Infection Mortality

[Spasman]

This is just a silly non-issue criticism, its mostly across a lot of zombie games, but in this case I really hate the Survivor/Apocalypse having infection mortality at all. I understand I can change it in sandbox but its mostly the principle of the thing, especially with the dang 'proper zombies' checkbox taunting me about it. I get that's how all the movies and TV shows have done it since the dawn of time, but it's for drama. Like.. when Bob or whoever from season 1 gets infected, it can be pretty emotional if you like or hate Bob. But when my character named FUK ASSDUMP gets Queasy after being hit once or twice, I feel nothing but bored, frustrated rage and almost immediately delete the save and start over. I guess a lot of decisions for this game were made for multiplayer, but I can't imagine it being fun at all for any long term characters

I haven't played up until this recent update, and afaik the Queasy status only appears if you're overheating or infected from a zombie. This has happened to me 3 times now, and no matter how well I clean wounds, eat and hibernate like a bear, and chug pills, it always appears almost at random and progresses to death. Even if you can get over it, it seems like it's a massive waste of time for when power/water utilities shut off. Like the instant death option in the infection drop down menu makes me laugh. Why shouldn't I just restart? Like I'm not gonna waste 1-2 hours reading books, just explode my head now.

IMHO I think most zombie games can sit pretty by just using airborne or plain ol' violent, killer zombies spreading a dormant virus. Or offer some sort of way to indefinitely delay changing if you dont want to let a cure exist, Zombrex in Dead Rising is probably one of my favorite concepts. Anyways thanks for coming to my cool story

[Tyrant]

So change the setting. The default story is how it is, because that's how they want it. If you want it to be something else, make your own zombie game.

[nor7hy5]

if you want a way to indefinitely delay the zombification just download some of the mods on the workshop that will allow you to indefinitely delay/cure the zombie infection or just turn it off via settings that's what i do and anyhow this is supposed to be a real life zombie simulation so it's supposed to be as close to how we think a zombie apocalypse would be like/happen in the real world and how you would survive that so the proper zombies are just that proper zombies or at-least the most popular protrayed type of how zombies would work in real life so you can't really blame anybody for the fact that's a proper zombie apart from the people who made zombies what they are today.

[40000Aggro]

Ha, I was just about to make a thread asking if the devs were ever going to add a viral infection option until I saw this thread. I love apocalypse games and movies and just the idea of how people and society change in a survival situation in the first place. I think it might be the creativity of it, but I watch a lot of virus and zombies games and with covid and all I figured it would be interesting to see how viral infection plays out. Resident Evil is also known for it's viral plague infections and it's really popular. I've loved RE games for over 10 years.

[rottie427]

You can go into sandbox settings and change it.

[40000Aggro]

Originally posted by Klax:

Originally posted by PunishingVirtues:

Ha, I was just about to make a thread asking if the devs were ever going to add a viral infection option until I saw this thread. I love apocalypse games and movies and just the idea of how people and society change in a survival situation in the first place. I think it might be the creativity of it, but I watch a lot of virus and zombies games and with covid and all I figured it would be interesting to see how viral infection plays out. Resident Evil is also known for it's viral plague infections and it's really popular. I've loved RE games for over 10 years.

Bruh

This is awkward, we're both wearing the same face. Are you my daddy?

[Spasman]

Lol I said I know you can change the option, i'm just drumming up game design discussion I guess

[Yung Venuz]

I thought it was an interesting read, but there's not much to say in response, yeah. Surprised we don't have a Willamette Mall mod.

[way2co0l_2003]

I don't think they'll be changing that major design point, but as stated there are mods to change it more to your liking. Cures are possible, and the skill journal gives a reasonably lore friendly way to restore what was lost.

[Aidal]

Originally posted by Spasman:

Lol I said I know you can change the option, i'm just drumming up game design discussion I guess

Your character becoming Queasy is a side effect of infection, but not THE infection. If your character is scratched and then queasy every time, you're likely not taking care of the wound, scratching only has a 7% chance of zombification, even if untended.

Queasy comes from-
Bad food
Illness (sick, out in the rain, etc.)
Wound infection
Zombification infection.

IIRC there are also traits that can auto-proc queasy as well, but I've been out of the game a couple months, and they have been removed or adjusted.

tl;dr: Queasy can happen any time you're injured and take poor care of yourself, check the wound status, if its a scratch you have a 7% chance of being zombified, if its a laceration, you have a 25% chance of being zombified. If either wound gets infected, it may proc queasy moodle.

[Spasman]

I don't think they have any good reason to change it at this point, and it'd be a waste of man hours to even consider removing it, I just always thought it was something from zombie-themed media that never transitioned well to video games

In the meantime, I do compliment the sandbox options and the insane LUA modding, to make up the loss of challenge for disabling it I've been happy with giving them superhuman strength and more intelligence. are there any mods that rebalance the game differently for single player?

[Deceptive Pastry]

I'm really torn on this mechanic myself. It's accurate to zombie lore. I think it should stay as the default. Maybe bring it down to 50-75% chance on bite. But either way, it should be default. But for my personal playing, I tried turning it off and I enjoy this way more. Having a chance to survive makes things more interesting to me.

I made a mistake of fighting too many zombies while overloaded. Got 2 bites, slowly bandaged myself while running away, barely survived with 10% HP. Since infection was off there was a really tense moment rushing to drive back to my house, in a tropical rain storm with no visibility, to get more sterilized bandages and food to stay alive. That experience wouldn't have happened with infection on. I just would've resigned and let myself die.

[Ohgodtherats]

Practically every other zombie game works as you describe. This is one of the only ones with such a mechanic in the first place. If it's not your thing you can turn it off or play any number of other games where only damage will kill you. 7 days to die just got a cool update and is a good time.

[Rayle]

The infection is 100% fatal if you get it sadly. I thought there was a chance to overcome it if you tended to the wound/got lucky enough, but apparently that's not the case. Once I learned it was always fatal, I just started making new characters whenever one got bit. What's the point of playing those last 2-3 days if it won't matter anyway?

Yesterday however, I learned of an awesome mod called "Antibodies" and it gives you a chance to beat the infection. I find it's much more suspenseful and I actually enjoy the infection mechanic now. It's still an awful situation to be in, but you at least have a chance at surviving it. Instead of a guaranteed death sentence, it leads to more interesting gameplay where you are desperately trying to take care of yourself and to do all you can to give your body the best chance at beating the virus. You're in a bleak situation, but not all hope is lost! I recommend you check it out!

[Lil Grandpa]

I think it would be great if there was an actual cure (only one vial per playthrough) that was hard as hell to get to, but nonetheless worth it if your character is going to die anyway. For it to be a challenge, no guns would be allowed in the area so late game players couldn't breeze through it, and maybe throw in some unique zombie variants in that area as well. I could only picture the whole thing being a complete hellride.

[Rayle]

What it does, is it gives you the full on zombie infection except when you hit fever, it wears off slowly, allowing you to survive a bite provided you were already healthy and had access to food.

Best way to play the game IMO, makes zombies still a huge threat, just not a game ending threat because a zombie animation-bugged and scratched your left toe.

Wow, I did not know about that. I saw the option but didn't think that's how it worked. So the infection isn't a guaranteed death, but it can still do you in eh? I'm gonna try that on my next character instead of the Antibodies mod to see how it compares. Thanks for the tip!