PC Are all POIs going to be dungeons?

[Damocles]

The frequency of POIs: there is unfortunately only so many large POIs that can be made.

With the workflow of manually crafting the POIs there will always be less than experienced players would like to have. Its bound to repeat.

The solution: procedurally generated POIs from template sections.

This does not work for very specific and iconic "dungeon" POIs, but for a large range of industrial and apartment buildings.

Just having the floor plan of a skyscraper have a random setup would increase the replayability, as the player would not know the "perfect path" beforehand. Larger apartment buildings could have a random arrangement of the rooms within its general frame. (and additional floors).

An "erosion procedure" could then knock out some blocks, and exchange others to a broken version to add visual variety.

Houses could have a set of template "slots" that can be filled with kitchen appliances, furniture, drawers, sofas, shelves, beds etc. And then the mentioned erosion run over it to make it unique.

The outside could get a paint-job from a set of predefined templates.

Since the template-sections of this slot-system are still manually crafted, they can be improved and refined later as needed. (For the results to look good there must be the right balance between procedural and manual elements)

Loot, safes and zombie spawners would not be on expected positions. Players can not speedrun those POIs then, they need to engage them carefully.

In the end, there would be an endless supply of novel POIs to explore. ... and that is a good salespoint too.

 

[Pille]

Why should you ignore me? Because you think I'm merely a shill for the company. You just said as much again here where you still assume that I am a shill but just trying to hide it by occasionally disagreeing on non-essential things. This isn't a matter of having a difference of opinion, this is about integrity and motives. Why would you want to read and react to someone you believed was dishonest and trying to influence public opinion in a manipulative manner?

My assumption is that you find my arguments compelling and have no other option except to discredit them as TFP's "talking points" they pass out to their employees each morning. My further assumption is that you are sadly like other critics who cannot comprehend that the world is more diverse than themselves. To you something IS objectively bad for everyone and that those who claim that it is good cannot possibly actually believe it to be so (since you don't) and therefore they must either be lying, or they are fanatical fanbois, or they haven't really applied any real intelligent thought to the subject.

Sorry, my friend. Sometimes the truth is simply that people like things that you don't because they aren't you and there is no nefarious purpose to their not liking what you do or liking what you don't. I generally like how the dungeon POI's are implemented (with a few exceptions) and I want more and yes, I would love improvements (as long as that doesn't mean no false floors or zombies dropping from above). That is my honest opinion.

Does that happen to align with what TFP is planning? Yes, and thank God because it means I'm going to get what I want.

Haha, not sure if you're trolling back here or if you're serious about your reply. I was merely showing that you still can be considered as a yesman even if you occasionally disagree with whatever. I didn't mean that literally. Your assumptions are incorrect. Actually, I find (some of) your arguments lazy, not sophisticated and/or one-sided. They're the actual reason why we're having this conversation. It's fun to try to refute them. Sorry Roland, I wish I had time to continue but your replies getting longer and longer... It's too exhausting.

Anyway, it was also a good opportunity to give my feedback regarding the flaws of the current dungeon POIs (And no I'm not considering them as 'objective' flaws, you may replace the word 'flaw' with 'things that Pille bother').

Are you sure you aren't some anti-TFP agent from a competing company who tries to hide your antagonism by occasionally saying nice things about non-essential things....?

I thought madmole was an anti-TFP agent for a while until I found out that he was a founder.

 

[Dimpy]

The frequency of POIs: there is unfortunately only so many large POIs that can be made.With the workflow of manually crafting the POIs there will always be less than experienced players would like to have. Its bound to repeat.

The solution: procedurally generated POIs from template sections.

This does not work for very specific and iconic "dungeon" POIs, but for a large range of industrial and apartment buildings.

Just having the floor plan of a skyscraper have a random setup would increase the replayability, as the player would not know the "perfect path" beforehand. Larger apartment buildings could have a random arrangement of the rooms within its general frame. (and additional floors).

An "erosion procedure" could then knock out some blocks, and exchange others to a broken version to add visual variety.

Houses could have a set of template "slots" that can be filled with kitchen appliances, furniture, drawers, sofas, shelves, beds etc. And then the mentioned erosion run over it to make it unique.

The outside could get a paint-job from a set of predefined templates.

Since the template-sections of this slot-system are still manually crafted, they can be improved and refined later as needed. (For the results to look good there must be the right balance between procedural and manual elements)

Loot, safes and zombie spawners would not be on expected positions. Players can not speedrun those POIs then, they need to engage them carefully.

In the end, there would be an endless supply of novel POIs to explore. ... and that is a good salespoint too.

