PC About Double clearing POIs and how to fix it

[alanea]

But each trader sends quests to the identical POI VERY often. And yes I mean exactly what I said, VERY often.

Seriousy? Is this entire thread based on your erroneous assumption that the zombies don't respawn as well? When is the last time you actually used the mechanic you're arguing against anyway? It has ALWAYS respawned the zombies.

a18 several times .. respawned free loot  0 zombies  yeah "always respawned"

when you guys stop complaining  about minor immersion issue  creating huge problems by blindly reseting  poi thay might contain your stuff

ultimate solution ? 

1) go to   poi

2)go past quest trigger

3) turn 180°

4) trigger quest

5)  woahhhh nothing changed in front of your eyes .. you just magically saved hours of developers time trying to come up with some half working solution  to  remove cosmetic issue

 

[meganoth]

a18 several times .. respawned free loot  0 zombies  yeah "always respawned"

...

As quite a few people have said now, sleeper zombies always respawned when a POI was reset and this was since sleepers were introduced.

If you saw an empty quest POI, it may have been a bug or a POI that randomly had no zombies. The number of zombies in a POI varies and I think I have occasionally seen empty POIs too, whether on a quest or just while looting it without a quest.

 

[Vampirenostra]

Yet another variation - No resetting at all, we have to go and clear all pois in the whole map. On. blood moon we have a rage of zeds trying to get the poi's back. They attack poi's that have players in. If there would be no players at the poi it is considered captured - reset. So players will be forced to pick the closest poi's to the border line with zeds, create barricades block roads etc. this would bring new fun in defending of the towns etc. After horde night finishes - all poi's that had no players in em and had a single zed would be considered re-captured - so they will be re-set and appropriate quests would re-appear at trader. So again we will have much more quests in traders and they will start with single houses at lvl1 and finish with skyscrapers for lvl 5 in late cities. And that would also bring more sense to the game in terms of replayability and some ending if you like. After all poi's are captured with players they have to hold it for like 3 blood moons going in a row (every night is a blood moon) if they succeed they can terminate the game, or if they will they can carry on with blood moons every 3 days or until they all die)

 

[JCrook1028]

Then if every POI you loot is already looted because the trader always points you to the same ones, then you're not double clearing it anyways, are you? What is even your point anymore? That you cant be arsed to go and get another quest because one of them failed?

It still seems statistically innacurate for me. If you're still stuck doing the same POI's over and over... A) this is a game design that needs to be changed and B) you're not progressing in your quest system to other tiers. And this, again, is if we're not talking about Tiers 4 and 5 exclusively.

I never double clear in the first place. Which if you read my posts you would know. The above quote was simply responding to you saying that there were hundreds of POI's across the map. Which is a meaningless statement given the facts I responded with. the "hundreds" are not within the trader quest range. Never said every POI I loot is already looted either. Not sure what you're on about tbh.

a18 several times .. respawned free loot  0 zombies  yeah "always respawned"

when you guys stop complaining  about minor immersion issue  creating huge problems by blindly reseting  poi thay might contain your stuff

1. You ran into a bug then.

2. Bedroll and lcb both block quests so not valid either.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Because the time between looking at the list and accepting the quest can be arbitrarily long there is the question when to do the proximity check: Optimally it should be done when accepting the quest and doing the reset but then it can happen that you want to accept the quest and the GUI won't let you. That would be confusing to the player, even with an error message.

If you do the check when the player accesses the quest list, there are small drawbacks:

1) In the meantime a player could have driven there, so the reset at accepting the quest can still be observed sometimes.

2) There is a small exploit possibility: It allows selecting quests by exiting the selection screen and a friend driving to the POIs offered so the selection has to change.

3) A dynamic list looks like a bug. There was a quest there, next time you look it vanished, next time it might be there again. Huh?

Those three small drawbacks are very small and the chances of them happening are very little.

"1) In the meantime a player could have driven there, so the reset at accepting the quest can still be observed sometimes."
Having someone witness a POI reset 1% of the time is much better than 100% of the time. Like I said though, it's not perfect, just much better than the way it is now.
 
"2) There is a small exploit possibility: It allows selecting quests by exiting the selection screen and a friend driving to the POIs offered so the selection has to change."
The missions and their distances might be listed when looking at it, but their exact locations are unknown until you accept them. Maybe after playing a map for a long time, would you know that there is only one of a particular POI to attempt to do this, but in this case, perhaps #3 could step in.
Just want to say that if having a friend drive to a location on the list is an exploit, then the double dipping in its current form is also an exploit... just an easier one. So, even if this did not solve the problem fully, it still reduces it significantly. You always have at least one person wasting a whole lot of time who could be doing something more productive for the group.
 
