I really like the sound of this. Static DYNAMIC (Christ, how did I get them mixed up?) spawn is my favourite spawn mode, regardless of how broken it is. I would love to see it improved and worked upon once more.
[quote=“Ian Strachan, post:39, topic:4229”]That’s an alternative idea I hadn’t thought about, and a good one. Keep the normal green Z’s around, but make them stronger over time as the ooze adapts them more and gives them better abilities. That way, even in classic mode, you can still have dynamic spawn do more than just throw more zombies at you.
In essence, regular zombies could ‘level up’ over time (for lack of a better term) and do more damage, hit harder/more often, and take more hits to bring down. Would certainly give the feel that the mutation is ongoing, and would offer a challenge without spawning gigantic hordes. Furthermore, it would serve to differentiate zombies from the other critters; whereas ants just get more and more numerous, zombies actually get tougher over time.
Obviously there should be a limit on how much it happens, and it should be gradual, but it’s an interesting concept. It’d certainly combat the “regular zombies can’t touch me, I’ve won the game” problem of both game modes.[/quote]
This is the heart of the problem really. Static spawn would be a lot more fun/viable if zombies were tougher (and got tougher) as currently Static spawn is just too easy as you can drag zombies out a few at a time and deal with them using the most basic equipment. It does need tweaking, but I imagine tweaking zombie stats/distribution would be easier than rewriting the spawning system.
In the spirit of zombie movies, I feel that having all zombies as tougher (pretty much head shot only style) combined with having more of a variation in density which is tied into a more varied building density. So small villages would have maybe 10-15 zombies max, whereas city centres would have 100 or so, these areas might need to be more defined, but I think this would be a good step forward anyway. If each zombie was a challenge (and this could ramp up as the goo takes hold) it’d become a lot more of a survival game rather than an ‘action RL’.
Why the focus on zombies? Between the triffids, fungaloids, giant creatures, robots, nether creatures and NPCs, the zombies are the most boring enemy in the game.
I think that for many people (certainly all of the people who I’ve introduced to it) they’re mostly interested in Cataclysm as a zombie survival game. It’s pretty much the best post apocalyptic zombie game around, and it’s something that most people can relate too/has the widest appeal.
Unfortunately, they really are the most boring at the moment, and it’d be really good to change that. NPCs are currently getting a big overhaul (see the modding forum) so I’m sure that will help things no end.
I concur, but I think it might also get unmanageable to fight nothing but shockers and spitters. Maybe if there was more variety to the special zombies…
It might also be good to see more ‘classic’ zombies that have different flavor to them - zombies that just run up and whack you but have different strengths, like the zombie cop’s armor, the scarred zombie’s toughness, the swimmer zombie’s aquatic nature, etc.
That’s an alternative idea I hadn’t thought about, and a good one. Keep the normal green Z’s around, but make them stronger over time as the ooze adapts them more and gives them better abilities. That way, even in classic mode, you can still have dynamic spawn do more than just throw more zombies at you.
In essence, regular zombies could ‘level up’ over time (for lack of a better term) and do more damage, hit harder/more often, and take more hits to bring down. Would certainly give the feel that the mutation is ongoing, and would offer a challenge without spawning gigantic hordes. Furthermore, it would serve to differentiate zombies from the other critters; whereas ants just get more and more numerous, zombies actually get tougher over time.
Obviously there should be a limit on how much it happens, and it should be gradual, but it’s an interesting concept. It’d certainly combat the “regular zombies can’t touch me, I’ve won the game” problem of both game modes.
Because bullets hurt.[/quote]
The problem as I see it now is that a late-game character can fight almost any number of standard zombies and survive unscathed - armor and weapons are such that even if you’re completely surrounded by zombies, they can’t hurt you fast enough to make a difference when you’re killing all 8 surrounding you every turn with your flaming nodachi/whatever. I didn’t mean to suggest that more zombies would be replaced with the current specials, I was thinking more along the lines of what you’re suggesting with current zombies getting more tough as the game gets on or there being more types of specials; I know someone was talking about bionic zombies in IRC yesterday, with actually powered bionics, instead of just the malfunctioning bionics on shockers, or elite soldier zombies with power armor, etc.
You kinda answered your own question there.
