PC The question is... where are the zombies?

[Feycat]

This is the main thing (besides world generation) that everything past A16 really seems to have screwed up. (No I didn't like LBD and the discussion isn't about the loss of it.)

Where are the damn zombies?

It used to be a bit of a race to finish up my early crafting stuff and get going before dudes were spawning in all around me. Roaming hordes. Lots of individuals filling the streets and hills. God help you if you made enough noise in a POI to get outside zombies involved. Heck, any POI that used to take any amount of time to clear would always end up with at least one roaming horde. I have very unfond memories of dying in a certain corner of a certain basement in a POI because a roaming horde would always show up while I was taking apart a workbench down there.

Now there's almost nothing. Zombies can walk right past you at what used to be easy detection distance. Roaming "hordes" are like 5 guys.

We used to be able to increase the density of zombie spawning. Hell, I used to be one of the people who'd write rad cops and dogs out of roaming hordes because they were so OP. Difficulty mainly just makes the zombies hp sponges and spawns harder ones, it doesn't spawn *more.*

Looting houses is mainly just smacking some pinatas and then moving through now. The only way to increase zombies is a mod now, and I haven't  even looked for the ones I used to use because I was really hoping this problem was being fixed and instead it seems worse.

I'm not excited about bandits. If I wanted to play a hard survival game where NPC bandits are the problem, I'll play Subsistence. I play 7d2d for zombies and building.

 

[Crater Creator]

You also have some options now which you didn’t have in A16, like feral sense, and spending time in the wasteland.  Even turning up the XP gain would effectively give you more zombies in some ways, at least in the early game.

Hopefully the pendulum hasn’t swung too far the other way, and the tweaking you need to do to get enough zombies now is less than the tweaking you needed to do before to tone them down.  I’d say that with gamestage, the progression is more tightly controlled now, compared to earlier alphas where it ramped up at the same pace for everyone.  Theoretically, the current setup accommodates more players and their play styles.

 

[ElDudorino]

I agree that the game lacks zombies. Luckily, it's easy to mod in big spawn numbers. Unluckily, they can't spawn in PoIs

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

That´s the big problem the game has. And bandits gonna make it worse. As we are constantly told that we can´t have more zombies due to perfomance issues, adding in bandits will result in less zombies. Unless the whole "we can´t have more zombies, it will hurt performance" was just an excuse and we were left with an empty world for no reason.

Feral sense doesn´t help a lot. Even with it on, 8 Z´s per chunk is a riddiculous low number. Downtown is better, it´s what the whole map should be like and even more of them downtown.

Second thing that really hurt the game is the magical wall around sleepers that let´s them not hear a grenade exploding right next to them. That´s mostly the reason why i stop playing for that day, when some stupidly loud noise near sleepers doesn´t wake them up because it was outside the magic wall. It sucks big time.

 

[ElDudorino]

I don't know if the game's performance issues are really related to number of zombies. I have modded in more zombies and performance seemed unaffected. Meanwhile my FPS dropped to single digits for a while when I was halfway through Higashi Pharmaceuticals next door to Dishong Tower. It seems like the environment is what was giving me issues while the zombies themselves were no problem.

Granted, I have an i7-9700k while I know a lot of people are still on 4th-gen i5s so maybe some players would have problems with more zombies. Still, the current numbers seem just ridiculously low. I had read online that going into a city means facing down a horde and when I first wandered into one only to see like three shamblers it was a huge letdown.

 

[Matt115]

You also have some options now which you didn’t have in A16, like feral sense, and spending time in the wasteland.  Even turning up the XP gain would effectively give you more zombies in some ways, at least in the early game.

Hopefully the pendulum hasn’t swung too far the other way, and the tweaking you need to do to get enough zombies now is less than the tweaking you needed to do before to tone them down.  I’d say that with gamestage, the progression is more tightly controlled now, compared to earlier alphas where it ramped up at the same pace for everyone.  Theoretically, the current setup accommodates more players and their play styles.

