PC Is it time for screamers to be removed?

On day 5 I had one forge schmelting iron and three torches going and that was enough to spawn screamers repeatedly. I've never seen that before.

I don't mind actually. In fact I appreciate it. I need more zombies spawning more frequently!

The fog looks beautiful now. In the middle of the night, I look out across the field as the fog blankets the grass and I see 3 or 4 zombie silhouettes. I love it...but I'd love it even more if there were 10 to 15 silhouettes out in the foggy field. 

 
Arez said:
On day 5 I had one forge schmelting iron and three torches going and that was enough to spawn screamers repeatedly. I've never seen that before.

I don't mind actually. In fact I appreciate it. I need more zombies spawning more frequently!

The fog looks beautiful now. In the middle of the night, I look out across the field as the fog blankets the grass and I see 3 or 4 zombie silhouettes. I love it...but I'd love it even more if there were 10 to 15 silhouettes out in the foggy field. 
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Oh, the fog is sooo great now!  Both in the wilderness and in the middle of town.  Looks great.

I'm surprised that you'd have screamers like that.  I'm on day 9 or 10 on my solo game and letting the forge run for 20min+ at a time (I don't have a ton of ore yet, so no need to run longer) and one torch and none so far.  But I also don't hang out there for long periods of time and maybe that's the difference.  Usually just a few minutes here and there but I thought that still triggered screamers if you were generating heat.  Oh well.  I'm sure I'll see this effect eventually.  I don't really think I'd mind, though.

 
OneManStanding said:
For me, the threat screamers pose for relying too much on guns is fair enough. We did one of the tall tower blocks, me and a friend, on an infestation mission and had lots of fun blasting out way through. THEN came the descent ... and not only did the frames start to tank as we neared the bottom and could hear all the screamers and zombies waiting for us ... but the building started to crumble a little bit as they attacked the foundations to try and get to us. Had a heckuva fight in the lobby. But "heat" control is a vital part of the game, have to say.
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They should have a wind up or something before they scream

 
Buddy and I ran over to a T3 infested earlier today, Day 12.. He likes to do salvage and there was like 4 cars in the front of this PoI .. They're all clumped pretty close out front there, so we decide to double tap 'em before starting the quest.. Shortly after starting the quest and resetting the cars to be wrenched to bits a second time- the screamers show up, two of them at first.. A most-epic battle breaks out with ferals, a couple cops and at least 4 more screamers that show up throughout the fight.. We were pretty careful with ammo consumption, so I'm guessing it's all the wrenching that brought the screamers in- to me, it feels like there's been a definite increase in how many screamers are coming.

 
It's crazy how random this seems to be. Now I haven't played b316-317 yet so now sure if it changed here. 

I'm on day 19 on b313. I have everything running, chem station, camp fire, forge, cement mixer, and 1 dew collector going. I do all this at night while I wait for morning to go out & about. 

I have yet to spawn a screamer. However in past builds, I have had screamer issues & yes it can be a bit much but it does add to the excitement/danger factor. 

 
The thing is that removing the screamer and/or replacing it with wandering hordes would make your base an absolute safe space. Yes, wandering hordes might spawn when you are at your base, but that won´t happen too often. Unless they are way more frequently than now, but then your problem stays the same, you will still get hordes when doing quests.

That said, a rework of the mechanic couldn´t hurt. Right now a moat, 1 deep and 3 wide filled with spikes and no windows on the ground floor is enough to make sure you only get a screamer horde when you are unlucky entering/leaving the base or repairing the spikes. In theory it´s possible to never get a screamer horde at home ever if you want to go all the way for home safety. Make a tunnel entrance that you enter outside of the screamer spawn zone And if you need to repair spikes you turn off the heat sources.

Snow/Wasteland infestation quests and a screamer or two showing up are fun though.

 
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Personally I would prefer we get big roaming hordes - not just few zombies run by.

Secondly I would prefer you attract screamers with running forges, fires etc... and they should keep screeming if you do not get reed of them. There used to be much bigger hordes coming when they came over. The only time it got bit pesky was when you weer mining and they came.

But during this play through I really miss them. Only get a couple here and there if I used shotgun in T5 quests and few when I was burning forges for cement. But mostly I only get them around day 40, they are Rad version but when I let them call horde she mostly calls for bunch of normal Zs and ferals.

 
BFT2020 said:
So far I been loving the screamer changes.  Has made me defend my main base rather than ignoring it and concentrating solely on my horde base.
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Your making me excited.  I can't wait 

I just hope that they add the special zombies like zombie bears and mutated zombies in the hordes and hordenight. 

