Who prefers old zombie world deployment over this?

[Kelefane]

The city itself should be the dungeon, not the individual buildings

 

This is the most important reply in this whole thread. I agree 100%.

 

The world seems less Zombie Apocalypsey now.

 

There is a reason so many dislike the new path the game has taken.

[Teal]

While the sleeper system is great for adding difficulty and plenty of scares, the world does tend to feel more empty. A balancing between the two could help, though as it is, zombies in the open world don't pose much of a threat. Before sleepers the huge amount of zombies you'd run into in cities was an obstacle more than anything, you could predict what you'd have to face depending on your zombie count setting. So comparatively, sleepers definitely add more to the game while open world zombies are essentially decorative. So what other dynamic could be added?

Personally, I'd like to see more wandering hordes, so maybe, say in bigger cities, your chances of being sniffed out by supposedly unseen, nearby hordes would add more depth and danger to our dungeon delving adventures.

[Katitof]

In a perfect world, we would have both.

[Roland]

I very much prefer outside over inside zombies, though I also do like meeting them inside. A question I had ever since the so called "static spawner" was removed is: Why? That spawner would spawn zombies around buildings when you approach. It was just so much fun to get to a house and you had to fight your way inside. I've never seen a reason why it was replaced with sleepers, but probably it has performance reasons.

 

Interestingly, you could already have zombies inside buildings in A12, and probably every alpha after that. You can just place them inside prefabs with a prefab editor. A few tweaks to the AI make them pretty much sleeper-esque, they won't wander around and only become active once they see the player. So you could have both: A lot of zombies as general biome spawn, zombies spawning around buildings and zombies spawning inside buildings. Particularly A12 did that with essentially no performance issues whatsoever.

 

Upsets me greatly.

 

I liked those spawners as well but you must remember that if you approached a POI too quickly they would spawn while you were in their midst and you would get zombies around and on top of you suddenly. I don’t think there was a good solution to prevent that from happening. Well...other than sleepers.

 

I actually got in the habit of stopping short of a POI and waiting for the outside guys to spawn and then proceeding forward. Talk about immersion breaking...

[Dimpy]

they would spawn while you were in their midst and you would get zombies around and on top of you suddenly. I don’t think there was a good solution to prevent that from happening. Well...other than sleepers.

 

What? I thought that was the whole point of ambush sleepers - to recreate the experience of zombies teleporting behind you .

[Kubikus]

I liked those spawners as well but you must remember that if you approached a POI too quickly they would spawn while you were in their midst and you would get zombies around and on top of you suddenly. I don’t think there was a good solution to prevent that from happening. Well...other than sleepers.

 

I actually got in the habit of stopping short of a POI and waiting for the outside guys to spawn and then proceeding forward. Talk about immersion breaking...

Is that the declared reason devs gave for the removal?

 

I heard of the issue, but I'm playing A12 and A14 these days and this does not happen to me. There are issues, though, like zombies getting suck in blocks inside rooms (when the room is three blocks high and a zombie tries to spawn on top of a shelf, it gets stuck). Or that you can see zombies spawning in when you approach, which is indeed not the prettiest of sights.

 

Then again - and I know it's pointless talk - if something was a significant issue, why not simply, you know, solve it. Why not write a line of code, for example, that forbids zombies spawning within a certain radius of the player. Or in the player's line of sight.

 

All besides that the game has come to accept dozens, if not already hundreds of unimmersive features because the devs feel like it's worth it and improves the gameplay. Static spawners did improve the gameplay greatly, they added greatly to the atmosphere of a zombie apocalypse. That atmosphere really has been slaughtered by the last two or three alphas.

[Khulkhuum]

You do rwalize that sleepers were added during those "two or three alphas" you are talking about? Also, line of sight could be hundreds of blocks in an open field or five in a building.

 

I will say it again as before - increase sleeper spawning range greatly, increase sleeper despawn range adequately and enhance Zs that there can be 200 of them without fps drops.

 

The difference would be for example sleepers spawning from 30 blocks, not around 5-10 as is now, making it impossible to run in mid spawning.