Yup, that's pretty much what I meant when I referred to procedural generation.

 

[Roland]

Actually, I find (some of) your arguments lazy, not sophisticated and/or one-sided. They're the actual reason why we're having this conversation. It's fun to try to refute them. Sorry Roland, I wish I had time to continue but your replies getting longer and longer... It's too exhausting.

Ah...flinging a few more barbs and you’re out. Nice.

I stand by my argument that TFP should continue to make dungeon POIs over simplistic empty structures. The mazelike interiors of DPOIs can be explored or bypassed which makes them equivalent to simple POIs whereas there’s always going to be minimal exploration involved with basic structures. If dungeons get old after awhile the basic POIs were already old by Alpha 7....

I agree that there needs to be some improvement in the design although we don’t agree on the extent obviously.

Now, I know you’re exhausted by all this so I’ll let it lie.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

I think it would be funny if they made copies of the POIs that are notably easy to get to the loot directly and made variants where it was located somewhere else. It wouldn't solve the problem for the people who simply outright dislike the dungeons, but would still be funny nonetheless.

 

[bdubyah]

I'm kind of indifferent on them. They're not great, but not bad. I do think they need more variation in general. Different zombies, different spawn point for them, and more varied loot locations. Maybe even split the loot up across the whole POI. So you can't just break into the attic or basement and be done. Which is usually what I do after I've cleared them once.

They just need to make several more designs of the dungeons. And I am in the camp of changing the ratio to have more normal POIs. If every single house isn't a dungeon, and there's more variety, it should work better.

 

[Tin]

The thing I don't understand is:

They already have dungeon prefabs, that they could easily remodel the interior of, to be non-dungeon like.

Then rename them like ex: apartment_brick_6flrD/ apartment_brick_6flrND (D = dungeon/ ND = Non-Dungeon), which would basically double the amount of prefabs they currently have and increase the verity.

Plus, if the exterior of the non-dungeon ones was the same as the dungeon ones, you wouldn't really know which was which, until you entered.

Then it would just be a matter of weighing the probabilities, for distribution throughout the map between the dungeon and non-dungeon prefabs..

 

[Damocles]

The thing I don't understand is:They already have dungeon prefabs, that they could easily remodel the interior of, to be non-dungeon like.

Then rename them like ex: apartment_brick_6flrD/ apartment_brick_6flrND (D = dungeon/ ND = Non-Dungeon), which would basically double the amount of prefabs they currently have and increase the verity.

Plus, if the exterior of the non-dungeon ones was the same as the dungeon ones, you wouldn't really know which was which, until you entered.

Then it would just be a matter of weighing the probabilities, for distribution throughout the map between the dungeon and non-dungeon prefabs..

Most Dungeon POIs are kind of "normal" houses anyway. The dungon route simply adds blocked-off paths, traps and break-thoughts. It should be way quicker to repair those to a normal state, than to create a new structure.

The dungeon version could then have better loot-crates in general, so players could decide to loot a dungeon version, or quickly scout a normal version for a cooking pot.

 

[Pille]

Ah...flinging a few more barbs and you’re out. Nice.
I stand by my argument that TFP should continue to make dungeon POIs over simplistic empty structures. The mazelike interiors of DPOIs can be explored or bypassed which makes them equivalent to simple POIs whereas there’s always going to be minimal exploration involved with basic structures. If dungeons get old after awhile the basic POIs were already old by Alpha 7....

I don't get what you're trying to say. Everything that isn't a dungeon must be a 'simplistic empty structure'? The dungeon POIs basically work like tubes. They aren't mazelike due to the lack of optional areas and because we have those flashlights showing the pathway. If you have a simple tube-like cave where there's only one way, it's not a maze just because you can dig your way to other areas of the cave.

The old POIs allow you to choose different pathways without forcing you to dig through walls or other obstacles. The old POIs do have different structures. They are not all structured identically and predictable as the dungeons are. I don't constantly experience déjà-vus while exploring an unknown old-school prefab.

The solution: procedurally generated POIs from template sections.

Afaik a while back the fun pimps said they won't implement procedurally generated prefabs (or maybe they were talking about randomly generated POIs, not sure). Ofc that would be an awesome feature. I've been thinking about implementing that myself but my approach is not really feasible atm. because of the current state of the random world generator.