Zombies become boring and a grind very quickly because they stop being challenging as soon as you find some decent equipment and gain a few skill ranks. If we make zombies challenging and varied they’ll become interesting again.
Precisely.
I think if we strip the “sound creates zombies” aspect of dynamic spawn and instead repopulate areas over time (to the same density/distribution they are at now), and make zombies tougher as days go on, that will go a long way towards making dynamic spawn more enjoyable.
There can be more later on, of course, but that sounds like a doable starting point.
The proposed grab and surrounding mechanics (which were discussed a while back, should be easy to find) were accepted as good ideas by devs and would add a lot to the difficulty in a pretty sensible way. If surrounding became a big, big problem no matter what level you were at, then it’d make it impossible to just run in and katana everything and would mean that you’d never feel so incredibly over powered (although you’d still obviously improve).
It’s just a case of getting someone to code it, and unfortunately (sort of) the kickstarter has meant that adding tons of new features is required to live up to the expectations, rather than less fancy balancing changes. I’m sure they’ll get round to it soon though!
[quote=“Ian Strachan, post:46, topic:4229”]…make zombies tougher as days go on, that will go a long way towards making dynamic spawn more enjoyable.
There can be more later on, of course, but that sounds like a doable starting point.[/quote]
The recent tween-level zombie flavors helped this along.
Please please be careful with increasing power levels of monsters. Even applying ‘over time’ can feel as cheap as the Morrowind power issue. Having ‘fodder’ helps the perception of a power curve and the regular Zs are great for this.
A top level issue, I have no problem with dynamic mode sticking around if someone wants to give it TLC, if someone wants a more action-oriented game and it doesn’t break things (which I think it wouldn’t), that’s great. I was planning on eventually ditching it entirely, but that was due to no one showing interest in working on it (as opposed to interest in having someone else work on it, which doesn’t count 
)
To get technical, my biggest problem with dynamic was that zombies spawned well in sight range of the player, which is fundamentally unfair, and doesn’t strike me as fitting the tone of the genre, where you’re worried about masses of enemies, but they don’t just automatically ambush you every time you encounter them. The problem was, if you spawned zombies out of sight of the player, the player simply had to retreat as soon as they saw zombies to dodge that “wave”. I played with this triggering a new spawn event, but it struck me as fundamentally unstable. At this point I gave up and wrote the prototype static spawn system. So the fundamental problem was spawning zombies without ambushing the player, but also without allowing them to game the system to avoid conflict.
I can’t really quote a specific post, but I’m seeing a drift from “all zombies are spawned inside the reality bubble on a timer”, to “zombie populations are periodically replenished”. I’m wondering if the mechanism you might want is something like this:
On submap generation, statically spawn date appropriate zombies on submaps where zombies appear, these zombies are persistent.
When a submap is loaded, it checks how many/dangerous the zombies on it are, and if it decides it’s not enough challenge* there, it adds and/or upgrades some of them, these zombies are also persistent.
Submap generation/loading always happens out of sight of the player, so you’re guaranteed to not have zombies pop within sight of the player.
If the player isn’t moving and the game decides it wants more zombies, it could spawn them at either the border of the map, or the border of the player’s maximum sight range, and if you want them to be agressive you could spawn them with a “memory” of hearing a loud noise or something at the plater’s location (or the location where an actual sound happened).
With this, the difference between dynamic and static becomes that dynamic replenishes populations based on a combination of heuristics, whereas static simulates changes to the populations in-place. It would get rid of a good bit of alternate code for handling “dynamic” mosters that are re-absorbed into their local population when the player leaves the area.
*This level of challenge can have as many inputs as you like, date, recent attention-attracting events such as loud noises, cursed artifacts, missions, whatever.
Definitely this. I think most of it is that people want to feel swamped with zombies, but also be able to feel like they’re making some progress. It’s a difficult balance, but I think a lot of it is making sure that you can damage the population for a good while in an area, but that more zombies are attracted over time (and more quickly with too much commotion) so that no where ever feels safe. I think if this was mixed with an overarching random element (like just randomly roving groups of zombies) then that would make it feel like an (un)living world.
I don’t like the idea of the game checking if it’s challenging enough based on anything to do with the player (skills/stats/items), as I feel (and I know you’ve stated this before) that the game should sort of carry on unaffected by you other than the attention you attract to yourself and the steady advancement of time.
