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

[theFlu]

I will say you can easily avoid getting hit by the fall forward/lunge, I do it all the time myself.

Is this an "there exists" vs "for all" issue. Yes, I can "dodge" (turn and sprint) a walking zombie who ends up in a lunge - no problems, unless I forgot to turn my monitor on. But "all the time" implies the speedier bois as well - ferals and the unstaggerable rads at something like warrior difficulty?

 

[zztong]

It's not difficulty, it's GM damage. "Whenever you're in melee range of a zed, there's a 10% chance per tick to inflict damage on you. No matter the state of the zed, or you." There's nothing you can do to avoid it, it's not "difficulty".

This hasn't my observation, but that doesn't mean it is wrong. Have you looked at the code to find this?

My observation would be that zombie animations for a strike telegraph the strike is coming. I think I see it in their shoulders. They seem to do a decent job of anticipating you stepping into range. When I quit stepping towards zombies for a melee strike in a fight I got hit a lot less. I had to learn the strike distance of my weapon too. This is one reason I stick with the club is I'd have to relearn that distance with a different weapon.

The stagger forward is in reaction to being hit, so if you struck at maximum reach and backed up after the swing they don't tend to get close enough to hit you unless it is one of the faster ones.

What tends to get me more times than not is the quick transitions from crouching to standing and back.

 

[theFlu]

they don't tend to get close enough to hit you unless it is one of the faster ones.

I'm being taken to task for a bad phrasing here, so I emphasize this bit, this is the annoying bit; the faster zeds. You know, the things that glow green and actually hurt when they land a hit. No one cares about the 2 damage from a normal Arlene, that's just her form of foreplay.

 

[Roland]

I'm being taken to task for a bad phrasing here, so I emphasize this bit, this is the annoying bit; the faster zeds. You know, the things that glow green and actually hurt when they land a hit. No one cares about the 2 damage from a normal Arlene, that's just her form of foreplay.

Well this clarifies things a bit for me too. By time I get to rad zombies I'm mostly hitting them with ranged weapons and cleaning up stragglers with a melee weapon. But also by the time I get to rad zombies I have a lot better armor and stamina and my chances for knockbacks and decaps is much greater as well. At that point getting hit isn't exactly annoying...it's just negligible.  The only time I ever feel actually threatened by the stagger forward and the rage mechanic is in the early game.

At any rate, I definitely wouldn't mind a new dodge move of some kind as it would add variety to melee but even with that I would probably mostly use ranged combat and explosives for most encounters against green and soon-to-be orange and blues. I typically play on Warrior difficulty but with speeds set to default so zombies rage quite often but are walking otherwise during the early game and once the speedier zombies show up I feel like my armor and weapons and skills have advanced enough to compensate for hits and I transition from almost 100% melee to only about 25% melee.

 

[warmer]

Well, I don't - I don't expect much realism from a game mechanic; this one just happens to be pointlessly annoying, clustered with similar pointlessly annoying bugs..

I agree it's annoying, but only because it's dangerous. I don't feel this is a bug, but a feature. Without any type of surprise distance closing attack, melee is just way too easy in my opinion. If you use a spear you are almost never in danger from one of these. Knife sure, but spear, just learn the distance and you are solid.

 

[theFlu]

By time I get to rad zombies I'm mostly hitting them with ranged weapons and cleaning up stragglers with a melee weapon.

The only winning move is not to play (melee). Good call

At that point getting hit isn't exactly annoying...it's just negligible.

If it was rare, it would be tolerable; but if you play melee, it's basically every group (after ferals start showing up). Either the lunges, or the crawl-nonsense, or the outright phantom hits (enemy animates into a stagger, but hits anyway). Can't say which is worst, but I'd rather fix them all.

Without any type of surprise distance closing attack

Speaking of fixing - it doesn't need to go away, but maybe make the zed faceplant after a lunge - if you fail to dodge you get hit, if you succeed, you get a breather. Big risk, big reward move from the zed, and you can capitalize. Make it have something to gain.

