Can't clear all the zombies

[Damian]

I kill every zombie at a location but it doesn't show the checkmark. I bang on stuff for hours to try and attract them but only ones from outside the location show up. I search the buildings from top to bottom over and over to make sure that I didn't miss one that is trapped in a room somewhere. It happens with Clear, Infested and Fetch/Clear quests but not every time. It's happened like 25 times now. Am I missing something ? I only play solo.

[warmer]

I had a crawler stuck in a wall/basement ground on a clear quest. I only found him because he would growl when I got close.

 

When in doubt bring the whole house down. If that doesnt do it nothing will.

 

I haven't had that issue myself, but MOST of the time its a vulture on the roof I can't find easily.

Edited June 22, 2023 by warmer (see edit history)

[Khissi]

Apparently, some of the new/refurbished POIs now have a required action to spawn in some of the zombies as in, falling through a trapped ceiling or walking a certain pathway.  I don't like it, honestly, since I prefer stealth/ninja gameplay and don't always follow their paths, but, this is what I've seen happening so, there's that.

 

Edit*  About the best way to circumvent losing your spawns this way is to always follow the light path.  This means you'll wind up running into stuff you don't particularly WANT to run into, but once we learn the POIs we'll find ways around getting so horribly ambushed just to stay on their pathway.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Khissi
additional information (see edit history)

[Damian]

56 minutes ago, Khissi said:

Apparently, some of the new/refurbished POIs now have a required action to spawn in some of the zombies as in, falling through a trapped ceiling or walking a certain pathway.  I don't like it, honestly, since I prefer stealth/ninja gameplay and don't always follow their paths, but, this is what I've seen happening so, there's that.

 

Edit*  About the best way to circumvent losing your spawns this way is to always follow the light path.  This means you'll wind up running into stuff you don't particularly WANT to run into, but once we learn the POIs we'll find ways around getting so horribly ambushed just to stay on their pathway.

What's the light path ? 

[Ailin]

There are also spawns tied to buttons, the zombies literally dont exist until you press them. I looked through a door window in the T5 Popnpills empty room, tapped the button next to it, watched a mutated phase into existence. Theres also a point near the end of Red Mesa where you walk through a door and a shutter opens and a horde rushes you. If you go through the shutter door its the cafeteria that you LITERALLY JUST CLEARED. So if any of these buttons or triggers break / fail your quest is just doomed, cant even fix it with debug cheats.

[pApA^LeGBa]

I had that happen too. Turns out it was zombies on a drop ceiling that only trigger once you are past them, but i took another route. That mechanic is so stupid. I can even blow up a grenade right beyond them and they won´t wake up.

[RipClaw]

I have the same problem with Fort Camo at the moment. The button to open the hatch didn't work and one zombie won't spawn. I see the yellow marker but it is not there.

 

[ElCabong]

You have to do something to spawn the zombie. On one I had to open the garage door. Open doors, press buttons...Do things

[ElCabong]

In the bowling alley I had to jump through a hole in the wall at the beginning that I could have gone around to spawn a Z. It's the room too the left you see beside the pool tables.

[RipClaw]

21 minutes ago, ElCabong said:

You have to do something to spawn the zombie. On one I had to open the garage door. Open doors, press buttons...Do things

I did a lot of stuff but the zombies wouldn't spawn. I also looked at the POI in the prefab editor. Actually a button should open a vault hatch but this button was not active. It is activated as part of a Restore Power Quest but this was an Infestation Quest.
 

[Damian]

I'll give all of that stuff a try. Thank you very much for your replies.

[slicksister]

To get around this problem, The Fun Pimps should program a default trigger to all such spawn groups.  So that once the POIs zombie count is reduced to some low threshold, all unspawned zombies are created and left in a sleeping or waiting stance.  Non-existing zombies may be a necessity for performance reasons, but once the numbers become managable, they should be spawned in by default and not require any specific pathing triggers.

[Gideon]

9 minutes ago, slicksister said:

To get around this problem, The Fun Pimps should program a default trigger to all such spawn groups.  So that once the POIs zombie count is reduced to some low threshold, all unspawned zombies are created and left in a sleeping or waiting stance.  Non-existing zombies may be a necessity for performance reasons, but once the numbers become managable, they should be spawned in by default and not require any specific pathing triggers.

I would go a step farther, and have the POI spawn in all zombies in sleeper mode as soon as you enter the location. Let their stealth detection mechanics rule if they react to the player or not. If the player makes a lot of noise, let them wake the whole darned thing up and get swamped. Zombies that fall out of the ceiling? Well, rework the collapsing tile logic so that they only fall down when something is on them and that something moves, rather than just when touched. When the players leave a POI for a certain amount of time, despawn all the active and inactive zombies in it to save memory overhead. Re-spawn a new set the next time players enter the POI. You can even delay spawning by a certain amount of time to account for players just traveling through a POI area.

 

If the game can't handle spawning in a few zombies like this, well, I don't know what to tell you. How does it manage to handle continually spawning a bunch of zombies in the Blood Moon? I suspect this is more of a "we don't want the players to get overwhelmed by enemies" thing rather than a real technical limitation.

