Another Screamer complaint, or "Why artificial difficulty is poor game design"

[Old Crow]

Just going to get right to the point here - Screamers on day 1, the moment you start up a campfire, is just @%$#ing player hostile. It's not fun, it's awful game design, and it's not "challenge". It's artificial difficulty at its worst, and tells me the designers hate their players.

 

There used to be, if I recall, a "grace period" of sorts where Screamers wouldn't start appearing for so many days when you first started the game. Now you can get your very own "We Have Blood Moon Horde at Home" on Day 1? This needs to be changed. There's challenge and then there's just hatefulness.

[Riamus]

As I said in the other thread, if you see them on day 1, it would likely be a bug.  Report it with a log so they can look into it.  It should not be easy to get heat up high enough on day 1.  You won't be in one place for long periods of time and have no workstations other than campfires and no guns, making it hard to build enough heat.

[YourMirror]

There are no screamers on day 1 as you light your first campfire. Stop making stuff up or report a bug as Riamus said. Becoming pathetic.

[pApA^LeGBa]

Never happened on day 1 so far even with 2 camp fires and a torch. Would also recommend a bug report.

Edited October 6 by pApA^LeGBa (see edit history)

[Mister Forgash]

Couple weeks ago, I had a screamer during the overnight between day 1 and 2.. after a very lucky day of scavenging, I was able to craft a forge by the end of the day and get a cooking grate/pot thrown together. Screamer smelled me grilling and started calling all 'er buddies.  .. Didn't feel so lucky any more.
.. Anyhow, yeah, I think it's a bit too easy to end up with a screamer or two, hope the spawn in formula gets some tweaks.

[RipClaw]

15 hours ago, Riamus said:

It should not be easy to get heat up high enough on day 1.  You won't be in one place for long periods of time and have no workstations other than campfires and no guns, making it hard to build enough heat.

It's not quite like that. The other day I got a screamer just from looting shelves. No gun was fired and there where no other sources of heat.. The sound when the shelf goes from ‘loot available’ to ‘shelf is empty’ is a metallic clang that you can also hear when you destroy metal blocks. This sound generates a lot of heat.

Since 25% is already enough to spawn a screamer, it is possible to generate the necessary heat just by looting shelves.
 

[theFlu]

21 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

The sound when the shelf goes from ‘loot available’ to ‘shelf is empty’ is a metallic clang that you can also hear when you destroy metal blocks. This sound generates a lot of heat.

While you're probably correct in that looting shelves makes a lot of heat, I doubt it's "the sound". The looting event destroys the block and it downgrades to the empty shelf. Destroying the iron shelf causes the heat. I doubt banging on the lid of a metal trashcan (similar sound effect on open/close) causes that much heat, although I have Not tested it.

 

More generally, as far as I know, the sound effects don't cause heat, they're just bound to same events on occasion, so they correlate. But the sound design isn't greatly indicative of .. well, anything 😛 

[RipClaw]

10 minutes ago, theFlu said:

More generally, as far as I know, the sound effects don't cause heat, they're just bound to same events on occasion, so they correlate. But the sound design isn't greatly indicative of .. well, anything 😛 

 

The heat values are specified in the sounds.xml file. e.g. 

 

heat_map_strength="1.42" heat_map_time="90"

 

<SoundDataNode name="metaldestroy"> <AudioSource name="Sounds/AudioSource_Impact"/>
       <Noise ID="0" noise="20" time="3" muffled_when_crouched="0.65" heat_map_strength="1.42" heat_map_time="90"/>
       <AudioClip ClipName="Sounds/DestroyBlock/metaldestroy1"/>
       <AudioClip ClipName="Sounds/DestroyBlock/metaldestroy2"/>
       <AudioClip ClipName="Sounds/DestroyBlock/metaldestroy3"/>
       <LowestPitch name="0.9"/>
       <HighestPitch name="1.1"/>
       <LocalCrouchVolumeScale value="0.5"/> <CrouchNoiseScale value="0.5"/> <NoiseScale value="1"/> <MaxVoices value="10"/> <MaxRepeatRate value="0.01"/> </SoundDataNode>

 

Edited October 6 by RipClaw (see edit history)

[theFlu]

32 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

The heat values are specified in the sounds.xml file. e.g. 

