Would you guys be in favor for a setting to disable witches?

[salajones]

I do horde night every night on insane with max ai block damage. The witches add in just a bit too much difficulty for this kind of playthrough and I often have to relog back into the game to remove them as they spawn 15-20 at a time. If I try to stay to deal with the witches I won't have enough time to grab the resources I need and fix the base from the previous horde night. 

 

Even on a normal playthrough I don't enjoy the witch mechanic at all. It just feels like I'm being punished for playing the game since they are attracted when you use forges, cement mixes, chem stations, or using tools. Even the wandering hordes I don't mind. I understand the witches are there to "keep things interesting", but I feel like that is purely subjective and should be up to the player if they want witches or not. 

[Sjustus548]

I'm always surprised at the difference players see in the number of screamer spawns.  You are seeing them spawn like crazy but we hardly ever see them, and when we do it is only like 3 at a time.  I think the most we saw at once was 6 and we thought it was Christmas lol.  We aren't playing on insane so maybe that has something to do with it but we do have spawns increased by a ton so I'm not sure.  I'm wondering how hard it would be to get a mod that just removes them from the game for you.  

 

I found this mod on Nexus https://www.nexusmods.com/7daystodie/mods/1493?tab=description  Hopefully it will help you enjoy your playthrough more.

Edited February 6, 2022 by Sjustus548 (see edit history)

[salajones]

9 minutes ago, Sjustus548 said:

I'm always surprised at the difference players see in the number of screamer spawns.  You are seeing them spawn like crazy but we hardly ever see them, and when we do it is only like 3 at a time.  I think the most we saw at once was 6 and we thought it was Christmas lol.  We aren't playing on insane so maybe that has something to do with it but we do have spawns increased by a ton so I'm not sure.  I'm wondering how hard it would be to get a mod that just removes them from the game for you.  

 

I found this mod on Nexus https://www.nexusmods.com/7daystodie/mods/1493?tab=description  Hopefully it will help you enjoy your playthrough more.

Ah, I forgot mods existed. Thanks. 

[Ramethzer0]

It always amazes me when I hear about folks that never see any screamers spawn ever.

And then I read this where there's 15-20?   Wasn't there a discussion some time back about there being a cutting off point for exponential screamer summons?

 

Also, remember to check other setting and make sure that these things are scaling with your difficulty level.  That might be part of the problem.

 

My experience is that I run into one every so often because of my stations running.  Sometimes they ladder screamer summons but it's not very common for me.

In a horde night situation, they seem to show up at the end after several minutes of full auto fire.   I almost never see them before that.

[PoloPoPo]

Screamers are nice and I would never want to miss them 🙂

 

Never had 15+ spawning at once, though.

[salajones]

4 hours ago, PoloPoPo said:

Screamers are nice and I would never want to miss them 🙂

 

Never had 15+ spawning at once, though.

 

4 hours ago, Ramethzer0 said:

It always amazes me when I hear about folks that never see any screamers spawn ever.

And then I read this where there's 15-20?   Wasn't there a discussion some time back about there being a cutting off point for exponential screamer summons?

 

Also, remember to check other setting and make sure that these things are scaling with your difficulty level.  That might be part of the problem.

 

My experience is that I run into one every so often because of my stations running.  Sometimes they ladder screamer summons but it's not very common for me.

In a horde night situation, they seem to show up at the end after several minutes of full auto fire.   I almost never see them before that.

It's because I run 20+ forges and 10+ cement mixers. As soon as the red night ends, all the power being generated from the blade traps, turrets, and me throwing bombs/firing weapons spawns a screamer as soon as the red night is over and if I don't kill her as soon as she spawns she will somehow spawn another witch and it just never ends. There was literally one full day of just non stop fighting zombies right after the horde night ended. It was like the red night never ended. There will even be screamers during the red night too since they obviously spawn right before it. I've tried to counteract this by driving away to do some mining/quests to let all the zombies despawn. But as soon as I show back up to the base the witches will usually spawn within 1 minute. At least when I relog for some reason I have at least 5 minutes usually before they spawn. 

