PC Constant Stream of Zombies?

Surprised MM said it's the same number of zombies as A16, I'm getting way more everywhere, outside, inside, respawning sleepers, choosing a poi to loot is a real issue now.

Is anyone experience strange running patterns with zombies, they don't do the circle anymore but they seem to slide sometimes, backwards, forwards sideways, just once in a while and it throws off my melee / arrow attack.

One thing I don't like is when sneaking but accidentally trigger the falling sound because the ground is uneven and it wakes up what sounds like half the neighborhood.

 
There are wandering hordes but they don't typically see you. Noise does attract nearby zeds, maybe consider clearing the outdoor area before going inside. The number of "outside" zombies is identical to a16, but the AI actually works now, so your just seeing what was always there before but they work.
I did kill every zombie I saw outside (though to be fair, there were probably a few on the roof I missed). Either they're hearing me from too far away, or they're spawning in when I make noise. I'm happy to have a bit of a challenge, but this was the first day on easy and it was taking at least 4 headshots with the arrow to kill each one. I was just trying to find a place to hide out for the night, but there was a literal never-ending stream of zombies coming at me even when I was using stealth and only the arrows which shouldn't make much noise.

I'm pretty sure zombies are spawning when ever you make any noise. I was in the snow biome on navesgane I cleared all the zombies around the poi. Then I went inside and cleared out the inside was only 2 zombies inside was my first poi. As soon as I started breaking couches and stuff inside zombies came in and attacked me. I'm pretty sure the zombies actually spawned in response to my noise. Which it should not do that. It's okay if zombies that are still alive get attracted to noise and come in but should not spawn extra zombies.
That's exactly what I feel is happening. That may not be the case, but the fact that it seems somewhat consistent among users and this is the perception we have, it should probably be worked on. It's very different if it's on day 10, but I made almost 100 arrows that first day and only had like 10 left when I quit the game with 3 zombies coming after me. I didn't wander into a city where there should be a ton of zombies, so on day one I should at least be able to clear a POI to find a place to hide. And it's not like I'm a total noob. I've got 266 hours on PC and around 20 on PS4. I can't imagine how a brand new player would attempt to survive the first night.

 
The AI for outside zombies is a little too aggressive. The zombies aggro from too far away and they seem to constantly spawn outside after you kill them.

 
Glad I'm not the only one. Hadn't really seen this addressed anywhere else.

Also, I don't want to just complain. I think the terrain generation and POIs look much better. The smarter AI is definitely noticeable and appreciated. One of the reasons this particular issue is frustrating me so much is that I want to play and experience more of the game, but I just can't do that if I'm spending 100% of my time fighting off a never ending stream of zombies. I never get to the crafting portion of the game, which looks awesome due to the upgraded graphics and new blocks.

 
I'm finding that running into the poi then running out will draw a few out with me, rinse repeat, eventually POI is mostly empty (at least for house sized POIs). I'm really loving pulling my arrows out of them while they close and shooting them again with the same arrow (at least that's how I envision it). That said, a "number of zombies" slider would be nice (which I seem to recall was in A15).

 
I'm loving the new AI but I think the spawn system needs some adjustments. I started a new game last night in Navezgane, all default settings, cleared the area around a regular house next to a river in the pine forest, killled 3 zeds, i checked surroundings, it was clean, then entered the house, main floor was empty, upstairs empty too, and when i was back to main floor 3 zeds appeared from nowhere, when i killed the last one another 2 zeds appeared from outside, i killed those too and again 2 more zeds, killed both again and another 3 zeds from outside. I thought that i was finally going to be able to set my bedroll... wrong, 2 more zeds smashing the back door, i killed them. After placing my bedroll i started to seal the house... 3 zeds smashing the front door, i went outside, killed all, and again 2 more zeds. Don't get me wrong, i like a good challenge but deal with 20 zeds on day 1 for a tiny POI was a bit weird.

 
I like and interested on the new AI swamp of non stop sudden spawn feeling, i wish its can be increase more and run around hammering players.

I mean from day 1 we suppose to be weaker which make the game more intense and real.

The loots from houses from houses are too much at the moment in A17, hope we can reduce more loots for the real gameplay.

 
IMO, its not even just about balancing the amount of zombies. The right ammount is subjective.
But zombie spawn should be transparent to players, since zombies dont just appear out of air. Zombies should never spawn close to the player.

So, be it 10 or 100, the zombies must be in the zone when you arrive, not spawn when you are close. So until a player goes far from a POI, NOTHING should respawn there.

And if that makes it too easy, just increase the zombies already spawned there.
I thought this was going to be fixed in A17, I thought I heard Joel saying something about zombies shouldn't spawn in range or in view in one of his videos. But yeah it's a bit disappointing the sleeper respawn is still here.

