How do I handle hostile survivors?

[Akernati]

I was doing the sheriff mission and I came up on the objective to meet a hostile survivor enclave. They immediately started shooting me on sight without any warning, and almost gunned me down immediately, so I came back later with a shotgun, 2 sniper rifles, a silenced MP5 and a pistol, and the first guy I tried to kill tanked all of my MP5 ammo (60 something rounds), all of my sniper rifle ammo (20 rounds), and 3 of my pistol rounds, to the head, before shooting me 3 times and nearly killing my character and blowing up my vehicle.

Is there something I'm missing here or are the hostile survivors just way too overpowered to be considered a fun mechanic in this game?

[ian.silver67]

Yeah, that sounds like a familiar story. I always use a vehicle - being a bullet sponge with amazing marksman skills doesn't seem to save them from being floored a couple of times by Rhames V doing 60kmh.

[Sundance]

What's your difficulty setting? Normally they're not that bad if you use cover and go for headshots with either an AR or Sniper.
Don't use your vehicle for cover.. anything else you don't care about

[Akernati]

Originally posted by ian.silver67:

Yeah, that sounds like a familiar story. I always use a vehicle - being a bullet sponge with amazing marksman skills doesn't seem to save them from being floored a couple of times by Rhames V doing 60kmh.

Yeah, I tried doing that, they always end up sinking tons of rounds into the car and getting it to the black smoking level, just before it blows up.

Originally posted by Sundance:

What's your difficulty setting? Normally they're not that bad if you use cover and go for headshots with either an AR or Sniper.
Don't use your vehicle for cover.. anything else you don't care about

I play on Nightmare difficulty, everything else is fairly manageable, but the survivors are so much worse. I used cover, which helped a bit, but most of those rounds were headshots and the guy kept falling down and trying to recover, I'd light him up, and then he'd just get back up like it didn't matter at all.

[Protectron]

The car doesn't take damage from bullets - at least a very minimal amount. That's zombies and crashing into stuff, including hostile humans (with the front).

Cars don't take damage at all from ramming things with the rear.

The best (safest/cheapest) way of taking out hostile enclaves is to circle around them with a car honking the horn and drawing hordes and screamers their way. Then making sure you lose those zombies so they focus on the hostiles instead.

What is imporant regardless of which method you use, is to stay close enough to them that they receive full damage from zombies, bullets or other types of damage. If you stay too far away, the damage from the bullets are drastically reduced and the zombies are idling.

Also, since Lethal was released the hostiles are constantly aiming at you and not caring about the zombies around them - if you are close enough. This enables fewer zombies to deal more damage to them as they are constantly being bitten in the neck.

Suppressed 9mm shots hardly damages the hostiles at all, btw. Go for 7.62, or Bloater Cloud Grenades.

Edit: also, make sure they don't get idle time so that they run that "applying bandages" animation, which will have them restore at least some health.

[Akernati]

Originally posted by Protectron:

The car doesn't take damage from bullets - at least a very minimal amount. That's zombies and crashing into stuff, including hostile humans (with the front).

Cars don't take damage at all from ramming things with the rear.

The best (safest/cheapest) way of taking out hostile enclaves is to circle around them with a car honking the horn and drawing hordes and screamers their way. Then making sure you lose those zombies so they focus on the hostiles instead.

What is imporant regardless of which method you use, is to stay close enough to them that they receive full damage from zombies, bullets or other types of damage. If you stay too far away, the damage from the bullets are drastically reduced and the zombies are idling.

Also, since Lethal was released the hostiles are constantly aiming at you and not caring about the zombies around them - if you are close enough. This enables fewer zombies to deal more damage to them as they are constantly being bitten in the neck.

Suppressed 9mm shots hardly damages the hostiles at all, btw. Go for 7.62, or Bloater Cloud Grenades.

Edit: also, make sure they don't get idle time so that they run that "applying bandages" animation, which will have them restore at least some health.

That's actually really good advice, thank you. I didn't know that didn't damage them as much, I guess everything takes a little more damage the more you scale up, but it felt like my guns were peashooters at best. Is it anything suppressed or just 9mm?

