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The new zombie "respawn" system.


slimane13

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I'm not a fan of the new zombie respawn system. I like to at least clear the immediate area around my safehouse and usually clear the way to the most important locations.

My safehouse was totally safe, my method to make sure if its safe is to fire a few gunshots and see where the zombies come from. My base had passed that test, no zombies came after a few shots.

I then left my hideout for less then 36 hours to do a looting run at the nearest warehouses. I came back less then 36 hours later to find the entire region I had cleared (of over 200 zombies) had simply respawned, there was several small hordes of 10-20 zombies. The dozens of corpses from the last time I cleared were still literring EVERYWHERE.

Who actually plays with zombie hordes around their safehouse... one gunshot, one helicopter and it's over. I'm all for having some zombie respawns or having migrating hordes, but this system is atrocious... It's already extremely stupid to have thousands of zombies in a city of 3000, we don't need hundreds upon hundreds of them respawning the minute I leave my hideout for more then 24 hours.

 

Rant over.

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You can disable all that "respawning stuff" in sandbox, hell, with some tweaking of Advanced zombie settings you can revert it all back to how it was. Zombies used to never respawn, which caused only the early game to be a challenge, the late game was a joke, it was a farming sim.

The new system was the answer to people constantly complaining about PZ being WAY too easy, and it was for us, the veterans, we needed the challenge but there is always sandbox mode, with some tweaks, everyone can find something for themselves there, trust me ;)

I know that playing "Survival" mode may feel like you're playing the game the only way that's right but that's not true, Survival has it's problems and I default to sandbox just for the challenge which I can't find in Survival. Survival was meant to be a balance between Challenge and Survival Sandbox mode, it will be challenging and it's supposed to be.

If you want to, I can walk you through every sandbox option there is so you can get the optimal experience.

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Question, have you observed them repopulating the area without the gunshot sound/meta sound?  I am okay with them coming back as long as there is a valid reason, a gun shot sound, an alarm going off, a herd spotting me etc.

 

Svarog you should get your title changed to "Play sandbox mode"  :D

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Question, have you observed them repopulating the area without the gunshot sound/meta sound?  I am okay with them coming back as long as there is a valid reason, a gun shot sound, an alarm going off, a herd spotting me etc.

 

Svarog you should get your title changed to "Play sandbox mode"   :D

No, I should have it changed to "Options are Awesome" because that's what sandbox is, options, and options are awesome.

But seriously, this is the n-th thread where someone has a problem with the new zombie system, which can easily be reverted back to the old one or tweaked to one's own preferences in sandbox. I dislike survival because it's too easy and has bad pacing problems, some find it too hard. Sandbox is the answer to ALL THE PROBLEMS.... well, not all of them but most that currently exist.

Survival is basically "Challenge" mode with the full map available, it was always meant to be difficult, especially since PZ is still waiting for mayor features that might fix the progression system.

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You can disable all that "respawning stuff" in sandbox, hell, with some tweaking of Advanced zombie settings you can revert it all back to how it was. Zombies used to never respawn, which caused only the early game to be a challenge, the late game was a joke, it was a farming sim.

The new system was the answer to people constantly complaining about PZ being WAY too easy, and it was for us, the veterans, we needed the challenge but there is always sandbox mode, with some tweaks, everyone can find something for themselves there, trust me ;)

I know that playing "Survival" mode may feel like you're playing the game the only way that's right but that's not true, Survival has it's problems and I default to sandbox just for the challenge which I can't find in Survival. Survival was meant to be a balance between Challenge and Survival Sandbox mode, it will be challenging and it's supposed to be.

If you want to, I can walk you through every sandbox option there is so you can get the optimal experience.

 

Yes, I know where your coming from. The zombie migration in previous build was non-existent. Gunshots and helicopters did nothing to move them if you cleared your immediate area. I often tought it would be epic if some huge horde would migrate from somehwere I hadnt cleared to give me well defended/stocked safehouse a challenge.

 

I was very excited about this build for this precise reason. What I didnt realize is that they would respawn so fast and in THESE numbers. I would have expected them to respawn only if you hadnt visited a cell for a week or two and only have a few respawn, not entire hordes that literaly put me back to square one.

 

Thanks for the offer but I would have loved the best of both worlds. A migrating system that makes sense AND is challenging but not something this gamey.

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I know I hear you Svarog mate :D

 

But I don't think there is anything wrong with providing feedback on survival mode to get it more optimal :D Some zombie behavior in the current system might not be intentional or some might be intentional but only a placeholder and not optimised or missing another feature etc.  Personally I wish the threads were more observing the behavior so we could gather the information needed to make more informed assumptions.  

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Yes, I know where your coming from. The zombie migration in previous build was non-existent. Gunshots and helicopters did nothing to move them if you cleared your immediate area. I often tought it would be epic if some huge horde would migrate from somehwere I hadnt cleared to give me well defended/stocked safehouse a challenge.