Honestly - A16 give you vibe that "zombie number" in even small cities is pretty big , even random hordes are big. Now world looks pretty... empty. Ofc zombie sit in POI but street's are too emptY + sleepers ignoring explosions outside. Yes 7dtd is not resident evil 3 or dl1 but number of zombie on streets should be 2-3 x bigger - maybe to balance this reduce their health and dmg by  20%. 

That´s the big problem the game has. And bandits gonna make it worse. As we are constantly told that we can´t have more zombies due to perfomance issues, adding in bandits will result in less zombies. Unless the whole "we can´t have more zombies, it will hurt performance" was just an excuse and we were left with an empty world for no reason.

Feral sense doesn´t help a lot. Even with it on, 8 Z´s per chunk is a riddiculous low number. Downtown is better, it´s what the whole map should be like and even more of them downtown.

Second thing that really hurt the game is the magical wall around sleepers that let´s them not hear a grenade exploding right next to them. That´s mostly the reason why i stop playing for that day, when some stupidly loud noise near sleepers doesn´t wake them up because it was outside the magic wall. It sucks big time.

Even feral sens do nothing because... if you start shooting in typical small city you should have been attacked byt 50-100 zombies. This  would make guns less usefull? yes but it would be better for gameplay and setting. 

And yeah bandits will make this even worst - the best solution would be add 15- 20 "bandit POi" and no bandits "going wild" but TFP want to add them wandering without reason

 

[Boidster]

Unless the whole "we can´t have more zombies, it will hurt performance" was just an excuse and we were left with an empty world for no reason.

It is literally 30 seconds in a text editor to test this theory. I play on 4x spawns because that's about what my dedicated server and the two clients can handle. We are constantly being interrupted by wandering zombies and if we don't clear an area before starting some task, we'll get swarmed.

Hell, I used to be one of the people who'd write rad cops and dogs out of roaming hordes because they were so OP. ... The only way to increase zombies is a mod now

If I'm understanding you correctly, you used to modify the game files to remove rad cops and dogs from roaming hordes, but are unhappy that you need to modify game files to increase zombies? For someone with your skills, it is trivial to play 10x spawns if you want. It would be great if TFP could add a slider in the options UI to allow for easier adjustment, but really the current "fix" isn't a torturous ordeal, if you know how to use a text editor. Or know how to install a modlet. It's not a mountain, it's a molehill.

 

[ElDudorino]

I wouldn't say it's a guarantee bandits will make things worse. Maybe zombie counts were reduced due to some limitations that have since been fixed and they'll be re-upped later.

Unless the devs just don't want players encountering zombies in the streets and the wild. I have been repeatedly told by other players that this is a tower defense game and not a zombie survival game. Maybe we're the ones playing it wrong.

 

[Nevergrey]

That´s the big problem the game has. And bandits gonna make it worse. As we are constantly told that we can´t have more zombies due to perfomance issues, adding in bandits will result in less zombies. Unless the whole "we can´t have more zombies, it will hurt performance" was just an excuse and we were left with an empty world for no reason.

Enemy quantity is no criterion for a challenging gameplay. 7D2D isn't Serious Sam. Did you ever play DayZ? Two Zombies can kick your ass, just because they are damn fast. Ok, the melee combat system is notchy in DayZ. Nevertheless the Zombie speed is a factor there. You can make the Zombies faster in 7D2D too. Maybe there's a mod that can make them even faster. Did you test that?

 

[meganoth]

I don't know if the game's performance issues are really related to number of zombies. I have modded in more zombies and performance seemed unaffected. Meanwhile my FPS dropped to single digits for a while when I was halfway through Higashi Pharmaceuticals next door to Dishong Tower. It seems like the environment is what was giving me issues while the zombies themselves were no problem.

