PC Game Stage Confusion?

[Riamus]

Thanks for the info on the new heat settings.

No, I am not complaining about more Zs.  I like that there are more wandering hordes and more Zs in the streets.  What I don't like is how just running two dew collectors, nothing else, attracts THREE screamers.  You have to admit that this change is drastic compared to the last alpha.

I know that this will probably not get adjusted back in any way so it is something I will have to adapt to.

One of the devs said that you can get 1 or 2 screamers but that when they scream, they can get a third.  Might be what happened there.  I think that if they just dropped it to one screamer and then a scream might attract a second, it might not feel quite as overwhelming to people.  Or maybe just bump the heat from 25% to 30 or 35%.  But I'm also fine how it is.  It just takes a little more planning, which is fine.

 

[zombiehunter]

One of the devs said that you can get 1 or 2 screamers but that when they scream, they can get a third.  Might be what happened there.  I think that if they just dropped it to one screamer and then a scream might attract a second, it might not feel quite as overwhelming to people.  Or maybe just bump the heat from 25% to 30 or 35%.  But I'm also fine how it is.  It just takes a little more planning, which is fine.

Yep, like I said, I will have to adjust to it.

Thanks.

 

[theFlu]

All the last alphas almost everyone was complaining about streets being empty, not enough zombies, ...

Good advice otherwise, but the streets are still empty; traveling through the world is the safest thing you can do. Just don't hop 50 times on the same spot

As in, it's a different mechanic, with a completely different feel to it. Number_of_zeds_killed_daily may have been fixed, but threat_of_lurking_zeds hasn't, and empty_look_of_everywhere hasn't.

 

[Roland]

Good advice otherwise, but the streets are still empty; traveling through the world is the safest thing you can do. Just don't hop 50 times on the same spot

meh...traveling would be just as safe and easy if they filled the world with zombies. You are faster than they are. I've used the mods that increase the numbers and put zombies everywhere. You just run past them maybe juking once or twice but otherwise no extra danger to traveling. And that's just on foot. With a vehicle, it is even more simple. Now, once you arrive at a destination to do something like mine, loot, or build then it is dangerous to have all those zombies around coming at you. You have to spend serious time cleaning up the area before you begin.

That is how screamers are relevant. They put a bunch of zombies at your destination where you are in the process of trying to complete a task and not as useless non-threats while you travel and leave them behind where they forget about you once you are about 10-20 blocks away. More wilderness spawns do nothing to affect travel but all those spawns in the area where you want to stop and work? That is when it's dangerous and that is exactly what the screamers create.

 

[theFlu]

You're faster? You don't Have to be. Let's say a "vehicle breaking" -mechanic. At the moment, that wouldn't matter a bit, as there's no threat anyway.

The juking, avoiding combat, or meticulously killing everything on your path, while making your way to your destination is exactly what is missing to make the world feel Active/Alive/(undead?).

Being able to just run around every zed on the path is "just" a design decision.

And just the look of the place.. this is marketing material from the steam page (direct link, I hope it'll work) :

Yes, they're all AI off, idling, manually placed there for the photo-op; but it does show that at least someone in marketing thinks there should be zeds in a zed world...

That's about 30 zeds (dense cluster at the bus), normally you might be able to capture 3-4 in that kind of a pic.

I'm not saying I'd want that image to be the norm, that looks like a tough time - but I'd rather that, than the emptiness of the world.

 

[meganoth]

You're faster? You don't Have to be. Let's say a "vehicle breaking" -mechanic. At the moment, that wouldn't matter a bit, as there's no threat anyway.

The juking, avoiding combat, or meticulously killing everything on your path, while making your way to your destination is exactly what is missing to make the world feel Active/Alive/(undead?).

Being able to just run around every zed on the path is "just" a design decision.

And just the look of the place.. this is marketing material from the steam page (direct link, I hope it'll work) :



Yes, they're all AI off, idling, manually placed there for the photo-op; but it does show that at least someone in marketing thinks there should be zeds in a zed world...

That's about 30 zeds (dense cluster at the bus), normally you might be able to capture 3-4 in that kind of a pic.

I'm not saying I'd want that image to be the norm, that looks like a tough time - but I'd rather that, than the emptiness of the world.

As you said you don't want it every time. So the only solution that works is wandering hordes or screamers. This could be the picture when you wake up a screamer while looting a POI and look outside.

 

[theFlu]

As you said you don't want it every time. So the only solution that works is wandering hordes or screamers. This could be the picture when you wake up a screamer while looting a POI and look outside.

That's absolutely fine for a screamer horde, for sure. But that being the screamer horde doesn't make the world any fuller. That was the challenge, "why aren't people who complained about an empty world happily posting here about a full world now?" (Less directly by you, more directly by Roland, but both of you were echoing the same sentiment)

The world is still empty, while there are hordes.

You get a quest and need to travel 1 klik to get there. Atm absolutely nothing really happens during that travel. On foot you gather nests, on vehicles you dodge ore nodes and shopping carts. Barely a zed in sight, not in the least looking like an apocalypse.

If the world was populated enough so you'd have to at least pay attention while traveling, it'd make the world feel like a zombie world. Of course there's some line between being alert and starting to get frustratingly grindy, but right now, we're way below being alert.

The tech isn't there to load masses of zeds, I get it. Possible "Events" may help, but I feel I'd rather have zeds be teleported around me, the ones I just left behind dropped ahead of me behind suitable trees or whatnot - assuming loading new zeds is pricey. You can pretty freely unload the one I left in the previous chunk (30 meters away) on my motorcycle, I ain't going back. But since you'll need to load a new one, just re-use that one ... but that'll break continuity? Yeah, but that was already abandoned an alpha or two ago, it ain't coming back. If it's already broken, at least use the features it grants then

 

[Old Crow]

Just gonna chime in here - there are too many goddamn screamers way too early for doing so little activity. If I'm sitting on my ass, not making a sound, not even MOVING, no workstations running, why are there two screamers coming to welcome me to the neighborhood? They didn't even bring me a casserole!

And yet, in a city, at night, I can have a zombie nurse chasing me, then give up after I stop moving TEN FEET AWAY FROM HER. I didn't even crouch or hide behind anything - she just stopped and lost track of me. Zombies have some major ADHD issues in 1.0

 

[Riamus]

meh...traveling would be just as safe and easy if they filled the world with zombies. You are faster than they are. I've used the mods that increase the numbers and put zombies everywhere. You just run past them maybe juking once or twice but otherwise no extra danger to traveling. And that's just on foot. With a vehicle, it is even more simple. Now, once you arrive at a destination to do something like mine, loot, or build then it is dangerous to have all those zombies around coming at you. You have to spend serious time cleaning up the area before you begin.

That is how screamers are relevant. They put a bunch of zombies at your destination where you are in the process of trying to complete a task and not as useless non-threats while you travel and leave them behind where they forget about you once you are about 10-20 blocks away. More wilderness spawns do nothing to affect travel but all those spawns in the area where you want to stop and work? That is when it's dangerous and that is exactly what the screamers create.

True, but it does look better to have more out on the streets.  But I've gotten used to it so it really doesn't bother me.

Let's see... A chunk is 16x16?  Is that right?  With that, I think that if you could average at least 1 zombie in a 3 chunk by 3 chunk (so 48x48) in towns, I think that would be good.  And maybe 1 per 5 chunk by 5 chunk in wilderness.  Of course, those are just guesses.  Without seeing how that looks, I don't know if it would feel too much or not enough.  But I think it would be better.  Maybe needs to be a little more than that.

Note that this distribution would be where they spawn, not where they wander.  Zombie density would of course vary as zombies wander around.