 
I'm loving the new AI but I think the spawn system needs some adjustments. I started a new game last night in Navezgane, all default settings, cleared the area around a regular house next to a river in the pine forest, killled 3 zeds, i checked surroundings, it was clean, then entered the house, main floor was empty, upstairs empty too, and when i was back to main floor 3 zeds appeared from nowhere, when i killed the last one another 2 zeds appeared from outside, i killed those too and again 2 more zeds, killed both again and another 3 zeds from outside. I thought that i was finally going to be able to set my bedroll... wrong, 2 more zeds smashing the back door, i killed them. After placing my bedroll i started to seal the house... 3 zeds smashing the front door, i went outside, killed all, and again 2 more zeds. Don't get me wrong, i like a good challenge but deal with 20 zeds on day 1 for a tiny POI was a bit weird.
Exactly my issue. Turns it into an action game instead of a building/crafting game. Which is fine, but incredibly different from what I signed up for. Even if they don't "fix" this issue, I still got my money's worth out of the game, so I'm not mad, just kind of bummed out that they took away the building/crafting.

 
I looted the forge POI on the end of the street far away from other buildings, inside i had two zombies, but i got a steady stream of outdoor zombies. And no it wasn't a wandering horde just the neighbors but they where at least 30 m away.

All in all i got to take care of 11 more zombies. And at a lower level that takes about 20min.. yes i know free xp but almost half a day to clear a small POI that should have taken 7 min max.

So. I lowered the sightrange to 15. That made looting POI's a bit better. No more steady stream of zombies from the neighborhood.

<property name="SightRange" value="30"/> <!-- distance in m -->

 
I looted the forge POI on the end of the street far away from other buildings, inside i had two zombies, but i got a steady stream of outdoor zombies. And no it wasn't a wandering horde just the neighbors but they where at least 30 m away. All in all i got to take care of 11 more zombies. And at a lower level that takes about 20min.. yes i know free xp but almost half a day to clear a small POI that should have taken 7 min max.

So. I lowered the sightrange to 15. That made looting POI's a bit better. No more steady stream of zombies from the neighborhood.

<property name="SightRange" value="30"/> <!-- distance in m -->
At least in your example they were existing zombies (if you are even right). That's ok, IMO. But what they cant do for sure is just appear near you. If I attract 20 zombies from nearby buildings, so be it, but dont spawn 20 zombies just because. If I attract zombies from nearby buildings and kill them, I want those buildings to be empty. Or at least missing the zombies that came for me. Not for them to spawn yet again.

 
Actually I only saw 3 of them from the house. So there is no knowing if I spawned them. When I get home I'm going to use dm tool to see if you truly spawn new zombies when you enter a POI.

 
Most of you may know me from Ravenhearst. I wanted to preface what I was about to say with that in the hopes that it lends some weight to what I am about to say. RH is hard. It increases zombie spawns. So I am no stranger to enjoying difficulty.

That said I have had two VERY different experiences today. One was awesome and the other was extremely frustrating to the point I may not continue to play until I find a way to fix it myself.

The awesome experience involved me slowly clearing a house, floor by floor. I fell through a trap at the top which led me to getting swarmed by zombies falling into the hole. I desperately fought them but in the end cornered myself and died. It was fun and exciting. I died because I was cocky.

My second experience was VERY souring and falls in line with what is being said here. I am playing on Navezgane first and I went to loot a POI in the forest. It is the 4 corner square house with a balcony that wraps all around and has stairs leading up to a second floor.

We slowly cleared all the zombies on the outside.. Id say about 7-0 of them. In the process the inside sleepers woke, breaking through the top floor exit and trickling out the door and down the stairs. I lost count at roughly 7. As we killed those 7 on the porch and on the balcony the bottom floor zombies broke out.

We played a game of running them around the building, going back up the balcony, back down and around the porch. As we killed them we saw more walking out of the top floor. At least 4 of them. I went up there and killed them as my partner went in to the bottom to loot. 2 more in the bottom. After I cleared the top i went downstairs to help and as i was down there, never leaving the house 3 more walked in from outside. In the process of kiting and killing those three in the house, 4 more came from UPSTAIRS where i just was.

We had to leave. At the end we were NEVER out of the house yet both floors respawned and the outside did as well. The place was trashed there was no saving it.

My point here is Im all good with harder zeds, Im all good with a HUGE amount of zeds. What I am not good with is magic. I cleared the upstairs numerous times. She cleared downstairs twice. Without leaving the house we received what seemed like a loop of 4 zombie spawns from within. In areas we cleared in a smaller house with 2 floors. That's not a challenge, its a bug. And if it is not a bug its cheap and ridiculous.

