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Official Build 32 Challenges feedback thread


Batsphinx

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This is a thread where you can share you thoughts on You Have One Day, Opening Hours and Winter is Coming. And, indeed, the other existing ones. We want to make Challenges as fun as possible, and as such are open to tweak/change in any necessary directions.

 

Think you should have longer to prepare in Opening Hours before the Mall opens or similar? Tell us here.

 

[We are aware that massive zombie build-up can cause issues btw and we're looking into the best way to smoothen it over] 

 

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The challenges have been fun so far.

But as for potential criticisms,

I felt the zombie buildup on "You have one day" was a bit too slow. I spent a few days hiding out in the large office building and could still move throuought and out of the building with little to no problem.

With the mall challenge, though, its nearly unplayably laggy. But I don't think its a problem with the number of zombies, but with the mall itself. I can travel through downtown West Point on insane zombies without slowdown, for example, but inside the mall, even with no zombies, I get heavy stuttering and very noticable pop-in.

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Yup the mall challenge, also officially known as " Opening hours " Is the worst. Super laggy and the zombies come almost right away giving you no time to prepare anything and even if you do, they just respawn.

I noticed they were able to break down the doors eventually and come from others places inside the mall so the mall closing doors at 21.00 didn't matter and not to mention all the zombies already inside.

Really think this challenge should get a rework.

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Yup the mall challenge, also officially known as " Opening hours " Is the worst. Super laggy and the zombies come almost right away giving you no time to prepare anything and even if you do, they just respawn.

I noticed they were able to break down the doors eventually and come from others places inside the mall so the mall closing doors at 21.00 didn't matter and not to mention all the zombies already inside.

Really think this challenge should get a rework.

 

fully agree with this: zombies invade too quickly and everywhere, making it not enjoyable/interesting in my opinion. They should go in by groups everyday, reducing our space of loot until they finally arrive till where we are based for the final :)

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The "Opening Hours" mall challenge is all around too laggy at the moment (and I'm running a godly PC that can play every game on ultra currently that I continue to upgrade),  just as everyone seems to be mentioning. I find it pretty fun in general though. The amount of loot is decently distributed, and you can sort of survive once you figure out a good place to go. I do have a few issues though. Going onto the very top floor roof (floor 3 i believe) I fell straight through the map when I was only in the middle of the roof ( nowhere near the skylights or the edge) and got stuck INSIDE the wall with no way to move, forcing me to quit.    Another issue is the fact that the zombie's auto pathing is too invasive when coupled with the 1 tick we get on the clock to run and prepare. You have no way to hide and create a barricade or base in time when they automatically tunnel into the back storage rooms on every floor so fast, and also the fact that they seem to respawn in the very middle of the bottom floor at the same time, so I have no way to outrun or hide from them initially. its basically just a "lock yourself in a room and move through back rooms until you get surrounded and destroyed" method of playstyle right now, which I enjoy, but we need more time to at least have a spot to fall back to haha. I feel like this challenge is an amazing idea, and it only needs a little tweaking to fix. I feel like adjusting the starting time and also improving the preformance by finding whatever is causing the terrible framerate, as well as maybe removing the pesky middle of the mall spawnpoints and limiting the zombies to the doors themselves would fix all the issues. The zombie AI isn't bad, its just the shortage of time we have to prepare for a hunter-killer army of the dead sniffing you out and filling every corridor until you get trapped. All in all this update was awesome, fine tuning will come with good feedback so if you need clarification feel free to comment I can fool around some more and possibly help a bit.   Thanks guys!

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Re-posting here for my experience with the Mall Challenge.

I am only about 2 days in but I managed to block off all of the stairs and clear out the 2nd floor zombies. Here are some screenshots.
 

stairs1_zpsao1onldu.jpg

 

stairs2_zpsrhy9imjd.jpg

 

stairs4_zpstc3ryxtb.jpg

 

stairs3_zpsi6d6r6ly.jpg

 

stairs5_zpsuvwyzumk.jpg

 

stairs6_zpsegldevbj.jpg

 

2ndfloorzeds_zpsuuxxpf9h.jpg

 

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.

