Spartanz920

Yes, I added another server option called SleepNeeded to make players get tired as they do in singleplayer.

I'd like to add that I think if/when tiredness is implemented for MP, that players should still either be able to sleep at any time or have it be another option to allow them to. I could see it being nice to be able to sync up sleep cycles at the end and start of each day for co-op while still allowing tiredness to have an effect from actions throughout the day

There ought to be a mechanic that takes into account the zombies ability to actually get to you. If I am standing on a rooftop with only sheet rope access firing on the zeds in the streets, the panic moodle shouldn't affect my aim NEARLY as much as if I was down in the streets with the horde.

Build 32.16

Ok, guys, I'm a pistol user, and I just taught my completely amateur wife to shoot with a .45 colt revolver. A first timer, she's nothing spectacular, but at 15 yards she was able to place at least 4 out of 6 bullets in the general target area.

In the game the pistol is way hard to use. A 9 mm, at point blank, literally, point blank, I'm shooting 15 rounds into a zombie, my mouse pointer targets the head precisely, then center mass, and not a single hit.  Pistol accuracy is nerfed way out of realistic proportions. Point blank. As in within arms reach of the zed.

So does this mean there could be potential for the Fire Officer to gain a fire fighting perk, as is uses half as much material to put out a fire?

If you Sir are working on the radio, I'm gonna doubt everything it says... I bet it will broadcast "All survivors proceed to coordinates X, Y... I repeat: proceed to X, Y" and then when you go there you'll be chow.

Fixed your avatar for you.
 

Is it possible to keep the old music as well? I love what I've heard of the remastered stuff so far but I cant help miss the old stuff. Also I found the older music flowed better between songs and I never really noticed when the song would switch (aside from the epic battle music). I notice it much more now but it could be that i'm just used to the older music. Maybe have three option in the settings Old, New/Default and Mixed which could incorporate all of the music Zach has created for the game. Just by alternating or randomly choosing a song version ex. old or new; based on situation (which the game already does of course).

It was always the intent to add an option in before release of 32, as we've said before last thing we want to be is George Lucas. if people prefer the old tunes, enjoyed them for years, then it's unfair to them to permanently wipe or change the original they loved from history. Han Shot First, right? That's completely legit. EasyP's working on this now as it goes. I always thought the new tracks were of a higher production quality and overall prefered the new ones, but there were old tracks I preferred over new. However I've had this soundtrack for months (we wanted to make sure it was adequately protected and not just distributed sound files since one day we hope for Zach to sell it so its long delayed in going in) and trust me the entire album and the ambience is undeniably better once nostalgia stops colouring your views.
 
I was just curious what people's reactions would be so asked for it to be kept out of the changelist and get everyone's natural reaction. Almost entirely positive which is awesome, but that said for deffo an option seems fair.
 

It'll be up for sale on Steam at some point, with moneys going to Zach who deserves it for what he brought to the game - as such we're being stingy with the oggs, sorry!

I second this, I prefer the older versions of the tracks, newer ones (some of them anyway) feel off for some reason, they seem too echo-y or just have too much background noises in them.
That and I'm just really used to the old music, which I really, really like to hum to myself and now I can't because of various changes. My humming is broken now  

Is it possible to keep the old music as well? I love what I've heard of the remastered stuff so far but I cant help miss the old stuff. Also I found the older music flowed better between songs and I never really noticed when the song would switch (aside from the epic battle music). I notice it much more now but it could be that i'm just used to the older music. Maybe have three option in the settings Old, New/Default and Mixed which could incorporate all of the music Zach has created for the game. Just by alternating or randomly choosing a song version ex. old or new; based on situation (which the game already does of course).

I'm actually more excited about the next week now that Q2 ends. It might (possibly) mean that we could, at the very least, get a video or two about the current state of what NPC's are in, or a few paragraphs about what new additions NPCs have gathered for the past several months since we've had the update on them.
 
I could seriously just sit down and watch a little NPC buddy run around and do stuff for 2 hours straight.. I mean, after all I did end up wasting half an hour of my time watching my zombified self wander around along with the horde that ate me... I don't know, maybe I'm just weird.

