PC Can we fix the stagger forward zombies do when hit?

[FranticDan]

Thank you very much, Sir! That's plenty clear

So, getting hit, a zed will be unable to swing for a time, and the PainResist mechanic is used to override That timer. This is getting into the weeds, but how long is the original timer, one sec or so? Not that I'll know if I'm at 0.8 or 1.2, but still.

The pain animation duration depends on the animation that plays, some take a little longer. The one where they look kinda stunned I think is the longest and the one where they spin 360 I think is the shortest.

 

Very interesting video. Thank you. I never knew about that mechanic but I do naturally tend to attack more slowly and retreat after each hit so I probably rarely hit the limit and received any kind of automatic counter attack which is why I was having a different experience than someone else who might be pressing their attacks more quickly. Definitely going to experiment with that especialy vs dogs which I tend to do the opposite behavior than I do zombies. I hit dogs over and over as quickly as I can in a panic to kill them as quickly as possible but I'll have to try out slowing things down and running more although I'm not usually prepped on coffee and steroids...lol

The coffee and steroids are overkill, I just did it for the video. You can achieve this by being overhydrated (I had 2 points in cardio too) and having Q6 run speed boots

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

Definitely going to experiment with that especially vs dogs

If dogs and attack vultures were the only antagonists spawned in volume, I think it would be a completely

different play-through. Their pain resistance is high. The only thing I have ever been able to

get them to do is turn their head for half a second then continue to attack. Only on high level

damage does it seem to change a bit.

 

[Scyris]

Whether that’s true or not I don’t know so I’ll trust that you know what you’re talking about. I’ve never heard that there is a built in 10% chance to take damage just being in proximity to a zombie. 
 

I took the OP’s reference to fake difficulty to mean that the forward stumble and the rage mode behaviors are  mechanics that don’t actually add any difficulty to melee combat. My point is that without them melee would be significantly easier.  Those two mechanics absolutely add some real difficulty into the mix. I remember melee before either was added and it was easier. 
 

Someone can ask for it to be fixed or changed but it amounts to the same thing forward stumble and rage mode are here to stay and dropped animations and hitting through walls are known issues that will be fixed/changed at some point if possible. 

I mean other games with zombies have dangerious melee without needing fake difficulty mechanics to do so. I play afterlife a mod where you very often have hordes of 20-30 zombies after you, the game can handle it fine. Increase the spawn enough outdoors to make it a threat and you don't need cheeze fake difficulty crap to make it actually difficult. Lots of Mods do it and the game runs fine so that excuse doesn't fly anymore, other survival games don't rely on these cheap mechanics to fake difficulty either, not even other zombie ones. Weirdest thing is, my fps is better in Afterlife mod with the massive increase zombies on screen than it is in vanilla, so its deff not the spawn amount thats really hurting it. If anything you'd normally expect a fps decrease, but Afterlife actually preforms better than the vanilla unmodded game, its actually pretty amazing how the mod creator managed to pull that off with all the new systems AL adds to the game.

Also when is TFP going to fix the game so it uses more cpu cores? like its been 10 years, you can't tell me they cannot improve this, or the loading times etc. The game barely manages to hit 25% cpu use on my system, so much wasted potental performance if it just was coded properly/better.

On 3/24/2025 at 1:51 PM, FranticDan said:

Hopefully this video helps people stop getting hit as much - 

This is a really stupid system is about all I can say. However I have noticed this a while ago. But who is really going to fight like this taking 5 seconds between hits? its unrealistic to expect that and would make killing anything take a stupid amount of time. Just another bad mechanic is all I am seeing here, especially when it can be abused to make you untouchable so easly.

 

[FranticDan]

If dogs and attack vultures were the only antagonists spawned in volume, I think it would be a completely

different play-through. Their pain resistance is high. The only thing I have ever been able to

get them to do is turn their head for half a second then continue to attack. Only on high level

damage does it seem to change a bit.

vultures are easy, they can't touch you if you walk backwards. The easiest way (for me) to deal with dogs is on the ground with a fence to jump over, but with enough run speed the fence isn't needed

But who is really going to fight like this taking 5 seconds between hits? its unrealistic to expect that and would make killing anything take a stupid amount of time.

I can think of a few people who do who aren't myself.
Since you play afterlife, I'm sure you complain about the blue-eyed zombies too for the very same reason 

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

vultures are easy, they can't touch you if you walk backwards. The easiest way (for me) to deal with dogs is on the ground with a fence to jump over, but with enough run speed the fence isn't needed

Yeah, I kinda adjusted the defaults, because of that, more dogs spawn and run wild instead of at pois, The vultures come in 3 sizes and speeds

now the little one that I call the crow, darts in fast and attacks the flies up and waits, the eagle vulture has been set to the dog pain and speed

threshold. Other than that is the up to 30 odd roamers that are constantly walkabout.  I made a modded violent version just for fun. It's built

similar to the Purge but with street walkers, and preferential ambient lighting change.

But i found that you can watch attack timing, if you set everything to attack everything else.