 

I was very excited about this build for this precise reason. What I didnt realize is that they would respawn so fast and in THESE numbers. I would have expected them to respawn only if you hadnt visited a cell for a week or two and only have a few respawn, not entire hordes that literaly put me back to square one.

 

Again, easy fix with advanced options in sandbox. Like I said, I dislike the default survival options, mainly because of pacing, I do play with my own weapon nerf mod so it makes things even worse when it comes to their numbers. And their numbers are huge by default, hundreds of zombies per cell, and the population grows as time goes by. As I say, it can be changed and I really strongly suggest Sandbox, that mode is awesome.

 
Edit: Response to a Post that appeared after I posted.

I know I hear you Svarog mate  :D

 

But I don't think there is anything wrong with providing feedback on survival mode to get it more optimal  :D Some zombie behavior in the current system might not be intentional or some might be intentional but only a placeholder and not optimised or missing another feature etc.  Personally I wish the threads were more observing the behavior so we could gather the information needed to make more informed assumptions.  

Survival mode presets were chosen by the devs from the community feedback and considering what they chose, the devs wanted it to be the way it is. I never agreed with what they chose but survival is their vision, I can enjoy sandbox :P Survival is "PZ as it is meant to be played" for me? Too easy! for others? Too hard. Sandbox? Something for everyone.

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I always considered going in the sandbox to make things easier to be cheating, yet here I am considering increasing respawn time or decreasing number of zombies respawned per 16 hours.

Which would make a lot more sense then just having every cell you haven't visited in the last 16 hours respawn almost the same number of zombies then it originaly had. Just because I decided to sleep in a house a few blocks away instead of returning to my safehouse.

 

Anybody succesfuly tweaked this to more reasonable levels?

 

EDIT: I'm playing around with sandbox settings, can someone explain the difference between "respawn hours" and "respawn unseen hours". Not sure what's the difference between a "cell" and a "chunk". I'm guessing the "respawn unseen hours" is the relevant number here because I was away from my base for much less then 72 hours and they had already respawned in great numbers.

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Unseen Hours is the minimum time an area must not be seen by the player and deals with individual chunks (10 x 10 tile units of the map). This is to prevent zombies from spawning ontop of the player or in previously cleared areas.

 

Respawn hours deals with a much larger area (300 x 300 tiles) and Unseen Hours (chunk) is taken into affect when spawning zombies.

 

Some confusion comes from the redistribution mechanic. Many mistake zombies moving at a fixed rate from areas of higher population to a lower population as spawning new zombies. This is controlled by redistribtion hours, in which zombies start moving in a random(ish) direction at a fixed rate. Note, they don't start moving until 12 hours later. This can be influenced by Follow Sound Distance.

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Unseen Hours is the minimum time an area must not be seen by the player and deals with individual chunks (10 x 10 tile units of the map). This is to prevent zombies from spawning ontop of the player or in previously cleared areas.

 

Respawn hours deals with a much larger area (300 x 300 tiles) and Unseen Hours (chunk) is taken into affect when spawning zombies.

 

Some confusion comes from the redistribution mechanic. Many mistake zombies moving at a fixed rate from areas of higher population to a lower population as spawning new zombies. This is controlled by redistribtion hours, in which zombies start moving in a random(ish) direction at a fixed rate. Note, they don't start moving until 12 hours later. This can be influenced by Follow Sound Distance.

Thanks for the clear up. I could have sworn it was some "spawning" as I had shot a couple of bullets around my safehouse to make sure no zeds came, yet 36 hours later. My safehouse was almost overrun, I came back to every window being attacked by zombies and several small groups of zombies in the vicinity.

 

I will adapt to these changes, the problem is I play this game in an almost OCD manner.  I hate leaving any zombie alive in the area around my house. These new changes make it really hard to do so, especially if I have to do a looting trip that will take me a few days to accomplish.

 

At the same time I agree the difficulty was all frontloaded before, once you had a decently fortified base, you could survive there forever without any worry of hordes coming down unto you. But this feels a bit gamey and I hope they tweak slightly.

 

PS : Yes I realize there is sandbox mode. Dozens of people have noted that already, simply trying to give a bit of feedback.

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I have to advocate the sandbox. Through this I get pretty much the zombie experience I enjoy. High numbers but low respawn/migration. Very much the 1970's Romero apocolypse.

 

Mess around with the numbers and you WILL get somewhere close to YOUR zombie scenario. Enjoy.

this, every zombie population parameter is explained when you hover your mouse over it, i personally set spawning off and set the population multiplier to 4.0

 

zombies respawning feels silly to me, when i kill a zombie i want to think '' another one bites the dust '' instead of '' whats the point he's gonna respawn anyway ''

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