Small Suggestion Re: Zombie Litter

[Zork 56]

In my long-term game, I have killed about 8k zombies in as many months. The decay mechanic was a fantastic improvement, but it did not cover all problem cases:

 

A single hit is enough for players AND zombies to lose their headgear. The landscape can get littered with various eyewear and headwear. If the player doesn't vacuum these up, they end up both being very hard to find (in the case of glasses) and/or being an eyesore (in the case of hats). The engine does not perfectly sync up 3D items to 2D background so 3D models "wobble" on the ground. This is probably worth a separate issue. The result of this is that after the player has gone on a killing spree and enough time has passed, he finds his former killing ground a pristine landscape again with dozens of hats and glasses strewn across it. Weird. Anyway, my suggestion:

 

Either,

1) Make zombies not lose their eyewear and headwear when hit. Make it so these items stay on the model and can be found in corpse inventory. You lose the cool effect of knocking a zeds helmet off, or

2) Make headwear and eyewear that fell off zombies decay and disappear at the same rate as corpses decay and disappear. This would have to be done with an item flag so regular items don't all share the same fate.

Edited January 19 by Zork

[Kappatao 59]

1 hour ago, Zork said:

The engine does not perfectly sync up 3D items to 2D background so 3D models "wobble" on the ground.

This.

I find it so annoying to see my cars etc. wobbling on the ground. It's been around so long I'd started wondering whether it was just me that noticed it.

Sorry to hijack your post, but I would really like this issue to get more attention (along with the character occaisionally visually clipping through 2d objects).

[orikamii 40]

I think the problem with your second solution of having the items disappear is that there likely isn't a way for them to differentiate how an item ended up on the floor in the first place. This would mean that if you put your favourite hat on the floor - it may disappear with the zombie headgear wipe. They would have to add an entirely new variable likely which would take more work. (which I now see that you did mention)

 

I think the first solution might be best, where headgear simply remains on the zombie. For myself, I always pick up headgear/glasses after a fight and just put it back on the zombie anyways lol. But maybe this is just as difficult to implement as the first solution, it's hard to say.

 

This definitely bothers me a lot though, enough that I do my own cleaning literally after every single fight.

Edited January 19 by orikamii

[Masmassu 20]

The big problem is that it become to clean in the area you have had an batllefeald on and it needs to be somthing thats a gory mess. I mean its almost pointless cleaning up at my base now when the dead will disepare sone anyway. 

 

And maybe you can have somthing like foreging to just colect loot in an spec area, spec when its several corpses in the same spot.

[Zork 56]

I think it would be trivial to add a flag that says "this is from a zombie" to items right as they are knocked off the zeds head and start a decay timer as it is done for corpses.

[Dreacon78 32]

3 hours ago, Zork said:

I think it would be trivial to add a flag that says "this is from a zombie" to items right as they are knocked off the zeds head and start a decay timer as it is done for corpses.

 

Problem with adding that flag is that anything you take from them would also have that flag, so if you put that on the ground it would risk disappearing.  I think just making it so they stay on would be a good idea, or make them more noticeable when they are on the ground so it is easier to find when you do a cleanup.

[Zork 56]

Again, I don't see why this has to be the way. Set the flag when an item is "launched" from a zombie during a hit. Easy.

[orikamii 40]

5 hours ago, Zork said:

Again, I don't see why this has to be the way. Set the flag when an item is "launched" from a zombie during a hit. Easy.

We're not disagreeing that it's super annoying to have headgear all over the place. Just disagreeing that it's "easy" for the devs. As a developer myself, it is incredibly frustrating to hear that something is easy to implement, because something very "small" can end up forcing you to rewrite a huge portion of code.

Of course, the devs in this case would know best whether or not they feel this is worth implementing. I still 100% support the idea that headgear from zombies should not be littering the floor in my world, however they choose to/ or not to implement that.

