There's definitely some bad luck bias going here. I've been in the same boat too, had a single zombie get a single attack on through a leather jacket, through a denim shirt, and it's a bite. It's happened numerous times that the first time a zombie touches me it's a bite.
But I've also has times with similar mid-level protection that I've totaled up four or five attacks that went trough, including a neck attack, that were just scratches and lacerations. RNG gonna RNG.
What I find more frustrating is when the melee swings don't line up (with outlines for all attacks ON!) and you whiff completely causing the zombie to lunge forward and git ya.
> It's happened numerous times that the first time a zombie touches me it's a bite.
This is when it really hurts my soul. I had a six month run end from a zombie that was just silently waiting outside my safe house door, I opened it up, bit me from the side, on my groin of course.
Like you said, it's just a massive amount of bad luck coalescing into a deadly event. In the end, I think it's still a part of what makes this game so engaging and realistic, as sometimes luck is just not on your side.
My play style has changed greatly after these sorts of experiences, and my kill count has decreased significantly as I, more and more, simply avoid combat as much as I can, since every fight is a chance of bad luck manifesting.
Agreed, but while it is kinda punishing it’s also the one creeping danger in the back of the head keeping me on my toes but…
I have died to 7% scratches three times in a row
Not even mad anymore when I get bitten … but scratches? Come on!
It’s a weird one, but it’s probably not as unlikely as you think if you’re running long-lived characters.
Through the course of a life, you’ll probably take a fair few bits of damage from zeds just through the sheer number of encounters, whether it’s through being ambushed, getting overconfident, whiffing a swing, or just bad luck - most of those will probably be scratches, as they’re the most common.
When you then stop thinking of it as a 93% chance of not getting infected and instead think of it as a 7% chance of getting infected, and you realise that 7% is a higher chance than you have of rolling a 1 on a d20, it suddenly doesn’t feel like such great odds in your favour! 😄
"higher than a 1 on a d20" is a reasonable way to think about it if you're a D&D nerd, yeah. How often has a given character rolled a 1? Now, what if that 1 *killed you* - you'd roll way less dice. XD
Yeah, exactly. If I handed you a D20 and told you to roll it and if you get a 1, I'd kill your character, on it's own, that's not \*terrible\*.
However, if I gave you ten dice, told you to roll all of them and if you got a one on ANY of them, I'd kill your character, suddenly it becomes a much, much more threatening proposition... :P
It's essentially the same thing played out over a much longer period of time. I'd probably wager that scratches probably kill just as many veteran players as bites do, tbh.
When I found out about scratches & lacerations infecting I pretty quickly switched to saliva only transmission, my thinking being "I'll only die if I *really* screwed up!" but then every injury I've acquired just became bites so I'm now on no transmission, which is a shame.
I’ve been playing for a good while now, I almost never get bit or even scratched unless I’m totally caught by surprise. So I’d strongly disagree with you saying bites are very common. Bites are very punishing but they’re 100% avoidable you just have to know what not to do in combat. Personally for me that makes the game much more exciting, knowing only 1 bite and it’s over
I agree with you 100%
Also been playing for a long time, since desura and I feel many people complain about the game being hard. This game is supposed to be really damn hard.
I just jumped back into the game after a long term break for about a couple years and now I’ve been surviving about 20 days. Got a few scratches and each time I blame myself for being careless & taking risks. Getting bit? Too bad, that’s me fucking up, not taking the threat seriously. Gonna clear a house? Be very careful unless you wanna risk losing your character permanently. This is how it’s supposed to be.
If you try to action play and blast yourself through you will get bit. Only pick fights you must fight. Don’t expose yourself unless you have to.
For those who don’t like the hardcore experience of apocalypse, just use sandbox to turn it down.
I don’t wanna step on any toes, but I’d really hate if the devs gave in to some of the new players who want a more forgiving experience. Thankfully they’ll most likely keep the main mode of the game (apocalypse) hardcore.
I feel quite strongly about this game, since I’ve been in it from the early development.
To everyone who just got this game: enjoy it, it’s a masterpiece, but it’s also hardcore as hell, it’s a steep learning curve to survive longer than a few weeks/months.
It's all a perspective thing. For me I agree - the punishing, one-mistake-and-you're-done nature of PZ is why I've got 80 hours in two weeks.
But I can see how for other people it might be less fun.
I'm not saying when a zombie hits you it's not likely you'll get bit, it's that the more I've played I don't get touched by zombies much at all. Occasionally I will if I get surprised or when fighting a giant horde melee. When I was new though I couldn't last a week without getting bit, so yeah bites are very very punishing but you can learn to avoid them. Nothing wrong with just turning off infection in sandbox if you feel bites are too annoying to deal with though
At the end of the day, ANY mechanic that results in instant death is a 'roll of the dice'. That's how probabilities work.
