Zombie mode

[Topan]

Please for the love of god remove the zombie mode. When I die, I want to respawn and go to try to get my gear back. I dont want to respawn as a stinking zombie. Does anyone actualy still appreciate this? Playing as a zombie? Yes, you may say "go and die, raise a horde and let zombies kill you".... I just died on a Taviana server and spent almost an hour running around looking for a zombie to kill me..... Not fun... Not fun at all....

[cen]

Agreed, it adds nothing to the game.

[vbawol]

Its punishment for dieing while infected... So your not supposed to like it. We could easily make it optional server side but that is not what the OP is asking for.

[cen]

Optional would be fantastic.

 

Also AWOL, any idea what DotJosh is doing with the epoch panthera mod on commander? I love it! Just wondering if that's the trend moving forward or not?

[Tobias Solem]

It's just a poorly implemented game mechanic.

Right now all it does is making you annoyed/frustrated at the game for wasting your time. 

Either re-design it to make it more of a challenge/feature with some kind of gameplay element or at least allow us to remove the option.

 

A way to improve it is to give you some sort of "mission" as a zombie, and some reward for completing it. That way it becomes meaningful.

Right now it's pretty much the same tedium as getting a Kamenka spawn and having to look for a way to kill yourself. 

[wokkelwakker]

It would be nice to have good "control" over zombie hordes (they follow you, follow your orders). That way it would be fun to hunt down players with your own massive zombie horde :)

[Axle]

It's just a poorly implemented game mechanic.

Right now all it does is making you annoyed/frustrated at the game for wasting your time. 

Either re-design it to make it more of a challenge/feature with some kind of gameplay element or at least allow us to remove the option.

 

A way to improve it is to give you some sort of "mission" as a zombie, and some reward for completing it. That way it becomes meaningful.

Right now it's pretty much the same tedium as getting a Kamenka spawn and having to look for a way to kill yourself. 

 

Honestly the only person you should be mad at is yourself for letting it happen.

[Eegore]

"Honestly the only person you should be mad at is yourself for letting it happen."

 

  Yeah I was thinking the same thing.  Mission rewards for getting infected AND getting killed? 

 

  DayZ used to be about how much it sucked to die.

[veeshan]

Making an server-side optional flag would be helpful for zombie mode. It serves no purpose on a PVE server.

[Tobias Solem]

Honestly the only person you should be mad at is yourself for letting it happen.

 

I guess you can excuse any poor game mechanic with the same rhetoric, does not change the fact that it is a poor game-mechanic and game design though.

 

Respawning as an infected adds absolutely nothing to the game as it is, you can literally do nothing, it's like respawning without the ability to accomplish anything.

If you woke up as your own last body and could not control your actions, ran toward other players (perhaps that just killed you) - that way it would at least add to the atmosphere or gameplay. Dying, losing your gear and having to restart in and of itself is well punishment enough for messing up.

[vbawol]

It is optional now: 

https://github.com/vbawol/DayZ-Epoch/blob/master/CHANGE%20LOG%201.0.4.txt#L17

 

fisk, You seem to have a poor understanding about how long it takes to make something like this mod. Given time I would love to flush out all of my concepts for the player zombie but for now this is the way it is.

[Guest]

Well vbawol from the people that do understand what it takes to make something like this-I think it's safe to say a huge thanks from all of us. Seriously amazing work man. At times it might seem like it but we all really do appreciate all the work you put in. 

[cen]

Yea looking like a great update guys!

[Tobias Solem]

It is optional now: 

https://github.com/vbawol/DayZ-Epoch/blob/master/CHANGE%20LOG%201.0.4.txt#L17

 

fisk, You seem to have a poor understanding about how long it takes to make something like this mod. Given time I would love to flush out all of my concepts for the player zombie but for now this is the way it is.

 

The time and effort involved in making it as a totality is hardly relevant to one part of it that is defunct. You acknowledge it yourself by just saying that it's just a concept. Then it definitely should be as it is now, optional.

 

Your handling of versions of Epoch is a little bit unusual, often a development process with versions prior to 1.0 are alpha and beta stages, where alpha stages usually are adding features and beta stages refining them. As we are at version 1.0.3.1 currently and there still are features in beta phase it is a bit hard to know exactly what to expect here. Some features in Epoch are very well fleshed out and work very well and are great design and provide probably the best gameplay there is in the DayZ-mod world, even better in many ways than DayZero (which I believe has much better optimized code). But others (like the infected mechanic) are what I would best describe as 'darlings'. 

 

I think like most do that Epoch is the only DayZ:mod worth playing currently, and that's saying something - but being able to identify a part of it that is wrong and not running into defensive nonsense like "Well if you did this or that it's your own fault". Game mechanics and gameplay are still worth to analyze and criticise, that is what this thread is all about. I think the OP is 100% right, and that has nothing to do with the rest of the mod.

[Cash]

I am really excited for this update, my friends and I are almost finished play testing our concept and we're having so much fun that we want to open it up to the public.I think we'll wait for this update though. Heck the base objects drawing in before the vehicles is enough to wait for. Lost a heli and 3 vehicles due to the Heli bouncing under the heli pad we built after a server restart :)

[Topan]

Its punishment for dieing while infected... So your not supposed to like it. We could easily make it optional server side but that is not what the OP is asking for.

