alarms everywhere!

[KromeHWI]

is it just me or do house alarms become MORE common the longer you play the game? i may be imigining this, but when i first started this character house alarms (while terrifyingly common) were like 1 in 5 houses or so. now, 3.5 months into it, i swear that every other or even 2:3 houses i break in to has an alarm go off!

like i said, i could be imigning things, but it feels like there are more of the damn things! i just want to get a kitchn knife so i can make salad! is that too much to ask?

ill admit, in some ways the alarms are usefull in lure large groups of zombies to areas of the map so i can then try to get into a house near where they were, but then THAT house has an alarm and i have to run away all over again! its getting a little tiresome :(

[KromeHWI]

also, sometimes alarms go off when you open or break a window. sometimes they wait until you go inside... i feel like they should go off in either case if there is an alarm. i mean, if yoiu have your hosue alarmed you are going to have the windows alarmed too ya? its like the game wants you to go inside before you realize there is an alarm... also i noticed that the zombies start going toward the house before the alarm actually goes off audibly sometimes. i could see them out the window of the last house i tried to sneak into. they started coming, and i was like (was there a gun shot i didnt hear?) and then BWEEEWWWWEEEEWWWWEEEWWW! thats cheep! it gave them a head start! no fair! :(

i just want a knife.... i just want to eat salad :(

[KromeHWI]

seems like it sould be a sand box option... percentage of alarms... but it feel like way more than just 1:5 right now. does it randomly decide? does it take into account the houses/alarms already triggered? it just feels like there are more of them now than before? maybe they put more in with a recent update?

[Vzzdak]

Originally posted by KromeHWI:

is it just me or do house alarms become MORE common the longer you play the game? i may be imigining this, but when i first started this character house alarms (while terrifyingly common) were like 1 in 5 houses or so. now, 3.5 months into it, i swear that every other or even 2:3 houses i break in to has an alarm go off!

Other survivors might intentionally arm house alarms after having looted a place. Reasons would be:

-Potential distraction away from where the looter went.
-Tripping alarm provide warning that other looters are nearby.
-Opportunity to indirectly cause death of other looters.

[KromeHWI]

Originally posted by Vzzdak:

Originally posted by KromeHWI:

is it just me or do house alarms become MORE common the longer you play the game? i may be imigining this, but when i first started this character house alarms (while terrifyingly common) were like 1 in 5 houses or so. now, 3.5 months into it, i swear that every other or even 2:3 houses i break in to has an alarm go off!

Other survivors might intentionally arm house alarms after having looted a place. Reasons would be:

-Potential distraction away from where the looter went.
-Tripping alarm provide warning that other looters are nearby.
-Opportunity to indirectly cause death of other looters.

which might make more sense if there were other surviors yet :/
odd, tho that these "other survivors" didnt loot the houses or break in or anything... just snuck in and reset the alarm... jerks!

[GodPain]

no place in the world have this many alarms :D

[KromeHWI]

right, i mean i went into a tool shed and a damn alarm went off! (who alarms their shed but not their house?) i mean i get it, they are there for the added challenge... but i think its a little over the top...

[CallMeGeRoS]

alarms go off after the power is shut down?? i mean thats why y loot less at first xD

[KromeHWI]

except that the alarms stay active after the power fails. which is acutally pretty accurate apparently. alarms usually have backup batteries that can last upwards of 6 months or more (otherwise if you wanted to break into a house with an alarm all you'd have to do is cut the power)...

i was really just complaining. i understand why they are there. to add a challange, and to move the zombies around more (because they dont really move at all on their own without a reason to). so from a game design standpoint i can see how they make sense, even if it doesnt make as much sense "realisticaly." there are an awefull lot of them...

also, i still really think that you should have some warning about alarmed houses. i am thinking of the little flashing red light on cars (like in L4D2. they randomize which cars have alarms, but the ones that do flash a little and chirp if you get too close as a warning before going off), or the security signs you see on houses. in many ways it is very important to broadcast that you have an alarm. this is the first line of defense (and often all it takes). a thief sees the sign and thinks itd be better to try a house without an alarm.

itd be easy enough to program something like this into this game. as a player aproaches a house with an alarm have some little sound trigger (or a moodle pop up or something, anything!) to warn the survivor that there is an alarm. then they can choose: trigger the alarm to lure the zombies in the area, or try to find another house without an alarm.

[KromeHWI]

huh. ok. a fair point. i dont know enough to debate that. on an earlier thread that brought up the issue of allarms after the power goes it it was claimed that many do have backups. and in this game they clearly do because they never stop going off.

[Vzzdak]

Originally posted by KromeHWI:

Originally posted by Vzzdak:

Other survivors might intentionally arm house alarms after having looted a place. Reasons would be:

-Potential distraction away from where the looter went.
-Tripping alarm provide warning that other looters are nearby.
-Opportunity to indirectly cause death of other looters.

which might make more sense if there were other surviors yet :/
odd, tho that these "other survivors" didnt loot the houses or break in or anything... just snuck in and reset the alarm... jerks!

You don't see them because you keep tripping alarms. <grin>

Other reasons are that they're hiding in the basement, are of the recently deceased, or already headed out of town.

Another consideration is that the alarms are more abstract. For example, if you had a bunch of tin cans on a string that made considerable noise when you tripped over them, then that would be *just* as alarming as the current implementation of house alarms. So just pretend that sometimes the alarm is a bunch of cans, or a stack of falling dishes, or whatever, that has now alerted everything nearby.

[Boogidycrook]

It's just you.

[KromeHWI]

i bow to your persistence sir. clearly you have fully explored the meaning of the alarm! there is nothing more i can say... you have thought of everything!

[Hee Ho]

I always thought that the longer you play there would be less house's to loot meaning that there are more house with alrams than before. Kinda like I looted this place so many times that some items either increase or decrase with time. Also aren't the maps always the same?

[nsK]

Originally posted by Zeak:

Also aren't the maps always the same?

The map, yes. Not the loot.

[Hee Ho]

I wasn't talking about the loot. I was talking about how after you have been through so much of the map you increase the chance of running into an alarm.