Right now in 3.0, none of the zombies are a serious threat. Only early game are a few of them an issue (flanker, runner, and burner). Spitters can sometimes be an issue but rarely are.
Mega zombies are generally seen as just walking loot piles (at least in my eyes).
I seriously hope that we get a good range of enemies. Starting locations should have fairly weak Turned (still very deadly in numbers and should not be alerted) while end-game locations should have very strong and challenging Turned that pose a threat on par with players. I believe Turned should be pretty scary at times. It’d be really cool to see them prefer dark areas, and maybe we could get a few special ones that show up only in places like tunnels, caves, etc.
Non-Turned enemies (animals, bandits, maybe automated security equipment like turrets, etc) could also spice up the overall general PVE experience, but I figured this post should focus mainly on Turned. Feel free to discuss Turned or Non-Turned enemies.
How difficult should they be? Should they really be a bigger threat than players? And how serious do we want the Turned? Bloody, mutant, and scary? Or similar to 3.0?
I think that while the “organic” route to the Turned is interesting, I for sure would like them to retain some sort of humanoid shape, While also still obviously zombies. Something like visible gashes and wounds, slightly misformed bodies and a generally crooked look.
As for how difficult…
They need to be a serious threat in my eyes. There has to be a reason to why the entire play area is infected, it’s because they are deadly. If you get a gun, it shouldn’t disqualify their difficulty. It should only make it slightly easier to kill them. They should travel in hordes to overwhelm players too.
I think some turned should definitely be kept relatively humanoid, but I don’t think they need to be exclusively humanoid. If players’ bodies can become turned they should definitely stay very human like, both for compatibility with any equipment the player is wearing and because the turned player characters would likely be the humans that have become turned most recently in the lore. I don’t think all the turned need to be human like because I don’t see the point of arbitrarily limiting the varieties of turned that could be created rather than allowing more unique varieties of which serve different purposes in the game design and have distinct and recognizable appearances. (Also the idea of humanoid ceiling mounted grapplers and spawners which create more humanoids and fill an alternate dimension would be trippy AF)
They definitely need to be more difficult than they are now. Once you get a melee weapon that can stun them, they become more of a nuisance than anything else. Since 4.0 is going for a more hardcore approach, I think you should still feel the need to be cautious even if you’re facing the weakest kind of Turned with a melee weapon. Singular Turned should also be able to hold their own, at least to some extent. In 3.0 nothing can beat the stun locks (with the exception of the Mega.)
As for appearances, they should still be kept mostly humanoid, though maybe somewhat deformed or mutated in some cases like what Animatic said. With how they were described as being organic mutations and growths, I kinda picture some weird cross between the L4D zombies, the Dead Space necromorphs, and the Half Life Barnacle but in the Unturned art style. They should be easily distinguishable from players though, with the only exceptions being the most recently Turned.
General consensus is they should be more difficult, I think that’s pretty clear.
But how would you guys want to see them achieve that?
I think a good starter would be removing stun from everything besides heavy blunt weapons, including stuff like the sledgehammer. Weapons like the pickaxe, baseball bat, and shovel would still stun but less so than the sledgehammer and any other new heavy blunt weapons.
Another way is ranged attacks. Some mutations I could see include throwing fire, spitting acid, maybe increased speed, etc. Perhaps some turned could be strong enough to knock a player down (an animation would play of you getting back on your feet), while others can grab you (you’d probably have to button mash or something to shove them away).
Honestly just some random thoughts really. I’m sure Nelson has this all figured out, but I’d love to hear some of his insights on some of his ideas regarding them. It’d be cool if we could play a part of Turned development right from the start.
I like how much more can be considered with the Turned in II, here are some ideas from my Mega Zombies post.
Ability to throw objects instead of just rocks (Trashcans, small cars, or maybe even other zombies?)
Ability to throw players around?
Ability to use tougher items as melee weapons (Street lights, large branches, ripped metal)
Even more health,
Climbing? It can be relatively easy to kill a Mega if you stand on something high and shoot it from above, but what if the Mega could reach up to higher spots? (About the height of the Hesco boxes outside military bases)
If they were simply able to grapple you, and forbid if multiple at a time were (say actually running into the middle of the hoard) to grapple.
It whould significantly increase difficulty, and with multi-grapple, I’ll mean any player in any area can be overwhelmed with relative ease if there careless. E.g. getting cornered by a zombie hoard.
What if hitting the turned in certain spots different for each turned has a chance of stunning them and heavier weapons would have a highter chance of stunning them so you wont know when they are stunned . What would also be cool would be if they are stunned you can hide from them and the turned would look after you for a while and then just forget about you.
I totally agree with you. I think that it shouldnt just be other players as a main threat but it should be focused on the Turned enemies more than fellow players. It shouldnt really be that no matter what everything is always kos. Players should actually have a good reason to team up with each other. Which in this case it would be to kill the Turned because they would pose a much bigger threat in 4.0.
I think that adding different effect to different weapon should be good, piercing weapon like arrows should be able to go through ennemies, sharp weapons like katanas should be able to dismember the ennemies and blunt weapons like baseball bats should be able to stun them, giving every melee weapon his own little davantage, so the game will no longer be like “got chainsaw Imma kil zombies ez”. Plus fighting the turned with melee weapons would really become a strat, maybe somme turned could have à hard skin so sharp weapons would do les damage but piercing weapons would do more, Idk how you guys would feel about that ? (sorry if my english is bad, it’s not my first language, thx for reading)
Idk about this. Arrows will never go through anyone, not even crossbows will and if blunt will stun enemies, everyone will simply go for those. Who could care of slicing off an arm from a turned (that will keep attacking) if with a baseball bat you can stop it?
The skin difference could work but again, will players have to swap constantly weapons during a fight? It seems unpractical. You could say “this could work good with teams since that everyone will be specialized with a different weapon” but then solo players would be terribly disadvantaged. Also there is no mention of such a feature so my doubts stand.