A Brief Discussion On Vultures.

[AnAngelOfDeath]

I ****ing hate vultures.

That is all. Good luck, have fun.

[Brevan]

They're better now than in A18 (more random flight pattern. I dreaded waking them in a POI because they would get lost or blocked from view). They still only attack when you're on a vehicle or you've lost some HP (not reduced Max HP). At least in A20 they're quite a bit more predictable (they swoop in at you in a straight line, giving you quite a while to aim at them).

[Crater Creator]

Since they’re zombie vultures, they should be attracted to your brains, and distracting sights and sounds. When you get on/in a vehicle though, even before you rev the engine and move, they for some reason want to start attacking you in cases where they didn’t before.

That behavior is counterintuitive at best. I understand the necessity for it on horde night, but the nuisance is unnecessary elsewhere. My hope is that this is a temporary threat, and that once bandits can start attacking vehicles, the (non-horde night) vultures can go back to the scavenger-ish behavior of just attacking players when they’re injured.

[o_O]

" they should be attracted to your brains " from the posts in the General Discussion ive seen in the last 15 days darn vultures are going to starve.

[TheChoccoBiccy09]

Can kill a zombie bird with a level 2 bone knife power attack “WORST ENEMY IN THE GAME!!!!”
But for real though, their is much, much more dangerous zombies in game. Zombie dogs? Try killing them in one or two hits while they are sprinting at you. Ferals? Let’s hope you’ve got enough stamina or feral speed is low. Some poi rooms with 3+ zombies? Get used to combating multiple zombies in a small room.
My point is their is so many more dangerous zombies then a easy to kill vulture.

[AnAngelOfDeath]

Originally posted by TheChoccoBiccy09:

Can kill a zombie bird with a level 2 bone knife power attack “WORST ENEMY IN THE GAME!!!!”
But for real though, their is much, much more dangerous zombies in game. Zombie dogs? Try killing them in one or two hits while they are sprinting at you. Ferals? Let’s hope you’ve got enough stamina or feral speed is low. Some poi rooms with 3+ zombies? Get used to combating multiple zombies in a small room.
My point is their is so many more dangerous zombies then a easy to kill vulture.

Yes agreed, there are more dangerous zombies in the game than the vulture... however I believe that the vulture is the most annoying zombie in the game, at least in the wasteland. I'm not complaining about them btw and I am aware that a single swat will dispatch one.

[Rio]

They took the cowboy because he didn't fit in, but left his flying partner in, the jet speed acid spitting omega bird. Cuz vultures belong everywhere you know? Even in a frozen tundra during a bloodmoon.

[pryt]

Vultures are only annoying because of sometimes a single hit from them is enough to give you up to three ailments. I mostly get a concussion, an infection and a deep laceration from them. All at once, while in full heavy armor!

Sadly the drone does not mention it always when a vulture is approaching.

[AnAngelOfDeath]

Originally posted by pryt:

Vultures are only annoying because of sometimes a single hit from them is enough to give you up to three ailments. I mostly get a concussion, an infection and a deep laceration from them. All at once, while in full heavy armor!

Sadly the drone does not mention it always when a vulture is approaching.

THIS!! Also, the damn vultures will sometimes attack as a pair. It seems as though any time that I get in a bit of a dicey situation in the wasteland, a vulture(s) will appear to make matters a little more complicated lol. I'm only on day 20 in my first foray into alpha 20 on the default difficulty and in a random gen map - so my experience is somewhat limited. Having said that, I still hate the vultures lol.

[Jonnson]

I hate them as well. I mean, they are so easy to kill, its like swatting a fly. The problem is, there are nonstop flies. Its the most annoying thing since cliff racers in morrowind.

A better solution would be to implement a range of failures when attempting to use vehicles to escape bloodmoon hordes.

The truck stalls out! You have flooded the engine.
A crack in your gas tank has bled the fuel dry.
The tires are flat!
The peddle just broke off.
The chain skipped off the sprocket.
The batteries dead.
You forgot to fill the radiator!
The belt snapped.
Your stuck in mud!
The transmission dropped.

