PC Are Screamers ruining your games?

[Javabean867]

Hold on, on the topic of poll filling out, are you saying, that the poll software prevents you from answering only some of the polls questions?  If that is the case, I will have to be able to see that, before I can try to find a way around that kind of glitch. 

yes, and its not a glitch.  polls need all questions answered.  Hence why people have been telling you the poll is biased.  questions 2 and 3 need a N/A option, then you will get a much larger group of answers, which would give TFPs actual evidence that something is needed/wanted.  

 

[WarMongerian]

yes, and its not a glitch.  polls need all questions answered.  Hence why people have been telling you the poll is biased.  questions 2 and 3 need a N/A option, then you will get a much larger group of answers, which would give TFPs actual evidence that something is needed/wanted.  

View attachment 33463

Thank you for the screenshot, now, at last, I see the problem.

Now I have some questions.

1)  Can I edit the poll, or is that not allowed/possible?

2)  Do you know if it is possible to nest secondary questions under the first question?  I have never seen this, but then I didn't realise that folks were not able to complete the existing poll, unless they voted on each part, so there is that.

Edit:, polls can, if fact, be edited, you just have to look for it.  My bad, and apologies to the folks who were not trying to be argumentative, but had an actual point I had not suspected.  Now that I know, is the poll now still in need of anything?

 

[Riamus]

Thank you for the screenshot, now, at last, I see the problem.

Now I have some questions.

1)  Can I edit the poll, or is that not allowed/possible?

2)  Do you know if it is possible to nest secondary questions under the first question?  I have never seen this, but then I didn't realise that folks were not able to complete the existing poll, unless they voted on each part, so there is that.

Edit:, polls can, if fact, be edited, you just have to look for it.  My bad, and apologies to the folks who were not trying to be argumentative, but had an actual point I had not suspected.  Now that I know, is the poll now still in need of anything?

Looks good.  I think everyone should have the ability to vote now, unless there's some option I can't think of.  Maybe the option in the first question that I suggested previously of "I don't care."  But again, I think it's fine as-is unless you want to add it.  It would just let people state that they don't care if there is an option or not instead of it being a black or white choice.  For me, I don't really care for my own use as I'd probably never change whatever is default, but I do support choices, which isn't really an option to choose.  But that's just a minor thing.

 

[WarMongerian]

It's also a forum poll, it has 7 replies, might get to 20 .. there's 30k daily players on steam atm. Whether it's "good" or not, it's not going to be representative of the player base, in any way, so...

Yea, I used to post over on steam, back before I lost my first account.  It was an eyesight issue that got me to log out of my first account, and then I could not pass the stupid recaptcha image check, so goodbye to first account.

Steam has way more player interaction, but I don't want to lose my current account, by not being able to remember my password, and then failing to pass the image check, and get back into my account.

 

[Javabean867]

Thank you for the screenshot, now, at last, I see the problem.

Now I have some questions.

1)  Can I edit the poll, or is that not allowed/possible?

2)  Do you know if it is possible to nest secondary questions under the first question?  I have never seen this, but then I didn't realise that folks were not able to complete the existing poll, unless they voted on each part, so there is that.

Edit:, polls can, if fact, be edited, you just have to look for it.  My bad, and apologies to the folks who were not trying to be argumentative, but had an actual point I had not suspected.  Now that I know, is the poll now still in need of anything?

No worries.  Glad I could help. 

 

[WarMongerian]

Further ideas...

I think that the difficulty setting of a game, and the Biome in which the Screamer Outbreak is going to take place in, should strictly limit just what can spawn it, how many, and how often they can spawn in, and if the player wants more than this, they need to be able to use game settings to increase these numbers.

What are folks thoughts on such limits?

Here are the difficulty setting available to host players:



I'm playing at Scavenger, the lowest difficulty setting there is, and my base is in the Pine Forest Biome, so the easiest of the easiest, and yet I keep getting duel Green Screamers, and they bring is all sorts of green.

I don't know what in the heck game and Loot stage stuff are/mean, but the difficulty setting I am playing on has to mean more than those values.

So, let us start looking at what should be permitted to spawn in, in a players game, in the worst case, and start backtracking from there.

