide; 1 shot zombie kills. Therefore, it would be a little 'easier' to kill zombie hordes... but still not the safest idea in the world.

 

Also, based on what weapon you are using, I think it would be cool if zombies got knocked back by them. Ex: You hit them with an axe, they may flinch. If you shoot them, they may stumble and lose their balance, and a second later, they will get back up, etc.

[thedogfoodyayho 295]

That is something that military guns could provide; 1 shot zombie kills. Therefore, it would be a little 'easier' to kill zombie hordes... but still not the safest idea in the world.

 

Also, based on what weapon you are using, I think it would be cool if zombies got knocked back by them. Ex: You hit them with an axe, they may flinch. If you shoot them, they may stumble and lose their balance, and a second later, they will get back up, etc.

Mm... not sure what you mean by only military guns being one-shot zombie kills... there shouldn't be a damage difference between an SKS and an AKM. If thats not what you mean just ignore this.

[carbine781 (DayZ) 131]

Mm... not sure what you mean by only military guns being one-shot zombie kills... there shouldn't be a damage difference between an SKS and an AKM. If thats not what you mean just ignore this.

You raise a good point. I guess bullet size, where you hit a zombie with said bullet, etc, should all have different factors on how hard it is to kill a zombie.

[TwistedKing 0]

I entirely agree with the OP, this would add a great dynamic, the sound and the zombie flinching with hits.

 

 Im not sure if it is possible but it would be nice to see real impact damage to the zombies, like if you hit them in the arm with an axe they lose and arm, you hit them in the leg they lose a leg and are slower.

I think it would just bring a better feel to the overall combat with zombies. If that cant happen that sucks but really want Carbines sound idea and zombie flinch implemented would be amazing.

 

Forgot to add yes zombie spawns in apartment like Jorn said. Would be awsome and keep people on there toes

Edited April 8, 2014 by TwistedKing

[akafugitive 244]

Personally, at this very moment, hordes would be terrible. Considering the fact that they are so frakkin quick (current patch), and the fact that they detect you from a gazillion miles away, just... no.

Here's what I think, and it's somewhat the opposite of what you are saying.

INCREASE the zombies' health, make it much harder to kill them, fix the zombies' path-finding abilities so they don't glitch through walls, and slow them down. Give them a medium jogging speed when they have been alerted. Once you do all of those things, you can finally create hordes of zombies.

In addition, zombies should not be able to be taken out in 1 hit. Just... no. The only exception to this, is headshots. Now, here's the table that should be implemented for "zombie health."

Headshots - 1 to 2 shot kill, depending on the firearm you are using. .22s will need more than one shot to kill a zombie. Axes should kill in 1 hit for headshots, as well as any other good melee weapon (Farming Hoe, Pitchfork maybe) Baseball bats are interesting. I want them to be stronger, I'd say 3-5 hits would be fine for the bat.

Body shots - Depending on the caliber of the gun, a kill should be 2-10 shots to kill. For example - 3 .22 rounds should not be able to kill a zombie. Sorry. You'll need quite a bit of ammo to take down a zombie with .22 rounds. For 7.62 caliber guns, I think 2 rounds is a good amount to kill. For 5.56, It should be 4-5 rounds to kill. .45acp should take 4-5 rounds - .357 should be 2-3, 9mm should be 6-8. And the exception to the 2 shots to kill is the shotgun. As long as you are fairly close to the zombie, you should be able to kill a zombie in 1 hit. Perhaps they'll bring back Slugs to make the shotgun a much more attractive weapon in the future.

Melee weapons... oh, 2-4 hits for axes, depending on what type you are using, baseball bats might take 8-10 hits, farming tools might be around 4-6 hits, etc etc.

Now, personally on your whole "sound stage" graph, it would put too much strain on the engine and in my opinion is just not possible with this engine.

To close - you're trying to make it easier to kill zombies and increase their numbers, but why not give bambi's the ability to run for them and "geared" players a challenge, whether or not they are actually looking for one or not (sneaking through a city and accidently getting detected). The only thing that I want them to remove is the unlimited sprint feature. Now, there shouldn't be a stamina bar - but instead there should be a "I'm having trouble breathing" notifier when you have sprinted for a long time, or "I can't breathe" when you continued to run after you got the first notification. Zombies should be a little bit faster than your jogging speed, but they shouldn't be as fast as the sprint speed. Sprint distance should be reasonable, but not too reasonable.

Anyway, that's my two cents on what you just said.

They have ballistics in the game, zombies should follow ballistics damage calculations, not preset hit #. A .45 is more then capable of putting them down with a double tap at 50m. Saying a .22 should not kill instantly with a head shot or that a .556 is always less effective then a 7.62 just does not make sence with ballistics.

Just bring them to the blood level matched with the player with lower chances to be stunned or knocked over from injury

Edited April 8, 2014 by akafugitive

[CR0C0P 3]

I agree with that, and another very zombies !

[jdizzy 15]

Hordes have been suggested time and time again.

[jdizzy 15]

YES you sir got my beans, also zombie spawns in appartment buildings (for awesome jump scares) and when cars get implented the possibility for zombies to hang on cars

 

 

 

No, just no. There is over a hundred DayZ rip-offs these days. We don't need to rip-off a rip-off even though it might be a good rip-off such as State of Decay.

