Make zombies possess the main danger of zombies: being able to turn you into one

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

I am sure it was suggested countless times but searching it is a bit hard

Or I am an idiot

We already have one unreasonably difficult setting implemented which makes zombies appear in insane amounts (Hordes) but we kinda seem to forget the other one, which would make the game ass-breakingly hard, both in early stage and late game: zombie infectivity. Currently, no matter how many times have you been hit, it will only cause you to lose some health and maybe develop relatively easy to deal with infection (I mean, you are given tons of time and antibiotics can be found in less than 2 minutes). But that’s just not right. What I suggest is adding a special mode which will allow zombies to infect you should even only a tiny sliver of damage come through. Just to make stuff even better, it shouldn’t be guaranteed infection. The chance of being infected should depends on how much damage was inflicted and what part of the body was affected.
The infection itself shouldn’t be constant as well. If something less vital was hit, say an arm or a leg, you will have few days before it overtakes you. The symptoms should be similar to symptoms caused by regular infection and maybe some cold too (that is to throw a player off). After some time it will stealthily cause periods where random stat would slightly drop. During that time it’s possible to get rid of the infection by cutting off (some gory shit, yo) the hit part. If that wasn’t done, the infection infects the other body and causes symptoms of Chest Infection.
If chest was hit or the infection spread here, you will start to have CERTAIN problems. There will time where you might be randomly affected by asthma or extreme pain or vomitting or whatever. You will have only a day or two before you die. When it’s only mere hours left till the death, the infection becomes Brain Infection. Your speed also decreases by 25%.
If head was hit or the infection spread here, you will start to have a really bad time. Random confusion, almost nil perception and intellect, random blackouts and losing sense of pain entirely. Your speed becomes only 25% of base speed i.e. full on pain but no pain is felt.
After that period you die.
Apparently the worst that can happen is when you get everything infected (probably by infecting your arm and letting it spread to the entire body). All these penalties become COMBINED.

As for the cure there are good and bad news. Good news are that you can actually cure yourself. Bad news there is no easy cure. It just wasn’t invented yet. So how are you going to do that? Only by extreme conditions. Electricity, extreme heat, extreme cold, blood filter, radiation, artifact, teleportation.
Electricity has an average chance of healing you. Subject yourself to strong shock and you might get healed although badly damaged. Let me repeat myself: BADLY DAMAGED. Nope, you won’t be able to just suck all the electricity with no effect. The idea being is that you affect the blob inside you too.
Extreme heat has a fairly low chance of curing you but is easier to get (ahem raging fire ahem).
Extreme cold has almost 100% chance leaving you frost-bitten everywhere.
Blood filter can be used to purge your blood system, but blob in blood is no easy matter and the blood filter will actually have a lot of trouble here. Upon activation there is 80% chance that blood filter will break and become random malfunctioning bionic and there is 70% chance of success of removing infection from one of your body parts (limbs/torso/head).
Radiation is another gamble. You will probably develop a ton of mutations and lose most of your health before you cure yourself. It might be an option anyway.
Artifacts (ACTUAL ARTIFACTS) can be used in a recipe of end-game medicine. Of course it is lost after that but that is the actual cure for infecton.
Teleportation sickness can heal you which a relatively small chance.

As for the chance of infection: the more “dangerous” some zombie is, the more chance to get the infection. Basically more damage it is CAPABLE of delivering, more chance of getting the disease. Yes, even power armor might fail if you get scratched by a zombie commando or something.

Some enemies don’t pose such a challenge as they are not zombies: this includes all nether monsters, all robots, and some others.

Of course this should be just a setting, not by default.

2

It would conflict with the lore. You are already “infected” with what makes you a zombie if you die. Additional zombie bites will not change anything for you… except the bite wound and posible infeection that comes with a wound sustained from a filthy object. I am against changing the lore to have this make sense.

3

The real issue with zombies is one of balance and lore.

Lore wise, these arent viral zombies, your brain doesnt shut down or melt. This isnt resifent evil.
This isnt caused by a meteor that reanimates the corpses of the dead. This isnt Romero’s movies.

This is caused by an invasive and uniquely parasitic organism that invades the body but lacks the power to control you; or to wrest control from a living target. tbh Im not sure exactly why some people are immune upon death (the corpses you find randomly); I thnk its said they dont have enough blob? But in any case its not about people turning when they die, is it? you want to go DF adventure mode as a Zman?

Stepping back from lore: Why? Why are we making this mini-game as the main game instead of a mod?
Where is it balanced to do this?
If you turn when you die what benefit is it to the player? Other than NPCs turning.

Your asking for a new lore to match the meme’s of other media.

4

The corpse you find which haven t turned into z did not drink contaminated water befor dieing. Meaning they have zero blob in them. The player/npc not reviving is due to it not beeing implemented yet- it is planned as far as i know.

5

The ability to mutate is due to having blobs.

all mutagen ues blobs, small amounts of blobs are in most critters, infected or not.

6
You are already "infected" with what makes you a zombie if you die.
This is caused by an invasive and uniquely parasitic organism that invades the body but lacks the power to control you; or to wrest control from a living target. tbh Im not sure exactly why some people are immune upon death (the corpses you find randomly); I thnk its said they dont have enough blob? But in any case its not about people turning when they die, is it? you want to go DF adventure mode as a Zman?
It can be explained by the evolution of the parasite I guess. By the time you were infected first time, the parasite was really stupid and only managed to produce simple zombies after host's death. However, as time passed, it started producing more and more dangerous zombies (such as seen in the game) but lacks aerial mobility as it is more bigger and complex now. I haven't come up with a story for lore yet though, so I just made it up. As for the dead human bodies, it can be explained by "curing" them to death. Basically speaking they were subjected to extreme conditions and got they body purged.
Stepping back from lore: Why? Why are we making this mini-game as the main game instead of a mod?
I'll put that in bold: [b]Of course this should be just a setting, not by default.[/b] Like hordes. As for why this is a setting and not a mod it's easy: mods are JSON and you can't implement a new mechanic by using JSON mods.
7

The whole idea is rather complex and thus would require quite a bit of work. As such, it is unlikely to happen, even if you managed to dispel all balance and lore concerns.

Though a smaller version could happen: zombie-borne diseases.
We only have two relatively benign diseases right now. Common cold and influenza can’t do much damage directly.
We could have mutant diseases carried by all sorts of critters, including zombies. Those diseases wouldn’t be the zombie infection, just something the zombie caught (or bred in its body).

Interacting with zombies in any way (including just butchery) without good environmental protection on relevant body part would bump your “zombie interaction” counter. Then when checking disease change, that counter would be included and add more dangerous diseases to the list.

Diseases could include the common cold and flu, but also something that could cause damage to the body (appearing as rot), heavy debuffs to stats, limitations on food sources (vomiting when eating junk food, for example), maybe even selected mutations.

8

More diseases is a good idea. Whether they are zombie-borne or mutant or whatever.

9

Diseases are everywhere.

You fall down and its a disease.

infection, ‘cold’, and the flu are probably more what you mean tho.

10

That’s an effect. Diseases are effects too.

11

I feel like something resembling this should be pretty easy to add. You just need to add the disease and give zombies a special attack that inflicts it. “just one solid bite and you’re dead” is certainly a bit too hardcore for even dda, but as a challenge mod it sounds interesting.