Playing as the Zombie: Dissection

[transcendenttyrant]

So, after playing as a zombie (and as a survivor in the latest version), I feel like we should have a thread to comment on how we feel about it.

After I played a few goes as a zombie master (which involved me getting a gun to the face repeatedly, despite having 60hp), I decided to work out what the trouble was with my playstyle.

The main trouble was that I wasn't waiting long enough. I was trying to do a survivor-esque run and gun attitude, whilst zombies seem to be "wait until everyone is asleep and then go and slaughter some random guy, rinse and repeat on consecutive nights". This attitude marginally increased my kill percentage (technically it increased it be infinity%, but hush), but it was dull as shit and only resulted in me wanting to go back to playing Survivor.

In order to make the game any fun, I had to bump up my speed to about 110%. As you can imagine, this was a bit irritating, as speed affects how many actions you get per turn too. All I wanted was a way to be able to catch up to fleeing survivors, and instead I ended up as basically an invincible low level zombie.

The main trouble, as I see it, with playing zombie mode is a combination of the character growth system and the inability to do the required actions FOR the character growth.

I don't know if I'm the only one, but I noticed a LOT of survivors fled when I attacked them - and this is something I don't see a lot of in Survivor Mode. Groups seemed to flee less, but then I'd just get gangraped into a rotting pile on the ground.

This led to me, with my decreased speed, to not be able to catch the survivors to kill them except when I was EXTREMELY lucky. A useful bonus to playing zombie mode would be either a movement speed increase akin to running in survivor mode (which would sadly not fix a lot of problems, but it'd be a start) or an ability to slow down survivors. A combined option would be best, but the latter is the most necessary. How am I meant to kill someone if I can't catch them? Even worse if they're plugging 9mm bullets in my brain.

I found the best way to play was modding the game to give zombies between 105% to 110% run speed, starting as a survivor with Martial Arts, getting killed and then going wild with crazy unarmed bonuses. This caused the game to be fun and difficult, especially if I started off with a small amount of zombies (hell, the hardest part was probably finding the guys!), as I could spread the infection, evolve and generally wreak havok.

A few other suggestions from playing as the Zombie:-

• Allow NPCs / player characters to keep the items they're wearing (armour etc) when they die. I don't see why characters strip when they become zombies. It also allows a much more interesting experience when CHAR or the National Guard get killed.
  
• Give zombies their own unique skill tree. Allow survivor skills to transfer (as in, change to equivalent zombie skills) over when they die, with a chance based off of how high the skill is. Full firearms skill when you die will give you a definite "Memories of Gunfire" skill as a zombie, which allows you to use guns, no matter how poorly. Shot enemies don't turn into zombies, of course.
  
• Allow zombies to feed off of the dead, but make it take awhile. Far too often, I'd get shot and then have no way to get life back. Horribly annoying. If I was able to retreat to my lair, preferably dragging a corpse with me and then feed myself to full strength, that'd be epic.
  
• Decide on what sort of zombies you want. Classic or new age. Stick with that design decision and make them epic.
  
• As an alternative to the last suggestion: Maybe make multiple strains of the virus from being killing by certain zombie types?

So, does anyone else have any comments / suggestions from playing a zombie in Alpha 5?

[ibazly]

It kind of makes sense though. Generally as a civilian you scavenge during the day and then stay in at night. It makes sense an effective strategy as a zombie would be to do the opposite. I don't know if anything needs to be changed to make it easier necessarily, though there do seem to be an obtusely large amount of cops walking around in the latest build lol.

[survivor]

Try genesis mod it increases the speed of zombies and once you get to the tank you own everything (Except a group of soldiers)

[Deon]

Yeah I have the zombie master line replaced, fast and stronger, and it's quite interesting to play.

It's also more intense to play as a survivor with such "bosses", which I like.

The main problem with zombies is that there's not a lot of stuff to do. You just kill and upgrade 1-2 times, and that's all. If zombies had skills it would be much more interesting. Also there's no real need to kill survivors. If you had to kill them to eat (at least not to lose your strength), it would make it more of a zombie-survival style.

A hungry zombie opposed to hungry survivors should instead gain speed and attack but probably lose defense parameters.

[toupz]

All zombie stats should improve with time wether they have trained or not. For example a zombie master who has been since day 10 and it's day 20, should be stronger and faster than a zombie master who has been since day 19. I wished zombies just get more dangerous with days and have stat boosts everyday or level up or something maybe this is a little too hardcore

[guest]

Playing as a zombie isn't the main focus of the game. Beyond adding a couple of more upgrades to them i don't think there would be any way of making them more interesting to play

[zebiolizard2]

Right now it's not, there may be better things for it in the future, right now survivors need more to do as it's the main part of the game.

It's like how Urban dead worked, first stuff for survivors, then stuff for zombies later.