Before I get started here, let me point out, I think that any host player, should be able to set their games up with whatever works best for them, so if they want more of a challenge, let them set it up that way, but also allow those that don't want to get overwhelmed, be able to customize their hosted games, whether single or multiplayer.

On Insane Difficulty, while in the wastelands Biome, the absolute worst the game can support of Screamers should be the norm/default setting, anyone disagree?

On Scavenger difficulty, in the Pine Forest Biome, the least Screamer Outbreaks should be possible, anyone disagree?

So what, my fellow forum posters, should be the range of these outbreaks?

Personally, I'd like the default on the low end to eliminate the Screamer Outbreak stuff in it's entirely, with the clavate that, should a host player want to set up their beginner game with More and worse Screamers than the default settings, they should be able to do so.

How should the Numbers in the Screamers Outbreaks be limited, by difficulty settings as well as the Biome in which they take place?  Keep in mind, one can always just select a higher difficulty setting, and thereby increase all aspects of the Screamers Outbreaks.

When/where, should the weakest Screamer Outbreaks be allowed to start, when should they be allowed to include green zombies, higher numbers, more dangerous types, and more additional Screamers?

 

[Satosik]

IMO all we need is just "screamer danger" notification if we produce too much heat so we can do anything to stop them spawning.

 

[RipClaw]

I'm playing at Scavenger, the lowest difficulty setting there is, and my base is in the Pine Forest Biome, so the easiest of the easiest, and yet I keep getting duel Green Screamers, and they bring is all sorts of green.

Which screamers spawn and which zombies are in the screamer horde is currently based on the gamestage. This is determined by your level, the days you are alive and the biome you are in. It is inevitable that at a certain point radioactive screamers will spawn and the horde will consist primarily of radioactive zombies. In the green biome it takes the longest to reach this point and in the wasteland you reach this point relatively quickly.

The best thing to do is to build a base with a integrated screamer defense. At this point you should already have electric traps such as electric fences, blade traps or turrets. They can take care of that.

I always design my base with a minimum defence from the start. In the beginning, I start with a defence against wandering hordes and wild spawns. Later on, I often expand it into a horde base that doubles as a screamer defence.

IMO all we need is just "screamer danger" notification if we produce too much heat so we can do anything to stop them spawning.

You will then receive the warning very often. Currently, 25% heat is enough to spawn one or two screamers with a 20% chance.

You can easily test how quickly you reach the required heat. Simply switch to debug mode with the dm command in the console and then press F8 twice. The heat and the number of events are then displayed on the left-hand side.

 

[Javabean867]

I think a lot of people want biome 'locked' zombies on hoard night, like if you are in the burnt biome, you'll see more burnt zombies, or the wasteland biome you'll see water ballons in hoard night.

So I don't see a problem with screamer hoards being limited to the zombies commonly found  in the different biomes.

But like other people have suggested, you need to build defenses for when Screamers spawn.  In my current game my hoard base is close enough to my main base that I just run over there if a screamer screams.  I also have spike traps at each spot a screamer could get in.  I need to close off those entrances soon anyway, and possibly fill in the diner I took over.

 

[Riamus]

I don't know what in the heck game and Loot stage stuff are/mean, but the difficulty setting I am playing on has to mean more than those values.

Game stage will continue to increase as you level up and kill stuff.  It will always be a major source of difficulty, regardless of the difficulty chosen.  The difficulty chosen has specific effects on how hard the game is, but it doesn't mean the game will remain easy forever.  People don't want the game to be as easy at level 1 as it is at level 100.  Otherwise, it'll be a cakewalk because you'll have all kinds of perks and good weapons without the zombies being any more challenge than they were at level 1.  So game stage is important (you can check your game stage by pressing "i" (default key) to open the multiplayer tab and looking at your info.

On Insane Difficulty, while in the wastelands Biome, the absolute worst the game can support of Screamers should be the norm/default setting, anyone disagree?