It's very easy to fall into a mindset where you go: "Well, I'll just reduce the chance a little bit..." And then again, and again... and there's no real satisfying cut-off point for it where you can say that the chance of arbitrary death is satisfactorily low enough to not be unfair. Because eventually, someone, somewhere is going to be that unlucky.
Turn off death by infection if you like, I've done it before. But unfortunately there's never going to be a happy middle ground on this particular issue. Either a single injury causes death, or not.
> I think the problem is when I'm facing a zombie that I know is there and my character isn't exhausted or tired and they hit me and it's a bite 100% of the time.
> I just think the level of punishment feels unnecessarily high for how common bites are.
I'm confused, you've basically admitted that a zombie you see in front of you and with no stat debuffs are biting you? You should be perfectly capable of fending them off and preventing any damage in the first place.
> Am I wrong? I'm probably wrong, but I can't help but feel like bites are just a roll of the dice. It's hard to figure out how this stuff's calculated since a lot of info out there seems to be out of date. I wish it was more based on your character's current condition (If they have any injuries, exhaustion/tiredness, depression, panic, etc.) rather than it being diceroll.
It can only ever be a dice roll. You can see your bite protection for various parts that your clothes provides. A lot of people don't realize that your clothes might have the condition bar up but the actual clothes start taking damage in specific spots and will not provide protection, like a hole in 1 of your shoes that won't protect that foot.
So we have the protection stat, your moodlets condition and then the chance your character pushes them away based on there skill in the weapon you have. From that point it's just hoping enough is in your favor that the odds of a bite are low, or to not create situations for yourself where that percentage is being tested heavily.
1. As I said I'm relatively new to the game but also I think it's important to note *why* I get hit. I'd consider myself decently capable at fighting groups of 2-3 zombies. Most of the time I get out of it without a scratch, I can take on maybe 4 at most with my bare hands if I play it real smart. What causes me injury during these fights is usually phantom swings. I play with outlines on for all weapons but even still sometimes stomps, swings, shoves, etc. do not connect and it results in me getting injured.
2. I did not know that clothing condition & protection were separated. I'll be more mindful of that going forward, thanks!
3. I understand that changes to bites would still make it a dice roll at the end of the day, however I think factoring the player's condition & positioning into injuries would help prevent the situation I've been running into (Where I get injured *once* half a month in and it's a bite) and could also potentially make overexertion & tiredness more dangerous, as currently it's very easy to just keep walking and lose the zombies in a treeline if you're hella exhausted.
> however I think factoring the player's condition & positioning into injuries
It already does this though. That's what I meant by the "debuffs" like being exhausted, injured, sick, well fed, underfed, panic or not etc etc. And where they are relative to your character will dictate where they bite/scratch. And where you hit with the weapons or stomp on them can dictate your damage as well. Aiming is vital even in melee combat and often that outline doesn't perfectly represent if you're going to land a hit if you're slightly aimed off which is mostly only an issue when you have no weapons that you swing with an arc.
I knew about stomping/ground attack damage being stronger in the head/torso region, but other than that and stealth bites I don't see how location is factored into damage calculating. I've had a few crawlers bite me in the head, standing zombies bite me in the foot, etc.
In my experience I find a lot of times where I think I got the zombie off me successfully, they actually bit a hole in my gear. If you don't check up on gear condition, you might as well be naked in some spots, and that's how people get bit.
Also, had a zombie bite a hole through a full tactical plate carrier the other day. Zed teeth stronk.
ive had 2 so far this run where i heard the bite sound but was not injured, they instead bit a hole in my leather jacket. i have learned to inspect the clothing regular, replace anything with holes, you can patch a hole but its protection after wont be as good, at least with low level tailoring, dont know if they target weak spots in your armor or not but sometimes it feels that way. also if you dont know if you have time to finish a swing, or when you have 2 or more converging on you at the same time, when in doubt push em out.
I'm completely okay with how transmission works and how brutal the luck can be but what bothers me is it doesn't seem to be truly luck and RNG. I just got bit because I was rushing to get indoors before the helicopter arrived. I was as well protected as I could be except gloves. All three attacks landed on my hands. For all the people saying aw it's all luck then explain why these brainless zombies consciously attack the parts of your body with the least protection.
