Demo zombies on Day 4?

[Pain Weasel]

Minding my own business in Navezgane, Burnt Forest, on Day 4 when I see a green glow. I think "Weird, that looks like a Demolisher, but it can't be right? Its day 4 and I'm level 12. Better go see what it is. Huh, that's a demolisher alright, with a few soldiers too. Yep, they see me." And then I ran away.

Unless they changed the calculation I was at gamestage 20. That seems a bit early to encounter Demolishers. At least they are slow, but still.

Be warned I guess.

[DthBlayde]

certain biomes themselves may have a slight chance of tougher zeds showing up. For example, in A20; demolishers could spawn in "downtown" areas. on day one. Granted.. it was like a 2% chance, but it was possible.

You could dip into the spawning xml and check out the details for Burnt forest to see what the spawning table probabilities actually are, if so inclined.

[thestile]

Demos aren't too bad early as long as you have a gun to set off their suicide vest. A pipe pistol would do the trick.

[Dies Fourth]

Well burnt is the top lvl biome or is it wasteland ? Well its 2 2nd nastiest biome :p

[DthBlayde]

Wasteland is peak chaos. think burnt is right below, then snow, desert and forest

[Pain Weasel]

Originally posted by Dies Fourth:

Well burnt is the top lvl biome or is it wasteland ? Well its 2 2nd nastiest biome :p

If so then the new skull system is really misleading.

Pine Forest is 0, Burnt Forest is 0.5, Desert is 1, Snow is 1.5 and wasteland is 2

[ElDudorino]

Crazy zombies are just available a lot earlier now. I saw a feral cop day 1 and my first feral wight on day 6, with several more shortly thereafter. Then I took on a t4 infested clear quest on day 9 and it was packed with irradiated mutated zombies or whatever they call the walking balls that launch ooze at you- all of this in the pine forest.

I like that it keeps you on your toes actually, but my first horde night was still disappointingly weak.

[Nocternaldaze]

Originally posted by Pain Weasel:

Originally posted by Dies Fourth:

Well burnt is the top lvl biome or is it wasteland ? Well its 2 2nd nastiest biome :p

If so then the new skull system is really misleading.

Pine Forest is 0, Burnt Forest is 0.5, Desert is 1, Snow is 1.5 and wasteland is 2

The skulls are to let you know which tier building it is and not what is in there in terms of tougher zombies.

[Pain Weasel]

Originally posted by NocternalDaze:

Originally posted by Pain Weasel:

If so then the new skull system is really misleading.

Pine Forest is 0, Burnt Forest is 0.5, Desert is 1, Snow is 1.5 and wasteland is 2

The skulls are to let you know which tier building it is and not what is in there in terms of tougher zombies.

The features was described as a "difficulty rating" not a generic tier rating for buildings and it specifically mentions enemies. When wandering around a 0 skull biome (Pine Forest) should be able to assume it would have the lowest difficulty or danger, with the lowest game staged enemies. The Burnt Forest, with the second lowest difficulty rating, should then be the second least difficult biome, with the second lowest game staged enemies.

Of course that rating is added to the POI rating so you can still find tough POIs in even the lowest biome, but that difficulty is specifically called out as being tougher enemies.

So it sure does sound like it should be an indicator of what is in there in terms of tougher zombies.


From the patch notes for A21:
"The overall difficulty of the POI and Biome is represented by the number of Red and Orange skulls combined.

With this in mind, the same POI in the wasteland will be more difficult and have higher game staged enemies and loot than the same POI in the forest."

[subwaybananas]

the biomes increase now your gamestage. The biome skulls (yellow/orange) shows the rating.
The burn forest should be at the same level as the desert. In LS and GS. The GS in Desert is 50% higher and get a flat +10points. Snow 100% + 20 flat and the wasteland 150% + 30 flat. Simillar to the Lootstage increase.
And depends on the higher GS the enemey spawns are stronger, in pois and in horde nights. All shown in the gamestages.xml and the entitygroups.xml

[Beefcakes]

I used a wrench to break open a locked cop car only to get 4 feral cop zombies, I was only like level 5 with a club.

[Nocternaldaze]

Originally posted by Pain Weasel:

Originally posted by NocternalDaze:

The skulls are to let you know which tier building it is and not what is in there in terms of tougher zombies.

The features was described as a "difficulty rating" not a generic tier rating for buildings and it specifically mentions enemies. When wandering around a 0 skull biome (Pine Forest) should be able to assume it would have the lowest difficulty or danger, with the lowest game staged enemies. The Burnt Forest, with the second lowest difficulty rating, should then be the second least difficult biome, with the second lowest game staged enemies.

Of course that rating is added to the POI rating so you can still find tough POIs in even the lowest biome, but that difficulty is specifically called out as being tougher enemies.

So it sure does sound like it should be an indicator of what is in there in terms of tougher zombies.


From the patch notes for A21:
"The overall difficulty of the POI and Biome is represented by the number of Red and Orange skulls combined.

With this in mind, the same POI in the wasteland will be more difficult and have higher game staged enemies and loot than the same POI in the forest."

POI and Biome Difficulty Improvements
When you enter a POI, a HUD pop up will display its name and difficulty tier which is represented by the number of red skulls. These POI names will also appear on the quest text at the trader.

When you enter a Biome, you will see the biome difficulty represented by the number of orange skulls.

Forest – 0
Burnt (Navezgane Only) – 0.5
Desert – 1
Snow – 1.5
Wasteland – 2

The overall difficulty of the POI and Biome is represented by the number of Red and Orange skulls combined.

[Amins]

Yeah, actual difficulty is all over the place and not accurately represented by the new UI. White Hill Church of God (three skulls) had two feral lumberjacks, two feral business men, and a feral booger that chased me all the way back to Jen's. The Redchurch Residence (also three skulls) didn't have a single feral zombie and the most difficult zombie was maybe a couple construction workers. The snow biome is only 1.5 skulls and is filled with even more mountain lions than there used to be.

And infestation quests are just unreasonably difficult with PoIs not designed for that many enemies, and then they go putting irradiated bullet sponge zombies right from the start. It's almost required that you cheese the AI just to survive.

[Pain Weasel]

Originally posted by subwaybananas:

the biomes increase now your gamestage. The biome skulls (yellow/orange) shows the rating.
The burn forest should be at the same level as the desert. In LS and GS. The GS in Desert is 50% higher and get a flat +10points. Snow 100% + 20 flat and the wasteland 150% + 30 flat. Simillar to the Lootstage increase.
And depends on the higher GS the enemey spawns are stronger, in pois and in horde nights. All shown in the gamestages.xml and the entitygroups.xml

Yeah, but even with a 50% increase to my game stage it would have only been 30.

Demos, at least in A20, didn't normally show up till around game stage 90-ish. Hence my surprise at seeing one at a game stage 1/3 of that.

I get that the Burnt Forest can have downtown spawns that can include a demo, but that was my first time seeing one there in all my time playing. If anything the new difficulty rating system lulled me into a false sense of safety. Sort of a "0.5 skulls, no big deal" then turning a corner into a freakin' demo.

[Amins]

Was this a wandering group of zombies? It sounds like they might have just added a new type of group that can spawn in. And a single demo with a few soldiers doesn't sound too outlandish for early game when you can just trigger the demo and blow the rest of them up. Maybe they're biome-specific, too?

[Nocternaldaze]

I found this place at my first town.

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197973770173/screenshot/2004712873397679060/

Was a stage below and thought let`s try it out, had a irradiated zombie in it that i was not expecting lol.