Should the PoI guide lights be gone?

[Slingblade2040]

I would love to see those things removed as they don't need to be there and just make the dungeons worse. they just dumb down the game more and more as it just continues the trend of hand holding that's been going on for the past few alphas.  yes I know they have been there for there since about alpha 17 but they should have been gone once alpha 18 or 19 hit. They have more or less killed off the exploration of entire Poi's and quests have all but killed the need to look for other traders and other cities.

 

I know folks will say add mods or whatever but if that is the answer to most of this games issues or problems then maybe the pimps need to open this game up to the steam workshop to allow for better addition of mods for the community.  Just seems every alpha is a step backwards as far as exploration, difficulty and customization go in this game in favor of dumbing it down further and further. No this is about someone playing this game for a long time some of us are just good at games and haven't had much issues since our first few hours of playing this game. 

[Khyron]

The lights are there because some people want to take the route the devs designed, meanwhile other people just go "LOL LIGHTS" and then smash in the doors with a sledgehammer and bust everything up.

 

Play your own way, but I think the lights are a good idea. I follow the intended path so I don't miss zombies when clearing stuff; it's more interesting and immersive than a glowing yellow dot appearing on the HUD compass to show me where to go next.

[Laz Man]

Believe it or not, lighting is a very important part of level design.  Although the world is fully destructible and players can bulldoze their way in however they like, there is an optimal path to take for questing and to ensure a high quality experience...😎

[canadianbluebeer]

They're also there to remind you/show you that...

 

"They're waiting for you Gordon.."

"on the ledge Gordon.."

😛

 

(roof/ledge.. doesn't matter. They're waiting...)

 

[zztong]

Do you mean lights placed around the POI, or do you mean the "hints" that show you were to find the last of the zombies when you're on a "Clear" quest?

[8_Hussars]

 

17 hours ago, Slingblade2040 said:

I would love to see those things removed as they don't need to be there and just make the dungeons worse. they just dumb down the game more and more as it just continues the trend of hand holding that's been going on for the past few alphas. 

 

 

FWIW I generally ignore the lights or glance over them entirely, unless of course I get turned around, then they can be handy.  I like both randomly exploring POIs and dungeon crawls depending on mood.  However, I also appreciate that POI designers are providing an experience, and the environmental storytelling requires that be experienced in a somewhat linear fashion and I try to allow the designers to provide that experience to myself.

Notwithstanding, the complaints about not being able to clear it, the building on its side is a marvelous POI.
 

17 hours ago, Slingblade2040 said:

I know folks will say add mods or whatever but if that is the answer to most of this games issues or problems then maybe the pimps need to open this game up to the steam workshop to allow for better addition of mods for the community.

Arguably the breadcrumb lights are not "issues or problems".  Mods are a solution to play style, feel, and experience and immersion expectations, not to game issues.  They are often suggested to provide that desired experience.  The dedicated authors of the overhauls mods and QOL mods get the TFP support already.  The steam workshop adds no value, other than to enable Valve to monetize mods at the expense of, and due to, modders efforts.  (Regardless, Steam Workshop support is apparently planned but will not be available until the game goes gold.)

  

17 hours ago, Slingblade2040 said:

No this is about someone playing this game for a long time some of us are just good at games and haven't had much issues since our first few hours of playing this game. 

The game is built for all skill levels.   It seems to be a bit of a leap to suggest that the existence of the breadcrumb lights relates to player skill.

The obvious answer is mod them out if they ruin your experience...

[Rotor]

Never knew that is what it was for.  I just systematically work my way through a building.

[Pernicious]

Can anyone share an example of POI guide lights and how to use them? I may have been missing a major feature of this game. There has been many times in a T5 that I've been lost or missed clearing one area and wandering aimlessly looking for the last spawn.

[theFlu]

38 minutes ago, Pernicious said:

There has been many times in a T5 that I've been lost or missed clearing one area and wandering aimlessly looking for the last spawn.

They don't exactly solve that problem, the lights are not pointing at absolutely everything. They do cover most though, but especially T5:s have plenty of side rooms you'll have to check.

 

For the OP; I'd rather have the lights than end up with quest icons taking their place - it seems TFP want to have plenty of guidance for questing and I'd be afraid they'd just add more HUD icons if the lights were removed.

 

I would rather solve the route puzzles myself, but as long as guidance is "required", the lights are a decent looking option - even if they're sometimes a bit out of place (random lanterns on building ledges..).

[zztong]

44 minutes ago, Pernicious said:

Can anyone share an example of POI guide lights and how to use them? I may have been missing a major feature of this game. There has been many times in a T5 that I've been lost or missed clearing one area and wandering aimlessly looking for the last spawn.

 

I think they mean things like flashlights sitting on the ground pointing to something like a sewer entrance which can be easy to overlook. Or maybe something as obvious as a halogen work light pointing to a big hole in a wall. These often are used to give hints to a "dungeon path",  "intended path", or "suckers path" (depending on your world view) the POI designer wishes the player to take through the POI.

