Ok in the IRC I was getting all angry over the idea of how Cataclysm zombies should be. Because zombies differ from person to person and media to media the idea of a zombie is actually very broad. So the point of this thread is what type of zombie do you think we should have.
There are a few different sets of ideas for zombies first off is one of the first and my personal favorite is the slow and dumb walker. Little more then a body possessed by some sort of instinctual motive they just seek out to eat/infect others. They are commonly slow and can easily be tricked and all around frail easily damaged but hard to kill. These are the sort of zombie that you could put a bunch of sticks up and stand on one side and the zombies would just run in to the spikes.
The next type of zombie is the fast zombie these ones are running nearly as good as a full human and keep up with survivors. They also appear to have a certain amount of intelligence as they avoid direct issues in their path and try to find the best path but still fall to traps.
Another type of zombie is the smart but deadly zombie these kinds arent human anymore but can set up traps and can even plan amongst themselves. They focus attacks on the weak and think almost like a pack animal (think resident evil 4 up zombies). These are one of the worst zombies because they set up their own society and can work like a group.
The final type of zombie I can think of is the strong zombie these sort of zombies are made stronger and harder to kill by what ever infected them. They have more health then the average person but lack intelligence.
If I missed any please post below but I personally thing we should have the slow shambler type zombie because the zombies in cataclysm just want to reproduce more zombies by killing and since they are slower then the player clearly dont sprint at full speed. How ever the issue with this is that zombies currently seem to avoid cars and take an indirect path to you while they should take a more direct path even if its harder.
Quick edit:Zombies do break through things they could break though but dont go around so theres that.
I think why zombie don’t pass through car is that technically a car is impassible, the zombie don’t know how to crouch to crawl over the seats or windows unless in a situation a person is directly in the car or just behind a window. Also in Cataclysm the player can pass through car normally but a zombie lack the intelligence to properly “analyze” a car and find a way through it beside the obvious indirectly path (just go around it) that is only a little longer.
Basically the types (or planned types) of zombies you are describing (in order) are:
Normal Zeds
Zombie dogs
Master Zombies/Zombie Necromancers (These will probably never be quite that smart, but they should eventually be slightly smarter then an average Zed)
Hulks/Brutes
The standard zombie in Cata is fast. Not fast enough to outrun a person but fast enough to give chase and corner you if you’re not careful. That’s good, because if they were much slower it would get far too easy.
There’s been talk by the devs about zombies laying around that are indistinguishable from corpses until you get close enough to aggro them. These guys (Sleepers?) could be slower than the standard zombie but much harder to kill. They only show up as enemies when you’re very close, and their moans may trigger a group of nearby ‘corpses’ to rise up, so you may suddenly find yourself surrounded. So they might be slow, but they’re pretty close by when you realize they’re there.
Maybe at night they get up and start shambling around, trying to find the sleeping player, and then lay back down in the morning. That might be interesting.
In movies and media I’m a sucker for the classic shambler.
That said, this game is FAR too easy when the player typically outpaces 99% of his foes. Before static spawns, the player’s speed advantage was mitigated by noise and scent drawing players into very difficult situations (to be fair, maybe too difficult). Static spawn makes it way easier to leisurely clear out a path to resources and makes getting gear pretty easy.
Combine that with zombies that are super easy to outrun and you get an easy game.
In that light, I’d like to see some faster (“Sprinters?”) zombies in game to add to the mix. The ranged attack z’s are nice, but they’re too easy to trick with line of site manuevering. Stuff that is as fast, or faster than the player would really bring back the importance of planning raids carefully and using night, distractions and other tactics to succeed.
I’ve seen conversations about “sleeper” like zombie planning for quite some time now, pre-kickstarter. Hope those eventually pan out as well. Would be another nice wrinkle that challenges a complacent player.
Lastly, I hope this doesn’t sound hypercritical. I realize all the effort that has gone into this game, and love every damn low resolution pixel of it.
Animated corpse incapable of regenerating itself naturally. The virus that’s in charge fingers the nervous system to control limbs and most primitive behaviour patterns. It’s a carnivorous entity with a primary goal of spreading the infection. A zombie’s bite increases the chance of contracting the disease greatly.
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Now, in CataDDA zombie-lore there are also Grey Goo’s properties, whereas the infected carcass is merely a host again.