Zombie Movement

[Dzlan]

Just been reading through a few pages of several threads when I remembered. A lot of people dislike how easy bushes are to use and other similar objects.
I just thought of this, and for many other reasons this would be a nice effect. Stumbling zombies.
What if Z’s stumbled around diagonally as well when chasing you.
Checks what the last direction you ran was in. So if you moved left or right, the Z might have a chance of moving diagonally towards you, but not in a direction that causes it to be more then 2 squares up or down from you. If you moved up or down, the Z might have a chance of moving diagonally towards you but not in a direction that causes it to be more then 2 squares to the left or right of you.
Thus we have the effect of Zombies moving towards you a little more randomly. And it gives the idea that are stumbling/moping around/whatever you want to think of it as.

[Reservoir]

That fixes little. Just move around the bush until the zombie gets trapped on it.

But I like the idea. Maybe for decayed zombies only?

[ted]

Bushes can be broken by making the zombie not change locations until it’s mostly finished spending the time necessary to move onto the bush, and have it stop and attack you if you get close while it’s doing this.

This would probably make melee really bad though, since most melee enemies have really annoying attack riders that are only tolerable because you don’t actually get attacked.

[Inadequate]

The contingent that dislikes kiting will not be satisfied with this. The contingent that dislikes kiting will never be satisfied until all combat is twisted into a broken mockery of what currently exists, unplayable and unpalatable to all. No concession ought to be made towards them.

[halberdsturgeon]

If zombies were intended to avoid bushes, it would be simple to get them to do so, because NPCs already do. Killing zombies is not meant to be that difficult. The game has plenty of them.

[infectedmochi]

What I want to see is that zombie NOT stumble into car and try to bash them down to get to you. Well they are stupid but not THAT stupid.
Zombie stumble around a little sound good to me, as long as they are stumble toward you.

[Dzlan]

I agree, Infected. I just got a Zombie smash apart the battery of my flatbed while I was on the back sorting out inventory.
Man they break a lot very quickly. Ugh, guess I’ll take one outta another car and hop 5 mechanics is good enough.
Fair point people. This wasn’t just for the point of bushes, but in general, would have been nice to seem them stumble around.
But now I see they get caught in cars and start bashing them a lot. Which was okay until it hit my car… Haha

[Gideon]

I’ve seen zombies randomly smash shrubs out of existence.

Perhaps it was a bug, but couldn’t we have zombies obliterate a shrub you kite them in to? So, while you can use the shrub technique, it is temporary at best.

Also, is it possible for shrubs to slow zombies less? Humans go slower through them, due to the pain response of all of those pokey branches and things. Zombies have no such concern, so would only be delayed by the physically entangling nature of the shrub.

Finally, if you find a zone of wreckage, you can kite whole armies through it. It slows and does damage every move. It is far more significant a barrier than shrubs ever will be.

[Binky]

[quote=“Gideon, post:8, topic:5402”]I’ve seen zombies randomly smash shrubs out of existence.

Perhaps it was a bug, but couldn’t we have zombies obliterate a shrub you kite them in to? So, while you can use the shrub technique, it is temporary at best.

Also, is it possible for shrubs to slow zombies less? Humans go slower through them, due to the pain response of all of those pokey branches and things. Zombies have no such concern, so would only be delayed by the physically entangling nature of the shrub.

Finally, if you find a zone of wreckage, you can kite whole armies through it. It slows and does damage every move. It is far more significant a barrier than shrubs ever will be.[/quote]

I’m of the ‘get rid of kiting’ camp, because it is a tedious and cheesy mechanic. Although I realise the only way to get rid of it is a rework of combat, it seems fair to make zombies quickly (or more quickly) destroy bushes and move a little bit faster through them. The problem is, that probably just means more kiting instead of less, as it’ll encourage dragging zombies over to multiple bushes. I’m sure a good compromise could be made though with enough testing.

[Inadequate]

‘Remove kiting’ is a ludicrous idea and shouldn’t even be considered. Exactly what ‘compromise’ is even possible with removing kiting entirely?

[John_Candlebury]

‘Remove kiting’ is a ludicrous idea and shouldn’t even be considered. Exactly what ‘compromise’ is even possible with removing kiting entirely?

More or less this. We cant remove or even Nerf kiting without a feature that replaces it.

And I really dont think such possible feature can be designed.

[Binky]

‘Remove kiting’ is a ludicrous idea and shouldn’t even be considered. Exactly what ‘compromise’ is even possible with removing kiting entirely?

Well I’ve never played another game (or RL) with such an emphasis on/mandatory kiting so it’s obviously possible.

Simplistically, removing kiting and scaling down damage would balance things out. So instead of needing to kite, you could more effectively take on Z’s without having to resort to that.
So no, it’s not ‘ludicrous’.

[kevin.granade]

Both extremes are wrong (as is usually the case with opposing extremes). the balance is fairly poor right now, with kiting over bushes or windows being so common as to be considered mandatory for combat. The somewhat tricky thing is that taking out a single zombie SHOULD be pretty easy, part of the problem is zombies don’t clump up much, so pulling them one at a time is trivial. if we have a situation where you frequently have to deal with multiple zombies at once, then kiting over bushes becomes far less attractive.
I like the idea of having zombies stagger a bit even when they can see you, one thing they should not be is perfectly predictable.
another anti-bush fix would be to have melee misses bash the square the target is in, so the player could end up bashing the bush out of existence.

