I want this to be well documented because it is going to be a BIG change and as such, some people may not like it, especially if it is not properly explained.
I am not putting this up as a feedback discussion or a poll because 50 different people will give you 50 different styles of zombie behavior that they like. We have chosen a direction and want to work with you guys to perfect it. Zombies are going to be a serious threat once this is implemented and I want to detail their expected AI behavior so people know how to navigate them and more efficiently report any problems they may have. Just for reference, I have legitimately been beaten and killed by these things while simply attempting to test their behavior on my dev server. They are tough and learning how to navigate them is going to become so much more important than it is now.
First up, zombies are going to be all about audio, whether it be player movement or weapon sounds. Footstep sounds will vary based on surface, stance and movement speed. For example, a full sprint on paved road will be the loudest movement sound with an audible range of 50 meters. Crouch run cuts that in half, prone crawl fast will only be several meters and prone crawl slow will be only 1 meter. This will all vary based on the surface as well so grass is quieter than concrete etc etc. Gunshot sounds will cause zombies to converge on the location of the shot much more accurately and certain types of gunshots will bring additional zombies to the party. Firing and moving will be important here as the zombies will only aggro to the location of the shot, if you are still there when zombies arrive then that is your bad. Once aggro'd to you, zombies are relentless by comparison to the current versions. They are fast and way WAY smarter when it comes to tracking and matching your movements. We have used the same AI tricks we learned with the dogs to improve path finding. As such, losing a zombie will be tricky. It will require an adequate break in line of sight (not simply running around a corner) and complete silence to break aggro. Buildings as always will play an important role in this. Jumping from a second story balcony to another building and laying prone upstairs works the best for me so far. Once off of you, the zombie will return to its spawn building and wait for another player to come by.
Zombies will spawn the same way they spawn now but in smaller numbers and will remain idle inside their buildings until provoked. This means no more zombies wandering the streets unless a player has provoked them, which introduces a very important aspect to game play that many players here have discussed. Zombie movement will still be a reliable indicator of a nearby player, even more so in this case, BUT you now have the ability to stealth around infested areas without alerting them, thus leaving the zombies in their buildings and removing the early detection system that other players will be looking for, if you are patient. This will play well into the Survivalist's hands who will be getting their decreased zombie detection perks tuned for this audio based system and will be problematic for the level 3 Hunter as his movement speed perks, also coming with this update, will alert zombies more easily. The speed however will be a huge advantage in getting away from them because.....
All new animations will be coming for the zombies as well. Idle, walking, running, and sprinting. The sprint animation will be fairly equivalent to player running/sprinting speed. This will need a lot of fine tuning to find balance, at the moment they are a tiny bit faster than a sprinting player with a weapon equipped but slower than an unarmed/binocular sprint. Whether this is the right formula or not will have to be tested, it is a very easy thing to change. Either way, this combined with their new ability to attack on the run without slowing down makes them deadly. Melee weapons are going to be CRUCIAL now and spawn rates will be adjusted to reflect this. Thankfully the recent melee hit detection magic has made slaughtering them quite enjoyable.
To sum it up.....
THIS WILL BE HARD.
At the moment, that is the point. You WILL die and continue to die many times over if you attempt to treat these zombies the same way you treat the current ones. You will need to adapt and figure out your own ways of navigating them. We are hoping for honest feedback once implemented (hopefully this weekend) and not complaining from people that are still running gleefully through the streets only to end up with missing chunks of ass.
bit like witcher on dayz mod