[Protectron]

Originally posted by Akernati:

Originally posted by Protectron:

The car doesn't take damage from bullets - at least a very minimal amount. That's zombies and crashing into stuff, including hostile humans (with the front).

Cars don't take damage at all from ramming things with the rear.

The best (safest/cheapest) way of taking out hostile enclaves is to circle around them with a car honking the horn and drawing hordes and screamers their way. Then making sure you lose those zombies so they focus on the hostiles instead.

What is imporant regardless of which method you use, is to stay close enough to them that they receive full damage from zombies, bullets or other types of damage. If you stay too far away, the damage from the bullets are drastically reduced and the zombies are idling.

Also, since Lethal was released the hostiles are constantly aiming at you and not caring about the zombies around them - if you are close enough. This enables fewer zombies to deal more damage to them as they are constantly being bitten in the neck.

Suppressed 9mm shots hardly damages the hostiles at all, btw. Go for 7.62, or Bloater Cloud Grenades.

Edit: also, make sure they don't get idle time so that they run that "applying bandages" animation, which will have them restore at least some health.

That's actually really good advice, thank you. I didn't know that didn't damage them as much, I guess everything takes a little more damage the more you scale up, but it felt like my guns were peashooters at best. Is it anything suppressed or just 9mm?

Well, just check the damage meter. That's one indicator. A more hidden indicator is that the handgun calibers don't stagger zombies the same way .44, 5.56 and 7.62 does. Not even with an Advanced Brake.

One 9mm bullet doesn't even stagger a hostile human, while a 7.62 does. Also, the range in which you do proper damage is much longer the higher the calibre and damage.

[ShadesOfKnight]

Originally posted by Akernati:

I was doing the sheriff mission and I came up on the objective to meet a hostile survivor enclave. They immediately started shooting me on sight without any warning, and almost gunned me down immediately, so I came back later with a shotgun, 2 sniper rifles, a silenced MP5 and a pistol, and the first guy I tried to kill tanked all of my MP5 ammo (60 something rounds), all of my sniper rifle ammo (20 rounds), and 3 of my pistol rounds, to the head, before shooting me 3 times and nearly killing my character and blowing up my vehicle.

Is there something I'm missing here or are the hostile survivors just way too overpowered to be considered a fun mechanic in this game?

Best way to handle them:

Get a Sniper Cover radio call (by tower or allied enclave) to help you with zed activity. Make your Sheriff a Gunslinger with something big - I found a .44 revolver to work well - then take an NPC follower with you - preferably with something really big like a BAR with a Pro Brake.

Rush the enemy with a vehicle, fire off the Sniper Cover on your approach. Hopefully you can hit one with the car. Take a Stim bottle, hop out, and snap aim-fire twice for each enemy. Double tap is usually sufficient.

Yes, you'll make a lot of noise, but I found that the BAR wielding friend plus Sniper cover buys you enough time to kill off the NPCs and then you just have to survive until game end.

Hope it helps.

[Akernati]

Originally posted by Protectron:

Originally posted by Akernati:

That's actually really good advice, thank you. I didn't know that didn't damage them as much, I guess everything takes a little more damage the more you scale up, but it felt like my guns were peashooters at best. Is it anything suppressed or just 9mm?

Well, just check the damage meter. That's one indicator. A more hidden indicator is that the handgun calibers don't stagger zombies the same way .44, 5.56 and 7.62 does. Not even with an Advanced Brake.

One 9mm bullet doesn't even stagger a hostile human, while a 7.62 does. Also, the range in which you do proper damage is much longer the higher the calibre and damage.

Originally posted by ShadesOfKnight:

Originally posted by Akernati:

I was doing the sheriff mission and I came up on the objective to meet a hostile survivor enclave. They immediately started shooting me on sight without any warning, and almost gunned me down immediately, so I came back later with a shotgun, 2 sniper rifles, a silenced MP5 and a pistol, and the first guy I tried to kill tanked all of my MP5 ammo (60 something rounds), all of my sniper rifle ammo (20 rounds), and 3 of my pistol rounds, to the head, before shooting me 3 times and nearly killing my character and blowing up my vehicle.

Is there something I'm missing here or are the hostile survivors just way too overpowered to be considered a fun mechanic in this game?

