Zombie attack type

[Yomar]

I have a question regarding the walking corpse (the zombie), why his attack is impact ?
I mean, I find all the attack types of Wesnoth right, axes and swords do blade damages, spears, tridents does pierce and so on, why he has impact damage then ? I can understand the huge whose and troll hands, but the zombie one ?
He should have blade damage (because of the nails), that would also render more logical the infection, you are infected by the wound on the skin, not because you was punched.
Would this unbalance the game ? I mean changing the attack type from impact to blade ?
Anyway I think that this would make the game more "realistic" and logical like the rest of the game, the infection goes from the dirty nails to the blood stream, even the attack picture shows an hand with pointy nails.
Any comment is welcome.

[Dugi]

I never had problem with the impact damage. Zombies are made mostly from humans, orcs, and other clawless races, so they should deal damage by bashing their victims with bare hads. And hands and fists deal obviously impact damage. Of course, because some bones are broken and sharp parts of them are penetrating through the remains of their skin, their blows inflict also scratches, and these scratches are causing the infection, but these scratches are nothing compared to the blunt blow.

And also, they are the only source of blunt damage for the undead faction (well, excluding the skeleton archer fists, but that is nothing), and blunt damage is quite needed to defeat heavy infantryman and some other units.

[Caphriel]

First of all, WINR. Second, I don't think Walking Corpses claw at their enemies with their fingernails. They batter them with their fists, or maybe just flailing their arms around. If they used their fingernails, they wouldn't do enough damage to register on the HP scale.

[zookeeper]

And if you want a realism-based excuse, do consider the fact that WC's don't infect anyone by dealing damage, but only when they manage to make a kill. In fact, it's quite possible that only fresh corpses can be infected, not living creatures.

[The_Other]

Didn't you ask this same question in another thread?

[Boldek]

I like the idea of blade or pierce for the wc myself, but when I thought on it, it would be better for the impact for some reasons already stated above: Zombies only raise dead people they have killed, the units aren't poisoned or infected, and the zombies don't eat people (no feeding ability, the necrophage is highlighted for this unique behavior) either, so they seem to be more of a voodoo approach instead of the more classic modern one of the 'brains brains' moaner with his arms stiff out. The necromancer can do this too, so I assume maybe it's some sort of black magic imbued in them rather than a disease, thus they would utilize the most violent outlook, their fists.
As stated above, the undead needed some unit to have impact for smashing skellies and punching out HI. (A zombie punching a HI always boggled me, but hey, it can be done.)
Despite realism, having the wc's bite instead of punch would make my little sister promptly quit the game.

[Huumy]

I think in 1v1 default settings walking corpses impact damage is important for balance of the ud.

[Yomar]

Well, griffins use nails and in fact they have a blade attack type, but its also true that the zombies are the undead's unit with the highest impact, but I don't think that changing the type would affect much the game balance, undeads have already the adepts that are great at killing heavy infantry (archers are good too for that), and; I put the word realistic in brackets, in this way :"realistic", certain ppl should pay more attention reading before they write just to babble.
I meant realistic only under certain aspects, I know that its a fantasy game and not a super realistic tactical war game.

[Huumy]

its also true that the zombies are the undead's unit with the highest impact, but I don't think that changing the type would affect much the game balance, undeads have already the adepts that aregreat at killing heavy infantry (rchers are good too for that)

I don't think you made good enough of a point to justify the change of walking corpse damage. Please try to give more examples, you left out 5 match-ups.

[Deki]

According to the bock World War Z, Zombie spread infection by biting mostly.

[Drakefriend]

According to the bock (sic) World War Z, Zombie spread infection by biting mostly.

Which is of course fictional.
The original Yoruba (e.g. Voodoo) Zombies were/are created by a magician. who cursed or poisoned you to seemingly die, than reanimates you. And in Irdya, this seems to fit quite closely (though the zombies in the Caribbean versions of the mythology were usually used as slaves on the plantages instead of soldiers for world conquest).
And remember that the original European undead rose spontaneously for diverse reasons, such as revenge, curses inflicted in live, very often as punishment for a sinful life (so, do not blaspheme, or else...!), or they simply rose. Oh, and their victims were usually family or friends. (The closest analogue in Irdya would be spontaneous Deathknights like Lionel.)
So using another fictional universe to force a change to a not-related fictional universe is not really valid, and this can even apply to the mythology/folklore of origin.

PS: Yomar, what do you want to say with the Griffin's "nails"? Well, firstly, they are claws of a carnivorous species (which is a hybrid of two carnivores that use their claws for hunting), so we are not talking about the heavily reduced nails of a hominid, but about real claws that actually are "weapons".
PPS: And the Dark Adept is purely ranged until the upgrade, so you would have no unit that could deal impact damage in melee, so I think that would impact (oh) on the balance..

[Yomar]

Now that I think of it, yes maybe for game balance its better that they remain on impact dammage, cavalry is great to kill them, because they have impact resistence.
Yes griffins have claws, but those are like very big nails, they scrach, but do big wounds, so they are developed nails ( made of the same substance).
Another question, do cavalryman and fencers have cold resistances ? Do they wear a sweater ? lol.

[AxalaraFlame]

I believe that zombies using blade attack is more reasonable. Punch them, and make the wound infected simply by scratches, would obviously make less sense.

However, undead faction lacks of impact weapon bearers. If we change it, it will disturb the balance. To infect units, and let this play ability play a good role not too lame but also not too strong, it is supposed to be better an impact weapon. Impact weapon do not suppress elusive units like blades and mounted units like pierce. It is just a neutral weapon. Though I believe it could hardly make sense when meet a Heavy Infantry but this is simply a game.

Btw, according to my researches, they can bear blade weapons, which would surely make more sense; any units can have a less than 40% resistances against a type of weapon while the multi-faction balance will not be destroyed. However, it is annoying, and such changes cause side effects.

[Araja]

So the only rational explanation is that zombies kill their prey by cutting them with their finger nails? Remember that zombies in Wesnoth are not hugely mutated; they don't acquire a huge pair of claws, and with the exception of the drakes and saurian zombies, no nails or claws of any description are visible on the sprite.

What you're saying is that zombies somehow manage to slash their prey to death, in open combat, using fingernails no larger than that of an ordinary human? This makes more sense than supernaturally strong punches? Maybe if their target was alone and tied up, they may eventually die from blood loss after several hours of "combat"...

Also, zombies in Wesnoth don't 'infect' their targets. The zombie is created through magic, and the plague spreads through magic. All the zombie has to do is kill the target, and it magically becomes a zombie. Given the choice between 'scratch it with your fingernails' and 'punch it with superhuman strength', I would bet on the latter as a means of killing your foe.

[Caphriel]

As an atheist, rationalist, and objectivist, I believe that...

As an irrationalist, pastafarian, and subjectivist (of which I am none), I don't think your personal beliefs add any weight to your opinion in this discussion.