Huehuehue. If we’re going to be crazy enough to add zombies with guns, I’d suggest instead going to Doom-style ones. Sure they can shoot, but they also have 20%, 30%, or 70% as much durability as a human, and have a hideously slow movement speed relative to one.
Which I guess would be figured via scaling them based off the 84 health that bodyparts have for a default, 8-strength character. :V
Zombie sprinter? Late-game, part of the feral line, runs up to your car and jumps through the door at you?
Part of the issue with late game is that a prepared (or at least ready) player can put so much firepower down. The player is so armored that most attacks fail to penetrate. The players has so many guns and ammo that they dont have to conserve in any one situation. They can farm and aquire resources to the point where they have no pressing needs. Theyve built/fortified their stash location until its practically nigh impregnable by the ai, or they ai never really harrassed the player there. There’s no objectives for the player, or reason to take risks.
I travel for several reasons:
All of these things lead me to take risks, but none of them are really risky any more. My vehicle is more vulnerable than I am. Maybe something anti-vehicle?
How about… a titanic zombie? Super slow, super huge. Trying to ram it is like trying to ram several metal walls. Requires a lot of firepower to take down, and can take hours to butcher. Very slow, but can squish a survivor like an ant.
Or boomer like creatures that explode into thick goo. Can slow and weigh down a survivor or his/her car. Require car repairs to scrape off the goo.
For more zombie evolutions, from the slavering biter, to the saber-toothed biter? Faster than before, but not as fast and doesn’t have the night vision of predators. Special bite attack that causes bleeding on a random part and also functions as a grab that causes large amounts of pain.
Looking at the thing/tentacle dog that’s sometimes in the mines… how about a zombie, that at first, looks like a normal zombie when you see it walking around the map. Get too close, however… and something bursts out of it, something much nastier.
It could be some sort of blob-shoggoth-zombie hollow like creature. Lower body still human, upper body a mass of writhing (and sharp) tentacle-like growths. Or we could go full xenomorph and have a real nasty creature burst out, one with a very fast evolution where it becomes a race to kill it before it turns into something real deadly.
Or some sort of genetically unstable zombie. Every once in a while this zombie would mutate, gaining (or losing) several mutations. Like… it grows claws (increased cutting damage), it becomes more aware (increased vision radius), it hardens (slows down, increases defense).
In fact, how about zombie traps for vehicles. At first glance it looks like a corpse in the road, you ignore it and try to run over it and continue driving. However, like a mine or a blade trap it detects you once you enter it’s radius, and it self-destructs, spraying a fountain of acid everywhere. Car gets badly damaged.
I would honestly rather we weaken the power of the player rather than strengthen everything evar.
Once factions and more capable gun wielders and, fingers crossed, vehicle wielders or automated roving turrets or stuff come into play I hope to see a better challenge from day to day life.
Essentially once other NPCs begin forming gangs, bands, factions, republics, etc.
The player can horde all this stuff and turn off NPCs who other wise would try to take it (and in all fairness they spawn erratically and arent really interactive) and its just a case of being lonely at the top of the pyrimad.
= = = = =
Lets see how strong a player is when a strike team or bounty hunters show up to get him for mouthing off at a faction ruler, or stealing their supplies, or staying in their territory, or not paying tribute, or w.e.
How strong are you when they create a goo pit ground outside your door and find a way to implant goo into corpses to create on-the-spot Zs. Or force Z mutation with their otherwise blinded/isolated ‘Slave’ Master zombie.
I have an idea for an actually dangerous zombie line:
Suicide bombers
First one would be just a regular walking bomb. Explosive hack on legs, but with less timeout because of slow speed. To prevent it from being too useful to player (its goal is killing the player, not helping), it could explode into shrapnel causing mostly bleeding and infection. Zombies aren’t prone to bleeding because of different metabolism.
Then it would get leaping ability. Nickname: "Bouncing Betty"
Finally, make it huge, give it long leap, good speed, ability to kick down the player to prevent escaping, big radius and good damage. To go with the theme, name it Bouncing Bertha.
Though that may be just a bit too evil.
But if it isn’t evil enough, they could be given a modified leap that would target not just player directly, but also player’s moving vehicle, to always get under the wheels if possible.
