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Why do people want attacking zombie hordes?


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Great idea Aurex. Maybe increase the volume levels that certain activities produce. If you've ever hammered a nail, you would know how loud it is. When you're in an open street hammering a nail, it could reverberate all the way to the end of town potentially. And if light and movement attracts zombies, then an actual fire would be very risky to light. Fire can produce a high tower of smoke, which would bring the zombies to you.

 

But you can't draw zombies that don't exist. And zombies don't exist outside the streamed area. Ie. they have to be spawned.

 

I think it could be a case of:

do action that makes noise/smoke etc. or have a meta event

have a "dice roll" defining the chance of random amount of zombies "hearing" that, perhaps depending on your location

wait

spawn said amount of zombies on the edge of the streamed area and move them in a certain direction depending what caused them to be there.

 

 

This is what I've always imagined should happen with zombie migration:

 

Best case scenario would be if there could be code that'd draw the zombie spawn map according to meta events that happen in that map. I have no idea how cpu intensive that is or would be, but it would be the most realistic choice as well as practical as far as I understand. However I think it'd need a hellish amount of code, way over my understandings... That would result in zombies seemingly moving around the map. But also the problem again would be player built areas... so basically meh.

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Alright let me correct myself humans can smell scents, or odours but again zombies are on the setting of normal in survival mode and I am pretty sure normal means the average smelling power of a human. Humans cannot a scents "trail" so zombies behind able to follow his scent to his safe house is unrealistic. As I said before i agree with the idea of zombie migration because that would actually make zombies run into your safe house or in the vicinity of your safe house be attracted there and attack. But having random hordes or groups of zombies just being spawned and attacking is unrealistic.

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I already said my part in the past, but I'll say it again (and I know this is not so popular)... given the engine limitations, I think the only way is to somehow script it. How agressive or predictable this script could be is something I completely ignore, but if some kind of horde attacks are to be implemented, due to the stream limitations Suomiboi mentions, I think they'll have to be forced in.

 

I know this is not what most of you are waiting for, but this is what I fear will need to happen in the end. Hopefully, TIS will prove me wrong :) 

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I don't agree that zombies strongest sense is smell in all of the zombie movies/ TV shows I have watched it has always been about keeping your noise level down so I would say its more about hearing. But in project zomboid the normal zombie setting of smell is NORMAL and so is hearing and sight so I would guess zombies have the normal smelling power of a human and humans i'm pretty sure cant pick up scents.

 

I'm quoting myself here, I'm so redundant...

 

 

I'm basing this post on Max Brooks and Romero's lore.

 

The "how" is not really specified though, hopefully someone with deeper knowlege will be able to answer.  

 

Romero's:

Quote

 

 

Throughout the Romero films, all zombies are hazardous to human life. Their only instinct is to feed relentlessly on living organisms - they do not feed to satisfy hunger, and even specimens who have been completely disemboweled will still desire to feed, as long as brain function is present.

 

Source: http://zombie.wikia..../Romero_zombies

 

WWZ's:

Quote

 

Smell:

 

Unlike with sound, the undead have a more acute sense of smell. In both combat situations and laboratory tests, they have been able to distinguish the smell of living prey above all others. In many cases, and given ideal wind conditions, zombies have been known to smell fresh corpses from a distance of more than a mile[...]

It is not known exactly what particular secretion signals the presence of prey: sweat, pheromones, blood, etc. In the past, people attempted to mask their human scent with perfumes, deodorants, or other strong smelling chemicals. None were successful. 

 

Source: The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

Adding my answer: you attack them because they aren't attacking you. Current system may be more "realistic" (lol) but when it comes to !!fun!!, it's not very nice to see nothing happen. There's no need to build a safe house atm.

Not really sure how the current system is more realistic. Just saying.

 

Well if ignoring those travelling/"hording" zombies the usual image based on zombie movies is that those creatures tend to stand unless provoked (which requires some effort in PZ), and on the contrary of what Spracky told, normal human smell is kinda bad. Or you can go stand in the middle of street and try to smell some human flesh. Come and tell me the results.

My initial point was that there NEEDS to be more active zombie activity in order to make this game more FUN. It's the constant boredom that makes me stop playing single player game every time. In a sense dev's worry about "end game content" is justified, as one of the things they haven't planned is what to do with zombies after player sets up his farm. It's "congrats game won" at that point.

During my last 6 longer games I haven't barricaded my "safehouse" even once, nor there're reasons to build anything else than rain water collectors.

Dammit, I want a reason to bunker into 2-storey house and fear for my (avatar's) life!

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the solution: when a zombie cluster/horde reaches a large enough size, it will begin actively roaming the map, looking for players. I believe this was a feature oh-so-long ago. i have no idea why it was removed, it was great. there needs to be a "horde ai" that hunts around at random. this would add to the tension as well. picture this: one morning, when you were planning to go out on a food run, you peek outside your window to discover a horde had wandered in front of your house overnight. you get trapped inside, praying it doesnt find you and destroy your safehouse. but you cant wait forever.

