PC A20 impressions - lots of good, lots of "it's still not improved since forever?"

[Ghostlight]

Honestly So many issues with hoard night would be solved if they just make it so the zombies are after our crafting stations / storage  and not just us.

This is a terrible idea, unless it were implemented as an option. Not everyone wants to engage and fight the horde. Some people might just want to devise ways to survive it through non-combat means. This should be a perfectly viable approach.

 

[meganoth]

I think everything and anything a player can devise to handle horde night should be allowed. Making changes to the game specifically to shut down any popular strategy (beyond exploits) is not a good idea.

But that's just it. Those popular strategies are sometimes exploits.

The developers have the authority to define what is exploit and what isn't. Certainly not any random player, because you can always find a player judging their exploit not being an exploit. Nothing would ever be judged an exploit.

Look at Demolishers. They single-handedly took a ton of very fun base designs off the table.

Also why can't I ride round on my mini-bike to avoid the horde? I've not heard that before.

Can someone tell me...

Vultures will hunt you on horde night if you try.

1) Which file has that setting to control zombie count and respawn in the open world (it's been so long since I played)

Just use a mod, there is a large selection of ones to increase zombie count

2) How to edit a post on these forums.

 

[Roland]

Honestly So many issues with hoard night would be solved if they just make it so the zombies are after our crafting stations / storage  and not just us. 

That would fix hoard base cheese , that would fix buff cheese , that could fix  pathing exploit cheeses.

I just don't get it. it seems clear that the desired gameplay TFP want is for players to fortify their base and survive waves of zombies.   You get exactly that if you make it so zombies go after your valuables. 

In entityclasses.xml you can specify targets for the AI. Here is the list given in the xml notes:

<!--Classes for AITarget:
        <property name="Class" value="EntityAnimalRabbit"/> and chicken
        <property name="Class" value="EntityAnimalStag"/>
        <property name="Class" value="EntityBackpack"/>
        <property name="Class" value="EntityBandit"/>
        <property name="Class" value="EntityEnemyAnimal"/>
        <property name="Class" value="EntityLootContainer"/>
        <property name="Class" value="EntityMinibike"/>
        <property name="Class" value="EntityNPC"/>
        <property name="Class" value="EntityPlayer"/>
        <property name="Class" value="EntitySupplyCrate"/>
        <property name="Class" value="EntitySupplyPlane"/>
        <property name="Class" value="EntitySurvivor"/>
        <property name="Class" value="EntityVulture"/>
        <property name="Class" value="EntityZombie"/>
        <property name="Class" value="EntityZombieCop"/>
        <property name="Class" value="EntityZombieDog"/>
    -->

So you could try changing the AITask of Approachandattacktarget from EntityPlayer to say EntityNPC and then spawn a trader in the middle of your base to test it out and see if your ideas about the zombies attacking something in your base instead of you is actually an exciting and fun change. Not sure if horde night AI is separate from the everyday AI but it might be an interesting project to look through and find out.

 

[Kosmic Kerman]

Honestly So many issues with hoard night would be solved if they just make it so the zombies are after our crafting stations / storage  and not just us. 

That would fix hoard base cheese , that would fix buff cheese , that could fix  pathing exploit cheeses.

I just don't get it. it seems clear that the desired gameplay TFP want is for players to fortify their base and survive waves of zombies.   You get exactly that if you make it so zombies go after your valuables. 

How exactly do you think this would affect "Horde Base Cheese?"  The zombies still need to path to whatever they are targeting. The same strategies people use for Horde Bases will still work if the Zombies target something else.  All someone has to do is make the most desirable path to the item targeted, the path that is full of traps.

Also, why does this matter? Build your base and play how you like. Let others do the same. 

 

[Ray_Garraty]

binding biome loot modifier to the player (instead of POIs, for example) is especially appalling, as it allows much more abuses - for example, killing the bloodmoon horde at the edge of the wasteland to get much better content in their loot bags.

Yeah, that's exactly what I thought.

In A20 for the first time I intentionally placed my horde base in the Wasteland to harvest fallen zombies loot bags, and it's really worth it, man!

 

[RyanX]

 until The Fun Pimps decide to further optimize the cleanup and spawning system.

Don't hold your breath for anything to get optimized with TFP.  Spawning has been bad for ages.  The last time I died it was because I was in a closet and a zombie pop spawned between me and the way out.  It's terrible.

 

[Darklegend222]

Don't hold your breath for anything to get optimized with TFP.  Spawning has been bad for ages.  The last time I died it was because I was in a closet and a zombie pop spawned between me and the way out.  It's terrible.

That's a leeper volume assuming you're in a closet. I'm specifically referring to in-world spawning.

I can't go as far as you can to say they won't ever fix it. It was perfect in A16.4 since sleeper volumes weren't necessarily a hindrance. There was a lot less zombies per POI and they didn't move, just slept on the floor completely still.

They do the sleeper volumes for 2 reasons, one so the zombies spawn at proper times since only 64 zombies can be active at a time. Ever run through a giant POI during bloodmoon which is set to 64? As you kill the hoard the zombies spawn in.

The other reason is for auto wake-up so traps can work properly and you can't fully stealth unless it's nighttime. Which could use tweaking, but it's a different conversation for another thread.

As for in-world spawning which is what we're referring to, I feel that it's buggy and creatures aren't despawning or getting removed as they should. Further exploration on the matter doesn't do much since there is so "spawning_log.txt" for us to see how the system is handling it.

 

[Krougal]

There is always going to be cheese. And the anti-cheese just seems to punish everyone else in unintended ways by taking options off the table and then new cheese is found anyway. Can't we just all enjoy our cheese?

Gaming the system is always going to be a thing. It's degrees it goes from "clueless a noob" to "someone who understands the mechanics of the game and makes good use of them" to "how much can I abuse this before it breaks the game completely". When does it go from good gameplay to cheese? That is different for everyone, but I feel like there has been good gameplay that has been removed in the name of preventing cheese.

 

[Ghostlight]

Just use a mod, there is a large selection of ones to increase zombie count

Why would I use a mod when it is so easy to edit the XML config files?

 

[meganoth]

Why would I use a mod when it is so easy to edit the XML config files?

Simple, someone else did the work for you to search relevant settings, test and balance the mod. Since there are a few spawing mechanisms in the game you might need changes in more than one place.

If I wanted to do this I would simply download a mod and if needed change some of its values.