Horde Migration.

[Swallagoon]

I haven't played the game properly for about 3 years so I don't really know how the zombie AI has specifically changed, but this is what I've observed thus far.

 

I remember the earliest singleplayer builds where hordes like this could be found around the old map.

 

Playing on a PvE server today is rather dull. There are no hordes like that at all and the player safehouse in the server never really gets swarmed. I have seen no big clusters of zombies outside of the Mall.

 

Even this kind of situation doesn't really happen. The Zs don't seem to move around the map.

 

I'm probably missing something here. Have hordes/horde migration been removed in recent builds?

[Viceroy]

Horde migration has actually been disabled/broken since the move to a streaming map if I recall correctly. It is set to return though and with the recent additions of the map zones and such, I reckon it is not too far off.

[Infest]

I've been playing with some friends in MP, and I'm pretty sure the horde migration works.  I've heard gunshots go off, and looked outside to see zombies shuffling off to the source of the noise.  I was told that the gunshot was a horde migration indicator.  But that's not the case?  What did I witness then?

  

I'm hoping that I can create some hordes on our server and create some interesting moments by using admin commands to move hordes.  Just not sure if it'll work now that Viceroy mentioned that horde migration is disabled...

[Viceroy]

Ah that was a gunshot meta event, it does infact incur a migratory event, but of a different kind. The gunshots and helicopters merely lure already proximal zombies whereas the 'migration' is more like them walking from town to town over long periods, instead of reacting to a loud and current event that is. Imagine the 'pull' the zombies had in Dawn of the Dead towards the mall for instance.

 

You can still move spawned zombies with the sound events if they are close enough

[ditoseadio]

It's simple.

No hordes, no fun.

 

No challenge with zombies, and you can survive a long time without any problem.

Project Zomboid is very bored right now... 

[GerbilSchooler]

 

It's simple.

No hordes, no fun.

 

No challenge with zombies, and you can survive a long time without any problem.

Project Zomboid is very bored right now... 

 

Yeah, not really having the risk of an insane horde surrounding your "safe" house... it's a bit too easy and predictable. Even adjusting Zombie settings in sandbox either makes them too frustrating for me or it doesn't seem like it makes a difference at all.

[Viceroy]

True, I fondly remember days spent trapped in my bathroom waiting for a gap. It is a pretty noticably missing feature, I am certain it will be addressed in due order. I know that the devs love a good old fashioned horde, I have faith in that.

[ditoseadio]

Project Zomboid has been the best survival game, but now it's one more. 

[iMfRoMtHeFuTuRe]

I am certain it will be addressed in due order. I know that the devs love a good old fashioned horde, I have faith in that.

Absolutely.

These devs have never given us something that we did not love, or at least for me.. I'm sure they would love to have horde migration,and I'm positive it will be here in good time. Let them do what they do best and continue to create this amazing game.

[tosayu]

 

It's simple.

No hordes, no fun.

 

No challenge with zombies, and you can survive a long time without any problem.

Project Zomboid is very bored right now... 

 

 

I adore project zomboid and whoteheartedly reccomend it. Infact I can think of around 7 people who bought it on my suggestion, and we are having a blast.  That said...here is my review of Project Zomboid on Steam.

 

Salient point:

 

Once you clear out an area, establish you house, create a few rain barrels, and start farming, the game looses lots of tension. Zombies don't spawn after you kill so many. The engine redistributes zombies by in game events that are limited to gun fire and helicopter noises, but in practice they don't bring that many after you truly cleared your area and the surrounding area. In one game I no longer feel I am in threat of dying.

 

 

Before I get hate, I did say and stand by that even if they don't do another update it is worth the full price of the game.  I love it, even tho the end game has a problem of no tension.

 

I do hope they fix the zombie spawning boredom.  It would be super cool if they added zombie spawning events or scripts you could set up, hordes, and a much larger supply of zombies.

[Th3or1st]

Well, i was playing yesterday evening and had the plan to clear the towncenter of WP a bit, so i can start looting there.

 

(Sry for the large pics, hope, the spoilers work)

 

I went from my safehouse

 

east and suddenly, after only a single block, i stumbled over this:

 

I've spawned in this region, i have cleared the whole area before, and then, there is this huge amount of Zeds walking to the north.