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I think it's a performance related issue, so wandering zombies around the map is a no-go situation. And some people here freak out if "horde" and "script" appear in a same sentence.

In this thread I tried to gather some ideas how it could work.
http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/13409-possibility-for-a-placeholder-zombie-script-that-makes-horde-head-towards-player-bases/

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I think it's a performance related issue, so wandering zombies around the map is a no-go situation. And some people here freak out if "horde" and "script" appear in a same sentence.

In this thread I tried to gather some ideas how it could work.

http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/13409-possibility-for-a-placeholder-zombie-script-that-makes-horde-head-towards-player-bases/

 

they could always make it a sandbox option.

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What I find most frustrating is that during the early game (single play) when walls and barricades would be useful I don't have the skills and/or resources to build them.  Inevitably by the time I have the skills and resources to build the threat doesn't exist anymore because I have cleared the area around my safehouse.  With the exception of an occasional stray zombie, I will never see any near my house for the rest of the game. 

 

Building walls in single player is really pointless except as an exercise to increase your carpentry skill so you can build fancy crates and rain barrels.

 

This.  I suppose making a barrel or some kind of crude rain-catcher is more difficult than nailing a plank across a door....but....maybe not that hard....a box with a garbage bag fixed open to the inside maybe is all for the most basic creation.

 

I agree with the idea of "migrating herds" too.  Yep you can clear around you and you're safe for a time...but not if that herd just heads your way.  And maybe they should just be more inclined to "keep moving" in the direction they last chased you in, even if it's just one by itself, because, why would they stop?  You're food and you went that way.

 

My game just ended because I got complacent, went rushing around to find the last close-by food as the power went off, and got myself chomped.  So the danger is still always there....  but yeah, you have to look for it, and that's what seems to be the problem.

 

EDIT: Another one of these threads mentioned how loud wood cutting would be.  Totally.  That'd potentially be a big draw when wood fires are how you cook and keep warm later-game, even for the Daryl-wannabe living in one of the forest huts.

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Well, npcs have been described to replace the placeholder "zombie triggers", such as screams, helicopters and so on, so I think that's one job for them - to move zombies around. The performance aspect is still present, however. You can't presume that the game can track the movement of every npc and zombie if it's not possible in the current, smaller scale attempt (migrating zombies versus npcs and zombies moving around).

Hostile npcs and the potential to mess up with aggro levels is still something that I wait eagerly...

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This is a problem, my opinion on it is. 

 

-Random hordes beelining your base is lame, especially if you don't build a base. So a player decides to move from house to house, living quietly and cautiously. That wouldn't be an option if you get a homing horde that already knows where you are. It kills playing style options, aside from that... building a base is 100% safe atm anyways. Until zombies can break walls... I really don't care how many zombies scurry outside of my base (not entirely true, a horde of nonsensical camper zombies constantly sitting outside my walls for no reason what so ever would by highly annoying.) I could picture a few zombies wandering into the area, but if I don't do something to get there attention theres no reason for 100 zombies to camp me like its black friday.

 

-Now, I do think zombies should migrate. Moving from area to area... occasional gatherings of zombies moving to less dense areas. Additionally, once the military containment fails, there should be huge migrations of zombies crossing the map and repopulating areas. 

 

-Please! do not make it where zombies will magically pop up in my secure, corpse free base without having them break through a wall. I don't want to open the bathroom door and find a zombie in there unless there's a way for them to get there.

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I've only had the game a few days and already this issue is bugging me. I've come to realise I don't even need to close the doors and windows on my safehouse - let alone build an impenetrable fortress - as there simply aren't any zeds nearby. I've been thinking about how to implement "realistic" migration a lot and I can see it would be supremely difficult to do perfectly without keeping track of every zombie location which is not feasible for those of us not running on a supercomputer. I am going to try modding in something that creates and migrates hordes (rather than individual zombies) around the map - I've made a thread over on the modding forum asking for help/enquiring about feasibility. I really want to see this game work and I admire the devs commitment to a "realistic" zombie experience, but the lack of danger in the mid-late game kind of breaks it for me right now.

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I've had zombies come up out of nowhere from an area I had previously cleared on a MP server with sight, hearing, and scent detection cranked up to max. I had 6 stick traps I'd set before going out scavenging, when I returned there were a dozen or so zombies gathered around them and 3 traps had already been broken. I got their attention by yelling and tried to lead them away but a few at the back end of the horde lost interest and headed straight back to my traps. After killing them all off I checked my remaining traps and sure enough they all had birds in them.

 

So basically if you want zombies to attack your base turn scent detection all the way up and leave traps with animals in them sitting around. They will come.

