Guides:Selective Targeting
| Zombie Tactics |
| The information on this page or section discusses a zombie strategy. |
When a zombie breaks into a safehouse, he often finds a delicious smorgasbord of people inside waiting for him to nibble on. As every zombie knows, people just love to be eaten, but as the zombie can't help everyone, he has to choose who to munch on. This is selective targeting.
There are a number of different theories on who to attack in order to how to maximise the effectiveness of AP spent on attacking humans.
Hurting the Survivor Cause
Survivors with construction or other useful human skills
By taking these fellas out, the survivor population loses the use of their skills. Because barricades are such a huge AP drain on zombies, people with Construction are a particular target.
Survivors at the bottom of the stack
These are the people who have been active most recently. They are found at the bottom of room descriptions and the attack menu. Of all the survivors present, the ones near the bottom of the stack are the ones most likely to log in several times a day to check up on the barricades. If these guys get gobbled up, then when the barricades fall it'll likely take longer for them to be rebuilt. Not to mention most low-level zombies simply attack the first person in the stack to save time, so the most active ones need to be specifically targetted. The downside of picking these guys is that if someone is frequently checking up on the barricades, they're perhaps too dedicated to the survivor cause to want to stay as a zombie.
Infect everybody
A drain on FAKs and AP, this tactic is best used when the nearby hospitals and malls are ransacked. Also immobilizes the survivors temporarily, at least until healed.
Survivors on low health
This is a common strategy. It's much easier to kill someone if they're on low health, and if you kill them, you'll get 10 more XP from the kill bonus. It also costs much more AP to revive someone than to heal them, and reduce the chances of them logging in and running off to heal.
Infected survivors
Infections carry on after death, and if the survivor was unlucky enough to not be carrying a FAK, they'll be forced to waste AP getting one after they've been revived. This means it will take them longer to get back to defending an area against the zombies. If they are particularly unfortunate, they may not find a FAK in time, and they'll die of the infection. Perhaps they may even be frustrated enough by not having been healed by anyone that they decide to join the shambling undead.
Enlarging the Zombie Horde
Survivors with a lot of zombie skills
These people make good targets for two reasons:
- If they get zombified, they're more likely to stay a zombie instead of heading straight for the nearest revive point, as it's more productive to feed on bra!nz instead of spamming "Mrh?" 50 times a day.
- They make powerful zombies. Not only because of their skills, but having been inside the Safehouse/Mall he knows whom to target, who leads the resistance etc.
Survivors not in a group
These survivors are thought to be more likely to join the horde instead of heading straight for the revive queue. If they do stay a zombie, that means there's more AP available to the zombie side. Highest priority obviously goes to high-level survivors with lots of zombie skills AND no group.
Miscellaneous
Survivors with silly names
Stop citizens and zombies of Malton from having to see silly names like '20 ninjas' or 'hiarry potter' by killing them first. The disadvantage is that survivors with silly names are more likely to be alts or possibly zergs.
Survivors at the top of the stack
These are the people who have been active least recently. They are found at the top of room descriptions and the attack menu. This is generally considered inefficient for a few reasons. Firstly, the top of the stack (especially in malls) have been inactive for quite a while and so aren't doing much except as a meatshield. Thus attacking them simply wastes your AP on someone who's bound to die anyway, thereby making his function as a meatshield useful. Secondly, these people are prime targets for low-level zombies as it's the default selection in the attack menu, so while everyone bites the inactive the dedicated mall defenders are happily refreshing and chasing you out. However the advantages of attacking these people are that you'll be converting someone with a lot of AP saved up, and hopefully they're due to start playing soon and decide to fight with you rather than against you.