I wanted to share this because some around here are dismissing this as a non issue, or that people just dont know how to clear. Im here to back those who have legitimately experienced this and say there is certainly SOME kind of problem here. The first building I cleared? It NEVER did that. Which makes it all the more apparent something went wrong in that one.

 
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sigh....

Madmole and the Funpimps. Please don't listen to the folks sayin it's too hard and water it down. Id rather you make a toggle for the folks that are complaining just so that us folks that arent can keep the game visceral.

for those of you feeling that the zed are a bit "annoying and ruining your looting", do what my wife does. Turn the zombies off...lol

 
Most of you may know me from Ravenhearst. I wanted to preface what I was about to say with that in the hopes that it lends some weight to what I am about to say. RH is hard. It increases zombie spawns. So I am no stranger to enjoying difficulty.
That said I have had two VERY different experiences today. One was awesome and the other was extremely frustrating to the point I may not continue to play until I find a way to fix it myself.

The awesome experience involved me slowly clearing a house, floor by floor. I fell through a trap at the top which led me to getting swarmed by zombies falling into the hole. I desperately fought them but in the end cornered myself and died. It was fun and exciting. I died because I was cocky.

My second experience was VERY souring and falls in line with what is being said here. I am playing on Navezgane first and I went to loot a POI in the forest. It is the 4 corner square house with a balcony that wraps all around and has stairs leading up to a second floor.

We slowly cleared all the zombies on the outside.. Id say about 7-0 of them. In the process the inside sleepers woke, breaking through the top floor exit and trickling out the door and down the stairs. I lost count at roughly 7. As we killed those 7 on the porch and on the balcony the bottom floor zombies broke out.

We played a game of running them around the building, going back up the balcony, back down and around the porch. As we killed them we saw more walking out of the top floor. At least 4 of them. I went up there and killed them as my partner went in to the bottom to loot. 2 more in the bottom. After I cleared the top i went downstairs to help and as i was down there, never leaving the house 3 more walked in from outside. In the process of kiting and killing those three in the house, 4 more came from UPSTAIRS where i just was.

We had to leave. At the end we were NEVER out of the house yet both floors respawned and the outside did as well. The place was trashed there was no saving it.

My point here is Im all good with harder zeds, Im all good with a HUGE amount of zeds. What I am not good with is magic. I cleared the upstairs numerous times. She cleared downstairs twice. Without leaving the house we received what seemed like a loop of 4 zombie spawns from within. In areas we cleared in a smaller house with 2 floors. That's not a challenge, its a bug. And if it is not a bug its cheap and ridiculous.

I wanted to share this because some around here are dismissing this as a non issue, or that people just dont know how to clear. Im here to back those who have legitimately experienced this and say there is certainly SOME kind of problem here. The first building I cleared? It NEVER did that. Which makes it all the more apparent something went wrong in that one.
I posted in the mods section here about something i found in the XML files: HERE

I think tweaking this would really help, but i dunno exactly in what manner change these settings, nor how to test it properly. I think perhaps spawning into a map and pushing the time forward after killing zeds? Some testing with people on already "bugged" POIs?

 
going through some random POIs myself I noticed that as I led zombies out of them, the one's I killed prior, would respawn. I thought (and still do) feel that going too far from the POIs refreshes the sleeper zed's. I agree with Jax tho, the excessive respawning and magic is a bummer.

 
going through some random POIs myself I noticed that as I led zombies out of them, the one's I killed prior, would respawn. I thought (and still do) feel that going too far from the POIs refreshes the sleeper zed's. I agree with Jax tho, the excessive respawning and magic is a bummer.
The problem here is no one "let" anything out of the house. They woke up from the noise of killing the outside zombies on their own. Sure if I had led them out to kill them I could blame myself. But you try stopping a conga line if 5 zeds from coming OUT of an enclosed space. Or led them back IN to it.

Im not complaining about difficulty Im complaining because it is stupidly unrealistic to have the entire building respawn because a zombie walked 1 meter out a doorway. Give me a house of 20 zombies Ill gladly fight it off. If ONE of those zombies decide to walk outside youre saying I deserve the entire building to spawn again?

 
This.

Fill the hostpital with 100's zombies. Free xp makes me happy. But when I have cleared a room it should be cleared. It's not a issue of difficulty. Its plain bad programming.

Let the zombies drop a invisible block that has the same values as a bedroll.

That way zombies can't spawn when the first zombie is dead.

 
The problem with editing the XML is that you are no longer testing. All feedback is then invalidated. Yes, we could probably fix this on our own, but that would leave nobody to test the vanilla settings and they would remain broken.

Sight range and the spawn delay are probably what needs to change, but I think we have to leave our games unmodded for a least a week or two to nail down exactly what and how is going wrong before we start tweaking the numbers.

 
The tactic we use is either myself or my wife drop a bedroll in the poi to stop the constant respawning.

 
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