"3) A dynamic list looks like a bug. There was a quest there, next time you look it vanished, next time it might be there again. Huh?"
In most games with missions that cycle, there is a timer in between mission list changes. This doesn't necessarily mean a mission you accepted a minute ago is no longer active, it just means that there is a new list of available missions. In fact, doesn't this already occur for the goods a trader offers? The concept of dynamic mission lists is far from new, and for some gamers, even expected. However, changing them to red, or graying them out, or marking them as temporarily unavailable is always a possibility if confusion truly is a problem.
 

 

[Vaeliorin]

It's not a perfect solution, but I think it would be better (for now), that a POI resets when accepting the mission.
The mission selection should check if anybody is near the area. If there is, then choose a different one for the list. Some sort of similar checking must occur already because otherwise bedrolls/claim blocks would be ignored.
There would still be a tiny chance that the mission is ruined by another player before you get there. I don't see this as a problem. I see it as an opportunity for interesting gameplay.

What happens when you get two quests in the same POI?  If you get quests from multiple traders at once, you occasionally get quests in the exact same POI, so this solution wouldn't work in this case.  Obviously, you could have some sort of check to prevent this, but if this was simple to do, I'd have thought they'd have already done it.

 

[Blake_]

What happens when you get two quests in the same POI?  If you get quests from multiple traders at once, you occasionally get quests in the exact same POI, so this solution wouldn't work in this case.  Obviously, you could have some sort of check to prevent this, but if this was simple to do, I'd have thought they'd have already done it.

No problem. The check is simple. It's just that it's currently done on the marker and not on the trader quest. Now, coding the trader to not show the repeated location, that is a bit different, still not "complex" per se. Just as time consuming as everything quest-related. The multiplayer factor is always a pain to do coherently. And Prime doesn't usually prevent ALL the multiplayer bugs because he is not a god . And they are a pain to report. So there's that.

As quite a few people have said now, sleeper zombies always respawned when a POI was reset and this was since sleepers were introduced.

If you saw an empty quest POI, it may have been a bug or a POI that randomly had no zombies. The number of zombies in a POI varies and I think I have occasionally seen empty POIs too, whether on a quest or just while looting it without a quest.

That only happens to the small location POIs. Never to the TIER 1s /2s/  3s etc. Small non-tiered locations can have 0. There's a chance that someone walked by and awakened some or all of the Zds of a TIER 1, or 2, and then it appears empty to the new comer. Not a bug there. Emergent gameplay.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

What happens when you get two quests in the same POI?  If you get quests from multiple traders at once, you occasionally get quests in the exact same POI, so this solution wouldn't work in this case.  Obviously, you could have some sort of check to prevent this, but if this was simple to do, I'd have thought they'd have already done it.

I would think that's a separate issue/bug that should be worked out either way.

 

[Rince]

Honestly, still thinking that it's a not issue and they are better using their time in other issues. Like removing vultures. That's important!

And stil think that instead the exclamation mark, having an NPC agent that tell you the issue with the POI, and showing a little 'cut-scene' with the POI being overrun by zombies previously, like a flashback, could make that more immesive. (Since everyone loves immersivitiness!) That way the POI doesn't rebuild itself right in front of you.

 

[Krougal]

This is an easy fix imo, scrap this 90s mmo-style abomination, that is called "quests", as well!

You'll get no traction around this place with your common sense, they would much rather spend a lot of time and effort fixing what is otherwise a non-issue.

God-forbid we could just go and loot buildings like in the old days.

Actually that is the root of a lot of problems I see with the game these days; they are trying too hard to be MMOish.

 

[fragtzack]

Would rather see dev's time spent on bandits and/or AI improvements..

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Would rather see dev's time spent on bandits and/or AI improvements..

Not all devs work on bandits and AI.

 

[Tehnomaag]

If the problem is the yellow floating "!" mark. That is a relatively easy to handle by just inserting there some kind of "quest start container" or box or pole which seems more fitting. Say, for example, bright colored "Beware of zombies" sign in front of POI to press "E" against to start the quest. 

Double clearing as such, as others have noted several times already in this thread already, is not a "problem" in my opinion, because you are "doing" the POI the same way, basically, like you could do any POI in the world. Be it then killing everything or nerd-poling straight for the roof. In fact, it is probably more efficient to just pick another quest considering how good the quest rewards currently are. 

