Spider zombies ruin my game

[Voided]

Hello everyone,

First of all, I am having a lovely time with this game. But I have come to a halt in enjoyment. Spider zombies continuesly keep spawning around my fort in packs of 3 up to like 10, It has gotten to the point where my zombie kills went from 200 to over 1000 within the last few hours.

It is day 10 now and I feel like these Spider zombies completely ruin my immersion of a cool apocalyptic world, but also just take up about 3/4th of the day for me being FORCED to deal with them while the only reason I am in my fort is because I feel like mining, farming or crafting within my own base.

I could play Killing Floor and face less waves of zombies then I am right now with these annoying spider zombies.

I think the concept of the enemy is cool, but poorly executed. The way the other zombies spawn feels just right, they feel connected to the houses they live in and clearing out a town feels fullfilling. This is just enemies appearing out of thin air that don't even drop any cool stuff that destroy your base.

[Voided]

Also, you need to remove dropping the Tier 3 tools from cars (drill,chainsaw,sledge), it is too overpowered, maybe change it to blueprints?

[₵ⱤɄ₵ł₣łł]

try buildin a base somewhere else sounds like the heat map it cooked let that zone cool.

[r.comer13]

Originally posted by Xeli:

Hello everyone,

First of all, I am having a lovely time with this game. But I have come to a halt in enjoyment. Spider zombies continuesly keep spawning around my fort in packs of 3 up to like 10, It has gotten to the point where my zombie kills went from 200 to over 1000 within the last few hours.

It is day 10 now and I feel like these Spider zombies completely ruin my immersion of a cool apocalyptic world, but also just take up about 3/4th of the day for me having to deal with them if I feel like mining, farming or crafting within my own base.

I could play Killing Floor and face less waves of zombies then I am right now with these annoying spider zombies.

I think the concept of the enemy is cool, but poorly executed. The way the other zombies spawn feels just right, they feel connected to the houses they live in and clearing out a town feels fullfilling. This is just enemies appearing out of thin air that don't even drop any cool stuff that destroy your base.

The spider zombies spawn according to a "heat map" effect that came with A10 - too much activity in an area raises the "heat" and brings in the spider zombies as "scouts" to investigate (think of the zombies as having something of a hivemind) - and if they find anything (ie, see a player) they emit a sort of "clicking" sound that calls in a horde. They head to the activity/action/thing that caused the heat map to increase over 100% though, so they may head somewhere other than a player's base (I saw them head to an area where I'd set of TNT once, since it was what set the map over 100% - I wasn't that close to the point at the time). I was testing to see if they had player GPS or not (but they don't seem to - just checking the "hot spot").

Running forges/campfires, chopping down trees, mining, using a chainsaw/auger, killing animals (especially if you just leave the "gore" blocks laying after), among other things, all raise the heat map for an area - some more than others. Mining only increases the % by .1 points per impact against stone or ore - same with chopping down a tree (.1% per chop against a tree). Augers increase it by .3% periodically (faster if using it against stone/ore instead of dirt though - still just .3% per tick but the ticks are more frequent). Haven't found a chainsaw to test yet though so i don't know what it's increase is (though I'm guessing it's equal to the auger but I could be wrong). Campfires/forges increase the heat map 5% per hour it runs (so 5 forges/campfires running for an hour would increase the heat map by 25%). Gore blocks have a big impact too, though I haven't really been able to test what a single gore block does since there's a % chance an animal spawns dead/dying and because zombies tend to kill them too (they increase the heat map by a % per hour they linger I think but I don't know the % or exactly how long it takes them to despawn normally).

[Voided]

Thanks for the technical heads up on this. I used an augur to create a mine below my base, so this is probably the cause.... How is a player supposed to know this though?

Your lore on the zombie hivemind sending scouts to investigate an area is cool and all, but it's poorly executed. nothing of this is in the game, except for endless waves of spider zombies ruining the game. Fighting them off does nothing, As they just appear 10m later out of nowhere once more.

No explanation, No tips, No warnings, No reward, No origin, No end.
Poorly designed, Annoying, Repetitive, And forcing me out of the base I built with love and care is stupid.

[r.comer13]

Originally posted by Xeli:

Thanks for the technical heads up on this. I used an augur to create a mine below my base, so this is probably the cause.... How is a player supposed to know this though?