[palikkamaa]

There are several workarounds: build workstations away from your main base, use smg/shotgun turrets to kill them or run less workstations

[BarryTGash]

8 hours ago, Sjustus548 said:

we do have spawns increased

 

I wonder if you're hitting max alive zombies and therefore not having enough 'slots' left for a screamer to spawn in. Just a thought. 

[12pack]

last time i saw one of these "witches".. was when i found a challenge note to Silence the Lambs... that was several months ago.. in a19

 

[pahbi]

I'm for anything that makes the game more configurable.  

1 hour ago, salajones said:

It's because I run 20+ forges and 10+ cement mixers. As soon as the red night ends, all the power being generated from the blade traps, turrets, and me throwing bombs/firing weapons spawns a screamer as soon as the red night is over and if I don't kill her as soon as she spawns she will somehow spawn another witch and it just never ends. There was literally one full day of just non stop fighting zombies right after the horde night ended. It was like the red night never ended. There will even be screamers during the red night too since they obviously spawn right before it. I've tried to counteract this by driving away to do some mining/quests to let all the zombies despawn. But as soon as I show back up to the base the witches will usually spawn within 1 minute. At least when I relog for some reason I have at least 5 minutes usually before they spawn. 

 

Thats insane, I've never run that many forges before so I've never seen this happen.  Its almost like you need a forge base to deal with the constant spawns.

 

Edited February 6, 2022 by pahbi (see edit history)

[seagas]

I build my main base raised up, with a mini horde tower entrance attached, for wondering/screamer hordes. Entrance is guarded by concrete poles, electric fence and sledge turret with flaming mod. Zed walks up stairs/ladder, walks across beam, if the sledge misses, the electric fence stuns them, sledge smacks them down, sometimes lighting them on fire, they trundle back up, only to repeat the process. If let alone, they kill everything eventually, including bears. If I'm not busy, I come into the tower area to help  kill them and to show myself to the screamer so she can call in a horde. The electric fence alone will kill a screamer if I'm not in the immediate area.

[doughphunghus]

Even thought I would never use it, I would appreciate a setting but not just a disable/enable.

There are a few games I have that do RNG worlds (Factorio and Don't Starve) that ahve sliders for basically every aspect of a world.  Using "Don't starve" as an example, they have settings for every creature.  That would be nice for this game.  there are so few zeds types, why not allow a slider from 0 -> something where 0 disables, and higher numbers increases their spawn probability/amount.  Maybe 0-100 (even though 100 does not mean 100% all that zed type but instead 100% normal/max spawning chance. like a high level cutoff switch once the spawning was determined to occur...example: "game determines to spawn a vulture... roll against the slider master percent setting (make this 5% as example).. nope, don't spawn it)

 

Then you could turn "off" any you don't like, and set the tougher ones ( bears/exploders/vultures) to some lower percent in your games, say 25%  Of course, this wouldn't apply to POI spawning, just random walkers/horde amounts.

 

of course, the game has a built in "slowly add harder zeds per gamestage", so this setting, if abused (to say, turn off all radiated zeds) would mea as you go in in gamestage, zeds no longer appear ( as they would all be radiated over time), so there would probably have to be some sort of 'replacement" spawn logic if something were set to 0... like a default zed.. its getting a bit complicated but even if just choosing a non radiated basic zed it might work.  better choice: maybe the basic zeds get put into a pool of 'choose these for defaults" when something is set to 0, and these cannot be set to 0.  like 5 zeds.  the only way to get 0 zeds would have to be using the "enemy spawning" = 0 flag already present.

[Roland]

3 hours ago, salajones said:

It's because I run 20+ forges and 10+ cement mixers.

 

Wow..I see a couple of ways you could eliminate screamers at the level you experience them without a need for mod or game option...

 

11 hours ago, salajones said:

Even on a normal playthrough I don't enjoy the witch mechanic at all. It just feels like I'm being punished for playing the game since they are attracted when you use forges, cement mixes, chem stations, or using tools.

 

On a normal playthrough there is absolutely no necessity for the level of industry you are employing. I can see you needing speedy production for nightly horde nights but even then instead of building one huge factory you could make multiple smaller factories that spread out the heat and result in fewer screamers at any one location.

