Crazy large zombie spawns

[Sundaysmile]

I’m not sure if this is a bug or feature on the latest experimental build. (I’m playing on the default World settings - btw)

If it is a feature, then are you having a laugh?

This has been my fourteenth play-through in a row (Yes I bloody counted) where I can’t even get near cities because of zombie overpopulation, not to mention GROUPS of Brutes and Hulks hanging around nearly every street corner.
I get that you want to make things more challenging for players down the line when they’ve practically levelled every skill to 10, are equipped with the best weapons, equipment and rolling around in a giant deathwagon. But I can’t even get past the first couple of days without running in at night then getting run down by every zombie and its grandmother within a minute of entering the city limits.

I decided to attach an example of my latest escapade of getting humped by RNG

The listing on the right, is three pages long…

I apologize if this sounds like just another angry rant, because it is. I’m frustrated by the tedium of making new characters again, and again, and again, and again, and again… I get that you want the survival horror element, that you want to instill a sense of dread in the player, but honestly? This just makes me drop the game, not out of fear or apprehension, but out of disappointment and frustration.

[CIB]

First, I recommend you set zombie evolution scaling to 10.0. This will (unintuitively) make zombies take 10 times longer to evolve. The default isn’t balanced, that’s a known issue. Second, if you have hordes enabled, cities effectively become a big no-go area. That’s intentional. If you have an issue with this, I recommend setting zombie spawn scaling to a very low factor, like 0.2 or 0.1.

[Zireael]

Okay, I made a PR for the monster evolution issue. Please support here: https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/pull/14076

CIB, can you explain how it works currently? The wiki is down, but I’d love to know what are the current default times for evolution to kick in…

[CIB]

Updated PR at: https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/pull/14077/files

[quote=“CIB”]Okay, I made a PR for the monster evolution issue. Please support here: https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/pull/14076

CIB, can you explain how it works currently? The wiki is down, but I’d love to know what are the current default times for evolution to kick in…[/quote]

Okay. So each zombie has a half-life defined for their evolution. The evolution time is calculated thus: 5 times there is a 50% chance to increase the evolution time by a value between 0 and half_life days. So the average mean for evolution time is something like 0.25 * half_life + 0.125 * half_life + 0.0625 * half_life + … That’s less than half the half life average evolution time, which is round about 10 days for regular zeds. But a lot of zeds, by pure chance, will have 0 evolution time and upgrade instantly. I changed it so that you have AT LEAST half_life evolution time, and then I also increased the scaling for half life, so now it will take at least a few tens of days to see fully evolved zeds at all.

[Vorchar]

So basically horde spawn scale is now broken. It would be nice to get it fixed so we would not need to play game with spawning set to minimum.

Went to hospital in middle of field. Killed 200 zombies in 3 days with no end to them.

[Sundaysmile]

First, I recommend you set zombie evolution scaling to 10.0. This will (unintuitively) make zombies take 10 times longer to evolve. The default isn’t balanced, that’s a known issue. Second, if you have hordes enabled, cities effectively become a big no-go area. That’s intentional. If you have an issue with this, I recommend setting zombie spawn scaling to a very low factor, like 0.2 or 0.1.

Alright I did some tinkering and that helped a little bit with the evolution, however I’m still seeing MASSIVE spawning of varieties of zombies in urban areas.

One major Culprit seems to be Parks. They are literally overloaded with them, In my current playthrough I found a Gigantic horde of zombies, with three Zombie Brutes and Two Shocker Brutes all supported by a Zombie Necromancer in the core of it. If I feel brave, I’ll try to get close enough with a bundle of Zombie Pheromones to take a screenshot, its quite a sight to see…

They’re all currently smashing the crap out of all nearby buildings next to the park, demolishing them and being resurrected by the Necro when they get hit with the collapse. I wager that city wont last very long…

Another thing I’ve noticed is that Two Coffee Shops in a row have been Swarmed by Zombies of all shapes and sizes… (I’ve not learned that a molotov works wonders in that regard.)

Again, I’m not sure if this is a feature or something unintended but maybe worth a look in?

[Vorchar]

Stuff

With recent changes to horde mechanics, towns are currently a horde magnets. Any nearby horde seems to be beelining towards them when they have nothing else to do. Sounds can pull horde off them so you can usually find towns mostly empty after couple of days but only for a while before horde is pulled back.

What seems to be borked is the amount of zombies that is spawned when hordes are enabled. If you have any spawn amount enabled all static spawns will be merged to horde leading ridiculous amounts of zombies in a horde. So you need to play with very low spawn factor (as pointed out by CIB).

Before this update wander spawn usually spawned one or two zombies here and there and sometimes large group. With the update all these groups are becoming one big ball and that is making hordes seem bigger than before.

Not to mention wander spawns are bugged and they throw like 500 zombie horde at you when you start the game (has been like this even before update).

[kevin.granade]

Not to mention wander spawns are bugged and they throw like 500 zombie horde at you when you start the game (has been like this even before update).

That isn’t a bug, zombies, including in hordes, aren’t created over the course of the game, they are all pre-existing.
If you “luck out” and start close to a big horde, you’re supposed to run.

[Sundaysmile]

[quote=“Vorchar, post:7, topic:10885”]Not to mention wander spawns are bugged and they throw like 500 zombie horde at you when you start the game (has been like this even before update).

That isn’t a bug, zombies, including in hordes, aren’t created over the course of the game, they are all pre-existing.
If you “luck out” and start close to a big horde, you’re supposed to run.[/quote]

Out of curiousity what is the setting which disables horde spawning in the world default?

[Vorchar]

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:8, topic:10885”]That isn’t a bug, zombies, including in hordes, aren’t created over the course of the game, they are all pre-existing.
If you “luck out” and start close to a big horde, you’re supposed to run.[/quote]
Then I might be the unluckiest person as I have never seen anything but 500 zombie hordes near starting if there is town of any size near by. I always run from first town as it has been pretty much alwasy a suicide.

So even the wander spawns can actually run out? There is no wander spawn generation going on?

[kevin.granade]

yep, they have a limited population, though they might actually have a bug at the moment that does cause some growth, there’s a fix up for it.

[CIB]

If I understand the bug right, in current experimental if a zingle zed lives from a horde, that zed will multiply into a whole new pack of zombies. It hadn’t been an issue with my playstyle so far, as I just move off towns and kill every zombie that goes near my base, but if you do a lot of town looting it might become a real problem.

[ZoneWizard]

Last night playing…uh…thinking it is build3950(just got latest now). I have a sig mosquito with a suppressor on it and I’m still going deaf when it sound value is like 112 per shot.

I notice a an almost empty space for miles than after 20 or shots I had the game spawn like 113 zombies almost instantly. Needless to say I was surprised when nothing but field and forest exist previously(except for like 4 zombies).

Is this a bug as mentioned there is a fix planned? Not griping as I can deal with a horde. But popping out of thin air is a bit…immersion breaking =/