[thefriendlydutchman 159]

No, just no. There is over a hundred DayZ rip-offs these days. We don't need to rip-off a rip-off even though it might be a good rip-off such as State of Decay.

I don't want to make a rip off just the zombie climbing on cars idea like if you crash into a horde with your car and the zombies stop you in the middle of the horde you push the zombies away by hitting the gas but some zombies climbed on your car.

[kylefinlayson1997 19]

In the past, I have given all my weapons away, along with any backpack and useful junk. Why? Because I was trying to grasp at the core DayZ experience which is player on player interaction. One time, I walked into Elektro, nothing except a worn hoodie and the black jeans I spawned in. I made it as far as the outlying fire station before being shot approximately 20 times, even after I had fallen. 

 

People camp cities, because they know they'd get killed by experienced players anywhere else, and because they know fresh spawns go there to gear up. For some reason, they kill on sight purely because they can. They must get DayZ and Call of Duty mixed up while refilling their milk cup. Zombie hordes, in cities, would be a great detriment to campers. It could be a way to finally balance out the game so that people are less inclined to shoot an unarmed player for no reason other than they can't shoot anyone else and survive. 

[ColdHeat 59]

I absolutely agree with you OP and I think it's also important to agree that KoS is a harmful phenomenon to the game and not something that has to be a part of the game like bandits do. Bandits =/= KoS. While some sort of danger & risk that emits from other survivors as well as conflicts makes out a big part of the attractiveness of this whole post-apocalyptic-zombie scenario, so does teamwork for the sake to survive. Unfortunately both contradict with each other and if one side has too much weigth the other suffers under it. As currently a felt 80% of players KoS, people usually quickly learn that in order to survive you better either avoid people or KoS as well. That's when we have a downward spiral that changes an open world survival horror game into an open world team deathmatch game.

 

We can only hope that the team manages to make zombies the way they should be: a challenge.. Only when zombies become a challenge and when you have to face them in order to get food or good stuff in order to help you survive you have a good reason to actually team up. The other option to survive would be settlements where you have to actually grow food - which is hard enough by itself to actually live from it and then you have bandit groups to defend against which you can barely do alone... because these bandits actually might do their name justice and want what you have instead of just killing you for fun.

 

So a system could be:

 

You can barely survive by hunting with selfmade spears or bows or the remaining few canned goods that you find in single houses and villages -> cities spawn rare guns but are a high risk to enter yet would make hunting much easier -> you need some buddies and wits to make it into a settlement and out alive with full hands. Being unable to run away from a zombie horde while fully loaded because you get mighty slow would help.

 

OR

 

You farm your stuff but you're a stationary target and therefor you need people to help you defend that settlement which profit from it by getting a somewhat realiable food source and safety as well -> in order to defend you the best you can against bandits or roaming zombie mobs you might need weapons, tools and materials from a city.

 

In both cases having a car for example and maybe even pimped in the A-Team style as further upgrades (and if you're really lucky a helicopter) would help you greatly to get that gear.. and also make you much more attractive to bandits which therefore makes you want to team up again with a selected few in order to defend what's yours as good as you can in order to survive. This would be some sort of an upward spiral and those are the things that I miss currently. Some might come and some might not as we're still in an alpha but this is the best time to talk about what we really want so it can actually make it into the game and the thread of zombies is possibly the most important not player related variable in it. So let's hope they get the problem with the zombies done and don't just try to fix it in a rough-and-ready-manner

like making them unbelieveable fast or powerful.

 

 

TL;DR: Fix those zombies, add important survival aspects, make good guns only available through teamwork (the better the gun the more effort required) and that should be it

Edited April 29, 2014 by ColdHeat

[carbine781 (DayZ) 131]

In the past, I have given all my weapons away, along with any backpack and useful junk. Why? Because I was trying to grasp at the core DayZ experience which is player on player interaction. One time, I walked into Elektro, nothing except a worn hoodie and the black jeans I spawned in. I made it as far as the outlying fire station before being shot approximately 20 times, even after I had fallen. 

 

People camp cities, because they know they'd get killed by experienced players anywhere else, and because they know fresh spawns go there to gear up. For some reason, they kill on sight purely because they can. They must get DayZ and Call of Duty mixed up while refilling their milk cup. Zombie hordes, in cities, would be a great detriment to campers. It could be a way to finally balance out the game so that people are less inclined to shoot an unarmed player for no reason other than they can't shoot anyone else and survive. 

Lets just hope that the hordes don't drop the game by 20 FPS...lol  :facepalm:

 

The one problem I have with giving my items away is simply that like you did, it seems that the player interaction was more 'forced' then natural. It was very nice of you to do this, and if you enjoy doing this, I don't have a problem with it. However, the developers need to make player interaction 'needed' for survival. There could be 2 ways to do it: be friendly and team up, or rob somebody and take their gear (firing weapons not recommended if there are massive hordes :D )

 

Anyway, thank you for the post. +1 Beans

[arvinzd 10]

1+ this for sure will be implemented after dayz engine changing(mentioned at dean hall roadmap) ,for more player,more zombies, 64 bit and directx 11 architecture and zombie behaviour is fixed and much improved.