Granted, I have an i7-9700k while I know a lot of people are still on 4th-gen i5s so maybe some players would have problems with more zombies. Still, the current numbers seem just ridiculously low. I had read online that going into a city means facing down a horde and when I first wandered into one only to see like three shamblers it was a huge letdown.

Zombie numbers depend on minimum specs with max multiplayer, not average specs.

In other words, TFP must make sure that the vanilla game runs on a minimum spec machine with 8 people involved, each player in a different POI surrounded by 8 zombies.

And it has not added code to automatically add more zombies when you have a fast machine. This could very well happen in the future, especially in the beta phase. in the meantime the only recourse is modding or the few UI options that can help.

 

[theFlu]

And it has not added code to automatically add more zombies when you have a fast machine. This could very well happen in the future, especially in the beta phase.

That, as a feature, sounds a little odd to me. They're going to have to make the minimum specs gameplay work well - if they need to hold back enemy counts to reach that, so be it. But they'll at least try to make a good experience out of it. If the low count baseline works well, just randomly adding more enemies because your rig can handle it doesn't really feel like a goal.

Settings? For sure. Automation.. with overrides, maybe. But preferably "automating" for the low end machines - as in, design the game for a decent machine then, "downgrade" only when necessary.

 

[ElDudorino]

In other words, TFP must make sure that the vanilla game runs on a minimum spec machine with 8 people involved, each player in a different POI surrounded by 8 zombies.

Realistically the minimum spec should be for client machines and server hosts are the ones who need a beefier machine, no? It's not like 8 different machines would all be separately redundantly handling each other's instances.

 

[Matt115]

It is literally 30 seconds in a text editor to test this theory. I play on 4x spawns because that's about what my dedicated server and the two clients can handle. We are constantly being interrupted by wandering zombies and if we don't clear an area before starting some task, we'll get swarmed.

If I'm understanding you correctly, you used to modify the game files to remove rad cops and dogs from roaming hordes, but are unhappy that you need to modify game files to increase zombies? For someone with your skills, it is trivial to play 10x spawns if you want. It would be great if TFP could add a slider in the options UI to allow for easier adjustment, but really the current "fix" isn't a torturous ordeal, if you know how to use a text editor. Or know how to install a modlet. It's not a mountain, it's a molehill.

It is not so easy - it will change "free zombies" but don't change POI sleepers + POI design.

Enemy quantity is no criterion for a challenging gameplay. 7D2D isn't Serious Sam. Did you ever play DayZ? Two Zombies can kick your ass, just because they are damn fast. Ok, the melee combat system is notchy in DayZ. Nevertheless the Zombie speed is a factor there. You can make the Zombies faster in 7D2D too. Maybe there's a mod that can make them even faster. Did you test that?

This is not good idea.  7DTD is not serious sam that's true but... it if better to have 100 weak zombies that 10 strong. Like -  RE2 zombies can bo boring when you have to put 10 shots into his head and he still will get up when in contagion you have 1 shot 1 kill but bigger groups of zombies are very dangerous. Well honestly WD is more similiar to SS that to dayz - hordes in Walkind Dead TV show can be gigantic like in world war z game but in wwz zombie are weak but fast.

Zombie numbers depend on minimum specs with max multiplayer, not average specs.

In other words, TFP must make sure that the vanilla game runs on a minimum spec machine with 8 people involved, each player in a different POI surrounded by 8 zombies.

And it has not added code to automatically add more zombies when you have a fast machine. This could very well happen in the future, especially in the beta phase. in the meantime the only recourse is modding or the few UI options that can help.

Damn honestly this was bad idea to make for 8 players, 4 players are standard in zombie games. I hope it will  be change in their next game 

 

[meganoth]

Realistically the minimum spec should be for client machines and server hosts are the ones who need a beefier machine, no? It's not like 8 different machines would all be separately redundantly handling each other's instances.