 

[Shiana]

i think the best solution would be normal houses as normal houses (16.4 prefabs), but whenever you do a trader quest, it should lead you to a poi house (17.2 prefabs) in some special places, that are not even reachable without taking the trader's quest.

or - as a hybrid of what i want and damocles said: let all houses be normal houses without paths and normal loot without those uber-loot boxes, but as soon as we start a trader's quest -> transform the hosue into its poi equivalent. (and retransform it back on delivery of the quest to the trader)

 

[Roland]

The dungeon POIs basically work like tubes. They aren't mazelike due to the lack of optional areas and because we have those flashlights showing the pathway. If you have a simple tube-like cave where there's only one way, it's not a maze just because you can dig your way to other areas of the cave.

You think you can explore the entire building by following a single path? No. You are missing out on exploration if all you do is follow the path of least resistance.

And I disagree that they are simply tube-like in the first place. I often see multiple ways to go even without digging to other areas. If you fall through one of those fake floors you hate so much you will find yourself in an unknown area you must try and get out of without dying and the way isn’t always immediately clear on how to get back to where you were. Those upper areas you hate where zombies can fall from above? If you build a structure or ladder to go up there you can often find loot or even an alternate way to progress. No...definitely not a simple “tube”....at least not in my experience.

The old POIs allow you to choose different pathways without forcing you to dig through walls or other obstacles. The old POIs do have different structures. They are not all structured identically and predictable as the dungeons are. I don't constantly experience déjà-vus while exploring an unknown old-school prefab.

I think you must be playing Random Gen with a bad seed. I’ve been playing Navezgane and every POI is different and when I enter one I haven’t encountered before it is not the same any more than the houses of say A14 were from each other.

You’re also being dishonest about old POIs not requiring you to chop through doors or barricades in order to progress. And if turn left to go down a hall where each bedroom has to be chopped into or turn right to walk into the kitchen or go up a ladder to the attic isn’t predictable to you then I don’t know what else to say.

 

[meganoth]

And I disagree that they are simply tube-like in the first place. I often see multiple ways to go even without digging to other areas. If you fall through one of those fake floors you hate so much you will find yourself in an unknown area you must try and get out of without dying and the way isn’t always immediately clear on how to get back to where you were. Those upper areas you hate where zombies can fall from above? If you build a structure or ladder to go up there you can often find loot or even an alternate way to progress. No...definitely not a simple “tube”....at least not in my experience.

The fall traps seem to be the sole exception though (by necessity). I can't even name one A17 POI where I've found parallel paths or even a secondary entrance that can be used without wood frame/ladder/fireaxe.

Even in the biggest pois there seems to be one unbreakable rule: There is only one entrance and the single path leads through the whole house (except for secret stash rooms and single rooms on the side to check out).

In practice I have found out that it is relatively unimportant though. Making a different path is trivial and usually just 4 hits with a fire axe, something a long time player does almost instinctively. I even got in the habit of exiting a multi-storied POI by just hitting the floor until I have fallen to the ground floor.

Still, I miss having bigger buildings where you can get lost. You can get that effect if you open new ways yourself and conveniently forget which ones (actually forgetting is easier than one might think). But at least with POI's used for higher tier clear quests I think it would be an advantage to have more than one path aka a real labyrinth. Higher tier could then also mean more difficult because confusing and not only because more zombies.

 

[dregonazure]

I just wanna say I like having lights that point the way in dungeon pois! It's alil fun to go through the guided path afew times. Plus after I have learnt the path i can wretch all the lights for materials.

 

[Pille]

You think you can explore the entire building by following a single path? No. You are missing out on exploration if all you do is follow the path of least resistance.

Since your question is fairly vague I am not going to answer it because I can't (for instance, what is 'the entire building' - are you talking about all prefabs?). Let me cite myself

Why is there almost always only one way per building and only a few optional rooms?

This question already implies what I think about optionality of dungeon prefabs. Imo there is very few optional stuff but it exists.

And I disagree that they are simply tube-like in the first place. I often see multiple ways to go even without digging to other areas. If you fall through one of those fake floors you hate so much you will find yourself in an unknown area you must try and get out of without dying and the way isn’t always immediately clear on how to get back to where you were. Those upper areas you hate where zombies can fall from above? If you build a structure or ladder to go up there you can often find loot or even an alternate way to progress. No...definitely not a simple “tube”....at least not in my experience.