[Kubikus]

You do rwalize that sleepers were added during those "two or three alphas" you are talking about?

Sure. Sounds like I should realize something on top of that, what is it?

 

Also, line of sight could be hundreds of blocks in an open field or five in a building.

And..?

 

I will say it again as before - increase sleeper spawning range greatly, increase sleeper despawn range adequately and enhance Zs that there can be 200 of them without fps drops.

I want to have zombies that are awake outside of buildings that I approach. So I have to fight my way in. Like we had it, I believe until A15. I think A16 removed that.

 

The difference would be for example sleepers spawning from 30 blocks, not around 5-10 as is now, making it impossible to run in mid spawning.

Sure, that's the problem that could be solved by writing "a line of code, for example, that forbids zombies spawning within a certain radius of the player". The line of sight solves the problem that seeing zombies spawning in is not very pretty.

[KingSlayerGM]

...if you approached a POI too quickly they would spawn while you were in their midst and you would get zombies around and on top of you suddenly. I don’t think there was a good solution to prevent that from happening. Well...other than sleepers.

 

I actually got in the habit of stopping short of a POI and waiting for the outside guys to spawn and then proceeding forward. Talk about immersion breaking...

 

This also happened with sleepers when they first got released, but then they worked on it and now it works, they could have done the same with the static spawner. If every time a feature with a bug is removed, we would have no features left.

[asmosnuts]

The crux of the whole thing is the LACK of zombies in a zombie apocalypse! Its already been stated that the numbers needed cannot be generated.

Those numbers will decrease when bandits and npcs are added, nothing is more "immersion breaking" than a zombie horde crafting game without zombies. What do we call the hordes now? pairs, groups, collectives, agoraphobic support groups?

Joking aside the game is badly in need of outside numbers for any sense of threat to exist, which will probably lead to more bullet sponge so called "special, irradiated, hulk smash boss" to make up lack of numbers.

Other than packing pois with zombies, perversely emptying the world! This seems to be a problem that will never go away and should be a focus over and above cramming more "features" in. Optimisation is never going to be the hail mary everyone thinks it is and the problem should be addressed now, if indeed it ever can be.

[Khulkhuum]

Sure. Sounds like I should realize something on top of that, what is it?

 

And..?

 

I want to have zombies that are awake outside of buildings that I approach. So I have to fight my way in. Like we had it, I believe until A15. I think A16 removed that.

 

Sure, that's the problem that could be solved by writing "a line of code, for example, that forbids zombies spawning within a certain radius of the player". The line of sight solves the problem that seeing zombies spawning in is not very pretty.

 

Sorry, i think i read "sleepers" instead of "static spawners".

 

Line of sight point is that if you're in a POI and can't see outside, zombies would still spawn behind/on your sides. As far as i know, the game doesn't distinguish between "in POI" or "outside", it spawns enemies either way and Wandering Hordes pinpoint your location or a spot near it quite well. The difference here is that you wouldn't mind Zs spawning in a short distance outside if you're in a POI (don't have visibility), but in an open field it would be better if they spawned in a lot bigger distance.

 

Sleepers SHOULD spawn in a considerable distance, not up close. There are many POIs that are designed with them laying on the porch, near the back entrance, by the doors, etc. The problem you are mentioning is placement and perhaps there should be more "standing" ones near the entrances than inside.

 

Making sleepers spawn at a considerable distance would solve the problem of them spawning up close. I specifically put up 30 blocks, but this could be 50 (most likely harder for the performance of generating sleepers in such a big radius), but it's important for this to be a distance you can't cross in a couple seconds (time needed for spawning all Zs) plus a good distance to see them inside (or outside considering the ones near the entrance).

 

Also, if you're approaching a POI, you ARE facing it, therefore "line of sight" argument is sadly out the window (unless you move to the POI sideways or backing to it). Having a bigger distance before they spawn wouldn't be a perfect solution, but it would change zombies spawn from 3 blocks away to 30 blocks away, which would more likely not be noticeable.

