Unrealistic Zombie Spawn Density in Build 41

[rleonar5]

I am playing a custom sandbox with all settings set to default except the zombie respawn rate (which I think is way to high by default).  This means the zombie count is normal, and the density is urban focused.  I decided to try to make a base towards the top of the map, where there are 4 homes, two stores, a dinner, and a gas station.  When I got there, I found hundreds (possibly thousands) of zombies.  How does this make sense?  There are so many aspects of this game that focus on realism (weather, road/building decay, etc.).  This is a real deal-breaker for me.

 

• Is this intentional, or a bug?  (This didn't happen in build 39.)
• Are there build 41 compatible mods that adjust the zombie spawn density map to make it more realistic/lore-friendly?

[rleonar5]

I want to preempt a response I suspect I'm going to get:

I don't want to reduce the global zombie population density because the density feels right in the more urban areas.  It's just way too high in the rural areas.  In fact, it feels like the zombie density in build 41is binary (either there is a very high density of zombies, or no zombies), and nothing in between (which was not the case in previous builds).

[3lackrose]

I'm not aware of mods that help with the distribution, but i somewhat agree. In some areas it "looks/feels" okay for the numbers in others a bit less. But also it's not like zombies would behave or occupy areas that would make sense for living people. Maybe a sound or another reason lured them in other areas... just trying to justify a bit their distribution/density.

 

It's difficult to find that sweet spot, i've been playing with insane pop, very high, high.. now decided to go back to normal pop after having to clear 300+ just to be able to access a few houses in West Point, in some places there are close to none, in some there are quite a lot they also seem to "spawn" in the area or spots that the player previously cleared rather than traveling there; most noticeable if playing with rally groups: kill the groups, when you go back you find other group(s) spawned in these areas.

 

[Xonic]

This is a problem only in Valley Station, as the dev just painted the whole Valley station red in the zombie spawn map, so now the rural areas became urban areas. 

[BentNose]

Is this across multiple games or just in this one run?

[rleonar5]

On 12/1/2020 at 2:14 PM, Xonic said:

the dev just painted the whole Valley station red in the zombie spawn map

 

Is there anywhere I can see the spawn map?

[Xonic]

3 hours ago, rleonar5@gmail.com said:

 

Is there anywhere I can see the spawn map?

[GenericPilot]

On 12/1/2020 at 3:14 PM, 3lackrose said:

I'm not aware of mods that help with the distribution, but i somewhat agree. In some areas it "looks/feels" okay for the numbers in others a bit less. But also it's not like zombies would behave or occupy areas that would make sense for living people. Maybe a sound or another reason lured them in other areas... just trying to justify a bit their distribution/density.

 

It's difficult to find that sweet spot, i've been playing with insane pop, very high, high.. now decided to go back to normal pop after having to clear 300+ just to be able to access a few houses in West Point, in some places there are close to none, in some there are quite a lot they also seem to "spawn" in the area or spots that the player previously cleared rather than traveling there; most noticeable if playing with rally groups: kill the groups, when you go back you find other group(s) spawned in these areas.

 

 

I agree - especially if PZ is trying to emulate the 28 Days Later-esque theme of zeds returning to the places that they frequented in life, (such as the mall) it really doesn't make much sense for otherwise completely empty areas to be crawling with them. Then again, this is an area of rural Kentucky with less than 2,000 people in total even before the Event, and there are far more zeds than that - so perhaps some suspension of disbelief is needed for the sake of game balance.

[EnigmaGrey]

3 hours ago, GenericPilot said:

 

I agree - especially if PZ is trying to emulate the 28 Days Later-esque theme of zeds returning to the places that they frequented in life, (such as the mall) it really doesn't make much sense for otherwise completely empty areas to be crawling with them. Then again, this is an area of rural Kentucky with less than 2,000 people in total even before the Event, and there are far more zeds than that - so perhaps some suspension of disbelief is needed for the sake of game balance.

It’s  that zombies are meant to travel highways vs forests, so areas near roads get more zombies.