New version, 32.8!
 
THE EXCITING CRAFTING UI! Press "B" (default) or click the left icon to show it. It allows you to see every recipes you know (some may need to be learnt from books, not all books are coded already, it'll be there soon) It also check for items in surrounding containers and automatically grab them. The above now also works for right clicking to craft! (I may have broke controller support on it for now, it'll be fixed don't worry) Evolved recipes also works for this! Check in your cooking tab! Also this update include few fixes/EP zombie population management fixes/balancing etc...

Reading through this topic gives me the idea that players are all too dfferent.
Which is not a bad thing.. it just means that there should be lots of customizations.
 
A fresh player is happy to kill a few zeds with a baseball bat between finding out that broken glass hurts and broken legs kill.
- Low amounts and mostly passive zombies.
 
An oriented player would like some peace to experiment with the professions.. farming, carpentry, etc.
- Medium amounts of zombies, preferrably passive enough to let him gather the required stuff and build up.
 
A seasoned player wants challenge, he knows what is what.. how things work.
- IMO he needs at least medium amounts of zombies with great randomity, migrating, moving, chasing, running, luring etc. He doesn't want runs to be the same. And he wants to see why it is worth building a safehouse.. hence he needs to be harassed enough to validate building walls days on end.
 
And at last the diehard player, who is interested in how zombies spawn and all the fine details. He wants to get better, he wants to be the only person who survived THE Zombie Apocalypse. But if he succeeds constantly.. he will move on.
- So he needs lots of zombies. Huge amount of randomity.. to be surprised by the zombies actions for him is pure joy. Finding yet another near impossible situation to work on is the best thing that can happen. And of course he needs to die. So he will aim at surviving just one day longer this time against the impossible odds. And when he does.. Win.
 
Also players have very different approaches and blood temperatures so to say. And I had this thought that maybe the solution isn't in finding the sweet spot. Because a sweet spot is only good for every player once.. when he is experienced enough for it and not too skilled for it.
 
I see that having way too many customization without any guideline is a maze in which players get lost, and they spend their playtime experimenting instead of enjoying the game. (We all seen those games where you start the n-th session hoping that it will be THE Session.. and finding out it is not)
But adding some more kind of "Advanced Zombie Options" might be good consisting: 
- Migration
- Overall number increase / decrease over time
- Beelining to player (one way or another.. metaevent frequency mayhaps or a straightforward scripted "coming after the scent of the living in the air")
- Emptiness handling (enforced homogenization of zombies or not at all)
- Magnetism (as in luring and grouping)
 
Something along these lines.. think these are mostly the important possibilities.
 
Or the worst case scenario is an interval timed event (2-3 months or 3-5 months eg.) called something like "Last Military Effort" or something which spawns multiple chopper sounds and starts fire in a few dozen locations throughout the urban areas. A last military attempt to contain the zombie outbreak.. and with it, dooming even that stubborn survivor in his 5 layer thick log fort with supplies for a century by burning his surroundings and attracting 1000 zombies to him.
 
You know.. just to make sure that EVERYBODY DIES in the end.
 
TBH I just want to build a safehouse (benefit from all the possibilities the different professions offer) with a few others in MP and eventually I want zombies to tear it down.. so I am enforced to run yet again and start anew. Always being in danger.. just almost avoiding that one lethal mistake, for as long as I could.
 
To summarize up:
When you get a few bagful of tools and supplies and find a good place.. you need some skills in farming/trapping and carpenty and you are basically in the end game, capable of surviving indefinitly. You should never get there. The concept should be "okay we have a good situation now, let's use it the best we can UNTIL we can". Even more so in MP where you can't fast forward time.. so you can't wait half a year to die at long last. And the only thing to kill you is zombies.. randomized or scripted in small or big groups, dispersed or in hordes.. doesn't change the point. But they need to come to kill you.. and to threaten your base.. or bases. The HOW is important.. that gives the feel, but your chances of survival needs to drop with time drastically to a point where it outweights your skill, your luck, your friends, your safehouse, your supplies.
 