[Maguvas]

I liked those spawners as well but you must remember that if you approached a POI too quickly they would spawn while you were in their midst and you would get zombies around and on top of you suddenly. I donآ’t think there was a good solution to prevent that from happening. Well...other than sleepers.

 

I actually got in the habit of stopping short of a POI and waiting for the outside guys to spawn and then proceeding forward. Talk about immersion breaking...

 

That is a tricky issue but I doubt it is possible one day to achieve an acceptable outcome for everyone.

 

In my opinion a possible anti immersion breaking solution could be dedicated spawn points not reachable by the player. Of course the generated zs will wander somewhere but the game should have a dedicated gps map only to track these.

 

That would solve the request about empty zones and filled ones and no spawn in houses while you chose them for bases.

 

The only idea occurring to me to implement this without clashing with the rest of the destructible world is to locate fixed spawn points in location protected by some advanced material (i.e.: carbon fiber) which can be destroyed only with very advanced tools or technology and you'll reach them on a possible end game section.

 

Of course the spawns will be located in various building types to prevent having something too predictable in rwg maps.

 

Just an idea: I've nothing versus the current spawn method... apart the magic creation behind your back in some houses

[Minandreas]

Preach it brother. @OP

 

I've posted a number of times ever since sleepers were introduced, expressing the same thing.

 

My problem is with the design decisions. The world outside is (mostly) dead now. The dynamic, moving world feel is gone...now the zombies everywhere, in every POI, wait patiently for the player to enter their building/room. To counteract that loss, we are given nonsensically overcrowded dungeon-houses with zombies waiting in utterly ludicrous places. I walk into a hallway and 6 zombies step off of the ceiling-level ductwork that they had ALL been waiting on for some reason. Or I enter a house to find 8 zombies in 4 different rooms STANDING IN CLOSED CLOSETS FOR NO REASON.

 

Nailed it. Though my feedback lately has stretched on to commenting on the POI designs in general. The world used to actually feel organic. Now it feels... like super janky video game levels. Super janky because they basically want a scripted linear combat sequence, but the combat system is FAR from the selling point of the game... They made some improvements in A17 for sure, but this is still NOT a game you play "because the combat is just so good". It's pretty ♥♥♥♥ honestly. If for no other reason (Though there's a lot of reasons) than because there's 0 enemy variety. So every encounter is going to feel the same no matter what. Enemies looking different doesn't count. lol

 

Sorry to be a little off your original point, but I just didn't have much to add to that specifically. You nailed it dead on.

[Birkenhoff]

I took a break after the A16 beeing released and just started playing the acutal build a few days ago.

My first impression was that it is somehow not that much fun to explore or interact with the world at all anymore. This OP brings it to the point, for me.

 

As I read much here about rendering limits, threats and fighting inside or outside POIs, it's more subjective. I enjoyed killing zombies on the street, kiting them while constantly checking the surrounding. IMO there is no need to try to create a real threat. You had it while exploring the 0.0 city with your head in a treasure chest while you hear a cop on the left and doggos on the right. The world simply felt more dense. Now it's moving from POI to POI, like moving from dungeon to dungeon without loading screens. Combined with the fact that you mostly find weapons nowerdays plus the perk system (Crack-A-Book became obsolete) takes the fun out of my personal, exploratory gameplay in 7DTD.

 

To me A17 feels more like a grinding game than an open world zombi survival. That makes me feel sad.

[zootal]

TBH, the only thing that has changed since A14 that I actually like is 1) bug fixes 2) motorcycles 3) skycrapers and more POIs.

 

TFP should have taken A14 and added motorcycles, better POIS, fixed the bugs and called it done.

 

YES bring back hub cities!!!! And bring back plains! Fix the bugs and call it done!

[xxx73]

I really miss the old spawning system where I could decide how many and what that spawned in cities and the different biomes. Now I encounter same amount if zeds waking in the woods as do in the cities, thats just not fun for me. I like the wild to have less zeds and cities to have many zeds.