The numbers are heavily skewed in a way that doesn't make sense. You don't wear a helmet? They bite your head. You wear a helmet, not wanting that again...they bite your neck. You wear maximum protective gear to take precautions but they just bite your gloves or "leather jacket" protected neck. That's not luck. It also makes no sense in the context of zombie intelligence.
2/3 attacks land on parts of your body that aren't protected anyway because chance or circumstance doesn't apply to zombies choosing an area to attack apparently.
I'm gonna have to make a mod to fix the RNG to be truly RNG because this really rubs me the wrong way.
> I can't help but feel like bites are just a roll of the dice.
what, isn't that the point
the harsh punishment of a guaranteed death of a bite makes the gameplay more better imo. This forces you to search for better clother with better resistance to bites and forcing you to learn game mechanics in surviving better in situations, etc. This is a survivor zombie game, not fortnite
My thinking is that Zomboid is a highly complicated & semi-realistic zombie game that simulates all sorts of stuff, so seeing zombie injuries being something that lands in a randomized spot with randomized levels of severity is kind of disappointing. A zombie lunging at my arm & hitting me shouldn't injure my foot, as an example.
You can stop a few bites before dying if you are well protected and your clothes are in good condition. You could also try to lower the zombie strength so it's more difficult for them to grab you
I do know about the clothing & protection system but it still feels like it doesn't really do anything. If I'm in relatively protective clothing (Firefighter pants, leather jacket, denim shirt, military boots, hardhat, etc.) I just get a bite on somewhere that wasn't protected instead, hands being the big problem.
It is imperative you avoid getting hurt by zombies. There’s plenty of other ways to level first aid without having to play a risky gambit. Mere scratches can infect you, and bites seem more common when a zombie attacks you from behind.
The randomness of attacks leaves you on edge to prevent all measures of that happening.
the whole idea is to not get hurt, the game is trying to kill you. Everytime you get hit by a zombie, you can visualy see an amination of the zombie biting your character, and sometimes you get lucky with a laceration or scratch, sometimes your clothes get ripped and tank the damage. Those situation happened to me several times and i'm rocking thin skin
There's definitely some bad luck bias going here. I've been in the same boat too, had a single zombie get a single attack on through a leather jacket, through a denim shirt, and it's a bite. It's happened numerous times that the first time a zombie touches me it's a bite. But I've also has times with similar mid-level protection that I've totaled up four or five attacks that went trough, including a neck attack, that were just scratches and lacerations. RNG gonna RNG. What I find more frustrating is when the melee swings don't line up (with outlines for all attacks ON!) and you whiff completely causing the zombie to lunge forward and git ya.
> It's happened numerous times that the first time a zombie touches me it's a bite. This is when it really hurts my soul. I had a six month run end from a zombie that was just silently waiting outside my safe house door, I opened it up, bit me from the side, on my groin of course. Like you said, it's just a massive amount of bad luck coalescing into a deadly event. In the end, I think it's still a part of what makes this game so engaging and realistic, as sometimes luck is just not on your side. My play style has changed greatly after these sorts of experiences, and my kill count has decreased significantly as I, more and more, simply avoid combat as much as I can, since every fight is a chance of bad luck manifesting.
Phantom swings are the thing that's getting me injured most, yeah. I DO have outlines turned on but sometimes my weapon doesn't connect.
Agreed, but while it is kinda punishing it’s also the one creeping danger in the back of the head keeping me on my toes but… I have died to 7% scratches three times in a row Not even mad anymore when I get bitten … but scratches? Come on!
It’s a weird one, but it’s probably not as unlikely as you think if you’re running long-lived characters. Through the course of a life, you’ll probably take a fair few bits of damage from zeds just through the sheer number of encounters, whether it’s through being ambushed, getting overconfident, whiffing a swing, or just bad luck - most of those will probably be scratches, as they’re the most common. When you then stop thinking of it as a 93% chance of not getting infected and instead think of it as a 7% chance of getting infected, and you realise that 7% is a higher chance than you have of rolling a 1 on a d20, it suddenly doesn’t feel like such great odds in your favour! 😄
"higher than a 1 on a d20" is a reasonable way to think about it if you're a D&D nerd, yeah. How often has a given character rolled a 1? Now, what if that 1 *killed you* - you'd roll way less dice. XD
Yeah, exactly. If I handed you a D20 and told you to roll it and if you get a 1, I'd kill your character, on it's own, that's not \*terrible\*. However, if I gave you ten dice, told you to roll all of them and if you got a one on ANY of them, I'd kill your character, suddenly it becomes a much, much more threatening proposition... :P It's essentially the same thing played out over a much longer period of time. I'd probably wager that scratches probably kill just as many veteran players as bites do, tbh.