Lol, isnt death itself a punishement? :D

 

It is optional now: 

https://github.com/vbawol/DayZ-Epoch/blob/master/CHANGE%20LOG%201.0.4.txt#L17

 

fisk, You seem to have a poor understanding about how long it takes to make something like this mod. Given time I would love to flush out all of my concepts for the player zombie but for now this is the way it is.

Awesome, thanks a lot :)

[Mercules]

I guess you can excuse any poor game mechanic with the same rhetoric, does not change the fact that it is a poor game-mechanic and game design though.

 

Respawning as an infected adds absolutely nothing to the game as it is, you can literally do nothing, it's like respawning without the ability to accomplish anything.

If you woke up as your own last body and could not control your actions, ran toward other players (perhaps that just killed you) - that way it would at least add to the atmosphere or gameplay. Dying, losing your gear and having to restart in and of itself is well punishment enough for messing up.

 

Solution... Carry antibiotics. The mechanic isn't horrible, it's a fun little quirk and easter egg. If you are dying while infected often enough for it to be annoying you are either annoyed very easily or dying multiple times while infected. If it is the former, learn some patience. If it is the later, learn to play.

[vbawol]

The time and effort involved in making it as a totality is hardly relevant to one part of it that is defunct. You acknowledge it yourself by just saying that it's just a concept. Then it definitely should be as it is now, optional.

 

Your handling of versions of Epoch is a little bit unusual, often a development process with versions prior to 1.0 are alpha and beta stages, where alpha stages usually are adding features and beta stages refining them. As we are at version 1.0.3.1 currently and there still are features in beta phase it is a bit hard to know exactly what to expect here. Some features in Epoch are very well fleshed out and work very well and are great design and provide probably the best gameplay there is in the DayZ-mod world, even better in many ways than DayZero (which I believe has much better optimized code). But others (like the infected mechanic) are what I would best describe as 'darlings'. 

 

I think like most do that Epoch is the only DayZ:mod worth playing currently, and that's saying something - but being able to identify a part of it that is wrong and not running into defensive nonsense like "Well if you did this or that it's your own fault". Game mechanics and gameplay are still worth to analyze and criticise, that is what this thread is all about. I think the OP is 100% right, and that has nothing to do with the rest of the mod.

 

This topic stems from the fact that you seem to think that being infected should not come with any consequences and we do. It is true the player zombie mechanic is not finished but does work as intended. It was never meant to be "fun" and was always to be more of a punishment for dying while infected. In normal game play you do not just get infected and die for no reason. There are only a few reasons I can think of that a person would be consistently infected to even have this be an issue.. I.E. Self Bloodbags 

I think your being overly critical as I work on this mod in my free time because I want to and do not get paid a penny for my time. It has actually has cost me hundreds of dollars for dev servers, web and file hosting and without the generous support from those that have donated it would have been an even bigger burden and I would have likely not even been able to continue for this long.

 

Now that DayZ SA is out I am working hard on a totally new Epoch Mod for A3. Only recently because of the help of other community developers we are still able to push out patches for DayZ Epoch. It is up to the community now if they want to improve this mechanic the framework is there and functioning.

 

Solution... Carry antibiotics. The mechanic isn't horrible, it's a fun little quirk and easter egg. If you are dying while infected often enough for it to be annoying you are either annoyed very easily or dying multiple times while infected. If it is the former, learn some patience. If it is the later, learn to play.

Amen!

[Tobias Solem]

This topic stems from the fact that you seem to think that being infected should not come with any consequences and we do. It is true the player zombie mechanic is not finished but does work as intended. It was never meant to be "fun" and was always to be more of a punishment for dying while infected. In normal game play you do not just get infected and die for no reason. There are only a few reasons I can think of that a person would be consistently infected to even have this be an issue.. I.E. Self Bloodbags 

I think your being overly critical as I work on this mod in my free time because I want to and do not get paid a penny for my time. It has actually has cost me hundreds of dollars for dev servers, web and file hosting and without the generous support from those that have donated it would have been an even bigger burden and I would have likely not even been able to continue for this long.

 

Now that DayZ SA is out I am working hard on a totally new Epoch Mod for A3. Only recently because of the help of other community developers we are still able to push out patches for DayZ Epoch. It is up to the community now if they want to improve this mechanic the framework is there and functioning.

 

Amen!

 

Being infected makes you lose your blood consistently, it makes you shake and it makes you have to prioritize finding antibiotics. If it is "working as it is intended" then it's still bad. Punishment is dying in itself, possibly rising from your "dead" body as an infected and being unable to control yourself until you get shot would be an additional mechanic that would make sense. Respawning on the coast as a zombie is just "wat"? Why would you spawn at the coast? If you seek to punish the player for their stupidity of getting infected, then make the infection severity worse, make them contagious (to make them less interesting to team with), make them unable to control their actions (dropping weapons and running like a zombie toward other players) - stuff like that would make sense. Here's a new spawn at the coast as a zombie where you hope to find a group of zombies to suicide at isn't punishment for getting infected, it's punishment for playing the game.

