The entire point of hordes existence

[Firestorm_01]

I have multiple questions about hordes and their entire point in game.

1. Are horeds supposed to be hard mode by design?
   Currently enabling hordes give player a lot of trouble. Especially for new player who do not know that single shot from weapon will give a lot of trouble. And help God to player who fired shotgun.

2. Are current sound hearing by hordes actually placeholder?
   Current formula fol calculation sound for hordes is sound/5. It is capped with 28.
   Why exactly it is sound/5? Why not Sound/10 for example? Is there some kind of idea around this divider
   Current formula give huge hearing area for gunshots. It is dozens of map tiles in certain conditions. For example shot from shotgun can be heared by hordes exactly on 28 tiles (because of cap). Faulted bionics “noisemaker” can be heard from 12 tiles.

Here is the code part (src/sounds.cpp):

void sounds::process_sounds() { ... if( vol > 20 && g->get_levz() == 0 ) {//<< Sound lower than 20 can't be heard by horde (like sound of walking). Also sound from another z lvelel than 0 can't be heard also int sig_power = ( ( vol > 140 ) ? 140 : vol ); //<<HERE IS CAP // With this, volume 100 reaches 20 overmap tiles away. sig_power /= 5;//<<< HERE IS DIVIDER const point abs_ms = g->m.getabs( source.x, source.y ); const point abs_sm = ms_to_sm_copy( abs_ms ); const tripoint target( abs_sm.x, abs_sm.y, source.z ); overmap_buffer.signal_hordes( target, sig_power ); } ... }

3. Are there plans to enable hordes by default, like NPC and 3D levels(I hope)?

Here:

[RDY] Rework hordes hearing signal calculation

I am trying to rework hordes hearing.

[Coolthulhu]

1. They’re not supposed to be full on hard mode, they just work like that because zombies are really dumb when spawned and horde behavior allows them to phase through walls.

2. Mostly yes.

3. Yes, but those are very long term plans and so there is a high chance it won’t happen.

[TheFlame52]

I remember when hordes would come to your position, but wouldn’t load until you moved to a new map chunk. You’d leave your base to go raiding or something and you’d cross a chunk boundary and suddenly you’d be knee deep in zombies.

[pisskop]

Remember when hordes would follow the sound of your car into the deep forest?

I do find hordes annoying. By savescumming in a few places I can see exactly how one second they will appear. I hate that, and would much prefer they spawn at the edge of your vision (60 tiles or so) and have a preset path to a location +/- a few dozen tiles, where noise was.

Hordes have gotten better; I wouldnt dream of playing with them off; but theyre annoying and I hate them. They show up and take away my sense of accomplishment. They spawn, often within smelling difference of you with little warning. Especially early game in the dark its dangerous, though occasionally in the middle of the bright broad daylight they can be seen spawning from the ether.

[StopSignal]

I think the bad thing they have is that they are /really/ easy to provoke, and a single shot means death.
Also too many hordes spawn at once in the map. There are too many small hordes everywhere, and they are really fast. I’d rather prefer huge hordes that are slow and that way they could be distracted with sound to somewhere else or make them not run into your base, and give you a chance of escape while managing to be a very easy way to a quick death if you don’t pay them the attention and respect they deserve.

It would make the horde system way more basic, but that would also mean it would make it a clearer game system to play with and that way make it more fun.

Never tried modding them to be like that, however. What do you guys think?

[ZoneWizard]

While I understand herds and the simulated experience of making noise will call them. I think it needs a math wizard to figure out how to get them to not all come in at once near borders. I’ve also noticed the forest thing…really annoying.

I drive through a quiet forest in my death mobile and I tired and sleep. When I wake up, I’m surrounded by like 100 zoms and the game would do this almost 100% of the time. The latest builds I’ve not survived long enough to test this out though. I was rather hoping it got some attention and was fixed.

[Firestorm_01]

I have an Idea. Maybe we can start with reducing hordes hearing. Easiest way to do it- normalize currenly hearing interval of [0,28] to like [0,10] with simple formula.

[pisskop]

Rather see a horde speed reduction and map reality bubble spawning fixed than distance

[Firestorm_01]

Rather see a horde speed reduction and map reality bubble spawning fixed than distance

So distance of 28 map tiles after shotgun shot is OK? 28 - is huge distance.
It is good way to restrict shotgun usage at all.

I thought it should be logical that outside the city you are almost safe to use shotgun and explosives. Now it is not.

I think the bad thing they have is that they are /really/ easy to provoke, and a single shot means death. Also too many hordes spawn at once in the map. There are too many small hordes everywhere, and they are really fast. I'd rather prefer huge hordes that are slow and that way they could be distracted with sound to somewhere else or make them not run into your base, and give you a chance of escape while managing to be a very easy way to a quick death if you don't pay them the attention and respect they deserve.

Easisest way to solve this until horde improvement is to reduce horde hearing to at least sane values that do not cover whole city. If we take in account that hordes are everywhere, shooting still will be dangerous.

Also from my observation many players who want to increase difficulty the game tend to not use hordes and increse spawn rate instead.

[pisskop]

Outside cities are small bands if wandering Zed’s.

Being unsleeping, unfeeling, uneating undead means they can come from far in straggled formations. The amount may drop but not the presence of them.

