Pois often overlooked

[4sheetzngeegles]

@Laz Man

All other aspects are conversed regularly but an important part at least in my thought
process is POIs and balancing therein is often overlooked.

If this was answered before then please point me to it.

If under straight play the biomes have a lootcap progression, the hordes
have a progression according to gamestage, going to alternate biomes has
a logical progression. Then has the Poi xml property for random gen
placement been readjusted so that specific level pois render in specific biomes
to match this progression also?

What I mean is within the forest for example, will the pois be the lower
skull variants only, or a higher yield of the lower rated pois, increasing difficulty
rating as you progress to alternate biomes? I know the skull rating can be manually
placed on any poi, but the sleeper volume is subjective to skull rating not biome.

Or is it still completely random; internally there is/was a biome property
for regulation, has this been leveraged to match POIs to biome progression
in 2.0 and forward also?

Possibilities if yes or no.

Yes: Eventually a repetitive or pregen feel for poi layout, even in rwg and on multiple maps.

No: Overpowered, pois in the lower biome evening out as you progress to
alternate biomes. I mean this in regard to player progression, and gear.

It could be a selection, in the gen menu for on or off. One will allow new
playerbase, to acclimate and works for rpg and storyline. The other would work for more
familiar players because they have studied numerics and metas had have
learned to adapt.

I would like it under either format. I just wanted to know how pois layout is
set to match the rest of the progression formatting. Basically flow.

Hear is an extreme visual text. Forest all tier 5, then progression will be slowed;
Forest all tier 1, then progression would be accelerated. Balanced Forest pimarily
tier 1, and the rest of the tiers progressing in diminshing percentages. Continuing this way
until it is reversed when entering the wasteland and there mostly high tier pois and low tier
are nearly null.

 

[Riamus]

@Laz Man

All other aspects are conversed regularly but an important part at least in my thought
process is POIs and balancing therein is often overlooked.

If this was answered before then please point me to it.

If under straight play the biomes have a lootcap progression, the hordes
have a progression according to gamestage, going to alternate biomes has
a logical progression. Then has the Poi xml property for random gen
placement been readjusted so that specific level pois render in specific biomes
to match this progression also?

What I mean is within the forest for example, will the pois be the lower
skull variants only, or a higher yield of the lower rated pois, increasing difficulty
rating as you progress to alternate biomes? I know the skull rating can be manually
placed on any poi, but the sleeper volume is subjective to skull rating not biome.

Or is it still completely random; internally there is/was a biome property
for regulation, has this been leveraged to match POIs to biome progression
in 2.0 and forward also?

Possibilities if yes or no.

Yes: Eventually a repetitive or pregen feel for poi layout, even in rwg and on multiple maps.

No: Overpowered, pois in the lower biome evening out as you progress to
alternate biomes. I mean this in regard to player progression, and gear.

It could be a selection, in the gen menu for on or off. One will allow new
playerbase, to acclimate and works for rpg and storyline. The other would work for more
familiar players because they have studied numerics and metas had have
learned to adapt.

I would like it under either format. I just wanted to know how pois layout is
set to match the rest of the progression formatting. Basically flow.

Hear is an extreme visual text. Forest all tier 5, then progression will be slowed;
Forest all tier 1, then progression would be accelerated. Balanced Forest pimarily
tier 1, and the rest of the tiers progressing in diminshing percentages. Continuing this way
until it is reversed when entering the wasteland and there mostly high tier pois and low tier
are nearly null.

Not sure I'm really understanding you here, but I'll try to answer and hope it's what you're asking...

POI are placed based on the districts they are assigned to and what size they are compared to the tiles they are placed on. The forest has a limited set of districts compared to the other biomes, so many POI will never appear in the forest when using RWG (one reason I don't use RWG). Most tier 5 POI do not fit within that district limitation, so you will not see too many tier 5 POI in the forest. However, you can still get POI from all 5 tiers as long as they are assigned to the districts that are used in the forest. This is the case for all biomes, but the forest has the fewest districts used. And you will see tier 0 and tier 1 POI in the wasteland still. If those weren't allowed, you'd have a lot of empty spaces or a lot of duplication of POI close together because there are far fewer higher tier POI than lower tier POI that could get placed on the tiles.

The biomes DO influence zombie spawns. The skull rating is not just from the POI (though that's the base value), but also the biome. The desert would add 1 additional skull to the rating of that POI. That means higher game stage, which means a higher chance of strong zombies. So in general, the forest is going to be easier for the same base unmodified game stage. If you do a specific POI in the forest and then do the same POI in the wasteland, the wasteland will tend to give you stronger enemies even though your base unmodified game stage is the same. However, a tier 5 in the forest would still be harder than a tier 1 in the wasteland, assuming the tiers are set properly on the POI (some custom POI have poorly set tiers since some people want a hundred zombies piling out of a tier 1 POI for some reason ).

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

@Riamus

First thank you for trying to help answer my question.