What u can see on the pic is just a small portion of the whole crowd.

 

So i thought "Why not start with these guys." and began to use my shotgun.

Here is another pic after the first few seconds.

 

They were already banging through the white house north of me and were coming back from past it.

More were coming from the south, where they all came from apparently. Again, this is only a part of the whole horde.

 

Well, i guess, i was too self confident with my shotgun anyhow, they managed to grab me in a split second...

 

That was great fun even if my skills are gone now and i had to make a new character.

At least I was very lucky and respawned in my safehouse (which is not the one i spawned in first time).

 

After heading back to the place to search for my loot there were no more "living" Zeds left.

 

But i found my char and could loot him without problems.

 

Zombie Distri is on normal (not insane) by the way.

 

That was a really great experience and was worth the sacrifice (yep, even though it was needless).

 

I guess horde migration is back in. At least in single player.

U really should think about some fences for your crops.

 

<3

[ApolloDiaspora]

Haven't played Zomboid for a few weeks or so, but in multiplayer shotguns do have an affect on hordes, I'm just not certain if it applies to off-screen zombies or not.

 

Fire one in Westpoint and damn near everything comes out of the woodwork, and you can come back to the horde you amassed later on.

 

I think some experimentation might be in order.

[Th3or1st]

I forgot to mention:

 

Was my first attempt to use a shotgun in that area. All Zeds where killed with melee weapons beforhand.

There was no sadistic ai driven event (didn't hear anything) that could explain migration.

 

Furthermore the horde was just to big for beeing pulled from near vicinty.

 

Haven't seen anything like that before.

[Viceroy]

I have pulled even larger hordes from shotgun fire, it is surprising how many zombies there can be in an area without really being apparent... thing is that I haven't ever encountered a horde walking somewhere as you explained, I have literally piled days of play-time into pz and have yet to see it. If it IS reimplemented as you theorise (pun lol) then it should be a hell of a lot more common. As is mentioned previously the game does lose all suspense after a few weeks in-game, and in MP it is not odd at all to find entire sections of the town just devoid of everything when far enough into it. I have heard lots of complaints about it and even on a small LAN I usually end up having to GM it and spawn hordes to keep it from becoming 'The Sims'.

[Vantus]

There's confusion I think when people mention "Zombie Migration".

 

Zombies that are already local to the player WILL move upon triggers (Helicopters, distant gunfire etc). They only move for a short time and then stop.

The direction they move appears to be random. Nobody is disputing that this feature currently works. 

 

What I think most people are really referring to is, when the player has cleared a wide area of zombies, no "new" zombies show up.

Even after repeated Helicopters, Gunshots and even my own wild gun blasting, I get no new zombies coming to investigate.

This is because there are no more zombies close enough to be affected by the triggers (Or if they are, they end up walking in the opposite direction).

 

I'm glad zombies don't "pop up" and respawn in buildings you just visited, but there does not seem to be a repopulating mechanism in place at the moment.

 

Th3or1sts screenshots suggest to me that there were hidden zombies nearby that were triggered by an event. I see corpses in amongst the horde which suggest there was earlier combat there which might have drawn the zombies in after Th3or1st had already left. Or perhaps a house alarm he forgot about.

 

But I don't think those are "new" zombies that have wandered in from town from outside the map.

[Dahugo]

@Th3or1st

 

The zombies in your game walked in the northern direction due to a bug in the game. I have heard of many people having this event. Devs should already know about, see here.

 

You better thumb this bug up in the bug tracker, it helps devs to see how many people are affected

[Th3or1st]

Th3or1sts screenshots suggest to me that there were hidden zombies nearby that were triggered by an event. I see corpses in amongst the horde which suggest there was earlier combat there which might have drawn the zombies in after Th3or1st had already left. Or perhaps a house alarm he forgot about.

 

But I don't think those are "new" zombies that have wandered in from town from outside the map.

 

Mmh, the ones already lying around in the second screenie (first with zeds) where killed with a melee weapon in a session a few days ago.

Only had a few shotgunshots at the school far to the west before.