 

When playing normally, you can acheive necessary production speed waaaaay below 20 forges and 10 mixers...lol.

 

You are choosing to build a huge beacon and then complaining that there are too many moths. I'm not arguing against an option to exclude screamers or demolishers or dogs or whatever as I think those would be great options but in the meantime you could easily adapt and avoid this situation you are describing.

[Roland]

 

10 hours ago, Sjustus548 said:

I'm always surprised at the difference players see in the number of screamer spawns.

 

9 hours ago, Ramethzer0 said:

It always amazes me when I hear about folks that never see any screamers spawn ever.

 

I'm not. The difference is clearly and completely due to level of industry between players. I hardly ever see screamers myself. But in my last playthrough I was worried that maybe my game was bugged so I crafted 20 campfires and put 30 minutes worth of fuel in each one and lit them and soon I had  waves of screamers coming.

 

The problem is that not everyone, who complains about either not seeing enough screamers or who complains about seeing too many, discloses how many forges, campfires, mixers, chem stations, and augering they are doing.

 

In a normal playthrough I usually have two of everything and I don't usually have all of them running at the same time. I use a pickaxe most of the time to mine and don't often use an auger. So I rarely see screamers. People who see screamers a lot are going to be those who have five or more of each workstation and have them all running at once. 

 

20 forges and 10 mixers is an insane level of production all concentrated in one spot. It is no suprise the heat map is always triggering screamers. I would argue that for the default game it is rightly so because there should be consequences for choices. Maybe screamers will be the least of our worries. It could be in A21 if you've got 20 forges and 10 mixers going at once you also attract bandits who will come and raid your forges of all your stuff....

 

I know....an option to remove bandits...

 

[PoppaSmirk]

Hmm,  I don't know what to say to this.   Part of Me wants to find offense at the general naming of the screamers as witches,  since I know a few in Real Life.   Not sure if I should be upset for them here,  but, discretionary naming aside;  I agree,  I have had a Player in My RNW worlds that has a tendency to slap up torches on every wall,   I came back into the base one day after a two day adventure out of town for looting,  and I walk in to see the place lit up with  ( I counted later as I was taking them DOWN),  a total of 47 torches,  and He wondered why he had no peace while we were gone,  saying that the Screamers kept showing up every 90 game time minutes,  almost like clockwork.  Forges, Torches,  anything using fuel,  adds to the HEAT,  not in temperature but in how "attractive"  the activity in your base is to zombs,  and raising the chance of screamers coming in to snoop.     Personally I have never run more than 3 Forges in a base,  but since I often play multiplayer,  the friends I play with will often set a landclaim in a nearby POI a few building spaces away from Main base,  then run additional 1-2 forges there.   Maybe such an idea will work for yourself and your friends as well.

[Sjustus548]

6 hours ago, salajones said:

It's because I run 20+ forges and 10+ cement mixers.

That is a crazy amount of production you have going on there.  No wonder we don't see the level of screamers that you do lol.  I can think of two different methods to deal with this.  One would be to have a separate room slightly away from your base and underground to do all this production in.  On the ground floor dig a 3 block deep hole with a concrete floor.  On the sides put smg turrets facing into the hole so when the screamers spawn and go towards the source of the heat they will jump in the hole and be quickly killed.  That will only work if they don't see you running around before jumping in the hole.  Another option, I'm not sure if you would consider this cheating or not, would be to find the "chunk" borders, or whatever this game calls them.  Basically wherever the corner of 4 chunks meet and then split your setup between the four different chunks.  That way the heat buildup is spread between those four different areas and will build up slower.  Not sure if any of those will work for you but hopefully you can find a solution to your screamer problem.

[Ramethzer0]

6 hours ago, salajones said:

 

It's because I run 20+ forges and 10+ cement mixers. 

Good lawds, my dude.   How do you even?

[OneManStanding]

My brother advised me at the start to use wooden spike traps as fuel in the campfires, chemistry station and forges, as they burn for something like 12 minutes at a time but only count as a single plank toward the heatmap. That said, not sure if it'll help with that many forges on the go.