 

The other possibility is they mean the little orange breadcrumb spheres that tell you when there's a zombie volume left somewhere else in the building. Those exist because in a large POI it is super frustrating to reach the end and be unable to find the last zombie, which might have been hiding in a closet somewhere on the 13th floor.

[doughphunghus]

49 minutes ago, Pernicious said:

Can anyone share an example of POI guide lights and how to use them?

usually its a lit torch or lantern/table lamp on its side that's right beside a door or a hole, usually illuminating the door/hole. usually.  you can also sometimes find them onm teh outside of a POI right next to an open door. not all lights are guide lights but if you start/enter a POI at the "proper place" and then look around you usually/sometimes see one light thats highliting an "area" when there's multiple options for a path.  It would be like a hallway with 4 doors and 1 door has a light near/shining on it, or a T shaped hallway and one hallway is lit when you get to the intersection.

[Pernicious]

Ah, thanks guys, so much more subtle that I thought. The way OP was describing them, I thought he meant they were only just shy of "follow the yellow brick road" guide to starting and finishing a POI.

[pApA^LeGBa]

@Slingblade2040 No need to be removed, that´s simply a experienced player "problem". Most new players don´t even recognize the lights as a guide and as we can see here even people who played a fair share didn´t know that. 

 

And steamworkshop is a bad idea during development. Steamworkshop can be good to have, but even in many games that are finished it is a hot mess of outdated mods. Wich would get even worse if a game is still in development.

Edited July 23, 2022 by pApA^LeGBa (see edit history)

[enkephalin07]

This is funny, I learned to recognize the devs' intended path without noticing the lights, except where blatantly placed, like the beam of a conveniently abandoned flashlight. Now I see them all over.

[NoaAldritt]

As Papa Legba says, This is one of those things where if you didn't know about it/hadn't been told about it, You'd probably never think about it or notice it. AKA, an experienced player problem- In fact, I'd even class it as a "players who look up information/hints/videos about the game to get an edge" problem. A player might notice this kind of thing after hundreds if not thousands of hours; But without outside confirmation it's a hypothesis- not a fact.

Most people don't even notice the guide lights for what they are- They're placed pretty spectacularly in a way that is noticed largely on a subconscious level and that is unobtrusive to the casual player as it highlights paths and directions. It'd be kinda boring if every room were pitch black and unlit after all. 

Overall, I think they're fine. Even knowing about them and their purpose I don't often take notice of them unless I'm hunting for electrical parts- and thus dismantling every single one I see. 

[zztong]

3 hours ago, NoaAldritt said:

Most people don't even notice the guide lights for what they are- They're placed pretty spectacularly in a way that is noticed largely on a subconscious level and that is unobtrusive to the casual player as it highlights paths and directions.

 

There are two other uses for lights and that probably makes it harder for folks to associate them with a path. As you say, designers use light for ambiance. They also use light as an obstacle for stealth.

[Syphon583]

12 hours ago, zztong said:

 

There are two other uses for lights and that probably makes it harder for folks to associate them with a path. As you say, designers use light for ambiance. They also use light as an obstacle for stealth.

It might not be true 100% of the time, but "intended path" lighting is typically a flashlight, lantern, or other sort of spot light that highlights a feature that could otherwise be easily overlooked/missed. The ambient lighting generally doesn't highlight those features in the same way. Again, probably not a hard and fast rule, but from my experience the level designers do a pretty good job of separating the two.

 

Now a couple of the new POIs for A20 have an "open dungeon" concept, which have an intended path, but they're outdoor areas as opposed to a typical indoor dungeon (thinking specifically of the drive-in theater and the housing development). Admittedly these were harder to follow, either because the beginning of the path was not clearly marked (the housing development) or halfway through an enemy encounter takes your attention away from opening doors, and therefore when you're done killing the z's, you had to search around for what was now open to you that wasn't open before. These aren't necessarily bad, and in fact I rather like these new POIs, but they're unique from pretty much every other questable POI, so it took some time and exploration to figure it out.

 

On 7/23/2022 at 3:18 PM, zztong said:

The other possibility is they mean the little orange breadcrumb spheres that tell you when there's a zombie volume left somewhere else in the building. Those exist because in a large POI it is super frustrating to reach the end and be unable to find the last zombie, which might have been hiding in a closet somewhere on the 13th floor.

That orange indicator is nice especially for the reason you stated. If part of the quest is to clear the POI, missing a volume in a huge T5 would be frustrating to find if it weren't for the orange dot. However, the dot only appears for the last volume that hasn't been cleared yet. The nice thing about following the intended path is that your chances of missing a volume are much lower since the level designers' path ensures you visit every space in the building (you still need to take the time to check every corner and side room of a volume before continuing on). That way, by the time you reach the loot room, that will hopefully be the only volume not cleared. Otherwise you might find yourself snaking your way through Dishong Tower to kill those last couple zombies.