At any rate, I definitely wouldn't mind a new dodge move of some kind as it would add variety to melee

Yeh, I wasn't suggesting one; merely using it as an example of "difficulty mechanics"; but sure, I wouldn't mind one either. The melee is rather simple, so adding to it might help, but I don't know how much a dodge would do here. The telegraphs are obvious enough to avoid "normally" already (when they work), and I don't think I'd want any invulnerability frames in the game anyway. It'd need some reworking and fine tuning to the entire combat system to become a thing.

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

I agree it's annoying, but only because it's dangerous.

That is why I play, with the two main weapons that I do, until way later, the bow silent and ranged, thrown spear

semi-silent and extended reach and range, with the bonus of knock back because of the unchanged modifier. 

The power lunge on my spear changed to throw is my equivalent to the blunderbuss. And if  armor makes noise

it just ain't used. Preacher undead killer is all I will replace my fiber with. I saw it and rage as a dps danger mechanic

so I adjusted this way to match. The club is only in close quarters. or power stroked during fall number 1 to save an arrow.

 

[Roland]

The only winning move is not to play (melee). Good call

Well I do play (melee) once the fast enemies appear but just not exclusively. I’ll have to pay closer attention and try meleeing more to see if I agree that the outcome is essentially that you are guaranteed to take hits no matter what. 

 

[theFlu]

I’ll have to pay closer attention and try meleeing more to see if I agree that the outcome is essentially that you are guaranteed to take hits no matter what. 

I'm not going to say "don't", but I think that's a lose-lose proposition; whether or not you learn to hate the randomness, you'll be playing in a way you don't like. And while convincing you of the annoyance might be a step towards improvements to the mechanics, I doubt it's going to be worth annoying yourself

 

[Dead Smarty]

I’ll have to pay closer attention and try meleeing more to see if I agree that the outcome is essentially that you are guaranteed to take hits no matter what. 

My old slow brain and clumsy controler handling guarantees a few hits but nothing to a level to call it unplayable. Try to get'm in line, charge and step back, steel spear with knockdown and anti rad mod does a decent job and on a normal day the food will do all the healing. Only find myself in trouble when rushing a high tier POI. Just remember to step back while charging and the stumbling is not an issue.

 

[Roland]

I have to assume we are talking 1v1 or maybe 1v2 since it should be pretty unreasonable to expect taking no hits when meleeing surrounded by several at a time. 

 

[FranticDan]

Whenever you're in melee range of a zed, there's a 10% chance per tick to inflict damage on you. No matter the state of the zed, or you." There's nothing you can do to avoid it, it's not "difficulty.

I'm going to assume this is talking about the PainResistPerHit. I mostly melee and it is VERY possible to avoice damage altogether if you're aware of the PainResistPerHit mechanic. If you keep their PainResistPerHit below 100%, they can never hit you, unless you miss of course. I've killed a dire wolf on the ground by using a bow at point blank no problem at all because I made sure its PainResistPerHit remained below 100%.

I would like to see one of the new perks coming to v2 to make the players' hits inflict less PainResistPerHit, say 5% per level. This will make a huge difference.



My opinion of the stagger forward is this, if I'm using a sledge hammer or a spear, there should be a 0% chance of staggering forward, these two weapons should absolutely not cause anything to make you come closer to you, the other weapons, even though physics say no, I can understand to a small degree why they would stagger forward, as they don't have as much force.

 

[theFlu]

If you keep their PainResistPerHit below 100%, they can never hit you, unless you miss of course.

I'll be honest, I have no idea how that works - I know of it, and I know it can be played "around", but I don't know how. In my defense, with 4k hours in the game, I'd say the game isn't making it exactly obvious  None of the youtubers I follow ever intentionally use it either (sure, they're the average scrubs, more entertaining that way).

My opinion of the stagger forward is this, if I'm using a sledge hammer or a spear, there should be a 0% chance of staggering forward,

Physics-wise, yeah - except maybe on leg shots. Knock the forward leg off just enough and they'd have to "rush" to regain balance, or something to that effect. Would be stupidly rare in anything actual ofc, and they wouldn't use it for an attack then.