[turkler 32]

On 1/20/2021 at 5:16 PM, orikamii said:

 Just disagreeing that it's "easy" for the devs.

 

except it really is? I'm no game dev don't get me wrong, but I do some rimworld modding. it is indeed easy to apply a tag to some items, then take them away when a player picks them up (with c# at least, not sure what the devs are using) you can even apply tags only when something dies (which is suprisingly simple and used to make tainted clothes work) so I don't see how this would be hard in any way.

[orikamii 40]

2 hours ago, turkler said:

 

except it really is? I'm no game dev don't get me wrong, but I do some rimworld modding. it is indeed easy to apply a tag to some items, then take them away when a player picks them up (with c# at least, not sure what the devs are using) you can even apply tags only when something dies (which is suprisingly simple and used to make tainted clothes work) so I don't see how this would be hard in any way.

What I'm saying is that it's not for us to say whether or not it's easy, that's for the devs to decide and whether it's worth their time. The idea was suggested, potential solutions were provided. The devs can decide if they want to include it.

[EnigmaGrey 6336]

On 1/20/2021 at 10:16 AM, orikamii said:

We're not disagreeing that it's super annoying to have headgear all over the place. Just disagreeing that it's "easy" for the devs. As a developer myself, it is incredibly frustrating to hear that something is easy to implement, because something very "small" can end up forcing you to rewrite a huge portion of code.

Of course, the devs in this case would know best whether or not they feel this is worth implementing. I still 100% support the idea that headgear from zombies should not be littering the floor in my world, however they choose to/ or not to implement that.

Pretty much. The way the game is set up is nothing like Unity/C# or RimWorld (where nothing is streamed in, iirc — basically how the first ‘boid builds worked).

 

We’d go from keeping a few dozen items in RAM to tens of thousands (if people stripped corpses) unless they’re only removed on load, or something. Each one counting down...

 

Just having a sandbox option to disable hats/glasses falling from zombies? Much, much easier. The problem is that headwear also can protect them, iirc. Don’t recall if zombie-armor was implemented, though. 

[turkler 32]

9 hours ago, EnigmaGrey said:

Pretty much. The way the game is set up is nothing like Unity/C# or RimWorld (where nothing is streamed in, iirc — basically how the first ‘boid builds worked).

 

We’d go from keeping a few dozen items in RAM to tens of thousands (if people stripped corpses) unless they’re only removed on load, or something. Each one counting down...

 

Just having a sandbox option to disable hats/glasses falling from zombies? Much, much easier. The problem is that headwear also can protect them, iirc. Don’t recall if zombie-armor was implemented, though. 

 

fair enough, I just assumed it was.

[Fuzzy Wolfy 105]

Personally, I would encourage the Devs to stray away from utilizing Zombie-made clutter in the form of items and objects, since this could lead to a greater server load for MP. Whether or not the load is the same for particles and other decals, like blood, I'm not sure, but my experience with game development tells me that decals are, as a general rule of thumb, not as bad. That said, the reason I say this is because decals can and usually do eventually go away, whether as part of the server settings or because of rain / cleaning.

 

I'd much prefer to see decals being used and generated autonomously around where hordes congregate; having a mall become caked in blood, scuff marks, and questionable fluids because it housed a few hundred zombies for a number of months... That sort of stuff.

[Dreacon78 32]

On 1/21/2021 at 4:11 PM, EnigmaGrey said:

Just having a sandbox option to disable hats/glasses falling from zombies? Much, much easier. The problem is that headwear also can protect them, iirc. Don’t recall if zombie-armor was implemented, though. 

 

This I think would be a far easier option, but if there is actually zombie-armor then it might not be as easy.  Would still like to see it so I can stop wasting so much time after killing 30-50 zeds, running around scrolling to the floor to see if they dropped anything so I can put it on a body.

[OrangeButter 0]

I wholeheartedly agree with this suggestion, I also really dislike all the stuff laying around on the ground from fighting zombies.