What are player opinions about acidic zombies? Poll is 7 days with results shown at the conclusion. If anyone has any particular suggestions of changes/extensions that can be made please post them here but try and avoid biasing the outcome of the poll.
They’re force multipliers, the average survivor can bait their ranged attack then close the distance to beat them down without much trouble. Its when you encounter them either in a group or they sneak up on you during another fight where the pain and damage from being in the center of a splash can turn things pear-shaped real quick, it punishes tunnel vision which is good.
You seem to be thinking of either Spitter Zombies or Corrosive Zombies.
Acidic Zombies have no ranged attack, and simply spray acid in the area around them when hit or when their corpses are smashed (butchering works fine).
Spitters fire a large splat of acid from relatively close range, but have a long cooldown time and do not spray acid when hit (though they still spray when you smash their corpses)
Corrosive Zombies are large and tough, and fire a precise single-tile acid attack from relatively long range. They also spray acid when hit.
Assuming we’re talking about the basic Acidic zombie, personally, I think they’re fine. They’re barely more dangerous than a regular zombie to ranged weapon wielders, and while melee fighters are likely to get hurt when dealing with them, this can be minimized through proper tactics and preparation. I’d rank them a little below spitter zombies in terms of overall threat level, unless you’re fighting a lot of them at once with pure melee, in which case your best option is to run and find a better way of dealing with them.
If I had a recommendation, it would be to add an “Are you sure you want to do that?” prompt when attempting to (s)mash an acidic, spitter or corrosive zombie corpse. God knows how many times I’ve done that by accident when cleaning up a recently swept area without looking too closely.
From the poll and topic I assume he’s talking about the acid zombie family in general.
Though that means I should expand as well, acidic zombies can cause issues if left around to evolve but aren’t much more dangerous then the average zombie. While corrosives are just outside the big three zombies (Hulks, Shocker Brutes, and Feral Predators) in danger rating for me but by the time they start appearing you should have the gear and skill to take them on in a straight fight. Just don’t let them have a chance whittle you down, corrosive spit punches through light survivor armour in my experience.
I agree and would totally love to see a smashing warning for acid zombie corpses if you lack the enviromental protection.
Update for clarity, yes I mean all of the various types of acidic zombies
I think acid zombies are though zombies, an obstacle to traverse if you will. They arent something you cannot beat though, more like a nice peanut in the mix of the zombie candybowl.
With melee characters they can be a pain, especially when you’re in a group of three or more zombies along with the acid. Staying mobile and away from the acid puddles is key and if there’s zombies in your way then that gets hard. At range, they are much easier to deal with, with the exception of some ranged attacks that can be counteracted by popping in and out of cover or moving around/through window frames.
Personally I play without them. They’re not too difficult to deal with if you know what you’re doing, but they rapidly become very tedious. At least acid doesn’t destroy items anymore.
The way it absolutely melted every kind of item in very short order was indeed ridiculous… but now, I think it’s a bit the other way. If you leave food lying submerged in acid strong enough to seriously damage your body in fairly short order, the food should be destroyed in fairly short order, for one example.
Lol Im the only person who thinks high end acids are too weak now?
Acidic Zed is actually a threat period.
spitters are too inaccurate and Ive long since been able to cheese crowds of 4 of them
corrosives are certainly annoying but that acid_accurate attack is weak as sin and a good gun or close quarters will help out with that by the time you see them. If you arent rocking envio-prot gear by winter you havent been surviving?
Corrosive Zombie feel kind of weak to me. I still think we need spitter hulks for late late zombie mutation.
Acid zombies are kinda meh and not too much of a threat.
Spitters… oh well, one on one they aren’t too much of a problem either. I usually try to bait them alone when they are in a small group.
Corrosive zombies on the other hand seem pretty rare for me. Don’t think I’ve ever met more than 1 or 2 on any give savefile.
But then, most of my survivors die pretty quickly.
And I didn’t know that smashing their corpses caused acid to splatter around. Good thing I always butcher. 
Ranged acid zombies need their accuracy updated.
Their numbers were balanced before the change to trigonometry in projectile function. Now they miss wildly all the time.
Could be fixed either by giving zombies lower dispersion or by moving the normal distribution roll from player-specific code to the generic projectile code.
At the moment dispersion is essentially the miss roll. This is quite ugly, since it means every projectile needs to determine its hit/miss roll partially on the call site. Since shrapnel is no longer a projectile (only uses “hit by projectile” function), there is no real advantage to this approach.
The issue I have with acid zombies is that they make certain items - particularly wetsuit boots - essential, especially for melee characters. Corrosive zombies in particular make late-game pure melee characters unviable without some form of acid immunity.
Also late game spawn rates of huge boomers and those toxic exploding zombies need to be toned down, moving through a decently sized town involves constant swarms of them, ruining visibility for a good portion of the time, and in a way that doesn’t really make things any more difficult, just more annoying.
SO MUCH THIS. They are completely challenge-less (they literally kill themselves), and if you can deal with the gas… well, yeah, annoyance and nothing more.
I have a bad idea for that
I have a great bad idea for that
Acid gas bloated zombies
[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:13, topic:12702”]Ranged acid zombies need their accuracy updated.
Their numbers were balanced before the change to trigonometry in projectile function. Now they miss wildly all the time.[/quote]
Can you open an issue for that?
[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:16, topic:12702”]I have a bad idea for that
I have a great bad idea for that
Acid gas bloated zombies
You just want the player base to suffer don’t you…
I personally feel acid zombies serve as a support role in multi-enemy fighting. In a horde you have to be careful not to get surrounded in the presence of acid zombies if you don’t want your legs gone mid fight. 1-on-1 they can prove fatal to the overconfident but easy enough for an ealry game character to kill them if careful.
Acid gas doesnt even exist, relax.
Theres many, many worse things that do exist that it can 'xplode into though
Acid gas doesnt even exist, relax.Acid Fog could be possible