Juggernauts seems just kind of stupid

[bunies]

They are just massive bullet sponges and even then take for ever to take down and the reward seems to be completely not worth it

[Prometheus]

Why are they stupid? Because they are hard to kill? Because they are dangerous? They can be very useful at times!

You are doing it wrong, mate. There is no reason to kill one, unless you have to, or you have stacked the deck in your favour.

You can kill a plague juggernaut on lethal with a pretty simple explosive that everyone has access to. You can melee them to death if you know how. If I see one near base, I drag them over, let my 50 cal and 7.62 equipped guards shoot at him, while I kite him around the parking lot. When he goes down, I do manual execution. Nice influence boost pretty much for free, useful plague samples, boost to morale for the base, and status boost for the survivor I control. I even do 2 and sometimes 3 at the same time.

You can also just drag them over to enemy enclaves, or enclaves you are bored of or want to get rid of.

[rtwjunkie]

Yeah, there is really very few times to engage blood juggs, especially when several are together. They are very useful. They will follow you wherever you want them to go, which is usually just someplace away from where I am trying to get to. There are always enclaves accusing you of "hogging" all the supplies, or the cannibals.

Just today I went to visit the cannibals for the first time with my current community. Since I saw several hordes and 2 juggs nearby I went home, picked up 4 boomboxes and went to the country Church they were at on Meagher. Set off the first boombox and went to the roof. 1st horde rushed in. I snuck in and set off second boombox and went back to the roof. Now some screamers showed up. There were over 20 zedds, 2 ferals and 2 Juggs. It took a grand total of 5 more minutes of real time for all 3 to die spectacularly almost at once, with a jugg ripping one of them in half.

Edit, just now finished drawing 4 big guys to the enclave that tries to extort supplies from you and accuses you of hogging them all. What great fun to watch!!

[Radio Shack]

Yeah stay away from Juggernauts, only fight them if they're near your community and especially if you have a sniper tower. Let your NPCs take him down and stay close enough to get that melee execution. Never fight a Juggernaut while exploring, it's not worth it, unless you have a very strong vehicle to smash into him repeatedly, don't bother. No reason for you to get upset

[Mexicola9302]

Juggernauts are easy to kill, as long they are alone, it only gets problematic if they got Ferals around them. I mostly just use shotguns and melee to fight them, or if near my base the sniper tower guards can take him down. I only play the game on standard difficulty, no idea how they are on highest difficulty.

[bunies]

Originally posted by Radio Shack:

Yeah stay away from Juggernauts, only fight them if they're near your community and especially if you have a sniper tower. Let your NPCs take him down and stay close enough to get that melee execution. Never fight a Juggernaut while exploring, it's not worth it, unless you have a very strong vehicle to smash into him repeatedly, don't bother. No reason for you to get upset

yea a thing you should basicaly not engage with or use some exploit to kill is litteraly bad game design. like i said they are stupid and horribly executed. I mean at least in dead island they were kind of fun to fight and there was some explanation of why they were stupid bullet sponges, here its just ♥♥♥♥ game design decisions all over the place,

[Mexicola9302]

Originally posted by Geist:

Originally posted by Mexicola9302:

Juggernauts are easy to kill, as long they are alone, it only gets problematic if they got Ferals around them. I mostly just use shotguns and melee to fight them, or if near my base the sniper tower guards can take him down. I only play the game on standard difficulty, no idea how they are on highest difficulty.

They have approximately 50% more health on the higher Difficulties. Also they have a bloater cloud of bloodplague around them if they hit the ground with their fists. So attacking them close combat is dangerous

Well this doesn't sound very fun, fighting them then.

[Soy Mutant]

I agree. Unpopular AND badass opinion - all special infected in this game are, not to say bad, bud fit poorly with general game systems.

I realized that when i realized that i never really feel joy when meeting them - in a metagame sense. What i mean is that i feel joy when i interact with every other difficult mechanic of the game (surviving on lethal - managing resources, having to scrape by, having to improvise etc.), but when i encounter any of the special zeds i only experience annoyance.

The reason is that they are not made to be interacted with: like enemies of, for example, Dark Souls, which demand only skill to be able to defeat and allow to do that without taking damage.

Juggs, Screamers, Bloaters and Feroids are made to make game harder and do that with all the unfair means - yes you can learn to defeat them flawlessly, especially ferals, but that only works in very specific circumstances and NOT when you add imb**ilic human AI to the mix - trying to complete a siege side mission (help enclave with siege) on lethal is impossible, because when jugg comes, he will not only be incredibly hard to keep away from npcs and resource draining to kill - he will also attract a legion of other specials who player has no means of properly controlling.

I mean - try to headshot feral when he is attacking an npc instead of charging you - it demands so much reaction and precision, which is near impossible with their speed and erratic animations, especially in the circumstances of fighting a horde of zeds at the same time.

I think screamers, bloaters and juggs just need to go from the game completely, ferals could be used like a super boss type of enemy (which means they should NOT just spawn in packs behind your back, because, honestly, without cheesing it is impossible to kill them in such situations), and booted off cast should be replaced with such special infected, who would not just make game hard, but also be fair and enjoyable to interact.

For example - a proper support special zed to replace screamer: a tall lanky creature that spits variety of slow moving projectiles - that way when they pile up in big fights it won't just be an annoying unavoidable stun that also spawns enemies, but actual supporting role that affects combat.

Bloater/his effect could be replaced - instead of singular explosion that leaves extremely dangerous cloud make him constantly fume with gas that would affect player in non damaging, but restricting ways - slow him down, make him lose stamina, make vision blurry, make comads read in unpredictable way (for example, pressing attack would make player dodge, etc), etc.
That way, he could be a proper zoner would greatly affect the flow of combat and do it on more dynamic and skill-based level.
And to the vehicles you can make different effect - instead of infecting a car, the gas should severly mess player's vision AND make player character swerve car in different directions for a period of time - that way getting caught in cloud woulnd't be a near-death sentence, but still a have a non-desirable effect, but the one which also can be mitigated with proper situational awareness and skill.

Juggernauts could be replaced with giants: huge zeds that are slow and clunky and instead of being bullet sponges with a single weak spot are made to be killed by attacking limbs - legs could be hacked or shot off, severly hampering their mobility, arms could be damaged into being non-functioning, etc.

Personally, i think specials could benefit from adding various projectile attacks (slow, predictable and avoidable), and have their visual design be more uncanny and surreal. For example - have insect-like features, have "liminal" design (weird, tall/long arms/necks/legs/etc.), etc.
Like, have a huge spider that climbs walls and shoots web at passing cars, slowing them down, or a leaker creature that would make roads slippery by spilling oil-like substance.

The point is that there is a variety of ways to go awat from screamer-bloater-feral-jugg formula AND right now it is kind of a weakest link in all of game's design.