In vanilla settings the POI's are supposed to be done over and over and over again. Because in vanilla settings there is a loot respawn in POI's turned on after a certain time interval. And - if someone is after a particularly harsh playthrough - one has always option to enforce no traders on the map and turn off the loot respawn and opt to not mine resources - for that true scavenger of the apocalypse feel. 

 

[dxbydy]

I remember when they first added the quest system and I turned up to my first quest and put all my belongings in the car outside (plus my minibike) to make space to do the quest. Began the quest and it reset everything, even the car, making all my belongings disappear!!

That is certainly a good argument for stopping the resets. Imagine how many new players are caught out doing that...

 

[Krougal]

I remember when they first added the quest system and I turned up to my first quest and put all my belongings in the car outside (plus my minibike) to make space to do the quest. Began the quest and it reset everything, even the car, making all my belongings disappear!!

That is certainly a good argument for stopping the resets. Imagine how many new players are caught out doing that...

But I bet you never did that again...

If the problem is the yellow floating "!" mark. That is a relatively easy to handle by just inserting there some kind of "quest start container" or box or pole which seems more fitting. Say, for example, bright colored "Beware of zombies" sign in front of POI to press "E" against to start the quest. 

Double clearing as such, as others have noted several times already in this thread already, is not a "problem" in my opinion, because you are "doing" the POI the same way, basically, like you could do any POI in the world. Be it then killing everything or nerd-poling straight for the roof. In fact, it is probably more efficient to just pick another quest considering how good the quest rewards currently are. 

In vanilla settings the POI's are supposed to be done over and over and over again. Because in vanilla settings there is a loot respawn in POI's turned on after a certain time interval. And - if someone is after a particularly harsh playthrough - one has always option to enforce no traders on the map and turn off the loot respawn and opt to not mine resources - for that true scavenger of the apocalypse feel. 

Because a sign or box or container could be destroyed. Making them indestructible isn't a good solution either.  Interesting point about the vanilla loot respawn. In single player I turn it to 30 days or off to force myself to get out and about more. I have found myself double-looting the closer POIs because of that, although as others I am coming to the conclusion it still isn't worth the time/effort vs doing another quest.

 

[zztong]

I could see where they might want "Quest Only" loot objects that are only available once a quest has been started.

Otherwise, I don't mind double looting, specially if we're talking mostly about mundane things like salvaging doorknobs and looking through cabinets.

 

[playlessNamer]

pls dont listen to this guys. Double looting is no problem at all! Most servers have rules to not destroy any loot containers and thats good for reason!

To repsawn the POI gives you the opportunity to destroy lootcontainers without ruining the world for other players.

Pls dont "fix" this. There is no fix needed. When anybody dont wanna play the POI 2 times, they are not forced to do so.

It doesnt matter if double looted or just make the next quest, no difference.

ps. exept for retarrrr dudes who nerdpole their way to the final loot and straight to the best containers. For this players, they can play the way they wanna play, there is no solution anyways and i am happy to see it more and more in serverrules they ban this nerdpole looting.

 

[Diche_Bach]

I have engaged in this and have mixed feelings about it. My only suggestion:

IF a new system is implemented to deter/prevent/eliminate double looting, then it absolutely MUST! have an easy-to-use option toggle in the singleplayer game settings pane and of course for server config too.

It is the DEPTH of bad business for a game developer to (a) Give a Reward in a game, then (b) Take that reward away. This has nothing to do with any particular philosophy of game design or "good user experience," it has to do with good COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT. Any time you "nerf" something which a segment of your user base regard as "canon" and which they have incorporated into their habitus for playing the game, they are going to whine about it like a Screamer at that time of month and avoiding that kind of thing is clearly a good motive.

I wouldn't be surprised if this game (and EVERY game pretty much) is available on one or another "Pirate Bay" type of site, and I say that not to condone it, but simply to point out: it is IMPOSSIBLE to control the way the world uses your game. When you've given them a particular "exploity" method for using your game, it is best to never truly "take it away" and simply turn it off by default but allow them to turn it on with a ready line in a config file or even an option toggle . . . Option toggles shut up the drama queens . . .

 

[stample]

Option toggles shut up the drama queens . . .

Madmole, print this line out, and frame it on your desk.

 

[Kalen]

It is the DEPTH of bad business for a game developer to (a) Give a Reward in a game, then (b) Take that reward away.

I would agree with you if this were not an early access game.   As such, you need to expect that changes will occur and sometimes those changes remove something that people wouldn't want removed.  A perfect example (not to open a can of worms) but we used to be able to craft quality 6 items.