 

It's okay to the let the players get in over their heads and be overwhelmed. It's okay to the let the players deviate from the designated course and find clever ways to defeat a challenge. Don't be the type of DM that railroads the players, protects the players from failure, and punishes creativity. Don't be the kind of game developer that does the same in a sandbox game.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Gideon (see edit history)

[Thunder]

11 hours ago, Damian said:

I kill every zombie at a location but it doesn't show the checkmark. I bang on stuff for hours to try and attract them but only ones from outside the location show up. I search the buildings from top to bottom over and over to make sure that I didn't miss one that is trapped in a room somewhere. It happens with Clear, Infested and Fetch/Clear quests but not every time. It's happened like 25 times now. Am I missing something ? I only play solo.

A long time ago, when I first started playing, like almost 2 years ago it would seem, I had the same problem.  It seemed like every clear quest would never end.  I think my game was messed up and I had to do that verify files thing to fix it.  Even after it was working again I avoided clear quests for a long time because I didn't want to waste my time in them in case they wouldn't finish.

 

I do them all the time now, and I can't remember one not working since the verify files thing.  Now, I forget my courier satchel all the time and get a failed quest as I'm motoring back to the trader to get my reward.

 

In my opinion, both quests still suffer from a very, very broken design.  Clear quests should be a certain number of zombies, about 10% less than the total number of zombies.  Fetch quests (really all quests) should warn you when you leave the zone and give you a certain number of seconds, say 10, to get back in the zone before you fail.

 

Now that I'm thinking about it, I might have reinstalled to fix the clear thing, but I would certainly recommend starting with the verify files thing first.  

[Damian]

I started going room to room and destroying everything with my sledgehammer.  It worked the first two times but then it happened again. The quest wouldn't complete and I destroyed EVERYTHING from basement to roof in every place I could find. It was a huge Tier IV too so I spent a lot of time on it before I gave up. . I'm really getting sick and tired of wasting so much time.

[Ailin]

4 hours ago, Thunder said:

A long time ago, when I first started playing, like almost 2 years ago it would seem, I had the same problem.  It seemed like every clear quest would never end.  I think my game was messed up and I had to do that verify files thing to fix it.  Even after it was working again I avoided clear quests for a long time because I didn't want to waste my time in them in case they wouldn't finish.

 

I do them all the time now, and I can't remember one not working since the verify files thing.  Now, I forget my courier satchel all the time and get a failed quest as I'm motoring back to the trader to get my reward.

 

In my opinion, both quests still suffer from a very, very broken design.  Clear quests should be a certain number of zombies, about 10% less than the total number of zombies.  Fetch quests (really all quests) should warn you when you leave the zone and give you a certain number of seconds, say 10, to get back in the zone before you fail.

 

Now that I'm thinking about it, I might have reinstalled to fix the clear thing, but I would certainly recommend starting with the verify files thing first.  

Neither quest should have a tether fail state to be fair. The trader either wants all the zombies dead or a supply bag grabbed. Why does he care or even know the methods used for this. Its not like they follow us with a film crew as part of some sleek reality tv show or something. Its gameifying things for arbitrary reasons. The only fail state thats suitable is for death because "you done @%$#ed up".

And now that ive said this outloud would it be possible to set a quest fail range to like 10,000M or something so that you physically cant with a xml edit?

[Damian]

I'm currently in Higashi Tower, Tier V Fetch/Clear, found both satchels and have been from the lobby to the roof THREE times and it just won't end. If I have to throw away all of the time I spent on this quest then I'm done with the game. Is there some secret area in this POI ? There is no attic or basement. I even went into God mode and searched the whole building that way.

[Survior]

A seriously awful mechanic that requires players to activate a trap that can be avoided to get the spawns to finish a quest.

 

[Khissi]

1 hour ago, Survior said:

A seriously awful mechanic that requires players to activate a trap that can be avoided to get the spawns to finish a quest.

 

Absolutely agree with this.  I don't mind triggered sleepers that wake and start searching for you because a bit of brain power lets you find a way to get to them before waking them.  This, though, is very different.  The zombies don't even spawn into the POI until the trigger is activated and, if you've found a way to move past that trigger, they just don't happen at all causing the quest to fail. I wonder if we're being forced into playing a certain way (heavy armor spray and pray) and only ever following the designated path?  Seriously?  I shall pout and be horribly despondent! I played that way when I first started a few thousand hours ago.  Stealth, however, is something that must be worked at, carefully managed, learning each POI to find the best way of seeing each sleeping zombie so you get a viable, silent head shot.  This is just annoying.

 

Light Path:

Every POI has a 'path' usually indicated by 'light' which can be a torch, lantern, flashlight, etc.  As long as you stay on that path, only turning off for broken/slatted doors which are meant to be axed and explored, then you should find every sleeper and eventually get to the main loot.  I say should because with all the new POIs I can't say if it's still this way, but, it used to be and, so far as I've been playing a21, seems to still work.

Edited June 23, 2023 by Khissi
additional information for Damian (see edit history)

[Damian]

I exited the game and verified the files. When I logged back in the quest had reset even though I was still in the tower. Higashi Tier V, I spent the entire day on it. So that's it for me. I'll check back for 22 and see what people are saying but for now I'm done wasting hours on this game. It's just not worth it..

[DEAk0n]

I have had two(2) Tier V Infested Clear quests fail in a row, Camp Quonset, and Fort Camo, because the buttons to open the hatches were non-operational. This has gotten to the point of I'm considering dropping the game until A22. Nothing I have tried has fixed the issue.