 

As i mentioned before, the third screenie (second with zeds around) was taken after firing the shotgun 1-2 times already after stumbling over the horde, that's why there are lying even more on the ground.

 

I've often seen single Zed's walking from the far south to the north, sometimes maybe 2 or 3 at a time, but never had such a huge amount of Zeds all headed for one direction. The screens do not show that as much as i would wish, because the second screenie just contains a small part of the whole zed-horde and the third is taken after i already influenced their direction with my gunshots.

 

I have seen "migrations" driven by events like gunshots and helicopters and it really didn't look like one of these.

 

Another point is: After i came back with a new char a single ingame day later there was not a single zombie left there. So the whole

crowd despawned (aeh, nope?) or had just moved further to whatever direction...

 

[...]If it IS reimplemented as you theorise (pun lol) then it should be a hell of a lot more common.[...]

 

Good one.

Well, i may be wrong, indeed. (dev statement needed here ^^)

But i hope, if/when it gets back, it will NOT be a "hell of a common" thing to have 300 Zed's heading for you.

 

BTW: How much singleplayer PZ hours have you played since last update..?

 

Had anyone else similar appearences out there?

@Th3or1st

 

The zombies in your game walked in the northern direction due to a bug in the game. I have heard of many people having this event. Devs should already know about, see here.

 

Ah ok, yeah, i've seen lots of them walking north in Westpoint, but it were always just a few (1-2).

In this case it is a big accumulation of buggy zeds.

 

If "zed migration" is not in yet, i'm really looking forward to it after this great gameplay experience.

 

Edits: Damn typos...

[Vantus]

Another point is: After i came back with a new char a single ingame day later there was not a single zombie left there. So the whole

crowd despawned (aeh, nope?) or had just moved further to whatever direction..

 

Ironically, there is a despawning issue.

 

For example, I found my way to the mall in one of my play-throughs. The mall and car park were absolutely crowded with zombies.

I decided "this is going to take a while and it's after midnight (IRL)". So I ran back to the Theatre, saved and quit. 

When I loaded it up the next day, there were only a few zombies in the car park and the mall was empty. As in, completely empty. I ran around without a care. Even the fabled "death trap" escalators were void of the undead.

 

In your case, when your character died, you were placed back to the main menu. You then would have had to make a new character and load the world up again. This seems to have some weird affects on the "alive" zombie distribution and causes some despawning.

 

 

If "zed migration" is not in yet, i'm really looking forward to it after this great gameplay experience.

 

I'm with you there man!

[Invader Jim]

I do hope they fix the zombie spawning boredom.  It would be super cool if they added zombie spawning events or scripts you could set up, hordes, and a much larger supply of zombies.

 

 

 

I agree completely.  PZ is a great game.  What is lacks is enough randomness.  Too much randomness and people claim AI cheating, not enough randomness and things get boring.

 

PZ needs migration and other random events to make it better.  Currently, if you have been playing long enough to know how to survive then nothing will ever kill you unless you make a mistake.  Bad things need to happen randomly (but not too frequently).  It should be easier to freeze to death.  Hordes should move randomly around the map.  There should be a chance that you get sick even if you are doing everything well and getting sick should make it harder to survive until you are well again.   I am not sure I would want random events like lightning or tornadoes that could damage or destroy buildings but the game needs to have bad things happen that can impact your player (even possibly kill) even if you are doing everything 100% correct and safe.  Bad things happen in life. A game without randomness becomes a boring game after a while.

[Vantus]

I agree completely.  PZ is a great game.  What is lacks is enough randomness.  Too much randomness and people claim AI cheating, not enough randomness and things get boring.

 

PZ needs migration and other random events to make it better.  Currently, if you have been playing long enough to know how to survive then nothing will ever kill you unless you make a mistake.  Bad things need to happen randomly (but not too frequently).  It should be easier to freeze to death.  Hordes should move randomly around the map.  There should be a chance that you get sick even if you are doing everything well and getting sick should make it harder to survive until you are well again.   I am not sure I would want random events like lightning or tornadoes that could damage or destroy buildings but the game needs to have bad things happen that can impact your player (even possibly kill) even if you are doing everything 100% correct and safe.  Bad things happen in life. A game without randomness becomes a boring game after a while.