Umm, yeah. Sorry, I guess I was being too vague there, to the point of wrong perhaps. Kinda meant that the "perceived loudness" of a sound effect has no correlation to the heat map.

 

The sound itself is "just a sound file", some of them come with associated heat, like your sample of "metaldestroy".

But something like <SoundDataNode name="rollingtrashbin_close"> can sound pretty much exactly the same to the player, without causing any heat. They could even use literally the same sound files, with one causing heat and the other not.

 

heat_map_strength="1.42", is that really just 16 shelves (plus a jump) to get to 25 and a possible screamer?

[ElCabong]

I have the solution. Get rid of screamers bring back wasps that make them pick you up and drop you someplace at random. When the pimpsters implement weather,  you wind up in a place that you're not prepared for yet can survive if you are lucky and do the right thing

[Old Crow]

9 hours ago, YourMirror said:

There are no screamers on day 1 as you light your first campfire. Stop making stuff up or report a bug as Riamus said. Becoming pathetic.

 

Why exactly would I make this up?

[RipClaw]

10 hours ago, YourMirror said:

There are no screamers on day 1 as you light your first campfire. Stop making stuff up or report a bug as Riamus said. Becoming pathetic.

What makes you so confident that it can't happen? The campfire alone does not generate enough heat, but it may well be that other actions have increased the heat to over 25%. That is enough to spawn a screamer.

 

There is also other possibility. Some POIs spawn a screamer as a sleeper zombie. Is not a scout and cannot spawn other zombies, but it can scare you. For example, I know of a construction site POI with a screamer.

[Paiper Zombee]

On 10/6/2024 at 12:38 AM, YourMirror said:

There are no screamers on day 1 as you light your first campfire. Stop making stuff up or report a bug as Riamus said. Becoming pathetic.

I can attest that this DID happen on day 1 because I play on the same server it happened on. Just because it's never happened to YOU doesn't mean it can't and did happen.

 

Personally, I think it's time for Screamers to be reverted back to how they were before the update. I don't recall anybody ever saying "You know, Screamers are too easy. I think they need to be buffed so if the player even farts, that'll create enough heat for them to show up."

 

If this change was made to up the difficulty and/or add more challenge, I'm sorry to say it has bellyflopped hard for me as a player. The Screamer change has made me NOT want to do the things that I know will bring them, especially with the cooldown between their summonings being non-existent now, because I don't want to deal with the artificial headache it brings.

 

Want to get water? Skip the obvious taking it from a body of water to boil and store. Nope. Go make this device that drip feeds you water and, for some bizarre reason, generates a lot of heat. So much so that having more than 2 collectors in the same area is a good way to ensure Screamers will show up on a routine basis.

 

Want to cook? Better make sure those dew collector are full and not generating heat before you do so, AND you better not cook for an extended period of time or else Screamin' Mimi and her sisters will show up.

 

Want to forge? Better make sure the dew collectors are full and you run nothing else but that one forge. Hell, with as long as it takes for the forge to smelt materials and create them, running it for a certain amount of time (just like a campfire) will reward the player with multiple Screamers.

 

Want to mine? Better make sure it's only coal or nitrate and not iron or lead. Ten hits in on either of those will guarantee Screamers. And since there's no cooldown on their summonings anymore, the player can look forward to new Screamers showing up as soon as they return to mining after killing the previous batch.

 

All of the above are instances I've been in personally and have gotten these results. If nothing else, players should be allowed to control how much heat is needed before a Screamer will show up, just like how they can control feral sense, zombie movement speed, and block damage. If not, then it looks like it's time to find a mod that reverts Screamers back to their original state or deletes them from the game entirely.

 

 

[Javabean867]

Are you sure there isn't a cool down?  Pretty sure I read that there was?

 

And I too had a screamer tge night of day 1.  Just like another player I git a forge day 1, a dew collector and was trying to cook some food.  

 

It was a great day 1 until the screamer showed up.

[FramFramson]

Surprised no one's made a mod yet to revert screamer spawn chance.

[pApA^LeGBa]

3 minutes ago, FramFramson said:

Surprised no one's made a mod yet to revert screamer spawn chance.

 

Khaine did a mod where they only spawn at 100% heat. It´s a guaranteed spawn then though.

Edited October 13 by pApA^LeGBa (see edit history)

[FramFramson]

Ah, Khaine and his never-ending modlets, bless his cotton socks.

