How do Spawn rate scaling factor and Monster evolution scaling factor interact with each other? Do they interact with each other?
I’m experimenting with slightly more challenging early game starts, so I’m upping the Spawn Rate to 1.5 or even 2. But that also seems to drastically increase the evolution rate, such that multiple day 1 Brute (shocker brutes) or even Hulks are common. I get that surrounded starts are supposed to be harder, but there’s not much point in trying the Last Firefighter scenario if as soon as you start, there’s a Hulk less than 10 steps away.
I briefly tried Wander spawns, but it seems to acerbate the problem if the Spawn Rate is over 1: it’s hard to explore if master zombies and hulks are appearing along with 50 other zombies outside your door.
Am I just not understanding the game, or is there some combination of numbers that allows for large numbers of day 1 zombies that aren’t top tier, late game zombies?
Though to be honest I don’t think necromancers, lords, or masters should spawn on day one period because they cause instant unavoidable death to survivors who are just starting out.
As I understand it (and I’m sure one of the devs would know better), there is some attempt to avoid zo many zombies that you can’t get through by improving the quality of the zombies, as higher tier zombies use up more of the spawn “points” or whatever units they use.
So once you get above a certain number of zombies on the initial spawn, it will end up placing some higher tier zombies with them, so any high spawn rate has a day 1 problem (I play on 5x, so I feel your pain).
Day 1 Feral Predator is dead noobie. At least a hulk or brute will send you flying away, and you might be able to feed them a distraction or duck between buildings or SOMETHING, but a Predator is faster than you, sees you from a VERY good distance, and has that jump thing to close the distance REALLY fast. Even a feral hunter can be pretty darn hard for a poorly equipped newb survivor to handle.
I had a spawn the other day where a zombie master and two zombie lords spawned right outside the police station I spawned in. There was hordes of brutes, zombie nadirs, and feral predators running after me. They eventually cornered me in a pool and I got killed by about 10 high-tier zombies at once on the first day.