In a nutshell, that’s exactly what I’m looking for from dynamic spawn.
Static is about taking your time and being thorough as you clear places out. Dynamic is about not attracting attention. Currently it does it with the “sound = zombies” mechanic; it needs something else in its place. If the incentive to not attract attention is simply that there are so many zombies that you can’t possibly fight them all off, things change. You can’t just hop in your truck o’ death and drive around at 50mph unless you intend to leave.
Static spawn is like Minecraft: You ‘clear out’ areas and then loot them at your leisure. There’s a much greater effort up-front to clean an area but you get a bigger reward for your efforts.
Dynamic spawn is like Left 4 Dead: There are times to run and times to stand your ground; times to search for supplies and times to cover as much ground as you can. Your survival relies on you knowing when to do which.
I think this change would be big enough that it would mostly do away with static and the current dynamic spawn. As has been mentioned before, too many options makes balancing impossible. What is good for Dynamic/whatever this is, would probably be completely OP for static (although I’m sure it could stick around as legacy).
Concentrating on one really awesome spawning system seems like the best way forward, and If I may be so bold, I’d really encourage those with time to work on this, as it’d drastically improve the playability of DDA.
I think revamping the spawning system for dynamic and static spawn is worthwhile, but I’d prefer to keep them as separate modes. Like Ian says, they’re very different systems with different goals, and there’s no reason why you can’t keep both in. Personally, I like the sense of progression static mode brings, and with all the wildlife it’s not like I’m hard up for a challenge. I don’t think I’ve ever seen less than one zombear on screen in the last version.
I agree on keeping the modes separate. There’s always a time and place to play on Dynamic, and always a time and place to play on Static. This is why removing the (easy) option to disable revival was a little off-putting to me.
Choice is very good, especially in a game where you could do it the hard way anyhow. Especially in a sandbox game like this.
Static will endeavor to be reality-based (defaulting to the number of zombies matching the estimated local population), and remaining consistent.
Dynamic can try and provide a different experience by discarding the requirement that we don’t create zombies out of thin air.
Maybe instead of Static and Dynamic we have Realistic (static) and Cinematic (dynamic)?
Cinematic mode drops in zombies when appropriate, Realistic puts them all there from the start.
Cinematic would summon them upon noise, when zombies moan, lots of smell, staying in one place too long etc. This would solve the problem of base defense being useless if you can track where the player sleeps and crafts.
It’s not immediately obvious what each mode does, unlike static/dynamic. No need for obfuscating language.
No, really, it shouldn’t. That’s part of the major problem with the current dynamic spawn: because noise generates zombies you can be punished for things that you didn’t cause and couldn’t control.
Got a zombie beating up a wrecked car? That’s obviously your fault; have a mob of zombies. Squirrel walks on a landmine? Clearly, you made that happen.
While I agree that the concept is certainly realistic vs. cinematic, I don’t think that’s what they should be called.
OK, I agree that the name change wouldn’t be right.
How would we define character fault? I’d hate to start a snowball of kill enemy x, enemy x spawns two enemies… etc.
I was thinking, maybe in addition to a huge pool there’s a small one with a quick regen? So 10 zombies might spawn on the first day, but you have quite a bit of time before they start again. Every some bit of time, the maximum zombies in that small pool increases. Outflow volume vs total population. So by Day 20 you’d have a lot more zombies coming at you over time, especially if you coaxed them into it, but it’d still be fairly silent if you were careful.
erm…I don’t think it should matter about fault at all. In fact, its a mainstay of every zombie movie ever that something random causes noise (a falling can, a snapping tree) and that causes zombies to come over. Granted, it needs to be balanced to not be an unfair situation, but noise is noise at the end of the day.
I’d imagine that a lot of people would prefer dynamic if it can be gotten to work in a ‘realistic’ way, and static can just be left as it is (with a few tweaks). I imagine dynamic to work much like (If anyone watches it) The Walking Dead, I imagine it to be much like the prison situation, they can kill off lots of the zombies, and that gives them a respite, but eventually more come - sometimes a few, sometimes larger groups.
It’s that constant, tired stream of zombies I want to see, where they’re just an belligerent mass which is steered by noise and smell rather than them teleporting around