Actually the customization for the start condition is awesome, I mean really awesome. The characters and the approaches are very colorful as well. The whole game is detailed to the point of WTF in 2015. But I think the focus on endgame is missing (as in the prevention of endgame . You either die anyway by the starting conditions (no loot, sprinter zombies etc.) or you die of accidentally making a minor mistake. Should be able to die in a hopeless situation without making a mistake, after surviving a while.
 
Sorry about the long post, just trying to give my personal thoughts and different viewpoints.. hope it helps.

I've haven't added much randomness yet because I want to find "good" numbers for spawning/migrating first.  Otherwise everybody will have a different experience and the feedback won't be as helpful.  One person might randomly have a lot of zombies and another too few.  Once the numbers feel right then randomness can be added
 
The population changes linearly from Day Zero to the Peak Day.  After "Peak Day" the population stays at that number.
On day 14 of 28 the desired population will be 1/2 way between the start population and peak population.  That's just the target desired population, the number of zombies getting added to the world still depends on the respawn interval and percent.
 
Zombies are getting attracted to empty areas every hour which is too often.  Also, zombies can respawn in any area that hasn't been seen in the last hour, which is too short a time.  That's why "clearing an area" never seems to work.  Both of those times can be adjusted in the zombies.ini file.  So you can have zombies migrate to empty areas every day/week/month instead, and/or not respawn in any area you've visited in the last day/week/month for example.
 
The settings work in multiplayer as well; the server will have the same zombies.ini file.
 
Zombies smashing down windows/doors/carpentry for no reason:  I never liked that either.
 
And there is absolutely no "target the player's base" code anywhere.
 
One thing I'm worried about, there have been a few reports that huge numbers of zombies are giving people out-of-memory errors or performance problems.  So I'm starting to wonder if we need to limit the number of real zombies.  I don't know how that would work though.

Yep, more variebles and randomization is what it needs. Different group sizes and so on, but the complexity is the only restriction. In general it would be nice that the mechanics the scripting is based on could be influenced by the player. This has been discussed in other threads, but for example noises, smell and visibility could be factors that determine how fast zombies repopulate the area and how likely it would be that they attack player's building..

This is True, but getting attacked every single day by a group of zombies gets old. After while scripting becomes too predictable. It needs to be at least a little randomized. So we have a few days of peace that make us lower our guard. Zombie horde passing by should not be an everyday occurrence even in a zombie apocalypse.
While we have a truly HUGE improvement over how it used to be I'm starting to think we've got to the other extreme where zombies are absolutely everywhere, all the time without any breathing space for the player.
 

I love how much harder the game is but I really don't like how the game see's a underpopulated area and says "hey this a space with no zombies in it, come fill the space zombies". It just doesn't feel right, meta sounds and npc's should be dragging zombies around not some magical force. I hope that's how it will work once npc's get re-implemented.

the only problem is the predictable nature of zombie re-spawns.
 
The old system was boring because you could clean out an area by your base and never have to worry about it again...  no point making a fortress because no zombie will ever see it, let alone test it.
 
Now zombie respawning is predictable enough that it just becomes routine, clearing out the area after a looting trip is just routine now and when something is routine, its not more difficult, its just more time and tedium.
 
I used to set daily zombies but now I just set weekly because I want to get on with the game, not take out the trash every time I return from a looting trip.
 
Whats needed is some kind of 'random respawn' option thats similar to the electric and water.   One thing I like about the electric and the water shutting off is that you cant predict it, sometimes its early sometimes its late,  sometimes both go off sometimes one a time.  I tend to pick 0-2 months. 
 
Maybe zombie respawn options can be changed to 0-3 days, 0-7 days, 3-7 days, 7-14 days or maybe just 'completly random' I just dont like the thought of being able to configure respawn options. 
 
Maybe it could also be linked to 'time played'  so that the first month there is no respawning, 1-3 months its 7 days, 3-6 months it becomes daily...  so that the game becomes more difficult the longer you survive.. not easier, which is still the current status.