So, are you saying that districts, are bound to biomes?
For the poi skull, I meant just the difficulty level of the poi portion, the part that regulates
the sleeper volume. The rest I just consider loot and xp boosters. But the sleeper volumes
are predefined in the xml. so there is a hierarchy of control.

Remember the pimp dream I posted, and referred to possibly just adjusting difficulty rating
variably per poi. Your response about too much and too little spawn depending on the poi
is part of the thought I posted. But if the districts regulate per biome then it is a covered balance.

The only thing is and it has been posted many times about the similarity of layout, on different
rwg renders. That's the yes/no part I posted, if regulated, with a limited amount of pois in the pool,
districts tend to follow a similar pattern layout, each time. With players new and old following, a
logical vs open progression, in RWG unless poi distribution is tweaked to match yet have more variability.
Players will start to notice the repetitve layouts.

Possibilities if yes or no.

Yes: Eventually a repetitive or pregen feel for poi layout, even in rwg and on multiple maps.

No: Overpowered, pois in the lower biome evening out as you progress to
alternate biomes. I mean this in regard to player progression, and gear.

That is why I have gone off script and use the old rules. Not to be different, but because it renders
differently. But I am kind of getting a clue from your response. Thank you again.

 

[Riamus]

So, are you saying that districts, are bound to biomes?

If you look in rwgmixer.xml, you'll see what each town type has for districts and which of those town types can be in each biome. The districts aren't directly tied to biomes, but if they set the forest to not have downtown district or commercial district or industrial district (I think those three aren't included, but I haven't verified that), then you won't get those in the forest or any POI that are for those districts. If you edit rwgmixer to include those districts, then you'll get them. If you make a map by hand or using something like Teragon that isn't limiting things by what is set in rwgmixer, then you can have those districts in the forest.

 

[zztong]

I'm not sure I totally understand the conversation, but I would point out we can put a Tier 5 in any District and performance was a good reason to spread them out. In A20, many congregated in the City Districts as they were natural places to put "big buildings." That bogged down the Downtown and Commercial Districts, maybe Industrial too. Performance is a reason to scatter them out.

Wilderness is basically a District that all of the biomes share. Those Tier 5's are going to be everywhere unless somebody uses rwgmixer.xml to force the POI into specific ones.

Regarding Zombie Volumes in POIs, unless the designer picks a very targeted type of zombie, the zombies placed scale to the player. So a Tier 5 can either be "just a bigger" POI, or it can be quite nasty (or easy) regardless of your level. I mean, I could make a Tier 5 full of crawlers that came at you one at a time, or I could make one where every encounter was 10 irradiated feral wights.

I don't mind Tier 5s appearing in the Forest Biome. I figure players will come back for them.

I know I've cleared the Hospital when I was low level before. I concluded at the end the "juice wasn't worth the squeeze" and that I was better off taking on multiple lower tier POIs.

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

Ok so a few things i had over looked, and you two cleared up for me.

There is a potential binding but not presently, for poi placements in biomes.
But is not really necessary because of the statement below.

The zombies placed scale to the player. IE the poi scales to the player.
That answered this question. I mean this in regard to player progression, and gear.

I understand and remember the large clustered pois being spaced out for performance.
That was an un-asked question that you answered.

I know the thought was a bit confusing, but it was like puzzle pieces that I was missing
but you answered them all.

Rwg I had stayed away from since A19-A20 and only glanced at it so that was my fault for
overlooking how placement had changed. I only looked in the poi xml, and compared
the properties available to prior configs. I played a couple of pregens, and they felt like
I was in the same city just rotated on a clock. I played with the stamps a bit to see what
terrain gened where, but it felt a bit modular.

Oh and ZZTong as long as they didn't change the blocks, should I be able to migrate
your POIs to 2.0? They have become a main part of my integration.

Thanks for the help

 

[zztong]

Oh and ZZTong as long as they didn't change the blocks, should I be able to migrate
your POIs to 2.0? They have become a main part of my integration.

In theory, yes. In practice, there's likely to be some minor changes needed. I would point out once 2.0 EXP is available to me, making a 2.0 version of that modlet is my highest priority.

 

[zztong]

Oh and ZZTong as long as they didn't change the blocks, should I be able to migrate
your POIs to 2.0? They have become a main part of my integration.

I'm just getting started, but there are minor changes needed. I won't be updating this conversation. If you want the blow-by-blow, hang on in the #zztong-prefabs channel in Guppy's Discord server.

You will probably get the modlet to load and give you POIs, but there will be some visual quirks and biome decorations might fail to load. At least that's what I've seen so far.

 

[Riamus]

I'm just getting started, but there are minor changes needed. I won't be updating this conversation. If you want the blow-by-blow, hang on in the #zztong-prefabs channel in Guppy's Discord server.

You will probably get the modlet to load and give you POIs, but there will be some visual quirks and biome decorations might fail to load. At least that's what I've seen so far.

Yeah, the decorations are what I've seen so far. Not a big deal since most of your mod are POI. Looking forward to a 2.0 update, though. But I am going to use your POI in my first map that I'm generating right now, so I am not in a hurry. Take your time.