Why would screamers be at the "default" setting on the highest difficulty and biome?  They should be at their worst then.  It shouldn't be their normal difficulty.  Normal difficulty should be what you experience with the default difficulty level.  Which biome you'd consider to be the normal screamer difficulty when on the normal difficulty level could be debated, but I'd just say that the middle biome (desert) while on the default difficulty would be what you'd consider to be the normal difficulty for screamers.  But, honestly, I don't even think about their difficulty.  I just build my base in a way that deals with them, or I just run out and kill them.  I'd handle them the same way no matter what difficulty level I was on or what biome I was in.

Now, as I've mentioned, I do support options for the game.  At the same time, there are a LOT of things that could use options and I'm not sure that have 500 options is a good thing, so they need to pick and choose the options they feel are most useful to the most players.  Where that puts screamers, I don't know.  In the end, there will be options that would be nice to have for some players that will never be in the game's options and those players will have to continue to use mods to set up those options.  You can do so with screamers now, but for whatever reason you feel that it's somehow cheating to use a mod to do the same thing that you want an in-game option to do.  Mods are not inherently cheating.  Some are, but many just change settings in a non-cheating way to get the game to play the way they prefer.  There really isn't anything wrong with using mods.  But that's your choice, of course.

 

[TWORDY]

The problem with constantly spawning screamers is obvious in 4+ players lobby. Any attempt to loot tier 4-5 POI, ends with a disaster, especially if one or two players use LMGs, too much heat attracts screamers non-stop. 50 zeds, so, with a Sniper Kit, I can only run in circles outside POIs.

The framerate is simply tanking down by 2/3. So instead of 90-150 fps, I get 30-50.

Screamers should have been spawning constantly in a never-ending loop only on INSANE difficulty. There must be some cooldown applied to a whole party, otherwise, we might experience a slide show. It is a matter of smooth-@ss-baby-grind-baby experience, the bloody experience lies flat due to optimization and never-ending Screamer assault. 

Playing on INSANE with a group of people is a non-starter due to the jitter and lag caused by the Banzai-Screamer-Assault and other actions involved. I cannot blame my stellar RGB+ tape LED lights gaming rig and unquestionable skillset .

Enough time and people enable constructive criticism toward balancing issues and performance. We might need new types of enemies instead of one despawning Karen as a screamer to make things spicy.

 

[warmer]

One really easy way to deal with them is spikes and an enclosed base. If they can't see you, and they die on the spikes, no horde gets called. This is how I exclusively deal with them now. I almost never see them because of this. Now if you are out in the open and have all of your crafting stations running, here comes the horde.

Keep a spike trap between you and their line of sight, and the problem solves itself.

The only time I typically do encounter them is when I farm them on purpose at a certain point because I want to level. A dozen pipe bombs usually makes them show up pretty quick.

 

[zombieron]

screamers are i bit wonky for me at the moment i have no trouble dealing with them at my base but they are showing up everywhere i go, if i am clearing a medium to large poi its almost guaranteed a pair will show and they dont even have to scream for the mobs to show up then another pair and another in some cases i have had to bravely run away because there are too many.

 

[warmer]

screamers are i bit wonky for me at the moment i have no trouble dealing with them at my base but they are showing up everywhere i go, if i am clearing a medium to large poi its almost guaranteed a pair will show and they dont even have to scream for the mobs to show up then another pair and another in some cases i have had to bravely run away because there are too many.

I am not having this issue myself. And I never use guns in a POI I am always spear or bow. Are you using guns? If I am not mistaken  every shot raises the heat.

 

[OneManStanding]

I will say I feel a bit like I'm walking on eggshells. It used to be you'd need to get industrious with the work benches or get really trigger happy to summon a screamer, and I could leave a work bench or so going when I went out on a mission. Now I feel on edge if I have a single campfire running. Not that screamers can't be easily dealt with, for example by spikes, but they're just working out as a nuisance this way rather than a major threat.

I think I'd prefer the 100% again, but make screamers a bigger threat - they occur less frequently but are all the more memorable when they do. Then again, the dev's have given us control over a whole range of settings so why not screamers as well? If it becomes a mod issue then it's something which might not keep pace with releases, be abandoned, or come packaged with something bigger.

I'd like to hear more from the dev's regarding the idea behind this change. Is it because players were skirting the 100% and not generating screamers often enough? 