I must admit that I do enjoy the increased challenge of the new zombie distribution, but my problem with it is the grouping system that came in a few builds back. It is most visible when you attract a fraction of a group of zombies be it any size. I would run into a house after attracting about 7 zombies from a 20ish group. They would start banging on a window after me briefly, and then turn around and wander back to the group. Its almost as if they forget that 10 seconds ago there was some fresh meat in that house they were scrambling to get into.

This "forgetting" phenomena disappears when a meta-event or player action would attract a group en masse. I wouldn't say this build introduced the problem but merely blew it out of proportion with groups of 1000s of zeds.

Well this happened to me after about a month in a vanilla game (sandbox so I could have a starter kit). I awoke in the middle of the night to hear a steady knocking on the door at the beginnings of my safe house. I did my normal thing of going over to the door with the intent of opening it and shutting the zombies up, violently if needed.... but, not this time. Before I even got to the door it bursted open and in rushed no less than a dozen zombies into my house! I bolted for the other door as I noticed the barricades on my windows breaking and a steady flood of zombies entering my kitchen door. I made my escape to come back to take this pic of my house in shambles and totally overrun by zombies.
 
Hordes will now destroy your safehouse. It happened to me.
 
 

 
With that being said, and how awesome it was, I did find the zombie population to be a bit too much. I attributed this to the fact that I had sleepyhead (or the other one) as a trait and I had to spend more time sleeping. This in turn enabled the zombies in surrounding areas to spawn more freely since I was out and about fighting zombies less, because I was sleeping. Since they were respawning everyday, and I was sleeping alot, I couldn't keep up with thinning their numbers.
 
I also started a vanilla game with a hard server reset with the friend. We have established ourselves a safe house and are surviving for now (well kinda anyways, he died once). While we both loved the mechanics of the zombies moving around the map more fluidly (I especially like the 'waves' of zombies that seem to migrate in meta events), we both felt like we were spending too much time fighting zombies and that it began to get too repetitive and almost 'cumbersome' to loot anywhere. There was always a group of 8-10 zombies at every single house. We did try rounding up hordes of zombies and leading them a block or two away and then sneakily ditching them and escaping, but every time we came back, there was always some more zombies to round up and clear out. Looting a suburban area in West Point took forever. It was like zombies nearby were filling in the areas that we just cleared out unnaturally. BTW we didn't go after every zombie, just the ones we needed out of the way. Often we left a lot of them alone and just circled around the house and snuck in the opposite direction. We spent 4 IRL hours playing and didn't loot much more than 1 block of suburban West Point. We didn't find it overly difficult, it was just time consuming.
 
I started a new game SP on sandbox with zombies set to respawn at 20% weekly. And I did not take the sleeping trait. So far, I find it to be fairly well balanced and I don't feel completely overwhelmed in SP. I do have to kite hordes away instead of fighting since it is much harder to survive solo than with a friend. But, I have at least been able to get myself what I feel is a reasonably safe place to rest my head at night. After a few more days of surviving I will report back, if this thread is still active, and give my opinions on this setting more accurately. I have only survived for about 6 days so far so I don't feel like I probably have an accurate opinion of daily vs weekly.
 
BTW, I am curious. Do the zombies respawn all at once or evenly over the period of time? For instance if zombies are set to respawn at 10% daily, do they respawn 10% once each day or do they continually spawn throughout the day up to 10%. Or if it is set to 10% weekly, do the zombies spawn once a week or do they spawn regularly/daily up to 10% over the week?
 
Overall, I would like to see a transition period in the beginning where there are less zombies and their numbers increase as time goes on. Maybe after a week we would have the numbers we do now? This is an immersion thing for myself. When I spawn in, the entire world has turned to zombies and I am literally the last survivor (yeah yeah NPCs in the future), but yet I have no weapon, no supplies, nothing. So how is it that I managed to be the last person alive without any supplies, preparation, and I'm not even in a good location? It had to take at least a week before the entire town has become infected and turned. Was I in a coma or something, did I not see this happening? For me this would also aid in the immersion of the sound effects of screaming or where the gunshots were coming from. When you hear the girl's terrifying scream you could think, well there's at least one more zombie out there now! Their numbers are increasing!
 