[HunterAlpha1]

The thing is, kiting is completely realistic; if you’re fighting a slow, hard to kill enemy, would you just wade in swinging or try to kite them through terrain that gives you an advantage? As a tactic kiting is completely normal and acceptable.

That being said, there needs to be a way to get zombies to clump up so that even kiting is dangerous. Perhaps making the zombies emit a groan which attracts more zombies, like in WWZ(the book).

[Binky]

[quote=“HunterAlpha1, post:14, topic:5402”]The thing is, kiting is completely realistic; if you’re fighting a slow, hard to kill enemy, would you just wade in swinging or try to kite them through terrain that gives you an advantage? As a tactic kiting is completely normal and acceptable.

That being said, there needs to be a way to get zombies to clump up so that even kiting is dangerous. Perhaps making the zombies emit a groan which attracts more zombies, like in WWZ(the book).[/quote]

Yeah, but realistically you could just sit on a slightly higher than arm height wall and stab them in the head with a spear and never worry about them getting you. I get what you’re saying though, and there certainly is room for some kiting, just not being the only tactic. I just can’t accept that kiting is the only possible way to play the game, as it’s a cheap and horribly repetitive mechanic - every time I start up I loathe the feeling of having to go and kite some zombies for 15 minutes.

Zombies clumping up more is the key I think, as is them occasionally taking diagonal side steps towards you and the player breaking bushes with missed melee strikes. Obviously balance would need to be adjusted when kiting can no longer be used reliably - but I think a bit of messing about with balance is much preferable.

[Reservoir]

Maybe zombies should break bushes instead of walking into them? Maybe ranged attacks of some sort for 1-tile-window-kiters? Reducing the damage caused to zombies on bushes/windows? Making the zombies attack in groups more often?

So many ideas yet none fixes kitting

[Binky]

[quote=“Reservoir, post:16, topic:5402”]Maybe zombies should break bushes instead of walking into them? Maybe ranged attacks of some sort for 1-tile-window-kiters? Reducing the damage caused to zombies on bushes/windows? Making the zombies attack in groups more often?

So many ideas yet none fixes kitting[/quote]

Obviously people are going to kite in the sense of ‘find the terrain with the most tactical advantages’ and that’s not necessarily a problem, but I think it can be moved away from it being a no-brainer to lead them into bushes/windows with some of the changes that have been mentioned.

The main thing is that you need tactics that can replace kiting with more interesting, tactical options. A lot this is just balance, things like making doors stronger, being able to attack through boarded up windows and so on would help this a lot. Allowing the player from the very start of the game to take out 2-3 zombies on their own with shelter made weaponry seems reasonable (ala The Walking Dead) as well.

[halberdsturgeon]

With moderate strength, melee and dodge skills you can reliably kill zombies one at a time without terrain advantages. I don’t think getting zombies caught up on terrain in order to kill them is a problem.

I’ve noticed zombies avoid bushes moreso than they did two releases ago, regardless. Their movement pattern is slightly less predictable than it used to be. But you’re better off using shopping carts or wheel barrows to get them caught up now, anyway.

[Pakislav]

I’ll go ahead and wage in with my opinion.

Kiting is acceptable. It is necessary. Bushes and windows break the game a little.

The best solution would be to do multiple things:

1.)Make zombies avoid bushes. - No-brainer. They don’t run into walls, do they?
2.)Make corpses add speed penalty for the tile they are on (And block vision?), stacking up to make the tile impassable. Now the player is trapped behind a window instead of suffering a lowly and trivial life of a window mass slaughterer. He can continue to do his thing - but it takes time to clear the corpses - which makes for a great biting opportunity for a zombie. Note, that this is exactly what would happen in real life, or at least what we would expect from movies.
3.)Add additional mechanics that make life bearable in now non-wussy harder combat. Such as stealth system to facilitate eliminating zombies one by one without unnatural terrain advantage.

Now here’s a treat for people who like bushes. Pushing. And grabbing in general, this could be expanded a lot (Wild animals don’t smack you, they grab you and kill you, same for zombies since they mostly seem to bite and biting=grabbing.), but for this purpose [G]rabbing a creature like you would a cart or furniture, allows you to manipulate it and, say, push it onto a bush for easier kill when it stumbles back on it’s feet.
But I guess this would call for a complete combat overhaul. And believe me, I would love to see grabbing like in Dwarf Fortress especially for animals and bites! Every game to date have pissed me with wild animals doing some whacky “jump attack” or using their teeth as cutting weapons. Animals bite you, hold you between their jaws and tear you to pieces.
Please please please please please make them do it in Cataclysm!

---

And now a little different topic, more fit for the title.
As someone on first page suggested, zombies should be less predictable. And zombies are also zombies.
So how about implementing a stumbling mechanic. Stumbling, is how most of every lore describes the way zombies move, so they should stumble around with a random speed penalty/bonus and direction, making the player unsure if he’ll make it out of zombies reach and much harder for him to predict it’s precise path.

That is all.

[halberdsturgeon]

1.)Make zombies avoid bushes. - No-brainer. They don’t run into walls, do they?

They’re programmed to avoid impassible obstacles wherever possible and ignore others. As noted, this is deliberate, so it can only be assumed that it’s meant to simulate the fact that they’re brain dead.