 

Roof1_zpshfhvze7m.jpg

 

Roof2_zpsjijxvaba.jpg

 

Roof3_zpsweznug7p.jpg

 

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:

 

day6_zpsm4e1jne2.jpg

 

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.

Just hit 13 days and level 2 carpentry with my limited amount of planks. I made two skybridges in attempt to escape.

 

roofescape2_zpsgtltznyo.jpg

Not this way.

 

roofescape_zpst2o477jn.jpg

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:

 

madeitout_zpsqtiqivax.jpg

 

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:

 

dead_zps7anf3knr.jpg

 

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.

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The Winter is coming challenge should mabe spawn you in several different homes. I have not tried the others , I am stuborn i want to finish one (or survive a good while hehe :???: )first before I get to another. Oh well Ill keep trying!!  Good show! keep it up! its fun (clyde)

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I don't know if this behavior is for all game modes in v32 or just opening hours but its borderline frustrating. I've been playing opening hours and staying alive for 1+ month, killing zombies only serves one purpose, obtaining axes and i already have 20+ axes, so killing them anymore yields absolutely zero. As killing anything just makes it immediately respawn and gps down to your location within minutes.  http://imgur.com/a/4AK0Y for example, i can keep a zombie fire going indefinitely (200+ zombies burning 24/7), they just keep gps'ing to my location, that is how frequently they are re-spawning. 

 

I haven't played in a while so this is essentially the only game mode/challenge i've touched, if someone could tell me if this is similar in survival or other challenge modes?

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Opening Hours

Fun Score: 7 out of 10              Best Time: 6 Days

 

What I Don't Like: This has been addressed before, but I'll say it again; hordes take up a lot of processing. Especially when the character is loaded right next to one. If you don't have prior knowledge of the building, I'm sure surviving would be almost impossible. I would like a bit more time offered before the mall doors open so the entire mall can load up without the horde approaching in. Maybe like 2 - 4 hours?

 

What I Like: This challenge is a great change of pace from the typical slow approach zomboid offers. Though it was difficult to survive through, it was a great challenge to push on with. This game option provided the highest replay ratio out of all the other challenges! (That's gotta say something here is done right!)

 

How I Played: First few times was with a lumberjack and a hearty appetite. Though I chopped though a lot of zeds, I couldn't keep the back store doors safe. Eventually the small corridors behind the stores that I once knew as friends become death traps. I learned that safe rooms would be impossible unless I tried to build something on the roof. My next few lives would be an Engineer with a hearty appetite, slow reader, and dexterous. I figured I could try barricading my own fort on the roof, the mall clearly had plenty of supplies. In addition, I planned on stocking up on a bunch of homemade explosives in order to try and clear out some of the horde. The big problem that occurred was hordes would camp every exit I made from my roof base down to the mall, so I slowly went through my supplies, trying my best to clear a path for a loot run; but the risk was to great and I got bit. So I slowly died in a pantry, eating most of the food there to try and stave off my sickness.

 

 

Winter Is Coming

Fun Score: 6 out of 10              Best Time: 83 Days (still pending)

 

What I Don't Like: Loot is extremely scares compared to the amount of zombies! I have a feeling that only one or two types of character builds will be able to do well in this challenge, this limits the opportunity for this option to have any replay value. I enjoyed the challenge, but wouldn't want to go through in again often.

 

What I Like: This challenge allows the trapper, forager, and fisher builds a great opportunity to show their survivability. Most of the supplies the player will live off of would be through their skill rather then scavenging local buildings. 

 

How I Played: The first good build was a park ranger with slow reading, slow healer, cowardly, light eater, and outdoors-man. I figured I'd be living off the land mostly if I wanted any kind of chance of surviving through the winter. Perishables obviously eaten first, but most of the canned foods saved only for dire situations (Bad snow storms or when I was sick) The Muldraugh north warehouse was the initial base I planned to hide in. After 2 days of luring zeds away I could start trying to live in the place, but for the first two weeks it was hard to keep them out. But finally I patched up enough of the holes and cleared the horde to be able to get a lot of undisturbed nights. I still had plenty of canned food and hunted/foraged food but once the water stopped, I did a mad dash to refill all my water canisters, but the lack of loot on the map hampered the amount I could gather together. I'm depending on a single dew catcher at the moment, which isn't enough. So my priorities are to find more garbage bags! garbage bags! Other then my dire water supplies, the fort has been doing fine, besides the quickly depleting stock of nails. On a side note, is there any plans on allowing snow to be melted and consumed? Or is it already a feature in the game? (I would hate to die just because I'm thirty in a winter zombieland)

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About the "You have one day challenge"

Possible exploits:

 

1. The game doesn't save that zombies are banging on a door. Saving and loading therefore increases the longevity of your safe house.