Just my thoughts, thanks for taking the time to query the community like this!

That would be just perfect !   

Zombies have a perhaps too powerful magnetic reaction towards each other. In my latest game I survived for 3 months, for the first two months it was running around Muldraugh looting houses and a lot of areas were completely zombie free (or so it seemed) with, at the most, 2-3 clumps of 5-10 zombies.

The respawn system, however, was doing it's work pretty well so I never truly felt safe when traversing any areas. On beginning of month two I fired a gun, which attracted a horde of something like 1000 zombies to me. I suppose that's why some areas were empty, zombies were so attracted to each other that they got together from a ton of areas to form an ultra horde.

And that was not the only one, after prolonged play session, the map has nothing BUT ultra hordes and a few loners.

While I find it awesome I think, personally, that the magnetic reaction is too strong, it leaves a lot of blind spots early on and creates ridiculous sized hordes with time.

The gamemode was Sandbox, lore was unmodified and zombie count was Normal.

Edit: Oh, and safehouses remain safe unless you do something utterly idiotic, like, say, shoot a damn shotgun, although I'm fairly sure that horde could have found me anyway as it was pretty close in the first place.

After 2 games with 2 months survival in good conditions in Muldraught and in west point I can say that I like the zombie population as it is.
 
However: some areas see huge hordes, some other areas are completely empty
Example: I went to Muldraugh police station and unluckily I triggered the alarm: not a single zombie came ! the entire highway was empty whereas there were neighborhoods with 1000 zombies packed.
So it really needs some balancing between areas.

Re-posting here for my experience with the Mall Challenge.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Note I did not get to block of the stair well leading to the roof so there may be random skylight zombies falling in or worse they fall to the lower roof and come in the access doors. I have yet to check the roof for zeds nor do I really want to.
 
Note I did all this using just an axe and a sledgehammer. I do have the Hydrocraft mod installed but it did not really help me. In fact it made it harder to find a sledgehammer among the other loot. Now that its cleared I have the task of trying to find enough food an water. I also do not have the carpentry skill to make a rain barrel so I am not sure what I will do.
 
I have "won" one battle, but the war is not over.
 
On a side note when I saved it and tried to reload my save, for some reason it resets the time back to just before 9 am. This did not really matter to me since I had already blocked off the stairs, but it did reset my day from night to day. Which is making my character have a weird sleep schedule. But it seems to still have the right amount of time alive still. Also it seems to clean up the blood but not the bodies when you load a saved challenge game.
 
EDIT: Checked the roof and it appears they have not made it out the top yet.
 
 
 
 
Now that I am bit safer for now I will have to see what supplies I have up here. And perhaps a way to escape someday.
 
EDIT2:
 
 
So I am up to 6 Days and 12 Hours and I am doing fine, have lots of food and water, but sadly no spade or dirt so I cannot start a roof top garden. Since I use the Hydrocraft mod I do have the ability to catch bug indefinitely, so the limiting factor is water. However there seems to be only one way out. I have a sheet rope hanging from an open window. This could get me to the ground safe but would instantly be swarmed by zeds. Also the railing don't seem to allow me to hang sheet ropes from them. Also the lag is getting really bad. I am tempted to start a fire to burn them. But in turn I would probably kill myself in the process.
 
If anyone has any idea on how to escape, let me know.
This is a little better.
 
I am also putting in some more at railing and walls around the mall in case I need to return and cannot get back in the way I came out.
 
EDIT:
 
 
So I made it out! I probably could have gotten out sooner if I had taken the Carpenter occupation. So as I got out I found that a lot of places have no zombies and the zombies I do see art beelining to the mall. As if the mall is a black hole sucking in everything.
 
EDIT2:
 
 
So I made it to west point but the cost of getting out is every zombie knows where you are and seeks you out. I probably could have survived if I had stayed at the mall and just gone out for runs and wood. Anywho that was fun and I doubt I could pull that off again. Getting all mall stairs blocked off is very hard.