I would say most DPOIs are tubes that have some minor optional bulge or convexities. To me that's nothing that changes the base structure. What means 'often' to you? Made a small sample testing all Victorian prefabs. Here are the results

victorian_01: Optional areas: 1x tiny bathroom and 2x side chambers (~5 x 5 blocks). All rooms are located directly on the main route.

victorian_02: Optional areas: 1x small bathroom

victorian_03: Optional areas: 1x pantry, boiler room (~9x7 blocks), 6x tiny stockroom (not really rooms but places where the zombies hide), 3x tiny room you fall into when you follow the path (kind of semi optional).

victorian_04: Optional areas: a few tiny zombie chambers and a bathroom

victorian_05: Optional areas: 1x small room in the attic. 1x bedroom

victorian_06: Optional areas: 1x garage, 1x tiny bathroom

victorian_07: Optional areas: 1x tiny bathroom, few tiny zombie chambers

victorian_08: Optional areas: 1x an optional way through the attic that quickly led back to the main pathway, a few small optional room

victorian_09: Optional areas: similar to the other victorian houses (I got tired at this point)

victorian_10: Optional areas: similar to the other victorian houses

victorian_11: Optional areas: 1x small garage, the rest was similar to the other victorian houses

victorian_12: Optional areas: 1x small garage, the rest was similar to the other victorian houses

victorian_13: Optional areas: similar to the other victorian houses

Summary:

I've found only one prefab containing an (quite short) optional path. Doesn't look like 'often'. Maybe I've missed important things or had bad luck with the samples? The vast majority of the optional areas are located directly on the main pathway making it hard to miss them. Most of them are very small rooms serving as hiding place for zombies. Only two or three prefabs include areas not directly related to the intended path (again only small places).

Btw. never said that I hate fake floors or the areas where zombies can fall from above... Pls stop putting words into my mouth. It's their frequency of occurrence that is bothersome.

I think you must be playing Random Gen with a bad seed. I’ve been playing Navezgane and every POI is different and when I enter one I haven’t encountered before it is not the same any more than the houses of say A14 were from each other.

You’re also being dishonest about old POIs not requiring you to chop through doors or barricades in order to progress. And if turn left to go down a hall where each bedroom has to be chopped into or turn right to walk into the kitchen or go up a ladder to the attic isn’t predictable to you then I don’t know what else to say.

Think we misunderstand each other. Perhaps because my statement was kind of imprecise. Ofc old POIs have areas that requires you you to chop through obstactles.

Imo the whole comparison (old POI vs dungons) is not productive anyway. Even if I agree with you about the shortcomings in gameplay of the old POIs, that doesn't mean it is an argument for adding more dungeons. There's more than just dungeons or 'simplistic empty structures'.

[/QUOTE]

 

[Weazelsun]

I want to see more dungeons that have utillize vertical and underground space. Also, how about more POI's that perhaps connect to each other? Like imagine that you go through a normal non-dungeon house and then it goes undergound and then that's when you actually enter the dungeon portion of a POI.

 

[Roland]

Making a different path is trivial and usually just 4 hits with a fire axe, something a long time player does almost instinctively.

Could be this is my "problem" in enjoying the Dungeon POI's. I do instinctively use the destructible and craftable nature of the game to my benefit. I suppose that if someone were exploring the POI as if it were landclaimed there would be just one viable pathway.

To that I can only say....

They aren't landclaimed folks! Use your freedom!

 

[Lanadon Conners]

Could be this is my "problem" in enjoying the Dungeon POI's. I do instinctively use the destructible and craftable nature of the game to my benefit. I suppose that if someone were exploring the POI as if it were landclaimed there would be just one viable pathway.
To that I can only say....

They aren't landclaimed folks! Use your freedom!

THIS is the beauty and beast of a "Sandbox" game. Folks will approach POIs with different styles. Some will follow the general path, some will smash walls and others will "nerdpole" to the top giggling about how they beat the system not considering all the stuff they left inside.

Regardless, I think folks just want more intact buildings that are not set up as dungeons

 

[Roland]

I would say most DPOIs are tubes that have some minor optional bulge or convexities. To me that's nothing that changes the base structure. What means 'often' to you? Made a small sample testing all Victorian prefabs. Here are the results

victorian_01: Optional areas: 1x tiny bathroom and 2x side chambers (~5 x 5 blocks). All rooms are located directly on the main route.

victorian_02: Optional areas: 1x small bathroom

victorian_03: Optional areas: 1x pantry, boiler room (~9x7 blocks), 6x tiny stockroom (not really rooms but places where the zombies hide), 3x tiny room you fall into when you follow the path (kind of semi optional).