[ElCabong]

Screamers are spawning too often. 

[Riamus]

2 hours ago, Javabean867 said:

Are you sure there isn't a cool down?  Pretty sure I read that there was?

 

And I too had a screamer tge night of day 1.  Just like another player I git a forge day 1, a dew collector and was trying to cook some food.  

 

It was a great day 1 until the screamer showed up.

Yeah, once they spawn, they should not spawn again for 21 real time minutes IIRC.  But that is only in the same area.  So if they spawn at your base, they won't spawn there again for a while.  But they could still spawn at your mine if that is not next to your base.  At least, that is my understanding.  I've gotten used to them and don't really pay them any attention.  At most, they are just a minor annoyance if I'm busy and don't yet have anything set up to automatically kill them for me.

[InfiniteWarrior]

11 hours ago, Paiper Zombee said:

If nothing else, players should be allowed to control how much heat is needed before a Screamer will show up, just like how they can control feral sense, zombie movement speed, and block damage.

That's what I've been thinking. Provide options to turn them on and off; number of screamers allowed at once; and/or to determine the heat index at which they'll spawn. Guessing (yes, it is a guess) the change was made in the first place for multiplayer considerations. The game is, no doubt, way too easy for teams of players. There probably won't be a solution satisfactory to everyone and balancing screamer spawns for both single player and multiplayer must be tough, but the sheer frequency of screamer spawns and the fact that two spawn at once actually caused me to test a mod that gets rid of them altogether. I didn't find them a "minor annoyance," but a major one and didn't feel like I could get anything accomplished otherwise, from clearing a POI to base construction, for fighting screamers and/or their hordes.

[zombiehunter]

I recently had a case where I was running a couple of forges, dew collectors, and cement mixers.  Not surprisingly, screamers spawned.  Not one, not two, not three, but SEVEN screamers.  Needless to say, it took a while to clear out all of the Zs they summoned, but SEVEN???  Really?

 

Another thing I've noticed is they don't even have to scream anymore to summon their minions.  I've had many cases where I was able to kill them before they screamed, yet the minions still came.

 

The screamer system is broken, IMO, and needs to be scaled back, and/or tweaked in some way so that it doesn't feel like a cheap and artificial way to increase difficulty.

[RipClaw]

22 minutes ago, zombiehunter said:

The screamer system is broken, IMO, and needs to be scaled back, and/or tweaked in some way so that it doesn't feel like a cheap and artificial way to increase difficulty.

Maybe it will happen if enough people farm screamers. To quote JaWoodle, if you want something fixed you have to exploit it.

[theFlu]

5 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

To quote JaWoodle, if you want something fixed you have to exploit it.

The real meta was the arms race all along..?

[Roland]

You should put in a bug report with a video of it happening if you can or at the least a screen-shot showing the screamers and the Day number.

 

Not doing so is just @%$#ing dev hostile....😜

Edited October 14 by Roland (see edit history)

[Old Crow]

20 hours ago, Javabean867 said:

Are you sure there isn't a cool down?  Pretty sure I read that there was?

 

And I too had a screamer the night of day 1.  Just like another player I git a forge day 1, a dew collector and was trying to cook some food.  

 

It was a great day 1 until the screamer showed up.

 

They say there is, but it doesn't always seem to be active.

2 hours ago, zombiehunter said:

I recently had a case where I was running a couple of forges, dew collectors, and cement mixers.  Not surprisingly, screamers spawned.  Not one, not two, not three, but SEVEN screamers.  Needless to say, it took a while to clear out all of the Zs they summoned, but SEVEN???  Really?

 

Another thing I've noticed is they don't even have to scream anymore to summon their minions.  I've had many cases where I was able to kill them before they screamed, yet the minions still came.

 

The screamer system is broken, IMO, and needs to be scaled back, and/or tweaked in some way so that it doesn't feel like a cheap and artificial way to increase difficulty.

 

I've noticed that too. They sometimes seem to bring a few minor zombies with them, but if they do happen to get a scream off, it summons a lot more to come running, including additional screamers.

1 hour ago, Roland said:

You should put in a bug report with a video of it happening if you can or at the least a screen-shot showing the screamers and the Day number.

 

Not doing so is just @%$#ing dev hostile....😜

 

God you're freaking smarmy sometimes, dude.