Does anyone actually play with sprinters?

[Grumpy Old Guy]

Long story short I got bored of the zombies I can just walk away from so I'm trying on sprinters only and I swear to god this game was not made with them moving that fast in mind and it's really obvious. I don't care about them being fast so much as how quiet they are and the fact that no matter what I set the settings to I'm still finding groups of 5-10 which with sprinters is just outright death.

Does anyone actually play with these things and if so how do you manage to not die in like two weeks tops? I made it six months in Louisville with the highest numbers I could set on fast shamblers but I can't make it two weeks with sprinters.

[xAlphaStarOmegax]

I don't play with sprinters, I prefer the old timey movie zombies that walk slow and moan.

[Gotgo]

I think most people that say they play with sprinters either load their game up with so many mods it's essentially a different game or set the population extremely low and turn the difficulty way down. I've tried sprinters a few times and it's always the same experience of tedium and frustration. Some people can find a good balance of mods and sandbox settings that lets them enjoy it, but I highly doubt people load up the default apoc settings, put it to sprinters, and load into a vanilla save. If you're looking for difficulty there are dozens of settings to choose from that still leave a reasonable balance while presenting a strong challenge.

[Grumpy Old Guy]

There are three main issues I find when it comes to sprinters.

1. They are way too quiet. They just flat out don't make enough noise and half the time I'm bit before I even realize one spotted me from somewhere off in the distance and ran across a ton of open ground without making a sound.

2. The combat just flat doesn't work with them moving that fast. Lots of glitching through you, lots of getting back bites off from in front of you, lots of you just flat not having the swing speed to fight more than one pretty much ever. The hitboxes are super janky when they move that fast.

3. The default lowest spawn settings will still see you looking at groups of 4+ zombies, sometimes 10+ zombies no matter how low you set it to. Those are not survivable numbers and the entire game because a mess of avoiding combat as much as you can because it's always a losing proposition.

[pgames-food]

hi i dont play with sprinters mainly for 2 reasons:
i like experiencing the long game (where you have to grab things, and craft things and re-purpose items and cook and survive ... in order to learn more recipes etc, especially with mods including hydrocraft, where it isnt fun to simply die early in the game to a sprinter :)

and secondly, because my computer is not very powerful, i might lag a bit (especially now that in later zulu exe versions, my nvidia gt540m doesnt seem to be supported and crashes, so i have to use an onboard intel and any lag + sprinters usually equals a game over as well :)

so for now, infinite carry weight, and prevent death are what i use while i learn new mods, so that my character can Live For The Experience :) but i still have to treat wounds etc with medical supplies so its not really cheating

[katsuragi]

If I play with sprinters I'll adjust the population to 0.05 ( 1 for every 20 you would see in a normal pop) and turn off groups so the few that are out there don't gather up with their buddies. Even then it is more of a single session game and not the kind of world you could survive long term in.

[Greb]

We play with them in multiplayer but their spawn chance is pretty low, it's rare you'll see more than one or two at once, and if you see three you got extremely unlucky or you were being extremely careless with luring in zombies, lol.

I've tried playing a game of my own in singleplayer set up to have very low population with them having super senses and being as powerful as you can make them in the settings, having an emphasis on stealthy gameplay where detection = death, and it was kind of fun with the tension and such, but eventually you can't hide forever and it all comes tumbling down the moment an alarm goes off lol.

At the moment they don't interact with environment much to make them anything more than a novelty though, in my opinion. They can trip over from time to time but they don't seem to make much in the way of noise and they're too smart at pathing to be what I'd look for - ravenous and careless runners smashing into walls and fences, doors and windows as they give chase. Also you can still avoid their grabs just by walking away, unless you're ultra tired and exhausted they'll miss their grab every time.

But yeah anyway tl;dr a fun novelty but currently not really designed in-line with how the rest of the game is, so I'd only play with them when they have a very small chance to spawn as an interesting "special infected" type of zombie, personally.

There's nothing quite as scary as having a quick peek out of an upstairs window of a building only to get a very quick "fade in" glance of a sprinter heading in though. That sudden pang of fear as you see it mid-sprint for a mere flicker of a moment and then a few seconds later teeth are sinking into your neck.

Speaking of which, this happened to me recently and when they bit me, it made a much different sound than the typical tearing noise I'm used to be when I get grabbed, the sprinter got me from behind and it made a very loud and wet CLUNK type sound when they got me...is that a vanilla thing? What does it mean when that sound effect plays on a zombie attack? That it was a very vicious and dangerous one?