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So basically if you want zombies to attack your base turn scent detection all the way up and leave traps with animals in them sitting around. They will come.

 

That could be one of the reasons, I agree. But there could be more reasons, which have been discussed several times, and which would also make sense. I think this feature should be one of the core elements of the game. Some of the things we do should draw attention, because of thte noise (chopping wood), or the smell (food storage), or the visuals (smoke, light). 

 

What would happen when you draw attention is still to be seen. I haven't seen any official answer on the matter IIRC. 

 

But the thing is, the number of Zs in the map is what is is, and the number of zeds surrounding your area of effect is limited, and even if them all joined once, and give you a hell of a battle... if you happen to survive the area will be clean for years. You could draw all the attention you wanted that no real danger would come to you. This is realistic in a way. Is it fun? In my experience, it gets a bit old, but it could be just me. You KNOW that nothing will happen to you in a survival game. As jonniemarbles said before, you can leave your doors open, and sleep without worrying. IMO, this feels a bit broken considering that the game wants to kill us. 

 

Will the answer be coding events? scripting attacks? We'll have to sit tight and see what happens. :) 

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So basically if you want zombies to attack your base turn scent detection all the way up and leave traps with animals in them sitting around. They will come.

 

That could be one of the reasons, I agree. But there could be more reasons, which have been discussed several times, and which would also make sense. I think this feature should be one of the core elements of the game. Some of the things we do should draw attention, because of thte noise (chopping wood), or the smell (food storage), or the visuals (smoke, light). 

 

What would happen when you draw attention is still to be seen. I haven't seen any official answer on the matter IIRC. 

 

But the thing is, the number of Zs in the map is what is is, and the number of zeds surrounding your area of effect is limited, and even if them all joined once, and give you a hell of a battle... if you happen to survive the area will be clean for years. You could draw all the attention you wanted that no real danger would come to you. This is realistic in a way. Is it fun? In my experience, it gets a bit old, but it could be just me. You KNOW that nothing will happen to you in a survival game. As jonniemarbles said before, you can leave your doors open, and sleep without worrying. IMO, this feels a bit broken considering that the game wants to kill us. 

 

Will the answer be coding events? scripting attacks? We'll have to sit tight and see what happens. :)

 

 

If you have zombie respawn on it'll happen every time they respawn just outside the reach of your constructed item safe zone, especially if density is high. I've had zombies come after my traps multiple times even after clearing the area around my base so I know it's because of respawns. Only way to prevent that is turn scent detection to low, turn zombie respawn off, or build junk items within 40 tiles of eachother out to a distance you know they won't detect you from.

 

That last bit is kinda lame though.

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Mind me asking how many Zs and how often were dragged to your base with those settings? (High density). (I bet I kill more Zs in any scavenging run :P)

 

And just for the sake of discussion, I think it would be good to focus the discussion on the core game. I know we can tailor the experience to our liking using the sandbox settings, but let me ask you: don't you think that the bunkering tactic needs some disadvantage to make the experience interesting? Basic question: Why building a fortress if there is no need to defend it from time to time? IMO, a basic core mechanic is missing here. 

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Basic question: Why building a fortress if there is no need to defend it from time to time? IMO, a basic core mechanic is missing here.

This is the main problem in a nutshell. There are elements related to this like you said - what are the disadvantages of "camping"? Player builds a base and starts to farm. So devs nerfed farming in order to increase the difficulty of early game camping. Should players move then? What forces player to migrate?

 

What Kajin wrote sums up the basic "danger" mechanics. Game would check noise/visibility levels (smoke, hammering, sawing, amount of people moving around -multiplayer- etc) and decides whenever or not players attract wandering groups or not. Would it be fair to give player a chance to prevent this? For example, if player decides to scout the perimeters of his base a bit and he hears approaching moaning from afar, indicating that it could be wise to keep low profile a couple of days until the danger has passed.

 

It's obvious that when npc's arrive it'll mess the deck but I hope it'll be enough.

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Well we need those attacking hordes to make a late game challenging and fun.

Its funny when many of you think that spawning them is unfair and want to simulate their roam from map edge. Look at Pz map, its huge. Simulating horde movement would kill most pc`s.

 

There are 2 instances where spawning is bad:

  1. when it happens and player can see it.
  2. When they spawn in locked/ inaccessible area.

 

Spawning is fine, well devs can add some plane sound so those of you who really don’t like spawn idea can have an excuse that Zeds just migrated from map edge ;).

 

I also agree that 100% scripted horde attacks are lame but we can make it semi-random.

The best solution I can think about would be some hidden counter attached to the base / area. When it fill up to lets say 100 the horde will spawn. Different actions will fill up that counter like building, shooting, cutting trees etc. It will also fill up every day based on area ( more at town , less in woods). So you never know for 100% when the horde will hit but you can predict it based on what you do in your base.