 

high loot areas also get more zombies simply because it’s a video game. It has nothing to do with Dawn of the Dead.

 

That doesn’t mean Valley Station’s pop map is necessarily correct, however.

[TrailerParkThor]

You have to realize that what we see now as "rural" is actually a suburb of Louisville. The massive city boasted a population of almost 800,000 in 1993. Downtown Louis is only a 5 hour walk from Valley Station. Even if 90% of the population was evaced, that's still 80,000 undead roaming the metro area. The rest of Knox Country is within a days walk. I think the ideal max population of zeds in the game should be around 500,000 easily. Obviously, those all can't spawn at once, but you should have to kill half a million to even wipe out all the people still in Louisville when the Knox Flu hit. That doesn't even factor in other urban areas in KY and horde migrations from other states. I do think when the Louisville update drops, they will fix zombie spawn rates to more accurately reflect the origin location of the infected. Starting out, rural Knox towns will be a lot safer than now, but will slowly become overrun as entropy and RNG dissipates the city horde into the rest of the map.

[rleonar5]

18 hours ago, EnigmaGrey said:

high loot areas also get more zombies simply because it’s a video game.

 

I get this.  But I have two issues with it:

• If the map is correct, it's extremely unbalanced: I don't know how accurate the density map is, but let's take it at face value.  I assume that all the dull red areas have the same density.  If that's the case, the total number of zombies in any dull red region is proportional it's area.  The area of the shaded red region in the north is very large.  In fact (if the spawn area really extends out into the surrounding wilderness), it looks like there would be more zombies in the north area than in Riverside.  However, there is far less return on investment in trying to clear the northern area of the map (because there is far less loot).  Moreover, clearing out urban areas is easier because you have more homes you can duck into to sleep, rest, hide, and look for food.  Notice how the shaded region in the north extends FAR away from the buildings.  It would be very difficult to fight your way in, from the outside, due to the lack of buildings at the outer edges of this shaded region.  If the game developer wanted the game balanced so that the greater the risk, the greater the reward, it seems like a good way of doing this would be to correlate the zombie population density with the number of structures in the area (maybe each wall segment would contribute to a zombie density calculation, and this contribution would fall off like 1/r, or 1/r^2).  I understand the need to balance the game, but this was a rather ham-fisted attempt at balance, and the northern area of the map is now completely nerfed.
• It's unrealistic/lore-breaking: If you imagine a real zombie apocalypse, the rural areas would have the lowest density of zombies.  The benefit of moving to a rural area would be that there are less zombies; the downside is that there would be less loot (risk vs. reward).  Right now, the rural areas are just as densely populated with zombies as the urban areas.  As a result, you have two (binary) options: either stay in an urban area, or move into an unshaded area of the map.  It would be more realistic (and better for balance) if the player had a spectrum of options, and rural areas had a zombie density somewhere between the densities found in urban areas and the totally remote and unpopulated areas.

 

20 hours ago, GenericPilot said:

Then again, this is an area of rural Kentucky with less than 2,000 people in total even before the Event, and there are far more zeds than that - so perhaps some suspension of disbelief is needed for the sake of game balance.

 

I totally agree.  But I hope  the strategy of putting large numbers of zombies around points of interest is a temporary solution.  A good long term fix would be to add more events to challenge players in rural settings, or add more reasons to travel to urban areas.  It would be really cool if there were was one unique trophy item that spawned in each city (maybe even guarded by a boss zombie).  For example, just consider how many people venture into the military base just to show off the large backpack.  If there were a useful unique item in every town, I would make it my goal to try to get them all.  Having said all of that, I would still like to build a base in a semi-rural area to use as a base of operations (and that would require the rural areas to be rebalanced).

[TrailerParkThor]

1 hour ago, rleonar5 said:

Having said all of that, I would still like to build a base in a semi-rural area to use as a base of operations (and that would require the rural areas to be rebalanced).

