Removal of zombie dogs for classic zombie mode

kemor · 2013-09-09T15:09:10.000Z

Hey,

I’m a huge fan of the hardcore/classic/static experience to get a really old fashioned zombie style game (Romero style, as opposed to the resident evil style). Classic is really great for me as I can’t get into the boomer, spitter and all the goo things.

That said, one thing remains that kind of ruin the classic mode: zombie dogs.

To my understanding, classic is supposed to be just that…classic zombies (human infection only). Why zombie dogs were left over, no idea. But if anyone knows how to remove them or if they could simply be removed for later versions, I think us classic zombie apocalypse lovers would be quite thankful

Cheers!

John_Candlebury · 2013-09-09T15:11:51.000Z

Possibly, there is going to be an option to chose what monsters you want to spawn in the near future. I say possibly because I am unsure if advanced world generation will get to such a great detail.

So you may get what you wish and much more in a few weeks

kemor · 2013-09-09T15:18:32.000Z

[quote=“John Candlebury, post:2, topic:2975”]Possibly, there is going to be an option to chose what monsters you want to spawn in the near future. I say possibly because I am unsure if advanced world generation will get to such a great detail.

So you may get what you wish and much more in a few weeks :D[/quote]

Great news, thanks

kevin.granade · 2013-09-09T15:38:29.000Z

Yea that’s a good point about zombie dogs not fitting the classic experience. At the time I was focused on disabling the “wacky future stuff”, so I didn’t end up filtering out dogs.

Also yes, GalenEvil is tearing into mod manager, which will let you adjust this kind of thing in a more flexible way.

Btw, in the short term you can edit data/raw/monstergroups.json to remove the dogs:
Find lines like:

{ "monster" : "mon_zombie_fast", "freq" : 70, "multiplier" : 2 }

(dogs are actually reskinned fast zombies, never got around to fixing the identifier name)
and change
"freq" : 70
to
"freq" : 0
After making this change, and on a new map, zombie dogs will no longer spawn.
(you actually can’t do the same with zombie kids, have to fix that…)

kemor · 2013-09-09T15:44:59.000Z

Thanks Kevin, that’s great info!

I don’t mind the zombie kids and zombie cops/military as they fit the lore. Just the dogs that were bothering me, but not anymore!

Thanks again!

Binky · 2013-09-12T07:09:40.000Z

Just my two cents - I removed zombie dogs a while back from my classic zombie mode, and found that it became a lot, lot easier as nothing was able to catch up with me.
I know there is hope for a more indepth world creator, but I think it’s worth keeping them in for the current classic zombie mode as a balance (and as far as lore goes, Zombified animals are in quite a lot of zombie movies) because it really does make a lot of situations quite trivial if you know nothing can catch you.

kemor · 2013-09-12T12:54:26.000Z

[quote=“Binky, post:6, topic:2975”]Just my two cents - I removed zombie dogs a while back from my classic zombie mode, and found that it became a lot, lot easier as nothing was able to catch up with me.
I know there is hope for a more indepth world creator, but I think it’s worth keeping them in for the current classic zombie mode as a balance (and as far as lore goes, Zombified animals are in quite a lot of zombie movies) because it really does make a lot of situations quite trivial if you know nothing can catch you.[/quote]

True though pack of wolves and them damn Moose can still screw you over fast. Using what Kevin hinted, I upped the wolves/coyotes slightly and lowered all other animals a lot, especially Moose and Bear, which somehow broke immersion because they are not predators but behaved too much like it.

Another thing is, I play only hardcore and in hardcore, you die VERY, VERY fast, so usually: any mistake and it’s game over. I also play with NPCs and dynamic NPC spawn (and static classic zombies) and though it’s very buggy, it creates very stressful situations here and there. Finally, I use the new spawn multiplier now and so far been using a 10x while upping city sprawl to 8.

Personally, I never considered Zombie apocalypse to be a fight against zombies, but a fight against yourself. Zombies in classic lore are easy to deal with as long as you’re clever and don’t get emotional. The problem is that in such apocalyptic settings, you get lonely, you get bored, you get less focused, you forget things…you start making mistakes…and you die.

That’s how I love to play and Cata:DDA is the only game that offers this and to me (despite it’s many flaws and things missing) it’s an almost perfect game. I don’t need action, I need setting, hence why I didn’t want resident evil style dogs, and now I don’t have them

kevin.granade · 2013-09-12T14:32:51.000Z

Yea, that’s exactly it, the classic mode zombies are supposed to be easy to deal with (at least to avoid) as long as you don’t screw up. The fast/dog zombies are specifically there for a more exciting game experience.

Actually now that we have huge cities and huge numbers of zombies I need to put in some time with that mode and see how it plays, that’s the game I’ve wanted for a long time, but I’m too busy writing the game to play it ;_;

Rivet · 2013-09-12T17:30:22.000Z

It’s only partially on-topic here, but what would be nice is if the game recognized that a zombie dog is not the same species as a zombie human.

I haven’t seen it in a few weeks, so it might have been changed, but I’ve seen the upgrade zombies (master zombie, I think) put their mojo on standard zeds and transform them into zombie dogs. I think this is because the zombie dogs replace the fast zombies from older versions, and the game still thinks that they’re the same.

KA101 · 2013-09-12T23:19:54.000Z

[quote=“Rivet, post:9, topic:2975”]It’s only partially on-topic here, but what would be nice is if the game recognized that a zombie dog is not the same species as a zombie human.

I haven’t seen it in a few weeks, so it might have been changed, but I’ve seen the upgrade zombies (master zombie, I think) put their mojo on standard zeds and transform them into zombie dogs. I think this is because the zombie dogs replace the fast zombies from older versions, and the game still thinks that they’re the same.[/quote]

Yeah, that’s been around for a while. Still needs fixed though.