victorian_04: Optional areas: a few tiny zombie chambers and a bathroom

victorian_05: Optional areas: 1x small room in the attic. 1x bedroom

victorian_06: Optional areas: 1x garage, 1x tiny bathroom

victorian_07: Optional areas: 1x tiny bathroom, few tiny zombie chambers

victorian_08: Optional areas: 1x an optional way through the attic that quickly led back to the main pathway, a few small optional room

victorian_09: Optional areas: similar to the other victorian houses (I got tired at this point)

victorian_10: Optional areas: similar to the other victorian houses

victorian_11: Optional areas: 1x small garage, the rest was similar to the other victorian houses

victorian_12: Optional areas: 1x small garage, the rest was similar to the other victorian houses

victorian_13: Optional areas: similar to the other victorian houses

Summary:

I've found only one prefab containing an (quite short) optional path. Doesn't look like 'often'. Maybe I've missed important things or had bad luck with the samples? The vast majority of the optional areas are located directly on the main pathway making it hard to miss them. Most of them are very small rooms serving as hiding place for zombies. Only two or three prefabs include areas not directly related to the intended path (again only small places).

Thanks for the illustration. I see what you mean and agree that more variability and alternate and false pathways would be good. I still maintain that even with the similarities between all the victorian style homes it is still not as redundant or predictable as the classic houses.

Btw. never said that I hate fake floors or the areas where zombies can fall from above... Pls stop putting words into my mouth. It's their frequency of occurrence that is bothersome.

Didn't mean to. These were your words:

Not following the intended path doesn't make the lack of variety and the design flaws disappear. You'll still encounter cheap traps consisting of zombies falling from a ledge at the ceiling and you'll still fall through the floor due to intentionally collapsing structures. It doesn't make the flashlights disappear which are there because of reasons. You still have loot rooms because of reasons (unless you want to tell me that you're going to ignore the loot).

It sounded like you were listing those things as design flaws and not merely complaining about their frequency. By saying you hate those things I simply meant that you don't like them as design choices. If I misunderstood then I'm sorry.

Think we misunderstand each other. Perhaps because my statement was kind of imprecise. Ofc old POIs have areas that requires you you to chop through obstacles.
Imo the whole comparison (old POI vs dungons) is not productive anyway. Even if I agree with you about the shortcomings in gameplay of the old POIs, that doesn't mean it is an argument for adding more dungeons. There's more than just dungeons or 'simplistic empty structures'.

I agree that there are more options for what can be done and I'm all for doing more variety but in this thread I was responding primarily to those who want more of the classic POI's to take up precious slots on the maps thereby reducing the number of (what I consider to be) more enjoyable POI's.

 

[jdm311]

I have thoroughly enjoyed the dungeon POIs thus far and hope to see more of them. Adding variation to them as stated by others (randomly generate sections) would also be nice. I know that RWG isn't in the best shape right now, but I hope when it is in good shape that will mean that dungeon POIs are interspersed among the simple POIs.

Regarding the lights pointing to the next area of the dungeon, I tend to role-play this by thinking someone set it up for a loved one to follow when they finally got home.

 

[Minandreas]

The more I've played A17 I'm starting to accept that TFP's vision for the game just isn't the same anymore. Either it has changed, or they had accidentally stumbled on to a really compelling one on their way to their actual vision. Which is the one we are seeing now.

The old vision was one of immersion. The world felt believable and many mechanics were propping that up. You didn't put a skill point gained from braining a zombie somewhere and suddenly know how to build a motorcycle. You had to find a schematic. You got better at things by DOING them. Wanna get good at crafting tools? Better craft a ton of tools then. When you walked in to a town you found Zombies roaming the streets in droves looking for some fresh brains. Inside of buildings was largely empty, because why would zombies just sit around indoors like they are watching a football game if they are feral and looking for food? Wearing a sweater would help you stay warm, but help you die of heatstroke too if you wore it in a desert. Etc.

The new vision is one of Gameplay first. That temperature system was immersive, sure, but it was also annoying as ♥♥♥♥. I do not miss carrying around 6 cells worth of clothing everywhere to stop and change clothes every 5 minutes to keep my body temperature in check. It's really nice not having to rely on sheer luck to find a minibike schematic and otherwise just leg it everywhere even up to day 40+ (That happened to me once). And dungeons are fun!

I'm not saying one vision is better than the other. Personally, I still prefer the first one. But as I do my best to change my perspective and accept that it just isn't the same game anymore, I'm enjoying A17.

Dungeons are over used. Sleepers are WAY over used. Quests are taken right out of the reject bin at World of Warcraft HQ... And those are my opinions. But I'm still having fun with A17 and appreciating the ways that the new vision has made the game more fun. Hopefully someday once the game is finally fully released, modders will come rescue that old vision of the game and let us enjoy either vision whenever we like.