[✞「יוֹחָנָן」✞]

make the zombies have random speed and use the slower sprinters mod

[Axebeard]

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[Brother Frederick]

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[Deklend]

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[Death]

I never use sprinters as I've always hated running zombies personally. You are right though, the game isn't designed around sprinters at all. The game is designed around Romero/Max Brooks type zombies, which is why there are no default settings that use sprinters. Sprinters are just there for those that do like that sort of thing.

[LIMP BISQUICK]

Yeah, Unfortunately I found them to have many flaws to make it an enjoyable experience. I forget some weird quirk they have that just made me refuse to keep playing with them enabled. If there are any players who last long I assume they use exploits or play real slowly, maybe use mods too. Not the kind play-styles I was looking for.

I do like the sense of urgency that sprinters can bring with those rare moments tho. The way how it forces you into a situation that limits your options. You have to think quick and react to several things going on around you on top of it. Originally you were probably heading towards a building but they forced you run several blocks away. You're not totally safe but can catch a breath... Those moments were great! I experimented a lot with all kinds of settings but I just couldn't find anything to make it work or enjoyable. Having some slower options I think would help too but I didn't want to rely on a mod for that. Anyways, hope future updates bring stuff like that.

[Λ E O N]

There's a mod in the workshop that reduces the sprinters speed down by like -40%:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2716710487

You can give it a try, the mod has multiple mod options included (all in one mini-mods) to configure the sprinters to your liking.

Anyway, I tried time ago with the vanilla sprinters, I've tried with this mod as well, multiple times. The conclusion is pretty much what @Grumpy Old Guy commented, it's possible to play with sprinters or runners but the game animations, the movement of your character when you're turning your body, the quiet way the runners fast-approach behind your back with no sound warning whatsoever and the amount of zombies spawning around the world makes the whole thing completely unbearable early-mid-long term. Even lowering the zombie population to ridiculously low amounts, the issue still there the moment 2 or 3 sprinters are right next to you, it's impossible to melee them even with the highest melee skill or the fastest melee weapon, feels like the game animations are not intended to work with that kind of fast moving zombies and fighting even small packs of zombies is a death sentence, combat always ends in a death spiral of grabs and breaks, get terrible injures, trying to run away to apply a few bandages? impossible, they're right behind your back can't get few meters of distance, even if you manage to escape without a scratch, they're always right at your back, if you try to gain some distance and try to turn back facing them to counter attack, they instantly reach you the time your character is turning 180º.

I mean I can go all night with all the issues, but you get the idea. I guess this the kind of crazy game setup for a youtube channel challenge like: "how many days can you survive with sprinters" and that's pretty much it, because the most basic thing like combat becomes a death sentence and cardio is in a constant extreme drain due the non stop running, which also most of the time catch the attention of even more sprinters, it's very messy and there's no time for reaction, even a melee miss will cause the zombie to instant get your ass while your character still ending the melee attack animation. Inside buildings the combat is a nightmare fuel, there's no other way to describe it, its a big mess, a whole world of suffering and frustration.

[BDZ1972]

I was raised on VHS copies of George Romero flicks. Shamblers are the only zombies for me.

I have mods for everything under the sun, but I don't tamper with the zombies themselves...slow, tireless and unrelenting is what zombies are all about IMO.

[Vovin]

I play with sprinters. Typically 0.6 starting pop. Peak pop is irrelevant. I do have loads of mods, but none of them really benefit myself directly. Some vehicle mods, toxic fog/rain, stuff like that. My current run is started 6 month later, January 1st, with everything set to extremely rare, day length 3 hours.
Honestly, just go burglar and try and hotwire a car. Then take it somewhere rural and go from there. You can bait one runner at a time from a horde if you are in combat stance, and wiggle at the edge of detection range. Never stray too far from your car, as you'll need to get back in if 2 or more runners see you. If an area is wooded, hit a tree with a weapon to make noise and see what comes out.
Overall, its a much slower style of play, and after 500 hours, I sorta need to make the game as horrible as possible.
For this current run, I've made it to Louisville, basing in the first big house along the river with my own personal dock. But I started in Riverside, hotwired a car and went to the smol gas station and store at the top edge, then the military surplus store, then crossroads and to Louisville.