 
Adam the Waster said:
Your making me excited.  I can't wait 

I just hope that they add the special zombies like zombie bears and mutated zombies in the hordes and hordenight. 
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The dire wolf is added to horde nights, so there's a chance.  :)

Screamers are easy to deal with - drop a turret on each corner of the base (or each side) and they'll pick off screamers before they scream.  And you won't use much ammo at all.  You should get through 1-2 weeks before even needing to reload if it's not near your horde base.

 
Slingblade2040 said:
So idk what kind of changes this update did but screamers spawning like crazy is back again. Having so many spawn during a quest POI especially the infestations makes them even more annoying to do since the dang screamer horde usually ends up spawning so many mobs that it kills the FPS. 

Personally I hate them and would love for an option to either turn them off or on. Another option which I prefer is more frequent and larger roaming hordes. 
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Skill issue, learn how to manage heat. Crouching makes guns produce less heat per shot, you can also stack this with a silencer assuming this feature is still in 1.0 anyway. I believe with both at once guns only generate ~30% of the heat they normally would. Which means 2-3 times as many shots before a screamer can show up. If your standing and shooting your doing it way wrong with how the heatmap works, as silly as it sounds its the truth, I never get screamers even in t5 clears, as I manage my heat properly. Granted I feel that screamers should be removed with the health things have in 1.0, as half the gun types are basically worthless once you have all ferals, about the only good ones is Shotgun and automatics. All the rest? pretty much worthless as they have too low damage and/or to low magazine size to be of use vs how much health things have. Guns IMO need to do a hell of alot more damage than they currently do, as most guns feel like pea shooters. Only gun that feels like it has some decent stopping power is a shotgun, and speaking of shotguns what the hell is with the effective range of 2-4? It should be more than double that, People hunt things irl from 50 meters away with shotgun buckshot, and can land solid hits. As a whole though gun damage needs to be increased by 50-100% across the board. Melee needs a buff too, as melee is basically worthless in 1.0 once your at the feral stage. Just does too little damage for too much risk.

 
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I just did a Crack a Book on Day 19 in the snow biome.  I'm doing an Agility build so I only had a knife and a pistol.  I had to use the pistol because I was getting ferals and rads and before I even cleared the first room I had screamers.  I have noticed that they come in pairs now and they are radiated.  I've even had that happen at my base....two radiated screamers at a time.

They definitely changed the heat settings so that screamers spawn much easier now.  In A21 and before, you could go through a POI with guns blazing and never get screamers, unless it was a T5.

 
Scyris said:
Skill issue, learn how to manage heat. Crouching makes guns produce less heat per shot, you can also stack this with a silencer assuming this feature is still in 1.0 anyway. I believe with both at once guns only generate ~30% of the heat they normally would. Which means 2-3 times as many shots before a screamer can show up. If your standing and shooting your doing it way wrong with how the heatmap works, as silly as it sounds its the truth, I never get screamers even in t5 clears, as I manage my heat properly. Granted I feel that screamers should be removed with the health things have in 1.0, as half the gun types are basically worthless once you have all ferals, about the only good ones is Shotgun and automatics. All the rest? pretty much worthless as they have too low damage and/or to low magazine size to be of use vs how much health things have. Guns IMO need to do a hell of alot more damage than they currently do, as most guns feel like pea shooters. Only gun that feels like it has some decent stopping power is a shotgun, and speaking of shotguns what the hell is with the effective range of 2-4? It should be more than double that, People hunt things irl from 50 meters away with shotgun buckshot, and can land solid hits. As a whole though gun damage needs to be increased by 50-100% across the board. Melee needs a buff too, as melee is basically worthless in 1.0 once your at the feral stage. Just does too little damage for too much risk.
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You can't really manage heat doing tier 5 or 6 infestations especiallyif its at certain PoIs. The base heat generation spawning in 1 is fine. 

It's one thing to have a screamer spawn in because of heat it's another to make an artificial blood moon horde because screamers spawn in other screamers which spawn in more.

The screamer mechanic needs a rework. If anything they shouldn't be able to spawn in more screamers.

 
Slingblade2040 said:
You can't really manage heat doing tier 5 or 6 infestations especiallyif its at certain PoIs. The base heat generation spawning in 1 is fine. 

It's one thing to have a screamer spawn in because of heat it's another to make an artificial blood moon horde because screamers spawn in other screamers which spawn in more.

The screamer mechanic needs a rework. If anything they shouldn't be able to spawn in more screamers.
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You can if you use melee.  I gave up on guns a long time ago except if I run into trouble.  It's more fun with melee, especially in the high level POIs.  The side effect is no screamers.