 

2. The game keeps on adding more and more zombies close to you in your safe house. Saving and loading resets the zombie count to way lower numbers.

 

3. It seems that I can see the number of planks going down a door and I therefore know when the defences will be broken. It is also possible to see the glass of a window get broken, even though I am inside a flat and the window is in the hallway.

 

 

Some general feedback:

 

I like safe scumming in this challenge, because the start is always the same old grinding and I prefer to try different ways to die. The performance issues make this one tough to rate though. When am I supposed to make a run for another house? I can't possibly do this when too many zombies are around and the performance tanks, but doing it after loading the game feels like cheating.

 

On a general note:

The random character generator helps a lot in making the game challenging. I recommend this to experienced players, because the game bores me by now without forcing me to play as a retarded and crippled gollum like creature.

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I think there should be more survival aspects be taken into concideration for balancing the Game. Just more Zeds isnt the right recipe imho. Durability from clothes maybe in Cold Climate so you have to look for more. Maybe harder to gain loot or lots of stored Foot maybe attract Zeds and overrun your second Safehouse where you stored it. Maybe Zeds smell you better sometimes, or noise made could made more of an impact. A more unpredictable Zombie Routine should help too. Maybe Zeds following you longer and you have more Problems with endurance and just cant outrun every Zed that make Looting often very easy.

 

My toughts on the Topic. Just more hack&slay wont do the trick to me. (clyde)

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I tried out Last Stand the other day. First two characters died at the same dam spot. Falling through the burn't out flooring right before getting all those.....

:mrgreen:  :mrgreen:  :mrgreen:  (What I am not going to share this amazing loot spot and spoil your challenge 8-) )

on the fifth or sixth floor of the burn't out building. it's be nice to see what's under when there is no floor tile because just a black spot does not help when there is burn't floor tiles you can step on and black tiles you just slip right trough.

 

Also, I hauled up in the mega super awesome insane amount of tools hardware store ! (NO SLEDGEHAMMER EVERYTHING BUT A DARN SLEDGEHAMMER ! I TRIPLE CHECKED !) I had each window quadruple boarded up. and in the back room i had built walls around my quadruple barricaded doors and walls between both doors. then one wall per step all the way up the stairs (also around the stairs i built walls) then I covered the staircase with floor tiling and built walls around it with pillars in the walls. I then quadruple barricaded the door to the above apartment and placed sheet ropes everywhere and destroyed all doors inside the apartment for planks.

 

So I'm up there thinking ''yeah man they'll never get through all that shit'' and sorting out all my goods, weapons, guns, water and loot between the diverse containers. I survived two days up there. So I am, day 2, sorting out my shit when I stop hearing the banging drums of the zeds. I'm like 'oh great they decided I don't exist' so I go to each of my windows and look around and I see that in fact they're there outside and all the boarded windows below where obliterated (which I expected). I decide I'll just finish up my sorting rapidly then attempt a loot run at the grocery store when.... KABLAM MMMOOOOAAAAANNN WAAAAHHH  MMMOOOOANNN ZRAAARCGHTTT !!! :shock:  :shock:  :shock: I barely get time to shoot 3 shotgun rounds that I am over-swarmed in my apartment by the dam bastards !  :cry:  :cry:  :cry:  :cry:  AND I HAD 4 shotguns, 4 varmints, 4 pistols, over 26 boxes of shotgun ammo, 20ish 9mm ammo and 15ish 202ammo(varmint) GRRRRRR !