After reading your comment here, I do feel like what you're saying has a lot of merit. There are essentially only 3 different Heats on the map. Red, Red Hot, and "Green". The vast majority of the map's cells have no zombie spawns at all, and can only gain zombies by RNG entropy. Every urban area has a high zombie spawn rate, and the downtown and high loot areas have insane spawns. This doesn't really make sense in either a game sense or a realism sense. And it's actually even weirder because there are two opposite spawn rates and nothing in between. Maybe the answer is to add one or two more colors to the system to make it a lot more fluid and variable.

 

Here are my thoughts on what it could look like:

- Redhot - Used for superurban areas with an extremely high population or alternatively, good loot. Up the current spawnrates here a little bit and dial down the amount of Redhot spots on the map. This should be a rare color that would mean an almost impossible area to clear out without a massive armory and a well-trained team. The future Downtown Louisville would also be entirely Redhot.

- Red - Used for dense urban areas with high population. Think town centers, the Mall, major highway interchanges, and Rosewood Prison. This would also make sense for the majority of Louisville and any sort of University/Schools they might add. These would maintain the current rates we see in B41.47, so it should be possible to secure a base here with the right strategy and location. However, you will be under constant attack. March Ridge and Valley Station would still be very Red compared to the other towns.

- Orange - Orange would represent suburban and semi-rural areas with moderate population. The outskirts of Muldraugh and West Point would all be considered Orange. So would the highways and main roads, the Railyard, and the Golf Course. Riverside and Rosewood would be mostly orange with some red. Zombies would spawn a little more forgivingly here than Red, but not by much. These kind of heat zones are ideal for your urban HQ. Lots of towns and buildings nearby to scavenge, without all the zeds!

- Yellow - Yellow would represent rural areas that have low population. Places like Farmville, a good portion of Dixie, the side roads, the lake village out to the West, and some of the isolated cabins and farms would all be Yellow. Yellow would signify relative safety with very few zombie spawns. These areas would likely be the spot of your main base, since there will still usually be loot nearby. Either way, they would be a good place to build in between your forest farm and your downtown scav warehouse.

- Green - Used for wilderness areas with no population. The map would still have a lot of cold spots, but now it would probably be mostly around the edges of the map with a few good pockets here and there. Undead would only be here if they migrated, meaning you should have almost no zombie problems. You will still see more than in the current build, as there will be less surface area in between these zones and the higher density spawn areas.

 

Players would still be able to build a base in wild areas with no zombies, but now there would be a much wider spectrum of choices. Like you said, being able to base up in a semi-populated area would be nice. Still being close to civilization, but not having to stress too much about zombies. Currently, a survivor living in the big farmhouse South of the Pony Roam-O will still see a horde of dozens when the helicopter comes. And that is supposed to be one of the better locations to base up. Under this system, they might see a more realistic 10-15 here. The challenge of survival in the game is all based around resources and supplies. When you choose to live in the middle of nowhere, you are choosing safety from zombies in exchange for the security of having more food and weapons nearby. Risk vs Reward is at the core of the game, and balancing zombie pop with local supply should be a big factor in choosing a permanent base location. Under this system, there will be more moderate options where you have average zombie count and average resource count, as well as the options you currently have. This would also pave the way towards a more rewarding endgame in which we can build up multiple bases with NPC survivors (or even MP survivors), and choose different locations based on strategic value. You could have the bulk of your people living in the safety of nature, but have an infrastructure of bases set up to make scavenging things and getting them back home easier. Passing through a network of buildings that snake through the heatmap in the most efficient way to avoid zeds. Warring factions would obviously vie for control of these coveted safe zones. Borders might even be drawn around these areas, leaving Red zones as a DMZ of sorts. Or maybe the devs will add geographically specific resources or loot like you mentioned, and this would also be a great companion system for that. Iron and coal mines, fauna-rich hunting zones, specific factories/warehouses/stores, or even just unique items for major POIs like you said. Any of these could have a great symbiosis with a more realistic heatmap revamp.