Solution: increase "projectile" damage multiplier on zombie's head, or reduce zombie's head health slightly
Problem:
Killing a zombie with a headshot requires 20 damage to its head, the .22 weapons don't have 20 damage, meaning the .22 weapons require two shots to kill them. This is bad for a number of reasons:
- The .22 weapons always killed zombies in one shot for years in DayZ alpha, and the ammo stacks are large, the ammo is fairly common, this gave a reason for players to continue to carry the .22 weapons, even for "geared" players who have better main weapons.
- The silenced .22 pistol is useless for killing zombies now because they aggro after first headshot, attracting more zombies, and also alerting any nearby players.
- Ammo stack of 50 rounds, at 2 rounds per zombie, means you can only kill max 25 zombies per stack. Suppressed .380 or 9mm can kill max 35 zombies per stack. The larger stacks of .22 mean nothing now since you need more slots to kill less zombies than larger rounds, even with headshots!
- Unrealistic—a .22 through skull should be deadly, period.
- Inconsistent—.22 can kill a player in one headshot (brain hitbox fatalinjurycoef=0), but it can't do the same on a zombie?
I've seen multiple comments on DayZ subreddit complaining about this and there are mods that servers are running to change it. But the base game should be fixed so people don't need to add a server mod, as this is a clear example of bad gameplay. People responsible for balancing need to look at this issue.