 

So how come the Zeds can get through the floor tiling you build over a staircase !?! AND HOW the heck did they get through my 20 layered barricades, walls, barricades, pillars, floor tiling's etc...???) 2nd time I'm their appetizer because of my blid confidence in flooring the staircases.

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I tried the "You have One Day" challenge.

 

I like the premise and the old school feel of it, and I love how I have time to prepare for the horde to arrive.  However, one thing that bothers me is that the zombies seem to know that I am hiding on the top floor of the apartment building and just rush up the stairs and bang on the door, forcing me to jump the window to avoid death by zombie.  

 

I get that the "horde will find you" but it is a little extreme.  The map is already quite small, so won't they find me eventually?  I will run out of food in the apartment building (or fall down the stairs, as the stairs are really weird and if you aren't careful you will fall down three floors and fracture your foot and nearly die) and need to go out, but at the current state that is impossible.  In order to prevent zombies from being attracted to my location I even opened every door and window from the second to fifth floors to remove any sources of noise, but it doesn't seem to matter.  

 

I'm fine with spawning a lot of zombies in the immediate vicinity if that is what it takes, but telling every zombie my location is too extreme.  I think it would be better to use the normal mechanics, or even gently "nudge" the zombies near me with in game sound effects and the like.   It is quite disappointing to see so much loot on the map but be unable to utilize even 1% of it all.  I also can't even fight the zombies because they are so grouped together and running at me.  I tried letting in small groups of 3 or 4 zombies at a time to kill them with my bat, but there were too many at my door.  

 

TL;DR The zombies shouldn't know your location at all times on this challenge.  

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Winter Is Coming

Fun Score: 6 out of 10              Best Time: 83 Days (still pending)

 

What I Don't Like: Loot is extremely scares compared to the amount of zombies! I have a feeling that only one or two types of character builds will be able to do well in this challenge, this limits the opportunity for this option to have any replay value. I enjoyed the challenge, but wouldn't want to go through in again often.

 

What I Like: This challenge allows the trapper, forager, and fisher builds a great opportunity to show their survivability. Most of the supplies the player will live off of would be through their skill rather then scavenging local buildings. 

 

How I Played: The first good build was a park ranger with slow reading, slow healer, cowardly, light eater, and outdoors-man. I figured I'd be living off the land mostly if I wanted any kind of chance of surviving through the winter. Perishables obviously eaten first, but most of the canned foods saved only for dire situations (Bad snow storms or when I was sick) The Muldraugh north warehouse was the initial base I planned to hide in. After 2 days of luring zeds away I could start trying to live in the place, but for the first two weeks it was hard to keep them out. But finally I patched up enough of the holes and cleared the horde to be able to get a lot of undisturbed nights. I still had plenty of canned food and hunted/foraged food but once the water stopped, I did a mad dash to refill all my water canisters, but the lack of loot on the map hampered the amount I could gather together. I'm depending on a single dew catcher at the moment, which isn't enough. So my priorities are to find more garbage bags! garbage bags! Other then my dire water supplies, the fort has been doing fine, besides the quickly depleting stock of nails. On a side note, is there any plans on allowing snow to be melted and consumed? Or is it already a feature in the game? (I would hate to die just because I'm thirty in a winter zombieland)

Jesus man how did you do it? i went to the farm since it has the least zombie spawn rate so far they do show up every day a few or a 100 horde if a chooper flies by, but the town is full of them! i mean full! not just the town but the streets too out of town. i thought ill wait till winter hits in hoping it would slow them down, but for my suprise it didnt and when i went into the town and its millions, millions, millions, cant even run through them, reaching the warehouse is insanely difficult if not imposible later on, they spawn more than in sandbox on insane, like double more or tripple. i loved the concept of this challenge but its just plain suicide you just have to stay far away of town and live off the wild, but its retarded its like a shit eat sleep simulator, cant access town cause of the insane hordes, ruins the fun, i know its ment to be hard to get to suplies from town, but i would like to have atleast a chance to come every few times into it to get few things and not be cut off it completely, i tried reaching the police station with mollotows and bombs but no use it just draws more and in a few seconds you have nowhere to run and i mean nowhere they owerwelm you from all sides no chance to escape

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