 

How big horde will spawn can also depends on few factors like number of players at base, time and how many hordes were spawned in that area before.

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Basic question: Why building a fortress if there is no need to defend it from time to time? IMO, a basic core mechanic is missing here.

This is the main problem in a nutshell. There are elements related to this like you said - what are the disadvantages of "camping"? Player builds a base and starts to farm. So devs nerfed farming in order to increase the difficulty of early game camping. Should players move then? What forces player to migrate?

 

What Kajin wrote sums up the basic "danger" mechanics. Game would check noise/visibility levels (smoke, hammering, sawing, amount of people moving around -multiplayer- etc) and decides whenever or not players attract wandering groups or not. Would it be fair to give player a chance to prevent this? For example, if player decides to scout the perimeters of his base a bit and he hears approaching moaning from afar, indicating that it could be wise to keep low profile a couple of days until the danger has passed.

 

It's obvious that when npc's arrive it'll mess the deck but I hope it'll be enough.

 

The devs nerfed farming because farming was overpowered as hell >.>

 

But yeah. There's a whole bunch of things players could do to help prevent/minimize attacks from the roaming undead. The simplest and easiest would be hanging sheets up and walking as quietly as possible (which is already in the game).

 

Other examples could include putting down carpeting to minimize noise generated when walking around the safe house and planting trees or bushes to absorb sound and obscure line of sight. Cooking with electricity instead of fire so that rising smoke can't be seen from a distance. Placing a generator inside of an outdoor shed with ventilation to minimize the noise it outputs. Building walls thicker or with soundproofing material so that generators inside sheds and other noisy activities performed inside other buildings aren't transmitted as far.

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 ^ Yep, farming was so easy and player could sit in his safehouse from day one and get the first harvest quickly. It was annoying, and I still see farming too easy.
 

I also agree that 100% scripted horde attacks are lame but we can make it semi-random.

The best solution I can think about would be some hidden counter attached to the base / area. When it fill up to lets say 100 the horde will spawn. Different actions will fill up that counter like building, shooting, cutting trees etc. It will also fill up every day based on area ( more at town , less in woods). So you never know for 100% when the horde will hit but you can predict it based on what you do in your base.

 

How big horde will spawn can also depends on few factors like number of players at base, time and how many hordes were spawned in that area before.

I like the counter-idea. Kinda like measuring "points" for each action, like "wood cutting, 10 points" or "lighting a fire, 5 points", "running around, 3 points"... the problem comes when details such as indoors/outdoors, noice reducing elements etc etc are taken into account. But I may think this in a too complex way.

The devs nerfed farming because farming was overpowered as hell >.>

 

But yeah. There's a whole bunch of things players could do to help prevent/minimize attacks from the roaming undead. The simplest and easiest would be hanging sheets up and walking as quietly as possible (which is already in the game).

 

Other examples could include putting down carpeting to minimize noise generated when walking around the safe house and planting trees or bushes to absorb sound and obscure line of sight. Cooking with electricity instead of fire so that rising smoke can't be seen from a distance. Placing a generator inside of an outdoor shed with ventilation to minimize the noise it outputs. Building walls thicker or with soundproofing material so that generators inside sheds and other noisy activities performed inside other buildings aren't transmitted as far.

Exactly. This would really encourage building and making it safe & sound, minimizing the sources of elements that would attract zombies. And even then there would be a chance that zombies arrive. Nothing should be 100% safe, and I would like to see a reward (=survival) for developing a "plan B"...

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Definitely I agree with the folks expressing the need to get their base tested. I wouldn't even mind 'monthly spawn' just outside my safe house.. I NEED THAT THRILL, THAT TENSION.

 

  • That being said I understand the reasoning from the OP and the likes. Now - remember folks - that chopper doesn't just spawn at your doorsteps, it needs to get there from a certain point - and zombies could follow it. Thousands of them.

 

  • Another thing - let's not forget - we're getting NPCs at one point, perhaps the guy you wanted in your group for his medical knowledge is also a hothead, often drunk and firing guns from a rooftop. Double the fun ! Hordes and a potential group problems ! Or maybe the guys 'on the run' brought something back with them, huh? Its totally possible - plus sh*t like that brings all that randomness and community handling into the picture.

 

  • Bandits using zeds as a weapon?

 

____________________________________________

 

As a side note - I noticed in all my games - the biggest problem right now is zombies piling up and forming a big group (ever since the 'zombie migration' update) then NEVER MOVE AWAY from that spot. I've seen literally hundreds of them forming one big pile of danger - with the surroundings clear and you can safely move past them. They should rather spread around and once they pick up YOUR smell or the sight of you - growl - which should attract all the others towards you. However once they loose you - they should again spread around.

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