Any client starting a world is automatically a server as well and 7 other players can connect to that server and still be in a supported configuration

That, as a feature, sounds a little odd to me. They're going to have to make the minimum specs gameplay work well - if they need to hold back enemy counts to reach that, so be it. But they'll at least try to make a good experience out of it. If the low count baseline works well, just randomly adding more enemies because your rig can handle it doesn't really feel like a goal.

Settings? For sure. Automation.. with overrides, maybe. But preferably "automating" for the low end machines - as in, design the game for a decent machine then, "downgrade" only when necessary.

Yes, correct, it naturally won't be automatic but an option.

 

[ElDudorino]

Any client starting a world is automatically a server as well and 7 other players can connect to that server and still be in a supported configuration

It's not like that just randomly happens, though. If you want to play singleplayer you'll play singleplayer. If you want 7 people to join in you can allow for that but you should take into account whether your machine can handle hosting that many. It would be silly to gimp the game for everybody just so some rando can host an 8-player server on his old laptop.

I don't think this is the real reason why the world is so zombieless.

It could be that the devs are afraid of zombies.

 

[theFlu]

Yes, correct, it naturally won't be automatic but an option.

Then why did you call it automatic..? Not against zombie-sliders, you just made it sound a lil convoluted originally.

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

@Boidster I know it runs fine with 4x spawn, but did you take a look at the minimum specs on steam? That´s the spec they want to make sure everything runs on and it´s the only spec that matters when it comes to how many zombies we can have. 2.8 Ghz Base clock for the CPU was when? 2014? I mean at least it´s not a dual core anymore like it used to be.  

 

[Roland]

I agree with your overall statement that the world feels too empty and that there are not enough zombies but these statements I don't agree with.

Looting houses is mainly just smacking some pinatas and then moving through now. 

It really is interesting to me how we can get such divergent reports from people. You say all of the sleepers are pinatas and others say nothing stays asleep anymore and stealth is broken. The truth is in the middle. They are not all pinatas and you can still stealth kill a good portion of them.

The only way to increase zombies is a mod now, and I haven't  even looked for the ones I used to use because I was really hoping this problem was being fixed and instead it seems worse.

The problem is not worse since A19. City areas have larger spawn rates as do tougher biomes compared to A19. Together with feral mode option there are definitely more encounters in A20 than in A18 or A19. It still isn't where most of us would like it to be and I think everyone would love a slider in the options to increase spawn numbers but there are mods and even without mods you can edit one config file in under 20 minutes to easily increase the spawns yourself based upon what your own computer can handle.

I'm not excited about bandits. If I wanted to play a hard survival game where NPC bandits are the problem, I'll play Subsistence. I play 7d2d for zombies and building.

TFP publicly announced that bandits would be a part of the game long before Subsistence even existed. You can't expect them to drop a promised feature just because another game gets made later that has something similar.

I'm not too worried. They are being conservative right now because they are still adding features and they don't want to increase the zombie population only to have to pull it back. I'm certain that zombie populations will increase once the game is feature complete and they have the full scope of what the performance requirements is going to be. I'm also confident they will include a slider for zombie spawns in the menu. There is already an option to turn them off and all they need to do is change that to 0, 50% 100% 200% 300% much like many other options. 

Until then just mod in more zombies for yourself.

 

[meganoth]

Then why did you call it automatic..? Not against zombie-sliders, you just made it sound a lil convoluted originally.

Because I sometimes make mistakes like everyone else

 

[Nevergrey]

RE2 zombies can bo boring when you have to put 10 shots into his head and he still will get up when in contagion you have 1 shot 1 kill but bigger groups of zombies are very dangerous.

It is often boring because it looks boring. One thing I miss in 7D2D are injuries, wounds when you hit a Zombie. In 'The Forest' enemies are covered with blood after a fight. Even when they survive and run away. Would it be possible to add more splatter effects in 7D2D? Not necessarily dismemberment, but some gore textures that show: I just hit and cut flesh with a sharp blade - the Zombie not just fell to the ground.