Much better is to have a random ‘ambient’ noise over the overlap that can distract hordes. Whether they fail to respond to you or go to another location is w.e. as is if we will see that.

But by making faux overmap noise, as either localized events or a global ambience or as weather patterns we can reduce noise in a way that enhances gameplay.

[Logrin]

I think it would be nice if certain overmap tiles diminished or outright destroyed hordes if they pathed near/through them. Fungal towers, triffid groves, ant hills, etc.

Some of the creatures in the cataclysm pretty much ALWAYS beat out the blob when they come face to face–at the very least they’d slow/stay the herd and inflict losses.

[Firestorm_01]

Here:

[RDY] Rework hordes hearing signal calculation

I am trying to rework hordes hearing.

[TheFlame52]

[quote=“Logrin, post:11, topic:12890”]I think it would be nice if certain overmap tiles diminished or outright destroyed hordes if they pathed near/through them. Fungal towers, triffid groves, ant hills, etc.

Some of the creatures in the cataclysm pretty much ALWAYS beat out the blob when they come face to face–at the very least they’d slow/stay the herd and inflict losses.[/quote]

[quote=“pisskop, post:10, topic:12890”]Outside cities are small bands if wandering Zed’s.

Being unsleeping, unfeeling, uneating undead means they can come from far in straggled formations. The amount may drop but not the presence of them.

Much better is to have a random ‘ambient’ noise over the overlap that can distract hordes. Whether they fail to respond to you or go to another location is w.e. as is if we will see that.

But by making faux overmap noise, as either localized events or a global ambience or as weather patterns we can reduce noise in a way that enhances gameplay.[/quote]
These. I want to see zombies stop their siege and leave to go chase thunder.

[Firestorm_01]

Outside cities are small bands if wandering Zed's.

Being unsleeping, unfeeling, uneating undead means they can come from far in straggled formations. The amount may drop but not the presence of them.

Much better is to have a random ‘ambient’ noise over the overlap that can distract hordes. Whether they fail to respond to you or go to another location is w.e. as is if we will see that.

But by making faux overmap noise, as either localized events or a global ambience or as weather patterns we can reduce noise in a way that enhances gameplay.

Easiest way to achieve this - is reduce hearing sound for hordes. Small hordes already wandering around like crazy. So you wil attrack them eventialy.

Currently I am planning to rescale horde hearing interval to [3,9] overmap tiles:

[RDY] Rework hordes hearing signal calculation

It should be enough to attract hores if you are going full on firearms in city but keep you a lot safer in wilderness. This way single shot do not attract horde from 28 map tiles.

Also this will make hordes a lot more playeble.

Surprisingly with old hearing formula even glock 19 attract horde from 28 tiles. How do we live with that for so long time?

[voskhod]

In truth, the reason I don’t like hordes is not because they’re too hardcore but because they only count sounds within the reality-bubble as worthy of notice. They never, for instance, migrate towards military outposts or roadblocks that have anti-material turrets that are sure to be firing even in the player’s absence. Nor do they appear to ever notice minefields that are sure to be stepped on by the odd wildlife or two, even when the player isn’t around to witness this happening.

Really though, It’d probably be pretty hard to code sounds happening outside of the reality bubble. But, just a suggestion.

[Logrin]

Well, yes. It would be hard to code sounds outside of the reality bubble. But would it be so hard to assign a certain attractiveness to overmap tiles? Here’s a crude example:

Independent of the player hordes that are hanging around the overmap would have a certain chance to wander from one tile to another based on what it is. More sound and movement being more attractive, naturally. Prioritizing things like military outposts (the guns firing), cities (car alarms, looting, etc), swamps. Without listing everything you get the idea.

When the player decides to start doing something loud, instead of having the hordes head straight to them simply make that particular overmap tile more attractive. Increasing the chance that the horde drifts towards it naturally.

Importantly the whole horde shouldn’t show up at once, and if possible they should only spawn from the cardinal direction the horde is heading from. So fast zombies like dogs, ferals, predators etc show up ahead of the masses, followed by the slower bulk.

Incidentally if the above is possible I wouldn’t say no to a new boomer that gunks players in a horde attracting goo.

[pisskop]

Sound muffling via overmap tiles sounds okay, but random ‘pings’ of sound on the overmap to pull hordes sounds fine.

[StopSignal]

The problem with the overmap tile attractiveness is that it’s very possible that it could bug out and, being that the tile the horde is already on is attractive, they would stay there and not go to your place unless your tile attractiveness is seriously high. There should be a prioritization of player sound, I guess!

[Firestorm_01]

Important question:
How long sound should go from player in overmap tiles (reality bubble included)?
For now here I have this:
Both funtions balanced to: glock 19 shot - 5 overmaptiles, autoshotgun shot - 6 overmaptiles, mininuke explosive - 11-12 overmaptiles.
Note: that includes reality bubble that is 3 overmap tiles.

Maybe it is too overnerfed?

[RDY] Rework hordes hearing signal calculation

So for what range in overmap files hordes should hear usual shots? Currently in proposed changes it is 5-6 tiles (including reality bubble).

[pisskop]

28 tiles is not obscene for loud noises