 

[WarMongerian]

I will say I feel a bit like I'm walking on eggshells. It used to be you'd need to get industrious with the work benches or get really trigger happy to summon a screamer, and I could leave a work bench or so going when I went out on a mission. Now I feel on edge if I have a single campfire running. Not that screamers can't be easily dealt with, for example by spikes, but they're just working out as a nuisance this way rather than a major threat.

I think I'd prefer the 100% again, but make screamers a bigger threat - they occur less frequently but are all the more memorable when they do. Then again, the dev's have given us control over a whole range of settings so why not screamers as well?

I don't really have an issue with the severity of the Screamers Outbreaks, but more on how often/when, they chose to intrude on my gaming fun.  

Be it Game stage/Heat signature, or something/anything else, I really don't care How they are being generated behind the scenes, but what I personally want/need, is a host player to be able to limit their outbreaks per day, no matter what the elaborate, and confusing, background systems does, the players just need to have something as simple as a setting, that just keeps track of the number of such outbreaks the host player wants/will tolerate in a game day, and any excess, just gets disabled, so the Screamers don't @%$# folks off enough to stop playing.

This could be done as simply as one in-game setting, just like they did with the daily quest progression setting, where host players just pick the amount they want in their games, and that is that.



Change out "Quest Progression" in the above image, and put "Screamer Outbreaks" in it's place, and we have a perfect tool, that allows the host player to control just how many times a game day the Screamers can spawn, it that particular players' game.  This setting, which could be default of unlimited (Screamers act just like now), or 1-8 outbreaks daily, and after the Screamers have spawned in the maximum allowed times per day, no further outbreaks that game day can occur, regardless of anything else, so the host player can pick just how much of an impact that they themselves want Screamers to have in their games.  If they want more, they can just increase (all the way up to unlimited) the outbreaks that can occur.

This is the best, easiest to implement option that allows folks to get on with playing this great game, and avoids the excessively over done Screamers that cause paying customers to walk away.

It has the benefit of not affecting any of the players that don't want the screamers changed (in their games) while allowing those that are getting damned tired of back to back outbreaks messing up their own games.  Let no one make an argument to keep the dev's from making such a tool, just because they don't plan to use it.

 

[Roland]

I voted that it would be good for there to be an option setting for screamer spawns but I didn't like the offered versions. I wouldn't want a setting that makes it so that I know for a certainty that after I've had one spawn I don't have to worry about it for the rest of the day no matter how wreckless or noisy I am.

The settings I would be in favor of would be simply changing the minimum heat requirement for spawns to happen up or down for less or more spawn opportunities and/or the percent chance allowed for screamers to spawn additional screamers being adjustable.

 

[avalonnn]

I voted that it would be good for there to be an option setting for screamer spawns but I didn't like the offered versions. I wouldn't want a setting that makes it so that I know for a certainty that after I've had one spawn I don't have to worry about it for the rest of the day no matter how wreckless or noisy I am.

The settings I would be in favor of would be simply changing the minimum heat requirement for spawns to happen up or down for less or more spawn opportunities and/or the percent chance allowed for screamers to spawn additional screamers being adjustable.

Screamers spawning screamers is keeping me out of Wasteland biomes. I did complete one quest in Wasteland _and then_ the screamers showed up and spawned screamers and I fled on my bike. And I'm playing only on Adventurer difficulty.  I would like to have the option of eliminating screamers spawning screamers. Also would prefer larger attacks at base / smaller attacks while out. I worry that bandits might snowball like screamers once bandits are implemented. 

 

[Vaeliorin]

I'd just like to make it so that mining doesn't generate heat.  Screamers showing up 5-6 times a night when I'm mining annoy the heck out of me.  I guess that's more asking for heat settings than screamer settings (I imagine I can probably change it with a mod, come to think of it?)

 

[theFlu]

(I imagine I can probably change it with a mod, come to think of it?)

Prolly somewhere like

7 Days to Die / Data / Config / sounds.xml (3297):

<SoundDataNode name="metaldestroy"> <AudioSource name="Sounds/AudioSource_Impact"/>
	<Noise ID="0" noise="20" time="3" muffled_when_crouched="0.65" heat_map_strength="1.42" heat_map_time="90"/>