 

Yeah, I get it that you make this mod in your free time. That you spend money doing it, still - that's your choice. I appreciate the work. I will still call bad design bad design. If you don't like criticism, then you're in for a bad break. Just look at people who flame rocket and call him names and spam his twitter/reddit threads with foul words and wishing him dead and all that jazz. Having someone call a little portion of your game design poor and providing an argument why and asking for it to be optional and offering suggestions is the game development equivalent of a compliment. Some ideas and feedback might be poor, but saying I know nothing about game/mod development because I criticise a tiny portion of your mod, and acting like I just told you I thought your work on the mod as an entirety was wasted is an overreaction/oversensitivity more than me being overly critical.

 

I'm not getting money for providing feedback either, or for promoting your mod at ZNU and looking to/asking Tansien to develop it further with DayZero. But I still do it, because just like you I am passionate about this mod, and I want it to be better.

[BetterDeadThanZed]

Solution... Carry antibiotics. The mechanic isn't horrible, it's a fun little quirk and easter egg. If you are dying while infected often enough for it to be annoying you are either annoyed very easily or dying multiple times while infected. If it is the former, learn some patience. If it is the later, learn to play.

 

Sometimes the killing blow by a zed is what infects you. I can't even remember the last time a zed infected me, though. The only times I can recall being infected was by a self-blood bag, for which I promptly took one of the two antibiotics I carry on me at all times.

[Mercules]

Being infected makes you lose your blood consistently, it makes you shake and it makes you have to prioritize finding antibiotics. If it is "working as it is intended" then it's still bad. 

 

How are you even getting infected in this game? I can think of two times since I started playing Epoch months and months ago that I have been infected, both in the first few weeks of playing. First time was eating "Unknown" can of food. I immediately took my antibiotics. Second time was in a trader city. Some OTHER person ate something like Bio-Meat or Unknown Food or drank unboiled water and started to cough right next to me and immediately infected me so I took my anti-biotics. Wait... a third time I didn't even think about. I was in the rain and crafting/building and pushed it too far. After that I only crafted next to a fire when it was raining, cold, and nighttime. In all cases you take your antibiotics. 

I can't imagine not prioritizing finding anti-biotics BEFORE I am infected. That is a bit like waiting till you break your leg to find Morphine. When I spawn I try to make my way to the nearest location that might have medical supplies. That comes RIGHT AFTER I get my hands on a weapon of some sort. Remember that military spawns and many other places will spawn anti-biotics. Typically I find myself with too many anti-biotics and sell a bunch of them to traders when my stockpile grows too large, so the thought that someone might not have them on them... but might have OTHER gear they want back just never occurred to me. 

 

[Tobias Solem]

Why you keep asuming that I get infected I dunno.

I don't whine about it because I get infectd often, I whine about it because it's bad design.

[Mercules]

Because the only way you spawn as a Zombie is if you die while infected. I've spawned as a zombie once... On purpose. Drank tons of unboiled water till I was infected and had a friend shoot me. 


It isn't a bad design. It is a funny little Easter-Egg that you should run into maybe once every few months if unlucky, or if you do it on purpose. If it is happening to you frequently then the point I am making is...

 

[Topan]

Oooh, here it is, the "I am so cool it cant happen to me" attitude :D Ofc youre basicaly all right guys, I dont get infected that much either and I always carry two antibiotics in case I somehow do. But thats not the point. The point is how much it sucks when it actualy happens.

 

Last time I died I was shot by a bandit AI. I wasnt infected, I didnt blood bag before, I didnt eat anything bad, I didnt have a fever. I have no clue how I could have respawned as a zombie. I dont want to play as a zombie. I want to play as a survivor, try to get my gear back etc.

 

Funny easter-egg? Please! Punishement for dieing infected? Seriously? I love being punished for playing a game - because thats what it is. The infection is part of the game, if I dont treat it, I die. Isnt that enough? Why dont you punish people for getting shot, dieing of starvation or thirst? Because thats exactly the same. I want to spent the little time a day that I have for playing games by playing my favourite and awesome mod :D Being forced to spent my time to play something boring and potentionaly very time consuming is "punishement for playing the game".

 

Anyway Im happy that this is now optional and I hope most of the servers will have it switched off, because IN MY OPINION it really is a pointless and badly designed feature. :D

[Firefly]

I carry AB's if get infected. Rarely from Zombie attacks but from falling or being shot and a lot of the time there is nothing I can do about it because of the incredible stupid, pointless and annoying knock out timer. Or the fact it brought me down to being on such low health I bled out. 

 

I would much rather die straight away than sit staring at my screen at my avatar lying on the ground for an eternity only to die anyway. Not to mention the flopping about he does trying to get up, I appreciate the animation fixing removing the constantly drawing my gun but if the engine can't handle knock out in a proper way it should be removed or allow us to set the unconscious timer to be lower. 

 

With regards to the player zombie, it was funny the first time and then became incredibly frustrating since you have to kill yourself. It is worse on Panthera where you are often spawned in the wilderness with nothing nearby. Thank you for the removal option.