 

[FranticDan]

I'll be honest, I have no idea how that works - I know of it, and I know it can be played "around", but I don't know how. In my defense, with 4k hours in the game, I'd say the game isn't making it exactly obvious  None of the youtubers I follow ever intentionally use it either (sure, they're the average scrubs, more entertaining that way).

Physics-wise, yeah - except maybe on leg shots. Knock the forward leg off just enough and they'd have to "rush" to regain balance, or something to that effect. Would be stupidly rare in anything actual ofc, and they wouldn't use it for an attack then.

I find that more people play on max settings on stream (twitch), myself included.

I 100% agree that a power attack to the leg should have a high chance to make them ragdoll

 

[FranticDan]

Hopefully this video helps people stop getting hit as much - 

 

[theFlu]

Excellent, thank you!  

So, couple follow-up questions, and correct me if I got something wrong, please

"PainResistPerHit" - As in, "the zed gains an 'immunity charge' from getting hit". The zed will stagger when hit if the current value is below 100%, and the numbers you state in the vid are how much each hit adds to the current value on them. So, 2 hits on a dog would set him at 180%, third hit would "resist" - and that 180% would decay below 100% in 4 secs? Or is it the hit that goes over 100% (like it is for crit resist on character), so the second hit on a dog would already resist?

Are glancing blows, dot ticks etc giving PainResistPerHit?

 

[FranticDan]

Excellent, thank you!  

So, couple follow-up questions, and correct me if I got something wrong, please

"PainResistPerHit" - As in, "the zed gains an 'immunity charge' from getting hit". The zed will stagger when hit if the current value is below 100%, and the numbers you state in the vid are how much each hit adds to the current value on them. So, 2 hits on a dog would set him at 180%, third hit would "resist" - and that 180% would decay below 100% in 4 secs? Or is it the hit that goes over 100% (like it is for crit resist on character), so the second hit on a dog would already resist?

Are glancing blows, dot ticks etc giving PainResistPerHit?

Think of it as a gauge, like stamina, if it fills up (100%) and overflows (101%-300%) the AI is able to immediately hit their target right back as long as they are in range and aren't knocked down or rag-dolled, no matter how many times they are hit. Even without an animation.

In your example with a zombie dog, the first hit adds 90% and brings it to 90%, and assuming you are using melee, by the time your second hit connects, it'll deplete lets say 20% for the 1 second delay, so your second hit will add 90% to the remaining 70%, making it 160%, which means it can hit you right back now, once the first hit's pain animation ends. Because it is the second hit that caused it to exceed 100%. So you'll very likely be hit right back after your second hit.

It is also possible for a second attack to exceed 100%, lets say 110%, but by the time the AI's attack would connect, half a second later, they are now below 100% so their attack will miss you, even though there is a full attack animation. However, if you hit them during this attack animation, then it will now hit you as you just made it exceed 100% again.

There are many times when I'm playing and a zombie will attack after I've hit them, and they don't have pain animation as my hit exceeded 100%, but because it is barely over 100%, they attack misses due to depleting below 100% by the time it WOULD have connected.

This is also assuming a zombie doesn't shrug off the first hit, and attack immediately after (This is a new mechanic added in A21), as this attack ignores PainResistPerHit completely, even if below 100%, they'll hit you.

Glancing blows add the full amount of PainResistPerHit just like a full hit, and burning them with a molotov will max out their PainResistPerHit to 300%, and you'll have to wait a full 15 seconds before it is safe to melee them again. Damage from bleed and electrocution don't build up PainResistPerHit. However, traps like spikes and barbed wire do. 


I hope I explained this clearly

 

[theFlu]

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

It is also possible for a second attack to exceed 100%, lets say 110%, but by the time the AI's attack would connect, half a second later, they are now below 100% so their attack will miss you, even though there is a full attack animation. However, if you hit them during this attack animation, then it will now hit you as you just made it exceed 100% again.

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.

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

Think of it as a gauge, like stamina,

That is what I've been doing, and didn't know it. It just felt more natural to me because I play with low

level bow, for a long time before remembering to up grade it. It takes a while to kill stronger stuff, but there are plenty

of feathers when you have level one tracking, and the vultures on attack mode. Head shots for points, is my goto.

Thanks for that.

 

[Roland]

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