So basically zombie grenadiers, only in delicious terrorist flavor :V
Also, last I checked, shrapnel is FAR more effective on monsters. Whereas a crowd of zeds might shrug off a near-miss from a normal explosive weapon, with fragmentation any monster within two tiles eats a random number of high-damage hits on top of the otherwise underwhelming blast damage.
Meanwhile players are pretty much fucked by the explosion itself if they’re actually within frag radius. Though that’s really more because fragments have such a shitty range.
Honestly I just think players need to be nerfed and zombies buffed a bit. More stuff needs to do more damage so that no matter what, the player is always at least somewhat vulnerable to something. There should always be a bigger fish.
And yeah, once NPC’s are working better and players are more strapped for resources rather than having an entire globe to pick clean, that will probably help out a ton. Resource deprivation is something I don’t think a lot of people have experienced a ton of yet. I’m tempted to do some experimentation to see how the gameplay changes when you’re trying to scratch a living off of dirty floorboards where loot once lay.
Right. But if we add stuff that can still threaten a lategame character, it shouldn’t be something liable to spawn right outside the shelter. So reducing the player’s ability to become a living god of war is potentially good, though it should also be set up such that any new threat can, at least individually, be taken out SOMEHOW, even if outside the box tactic or sheer overkill is required. Failing that, being able to render such a threat harmless or break contact with it works too.
The bee stinger is usually barbed and designed to pierce insect chitin, not thick skin of mammals. So, it gets stuck, bees pull them out with their organs, then die shortly after that. I don’t think this would apply to giant bees.
its a size difference.
a giant bee would have zero issues skewering you. plus it wouldnt die right away. With a mortal wound it has enough time to murderize you still
Hey, somebody with a moderately able survivor test this?
{
“type” : “MONSTER”,
“id” : “mon_zombie_brute_ninja”,
“name”: “zombie nightstalker”,
“species”:“ZOMBIE”,
“default_faction”:“zombie”,
“symbol”:“Z”,
“color”:“red_white”,
“size”:“MEDIUM”,
“material”:“flesh”,
“diff”:25,
“aggression”:100,
“morale”:100,
“speed”:100,
“melee_skill”:6,
“melee_dice”:5,
“melee_dice_sides”:4,
“melee_cut”:5,
“dodge”:4,
“armor_bash”:5,
“armor_cut”:7,
“vision_day”:40,
“vision_night”:5,
“death_drops”: “default_zombie_death_drops”,
“hp”:200,
“death_function”:[“NORMAL”],
“special_attacks”:[[“SMASH”, 30], [“GRAB”, 7], [“STRETCH_ATTACK”, 10]],
“description”:“Somehow it hides in the dark like some kind of boogeyman, where its massive distended flex uneasily.”,
“flags”:[“SEES”, “HEARS”, “SMELLS”, “STUMBLES”, “WARM”, “BASHES”, “GROUP_BASH”, “POISON”, “NO_BREATHE”, “REVIVES”, “BONES”, “PUSH_MON”, “NIGHT_INVISIBILITY”]
}
That looks moderately challenging, but the real question is where are you going to spawn this? If it’s a standard city spawn I can see it ruining a new survivor’s whole week.
I looked at that. There’s 2 spawn lists for cities
1 for newbies. 1 for survivors who live longer. It could also be an ugrade, similar to the one I have now.
Not much different from a brute with night invis, better accuracy and better hp.
Could ruin a new character like a brute could, but for a moderately skilled one it would be more of a nasty surprise punishing for not using safe mode than a genuine challenge. Though even safe mode might not be enough - the stretch attack warning would probably not trigger safe mode.
Again, it’ll wreck new characters. I’d favor finding specific places to add this to, NOT as a general city spawn. Diversify all the things. o3o
Okay. How much damage is fair for a monster to do in late game?
Also I think we need cemeteries
It would largely depend on what the player’s preferred tactic is and thus what specifically makes them untouchable. Wade in with heavy armor and a big sword? Stand back and snipe? Drive in with a deathmobile or tank? Lead a mob of NPCs or summoned allies?
You’d need monsters not only capable of hitting harder, but also with other ways to mitigate what other tricks the player might rely on.
Hulk tier melee damage is totally fine. But coupled with smash attack it can get dangerous, as smash attack is currently calculated off max melee bashing damage.
We need passive armor penetration stat for monsters.