These are all things that happen, especially when someone panicked by a horde of zombies chasing them, improperly handles their gear, in haste and distraction.

[tazman1]

maybe if they had the same detection range as everything else and it wasn't so random.

Sleeper vultures in POIS you can spot and stealth shoot before they ever wake up but in the wild you can barely see the cactus in the distance then bam there is a vulture flying from it. Take that one out now there are 2 others coming at you, because the noise of the fight woke them from some unknown pit of hell.

Then you have the ones that circle overhead, sometimes they will fly right over you and pretend your not there even though your fighting a random small horde and making enough noise for a damn parade. Other times they will turn on a dime to come at you because they are just within your sight range.

No rhyme or reason.

[slaideri]

There is nothing else wrong with enemies other than they spawn endlessly from nowhere. That makes the struggle against them utterly pointless. In this situation the only way to win is to not play.

There are games where you can never win. This is one of the games. Every kill is pointless. Every gathered resource is pointless because it ultimately amounts to nothing. Because no matter how good your equipment is, there will always be more zombies spawning.

[Crater Creator]

Originally posted by Jonnson:

I hate them as well. I mean, they are so easy to kill, its like swatting a fly. The problem is, there are nonstop flies. Its the most annoying thing since cliff racers in morrowind.

A better solution would be to implement a range of failures when attempting to use vehicles to escape bloodmoon hordes.

The truck stalls out! You have flooded the engine.
A crack in your gas tank has bled the fuel dry.
The tires are flat!
The peddle just broke off.
The chain skipped off the sprocket.
The batteries dead.
You forgot to fill the radiator!
The belt snapped.
Your stuck in mud!
The transmission dropped.

These are all things that happen, especially when someone panicked by a horde of zombies chasing them, improperly handles their gear, in haste and distraction.

Oof, that’s a hard sell. The thing is, if you get one message one week and a different message the next week, a player expects there’s a reason for the difference, and will try to piece together what made the difference.

“Well, my vehicle’s HP was below 90% when it said the belt snapped. I’ll repair it and then it’ll work on horde night. Oh, this time it said I flooded the engine. Maybe because I parked it on an incline? Okay, NOW it’ll work on horde night. What, still no?”

By the time they’d realize it’s never going to work, they’d feel very jerked around. Better to come up with one plausible explanation and stick with it. But I’d rather be able to use a vehicle, vultures and all, than have it not work at all. I’m not in favor of shutting down a whole mode of gameplay for horde night.

[TheJebblue]

Originally posted by o_O:

" they should be attracted to your brains " from the posts in the General Discussion ive seen in the last 15 days darn vultures are going to starve.

Yah but they're zombie vultures, they're already dead.

[TheJebblue]

Given that research proves vultures are scavengers and not hunters; an aggressive zombie vulture makes no sense. An aggressive Raven though, I'd totally be for that, it would fit.

[benrod]

Originally posted by AnAngelOfDeath:

Originally posted by TheChoccoBiccy09:

Can kill a zombie bird with a level 2 bone knife power attack “WORST ENEMY IN THE GAME!!!!”
But for real though, their is much, much more dangerous zombies in game. Zombie dogs? Try killing them in one or two hits while they are sprinting at you. Ferals? Let’s hope you’ve got enough stamina or feral speed is low. Some poi rooms with 3+ zombies? Get used to combating multiple zombies in a small room.
My point is their is so many more dangerous zombies then a easy to kill vulture.

Yes agreed, there are more dangerous zombies in the game than the vulture... however I believe that the vulture is the most annoying zombie in the game, at least in the wasteland. I'm not complaining about them btw and I am aware that a single swat will dispatch one.

They are annoying, both in frequency and amount* (I've killed more in A20 than A19). At least they fixed the hit-boxes so even a shotgun would work. Combine all their side-effects and it literally can bring a player quite down.

*I'm reminded of the city building skyscraper POI. At least five if not more guarding the roof, never mind all the other zombies. Vultures are to this game what snipers are to war games.