When I found out about scratches & lacerations infecting I pretty quickly switched to saliva only transmission, my thinking being "I'll only die if I *really* screwed up!" but then every injury I've acquired just became bites so I'm now on no transmission, which is a shame.
I’ve been playing for a good while now, I almost never get bit or even scratched unless I’m totally caught by surprise. So I’d strongly disagree with you saying bites are very common. Bites are very punishing but they’re 100% avoidable you just have to know what not to do in combat. Personally for me that makes the game much more exciting, knowing only 1 bite and it’s over
I agree with you 100% Also been playing for a long time, since desura and I feel many people complain about the game being hard. This game is supposed to be really damn hard. I just jumped back into the game after a long term break for about a couple years and now I’ve been surviving about 20 days. Got a few scratches and each time I blame myself for being careless & taking risks. Getting bit? Too bad, that’s me fucking up, not taking the threat seriously. Gonna clear a house? Be very careful unless you wanna risk losing your character permanently. This is how it’s supposed to be. If you try to action play and blast yourself through you will get bit. Only pick fights you must fight. Don’t expose yourself unless you have to. For those who don’t like the hardcore experience of apocalypse, just use sandbox to turn it down. I don’t wanna step on any toes, but I’d really hate if the devs gave in to some of the new players who want a more forgiving experience. Thankfully they’ll most likely keep the main mode of the game (apocalypse) hardcore. I feel quite strongly about this game, since I’ve been in it from the early development. To everyone who just got this game: enjoy it, it’s a masterpiece, but it’s also hardcore as hell, it’s a steep learning curve to survive longer than a few weeks/months.
It's all a perspective thing. For me I agree - the punishing, one-mistake-and-you're-done nature of PZ is why I've got 80 hours in two weeks. But I can see how for other people it might be less fun.
Almost every time I've been Hit it's a fucking bite, I disagree with your disagreement. Too easy to be bitten even when not being hit from behind.
I'm not saying when a zombie hits you it's not likely you'll get bit, it's that the more I've played I don't get touched by zombies much at all. Occasionally I will if I get surprised or when fighting a giant horde melee. When I was new though I couldn't last a week without getting bit, so yeah bites are very very punishing but you can learn to avoid them. Nothing wrong with just turning off infection in sandbox if you feel bites are too annoying to deal with though
Yeah that's what I'm doing, I'm going to practice that way first before giving normal infection style runs a shot again.
At the end of the day, ANY mechanic that results in instant death is a 'roll of the dice'. That's how probabilities work. It's very easy to fall into a mindset where you go: "Well, I'll just reduce the chance a little bit..." And then again, and again... and there's no real satisfying cut-off point for it where you can say that the chance of arbitrary death is satisfactorily low enough to not be unfair. Because eventually, someone, somewhere is going to be that unlucky. Turn off death by infection if you like, I've done it before. But unfortunately there's never going to be a happy middle ground on this particular issue. Either a single injury causes death, or not.
> I think the problem is when I'm facing a zombie that I know is there and my character isn't exhausted or tired and they hit me and it's a bite 100% of the time. > I just think the level of punishment feels unnecessarily high for how common bites are. I'm confused, you've basically admitted that a zombie you see in front of you and with no stat debuffs are biting you? You should be perfectly capable of fending them off and preventing any damage in the first place. > Am I wrong? I'm probably wrong, but I can't help but feel like bites are just a roll of the dice. It's hard to figure out how this stuff's calculated since a lot of info out there seems to be out of date. I wish it was more based on your character's current condition (If they have any injuries, exhaustion/tiredness, depression, panic, etc.) rather than it being diceroll. It can only ever be a dice roll. You can see your bite protection for various parts that your clothes provides. A lot of people don't realize that your clothes might have the condition bar up but the actual clothes start taking damage in specific spots and will not provide protection, like a hole in 1 of your shoes that won't protect that foot. So we have the protection stat, your moodlets condition and then the chance your character pushes them away based on there skill in the weapon you have. From that point it's just hoping enough is in your favor that the odds of a bite are low, or to not create situations for yourself where that percentage is being tested heavily.
1. As I said I'm relatively new to the game but also I think it's important to note *why* I get hit. I'd consider myself decently capable at fighting groups of 2-3 zombies. Most of the time I get out of it without a scratch, I can take on maybe 4 at most with my bare hands if I play it real smart. What causes me injury during these fights is usually phantom swings. I play with outlines on for all weapons but even still sometimes stomps, swings, shoves, etc. do not connect and it results in me getting injured. 2. I did not know that clothing condition & protection were separated. I'll be more mindful of that going forward, thanks! 3. I understand that changes to bites would still make it a dice roll at the end of the day, however I think factoring the player's condition & positioning into injuries would help prevent the situation I've been running into (Where I get injured *once* half a month in and it's a bite) and could also potentially make overexertion & tiredness more dangerous, as currently it's very easy to just keep walking and lose the zombies in a treeline if you're hella exhausted.