 
Scyris said:
Skill issue, learn how to manage heat. Crouching makes guns produce less heat per shot, you can also stack this with a silencer assuming this feature is still in 1.0 anyway. I believe with both at once guns only generate ~30% of the heat they normally would. Which means 2-3 times as many shots before a screamer can show up. If your standing and shooting your doing it way wrong with how the heatmap works, as silly as it sounds its the truth, I never get screamers even in t5 clears, as I manage my heat properly. Granted I feel that screamers should be removed with the health things have in 1.0, as half the gun types are basically worthless once you have all ferals, about the only good ones is Shotgun and automatics. All the rest? pretty much worthless as they have too low damage and/or to low magazine size to be of use vs how much health things have. Guns IMO need to do a hell of alot more damage than they currently do, as most guns feel like pea shooters. Only gun that feels like it has some decent stopping power is a shotgun, and speaking of shotguns what the hell is with the effective range of 2-4? It should be more than double that, People hunt things irl from 50 meters away with shotgun buckshot, and can land solid hits. As a whole though gun damage needs to be increased by 50-100% across the board. Melee needs a buff too, as melee is basically worthless in 1.0 once your at the feral stage. Just does too little damage for too much risk.
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Ohh, so now I get it why I had a screamer in tier 3 POI while clearing it with 3 other mates... too many gun sprays. I wouldn`t say that a screamer is a skill issue... framerate drops and stuttering kicks in when too many zeds are being woken up by 3 other party members. Screamer on top of another approaching screamer is an emanation of the heat issue.

Honestly, I have a feeling of being in a serious disadvantage with Perception and Intelligence perk in open areas, especially in a 4 player party squad. Sniper Rifle sucks and doesn`t have a separate class of ammo that would reflect higher cost and effectiveness with a slow rate of fire. When hordes of greens and ferals show up only automatics, shotguns, and perhaps SMGs are being left as a final solution to a problem 😅. Intelect should have a flamethrower or Plasma Welding gun as a range weapon. Melee is not a solution to 15 running and constantly spawning zeds.

Solo is not a problem but it is clear in co-op parties that some of the classes do not hold up to a task or against hectic situations with lots of zeds in the area.

 
Outlaw_187 said:
It's crazy how random this seems to be. Now I haven't played b316-317 yet so now sure if it changed here. 

I'm on day 19 on b313. I have everything running, chem station, camp fire, forge, cement mixer, and 1 dew collector going. I do all this at night while I wait for morning to go out & about. 

I have yet to spawn a screamer. However in past builds, I have had screamer issues & yes it can be a bit much but it does add to the excitement/danger factor. 
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We are on day 130 on our server and have not seen a single screamer

 
TWORDY said:
Ohh, so now I get it why I had a screamer in tier 3 POI while clearing it with 3 other mates... too many gun sprays. I wouldn`t say that a screamer is a skill issue... framerate drops and stuttering kicks in when too many zeds are being woken up by 3 other party members. Screamer on top of another approaching screamer is an emanation of the heat issue.

Honestly, I have a feeling of being in a serious disadvantage with Perception and Intelligence perk in open areas, especially in a 4 player party squad. Sniper Rifle sucks and doesn`t have a separate class of ammo that would reflect higher cost and effectiveness with a slow rate of fire. When hordes of greens and ferals show up only automatics, shotguns, and perhaps SMGs are being left as a final solution to a problem 😅. Intelect should have a flamethrower or Plasma Welding gun as a range weapon. Melee is not a solution to 15 running and constantly spawning zeds.

Solo is not a problem but it is clear in co-op parties that some of the classes do not hold up to a task or against hectic situations with lots of zeds in the area.
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I use a spear almost exclusively in the game except for horde nights.  A gun is only backup is needed.  Even with many feral and radiated zombies, it isn't hard to control them.  You just need a corridor of some sort to keep them in front of you and max books so you have stamina regen on kill and the ability to hit multiple zombies at once.  I backed into a cell in the loot room of the tier 5 jail where I was trapped but used that to kill everything with the spear.  And there were a LOT of wights.

The only thing that is a struggle are the spider zombies as they force you to attack toward the ground and that lets the rest charge in. 

This is probably why I never see screamers.  Since I don't shoot up the place, I don't generate much heat.

 
Same here, I only use guns when absolutely necessary. I'm a knife/machete user myself. I like dual purpose items to kill & harvest with so as to not waste inventory space because I am a hoarder when it comes to this game. 

I even ditch the bow & arrows once I have a decent firearm to free up two additional inventory spots.

Sneak be damned....I'm coming in loud & proud!! 🤘

 
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