[zztong]

15 minutes ago, Syphon583 said:

However, the dot only appears for the last volume that hasn't been cleared yet.

 

Just trivia... it is configurable. The "ShowQuestClearCount" value in the POI's XML file controls when the dots show. The number represents the number of uncleared zombie volumes that will trigger the dots showing up. Most POIs have a value of 1 (which matches your observation) but larger POIs set it higher. Zero is also a valid value.

[enkephalin07]

57 minutes ago, zztong said:

 

Just trivia... it is configurable. The "ShowQuestClearCount" value in the POI's XML file controls when the dots show.

That's interesting, but where are the POI.xml files? I've looked through data/config, app/roaming's data directories and saved regions (only binary files there.) Do you need an exporter/converter?

[Syphon583]

1 hour ago, zztong said:

 

Just trivia... it is configurable. The "ShowQuestClearCount" value in the POI's XML file controls when the dots show. The number represents the number of uncleared zombie volumes that will trigger the dots showing up. Most POIs have a value of 1 (which matches your observation) but larger POIs set it higher. Zero is also a valid value.

I had no idea they could do that. That's cool!

[BFT2020]

1 hour ago, enkephalin07 said:

That's interesting, but where are the POI.xml files? I've looked through data/config, app/roaming's data directories and saved regions (only binary files there.) Do you need an exporter/converter?

 

No exporter.  There should be a POI file folder in the data folder.  Data/Config is more system level data files while Data/POI is specific to POIs.  I might be off on the location as I can't confirm from work, but I recall seeing it before.

[zztong]

2 hours ago, enkephalin07 said:

That's interesting, but where are the POI.xml files? I've looked through data/config, app/roaming's data directories and saved regions (only binary files there.) Do you need an exporter/converter?

 

For Vanilla POIs...

Steam / steamapps / common / 7 Days To Die / Data / Prefabs / POIs / abandoned_house_02.xml

 

For a Modlet's POIs...

%APPDATA% / Roaming /  7DaysToDie / Mods / ZZTong-Prefabs / Prefabs / POIs / enkephalin07_house_01.xml

 

Obviously, "ZZTong-Prefabs" becomes whichever modlet you want to look into.

 

XML files are text files, so any text editor can open them. I recommend using something that is XML aware so that you get some syntax highlighting. The other 5 files that go with a POI are binary files of various standards.

 

[RyanX]

Quick elephant in the room:

 

How are the lights even operating at this point?  There shouldn't even be lamps operating this long after an apocalypse.  Yet another immersion breaker.  I'm sure there are plenty of pretend theories that really don't make sense to follow.

[theFlu]

37 minutes ago, RyanX said:

Yet another immersion breaker.

You're right, of course; but a couple functional lights is so far down the list of "time warp / continuity" issues in the game that I'd rephrase that as "Just another immersion breaker" .. it's one of the things we just learn to live with

[zztong]

4 hours ago, RyanX said:

How are the lights even operating at this point?  There shouldn't even be lamps operating this long after an apocalypse.  Yet another immersion breaker.  I'm sure there are plenty of pretend theories that really don't make sense to follow.

 

Yeh, I have no idea. This is the kind of thing I think about if I end up mining.

 

I think it depends on how long ago you assert the apocalypse was and what it involved. The game sends conflicting messages about how long that has been. Lights powered by a semi-functional electrical grid to me suggest the apocalypse was yesterday and the nuclear weapons used were very limited in number and scale. Other things in-game suggest to me the apocalypse was several years ago.

 

I cannot reconcile the observations and that's kind of fun in its own way. It's a mystery.

 

I do like "reality" in games. I don't expect perfection. Its easier for me to gloss over lore. Its harder for me to gloss over things not working in a way that leads to realistic decisions and outcomes. For instance:

 

• I can gloss over the notion that 10-year old gasoline can still run a motor even though that gas would be useless in reality.
• I can roll my eyes and go along with the notion that a survivor can dig up a backyard somewhere, take the dirt, and refine it into gasoline. Because I can rationalize this as making an alcohol-fueled car and that he's really distilling alcohol.
• I could not gloss over gas pumps that pumped out hotdogs and that people flocked to pumps for their livelihood.

I can also concede there is no "perfect" when it comes to representing reality in a game and that to make a game of things they sometimes have to conveniently reinterpret things. Immersion breaks for us all at different points.

 

Personally, I have to ignore the idea nuclear weapons were used. The presence of irradiated zombies does not scream "nuclear weapon" to me, plus things like a semi-functional grid. But I could see where a nuclear power plant failed in a spectacular way.

 

Fascinating stuff. I could chat about this for hours.

Edited July 29, 2022 by zztong (see edit history)