Shocker Brutes are too strong

[Snaaty]

Hello,

now, what just happened:

I was strolling around a massive city with 1.5 zombie spawn at night, scavenging for stuff. I had combat skills of roughly level 5, and a reinforced battleaxe as a weapon. I could chop down most zombies with relative ease, but I had avoided Shocker Brutes up until then, and luckily they’re easy to see. I also had full night vision.

There was one particular Shocker Brute that was guarding the entrance to a precious store, so I thought, “hey, why not try it, I mean, what could happen”. Well, I charged at it, and it at me, once in melee range I swing at it…

and I am dead. After one (1!) turn! My torse had no HP left, even though 1 turn earlier it was still it was missing only one bar.

Almost ragequitting, I decide to look at the humiliating combat log only to see, that 16 (sixteen) turns ago I chopped at the Shocker Brute and critically striking him, being stunned for FIFTEEN turns after that.

That just seems so ridiculously OP (even as a penalty for attacking with a conducting melee weapon), so I request to nerf that.

/endofrant

[Coolthulhu]

They’re not all THAT strong, it’s just that if you don’t know what you’re up against, you can easily get “bullshitted” out of a character.

Maybe there could be some extra-safe mode to inform you that you’re about to strike an electric monster with a conductive weapon or something like that.

Like all zombies, they can do nothing against an archer plonking at them from the darkness. Unlike any other zombie, they can actually defend themselves against survivors they see. Even a hulk can be easily beaten by an early game (1 in melee skills) character who finds enough drugs (I just did this in debug mode - my pointy stick broke, though).

As for the nerf, I think it would make sense to make conductivity more realistic. Currently a weapon is conductive if it contains metal. While this makes sense for gameplay (as it forces players to use much worse weapons), it makes shockers a bit too untouchable and also is not intuitive. Why should a wooden pole with a knife on the end conduct electricity?

[EditorRUS]

Electrical zombies are very dangerous for characters with no protection. Assuming you had no protection against electricity this is not surprising you died so easy.

[kevin.granade]

Nothing that is easy to avoid is ‘too strong’, that’s a tautology.
You can stun lock zombies, shockers can stun lock you.
The only thing unfair about this situation is that you are able to change your tactics to work around your vulnerability.

[Snaaty]

Yeah, in hindsight it was really not smart to attack that shocker brute, because I could have also run away instead.

Also, after posting here I noticed, that in fact I struck the shocker brute twice and after the second strike I was stunned for 13 turns.

Like all zombies, they can do nothing against an archer plonking at them from the darkness. Unlike any other zombie, they can actually defend themselves against survivors they see. Even a hulk can be easily beaten by an early game (1 in melee skills) character who finds enough drugs (I just did this in debug mode - my pointy stick broke, though).

Of course, this is a different issue, but my melee 6 character with above average stats, a reinforced battleaxe and good melee skills shouls have an easier time killing monsters than some “regular” dude, who happens to be high on every drug there is.

You can stun lock zombies, shockers can stun lock you.

I like that I have to change my tactics from time to time. However, above example doesn’t really work, as the zombies and I are not “equal partners” in that game. If they die, the game, and therefore the fun continues, if I die it is simply over. Them being able to stunlock me is not a good mechanism as it takes decisions away from the player and just kills them instantly. Of course, the decision has to be made in advance here, to be fair.

[jcd]

I have died to the exact same situation as Snaaty described.

Imo the shockers should not be nerfed, as having to assess the situation and use some tactics depending on the enemy is very good for the game.
I think we need more monsters that are easy/normal to kill using one tactic, but spell doom with another tactic.
World feels more realistic, but not tedious this way. (it is way more tedious to whack everything with a nodachi for insta-kills forever)

…my 2 cents

[prytoclasm]

If it’s too strong, Carl Gustav is stronger! Or any other RocketPopelledGrenade.

[Valpo]

I love all them shockers :3. Just when i find the anti electricity cmb /forgot the name lol they are imediatly turned into tame loot piniatas.
Also i tend to throw everything to death will all the knives i find xD.
I also died a few times from beeing shockled when i forgot that i had a conductive weapon or the electric arc together with pain was just to much .
It however is usualy a great experience mahahaha.

More like this !!! Make the Hulks throw debry at me xD xD I d love my ass of if id get squashed by a piece of street /hulk uses serious table flip you die.

[kevin.granade]

Actually there’s a feature I’ve been meaning to add where hulks shove cars at you when they get in the hulk’s way.

[Valpo]

Actually there’s a feature I’ve been meaning to add where hulks shove cars at you when they get in the hulk’s way.

Great idea +1.

[Barhandar]

Actually there’s a feature I’ve been meaning to add where hulks shove cars at you when they get in the hulk’s way.

Would be funny if hulks could do that with currently-driven vehicles as well, causing you to suddenly gain a lot of momentum in the hulk’s direction.

[FunsizeNinja123]

Actually there’s a feature I’ve been meaning to add where hulks shove cars at you when they get in the hulk’s way.

I get enough of that bullshit in L4D.

(But I want it! :3)

[kevin.granade]

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:9, topic:7388”]Actually there’s a feature I’ve been meaning to add where hulks shove cars at you when they get in the hulk’s way.

Would be funny if hulks could do that with currently-driven vehicles as well, causing you to suddenly gain a lot of momentum in the hulk’s direction.[/quote]
Of course they will, why would I do it any other way?

[system]

For them shocker zombies I just throw my weapon at them, pick it up, and repeat until they die.

[dragonlaggin]

The shocker brutes have less stats than a normal brute does, just a little more HP (IIRC, I made that PR a while back now…) and the shockstorm attack. They aren’t too strong.

[RogueEsp]

Bruh, did you see their names? “SHOCKER BRUTES”… They need to be “too strong”.

[Cherry]

They will wreck you if you don’t use ranged.
If you have explosives or a trap set-up, that’ll probably suffice for a sniper rifle.

[Bonevomit]

I for one would like to see an expansion of every zombie type having a brute and hulk counterpart. Shocker brutes one of my favorite developments in the game.

[Coolthulhu]

I though about the idea of brute/hulk expansions for a while and the only ones I see really benefiting from it would be boomer hulk (would need a big bile buff - able to partially blind masked players?), bloated hulks (big explosion could throw player around, wreck buildings), bio-op brute/hulk (just plain terrifying), shrieker hulks (so loud you go deaf) and maybe spitter brutes/hulks (sounds more like a giant annoyance than danger, though).

A great deal of zombies don’t have anything that would make them worth hulking. Necros, smokers, masters, decayed, crawling, grabbers, cops, soldiers, technicians, survivors, skeletons - brute/hulk versions of those would be pure bloat. Not sure about dog hulks.
And children hulks (and scientist brutes) only sound like a good joke enemy to see while hallucinating.

[Rivet]

(and scientist brutes) only sound like a good joke enemy to see while hallucinating.

What’s wrong with big, scary scientist zeds?