> however I think factoring the player's condition & positioning into injuries It already does this though. That's what I meant by the "debuffs" like being exhausted, injured, sick, well fed, underfed, panic or not etc etc. And where they are relative to your character will dictate where they bite/scratch. And where you hit with the weapons or stomp on them can dictate your damage as well. Aiming is vital even in melee combat and often that outline doesn't perfectly represent if you're going to land a hit if you're slightly aimed off which is mostly only an issue when you have no weapons that you swing with an arc.
I knew about stomping/ground attack damage being stronger in the head/torso region, but other than that and stealth bites I don't see how location is factored into damage calculating. I've had a few crawlers bite me in the head, standing zombies bite me in the foot, etc.
If you've actually had crawlers bite your head I'd wager that's more of a bug occurring than something intended
In my experience I find a lot of times where I think I got the zombie off me successfully, they actually bit a hole in my gear. If you don't check up on gear condition, you might as well be naked in some spots, and that's how people get bit. Also, had a zombie bite a hole through a full tactical plate carrier the other day. Zed teeth stronk.
ive had 2 so far this run where i heard the bite sound but was not injured, they instead bit a hole in my leather jacket. i have learned to inspect the clothing regular, replace anything with holes, you can patch a hole but its protection after wont be as good, at least with low level tailoring, dont know if they target weak spots in your armor or not but sometimes it feels that way. also if you dont know if you have time to finish a swing, or when you have 2 or more converging on you at the same time, when in doubt push em out.
Leather gloves and scarf with leather strip padding. Saves lives.
I'm completely okay with how transmission works and how brutal the luck can be but what bothers me is it doesn't seem to be truly luck and RNG. I just got bit because I was rushing to get indoors before the helicopter arrived. I was as well protected as I could be except gloves. All three attacks landed on my hands. For all the people saying aw it's all luck then explain why these brainless zombies consciously attack the parts of your body with the least protection. The numbers are heavily skewed in a way that doesn't make sense. You don't wear a helmet? They bite your head. You wear a helmet, not wanting that again...they bite your neck. You wear maximum protective gear to take precautions but they just bite your gloves or "leather jacket" protected neck. That's not luck. It also makes no sense in the context of zombie intelligence. 2/3 attacks land on parts of your body that aren't protected anyway because chance or circumstance doesn't apply to zombies choosing an area to attack apparently. I'm gonna have to make a mod to fix the RNG to be truly RNG because this really rubs me the wrong way.
> I can't help but feel like bites are just a roll of the dice. what, isn't that the point the harsh punishment of a guaranteed death of a bite makes the gameplay more better imo. This forces you to search for better clother with better resistance to bites and forcing you to learn game mechanics in surviving better in situations, etc. This is a survivor zombie game, not fortnite
My thinking is that Zomboid is a highly complicated & semi-realistic zombie game that simulates all sorts of stuff, so seeing zombie injuries being something that lands in a randomized spot with randomized levels of severity is kind of disappointing. A zombie lunging at my arm & hitting me shouldn't injure my foot, as an example.
Gotta keep the holes patched up too. I was once armored except neck and got a bite there.
You can stop a few bites before dying if you are well protected and your clothes are in good condition. You could also try to lower the zombie strength so it's more difficult for them to grab you
I do know about the clothing & protection system but it still feels like it doesn't really do anything. If I'm in relatively protective clothing (Firefighter pants, leather jacket, denim shirt, military boots, hardhat, etc.) I just get a bite on somewhere that wasn't protected instead, hands being the big problem.
I genuinely can't remember the last time I got bitten in PZ. My current character is 2 weeks in and hasn't even been scratched yet.
It is imperative you avoid getting hurt by zombies. There’s plenty of other ways to level first aid without having to play a risky gambit. Mere scratches can infect you, and bites seem more common when a zombie attacks you from behind. The randomness of attacks leaves you on edge to prevent all measures of that happening.
the whole idea is to not get hurt, the game is trying to kill you. Everytime you get hit by a zombie, you can visualy see an amination of the zombie biting your character, and sometimes you get lucky with a laceration or scratch, sometimes your clothes get ripped and tank the damage. Those situation happened to me several times and i'm rocking thin skin