Best way to handle them:

Get a Sniper Cover radio call (by tower or allied enclave) to help you with zed activity. Make your Sheriff a Gunslinger with something big - I found a .44 revolver to work well - then take an NPC follower with you - preferably with something really big like a BAR with a Pro Brake.

Rush the enemy with a vehicle, fire off the Sniper Cover on your approach. Hopefully you can hit one with the car. Take a Stim bottle, hop out, and snap aim-fire twice for each enemy. Double tap is usually sufficient.

Yes, you'll make a lot of noise, but I found that the BAR wielding friend plus Sniper cover buys you enough time to kill off the NPCs and then you just have to survive until game end.

Hope it helps.

Thank you both, I really appreciate the quick and comprehensive advice, I'll try this out, hopefully things go well from there, haha.

[Protectron]

Tonight I was dealing with the weapon hoarders mission (Warlord) and the first hostile went down quickly from bumping with the rear of the car. The second one, hower, never seemed to die! Must have been at least 75 strikes (Lethal) before I gave up and lured in some zeds. One neck bite and some scratches later and he died.

This reminds me of taking on a Juggernaut and not managing to deal enough damage when he's on his knees. He'll get up again, regain some small sliver of health, and then he'd be on his knees again... endlessly.

There is a time aspect of doing this, in other words. In a certain number of seconds you have to deal x damage in order to kill. It seems to be when they're on the ground before the red rectangle appears again, that you have to deal enough damage to finish them. Maybe the Miragra I used doesn't deal enough damage to do so if the NPC is an Endurance character... or something.

A .50 bullet to the head instakills, though.

[Gustavo]

or if u hate shooting , remember , bloater gas always works :D

or even zombaits , just spam them with that while ur on scentblocks and watch those zombies tears them apart

[rtwjunkie]

Originally posted by Officer Pedro Álvarez:

or if u hate shooting , remember , bloater gas always works :D

or even zombaits , just spam them with that while ur on scentblocks and watch those zombies tears them apart

Yep, love zombait on hostiles. Once they are buried in a pile though I don't depend on the zeds to finish them. That's when the bloater gas grenade gets thrown, finally doing them in.

[Gustavo]

Originally posted by rtwjunkie:

Originally posted by Officer Pedro Álvarez:

or if u hate shooting , remember , bloater gas always works :D

or even zombaits , just spam them with that while ur on scentblocks and watch those zombies tears them apart

Yep, love zombait on hostiles. Once they are buried in a pile though I don't depend on the zeds to finish them. That's when the bloater gas grenade gets thrown, finally doing them in.

i always use those , i like to watch those pathetic human suffer >:)

#CLM Community Lives Matter , rest of enclave can ♥♥♥♥ off XD

[Optimal Popsicle]

Lots of great tips here. I just want to remind you that bloater grenades mix well with fire crackers in a confined space. Not only do they take the gas damage, but also burns and broken rib level damage from the explosion. Hostile NPCs are a lot easier to pick off when hobbled.

[Gustavo]

Originally posted by Optimal Popsicle:

Lots of great tips here. I just want to remind you that bloater grenades mix well with fire crackers in a confined space. Not only do they take the gas damage, but also burns and broken rib level damage from the explosion. Hostile NPCs are a lot easier to pick off when hobbled.

also natural bloater gas works too , thats why using zombait also a good idea , coz it will attract not just normal plebs , freaks too , this one time , i use a zombait at a neutral enclave coz they useless af , only one juggernaut spawn and suprisingly he rekt all of em , its very satisfied to watch XD

[Aesyle]

Since hostile survivors are extremely dangerous on Nightmare/Lethal, best way to take any of them out would be: Echo-S5 Gas Launcher + Gas Launcher 40mm Round.

Drop one gas round into the hostile enclave and watch them wiggle and die quite fast.
Bloater Cloud Grenade works as good as well but it doesn't have the convenience of aiming, as Gas Launcher gives it.

High/highest difficulties are essentially the very reason gas launcher and gas grenades are in the game.

On Dread difficulty, any full-auto 7.62mm weapon with pro/advanced brake will do to. Given that you can get a good salvo into the survivor head, to drop one and then few shots into the head to finish off.