 

 

Absolutely Jim!

 

Like I said in another post:

 

 

For me, I'd just like to see more features / content that influence how I approach each playthrough. I'd like something that prevents me from repeating the same steps each time I play. Habitual progression can often kill sandbox games for me so I really like it when the games throws a curve ball.

[Jago]

Th3or1st said:

"That was great fun even if my skills are gone now and i had to make a new character.

At least I was very lucky and respawned in my safehouse (which is not the one i spawned in first time).

 

After heading back to the place to search for my loot there were no more "living" Zeds left.

But i found my char and could loot him without problems."

 

W-What?! Since when can you respawn on the same map?

[BlackPaladin]

 

I do hope they fix the zombie spawning boredom.  It would be super cool if they added zombie spawning events or scripts you could set up, hordes, and a much larger supply of zombies.

 

 

 

I agree completely.  PZ is a great game.  What is lacks is enough randomness.  Too much randomness and people claim AI cheating, not enough randomness and things get boring.

 

PZ needs migration and other random events to make it better.  Currently, if you have been playing long enough to know how to survive then nothing will ever kill you unless you make a mistake.  Bad things need to happen randomly (but not too frequently).  It should be easier to freeze to death.  Hordes should move randomly around the map.  There should be a chance that you get sick even if you are doing everything well and getting sick should make it harder to survive until you are well again.   I am not sure I would want random events like lightning or tornadoes that could damage or destroy buildings but the game needs to have bad things happen that can impact your player (even possibly kill) even if you are doing everything 100% correct and safe.  Bad things happen in life. A game without randomness becomes a boring game after a while.

 

 

You're saying this as if this game won't have that lol. The NPC's aren't even in yet. The game is only half finished, and even then it's still this good. When NPC's are in there will be a great deal more zombie migration with the NPC's moving around a lot. Heck, if NPC's are done right, which I'm sure they will be, the NPC's could possibly be smart enough to even lead zombies purposely to your safehouse. There will also be military in, and who knows, the military could go on random purges where they even might kill you thinking you could be infected if you're not smart about it. NPC's could even break into your safehouse when you're off scavenging and steal all your food right before winter.

Even winter isn't really "in" yet, considering you can still grow crops during that time period. If they actually do implement a winter tileset, and full on winter, you won't be able to grow ANY crops (at the moment I still am able to during winter months, just lower yields), and the snow could possibly work like tall grass where it hides crawlers so you can't see them until it's too late. Heck, animals like bears and dogs aren't even in yet, and those could seriously be dangerous as hell if you decide to live anywhere near the woods (which atm is far safer to do, away from the treat of zombies).

 

The fact is, you're essentially playing a half done game at this present time, so complaining about no randomness is in essence pointless. There is a reason the game is still in "alpha," it's not because the game is bad or anything, which for some reason alpha games still have that stigma, it's simply that the CORE of the game isn't even in yet. I'm not even talking about details, like adding a little more map, or putting in fine details here and there, but the actual core gameplay just has missing chunks not coded in yet. Trapping is brand new, hunting doesn't exist yet, NPC's aren't in, vehicles aren't in, the military isn't in, etcetc. It takes time to do, but it'll eventually get done. I take breaks many months long for this game, and whenever I come back there are a ton of new features that make the game a lot more fun. Sooner or later the game will be finished, and I'm sure even then the developers will still be adding to the map, adding more items, etc, but as for now, just enjoy what you enjoy and if the game does not yet have all you want, wait for it because it's bound to come in time.

[Th3or1st]

W-What?! Since when can you respawn on the same map?

Umm, don't know since when, but it's possible. Though only in Sandbox mode.

[Viceroy]

i believe in survival whenever you die it will save, load that and you will be able to make a new character on the same world. Pretty spiffo.

[Th3or1st]

i believe in survival whenever you die it will save, load that and you will be able to make a new character on the same world. Pretty spiffo.

Uh, ok. No difference to sandbox then.

Sorry for spreading my half-knowledge (and bad english ^^)!

Edit: typos again.. >.<