Your lore on the zombie hivemind sending scouts to investigate an area is cool and all, but it's poorly executed. nothing of this is in the game, except for endless waves of spider zombies ruining the game. Fighting them off does nothing, As they just appear 10m later out of nowhere once more.

No explanation, No tips, No warnings, No reward, No origin, No end.
Poorly designed, Annoying, Repetitive, And forcing me out of the base I built with love and care is stupid.

Well, the more detailed information about everything (the in-game info I mean) will likely be implemented later (right now they're working on the base mechanics to get everything in place before they do the more detailed work). Not necessarily a good method for new players (or those that don't keep abreast of the pieces of information passing around on the "official" forum - which isn't always easy :P since we all have a tendancy to side track on other things) but as a programming decision...it's really the best to focus on mechanics first and then do the details (the main reason you don't see any in-game tutorials; it's time consuming to make one especially when it all might end up changing the next time a new build comes along). That's unlikely though :P big releases like A10 aren't tackled often - the next one will be either player skill trees or NPCs, not sure which will be first - but the plan is several smaller updates before taking on another big project.

It does sound somewhat like you may have a broken heat map issue (I've seen some other reports about it in both directions - either nothing spawning or crazy spawn amounts). Normally, the scouts spawn some distance away from the player (or "point of interest") and wander in closer (you can usually hear them screeching before they get close) - and usually not in really large numbers (though I think the numbers increase progressively as days pass - I've only ever seen 2-3 spawn at a time however).

As for how to check the heat map - it's an invisible value (unless you're in debug mode anyway) - I've seen the numbers fluctuate a little wildly at times (sometimes being really high only to suddenly drop and vice-versa) so I'm not sure how well it's working presently. It needs some tweaks (a lot of the spawning systems need some adjustments at present) but it's not a exactly a "bad" feature by itself - just not a lot of "up front" information presented about it to the average player.

The biggest issue is with information is that most of it is presented just in the patch notes (or discovered by those of us toying around and testing stuff to verify if it's working right or not :P) and not really presented directly in the game itself.

The best advice I can give is, whenever a new build or update releases, check the patch notes to see what is included, fixed, or that's listed as a "known isssue/bug" that they haven't figured out how to fix yet. At least until the game reaches a point either toward the end of the Alpha cycle or early Beta when everything is more-or-less fixed into place and they can make a tutorial about things that they can include.

Aside from that - when something weird or bizarre happens, post it here and you'll likely get some fairly helpful replies. Most of the members of the board are friendly and helpful (unlike some I've seen) so you'll usually get an answer that's actually useful and not just a couple of dismissive sentences.

The "official" forum on the 7dtd website is also a good place to check for things (information as well as help) and the members are also helpful, respectful (generally :P), and friendly. We may disagree (and argue occasionally) but it's rarely degenerated into name calling (so long as someone doesn't majorly step out of line which is rare but has happened).

[Stiuck007]

first go the dogs now you want the spider zombies - it will be officially more boring than minecraft.

[Aperture Kills]

Lol @ lowering auger/chainsaw spawns... I still have yet to find one on the 24th day, with my loot spawn at max and refreshes every 3 days.

On another note though, my base looked beeyatchin' by the end of the first week, and by day 12 it was an impenetrable fortress. So if your heat map is up by day 10 and you can't survive, you're doing something wrong.

[Wolfbane190]

Sounds to me like your heat map might be bugged out for some reason. You shouldnt have spiders spawning back in that fast. I was looking at the XML files the other day and noticed that the spiders are set to have at least a one day interval before they spawn again. So if they are really spawning every ten minutes that has to be a bug of some kind.

[Lerch Addams]

Could depend on what biome you're playing in.
Wasteland biomes have higher spawn rates than Forest or Snow for example.

Originally posted by Mimaifire23:

first go the dogs now you want the spider zombies - it will be officially more boring than minecraft.

I don't think that's what the OP was implying.
He's not requesting that anything be made easier or be removed.

He's provding feedback according to his opinion on how he would like his zombie game to play out.

You may like waves of zombies, he might like fewer zombies (or whatever).

[Bad Brad]

Put an overhang ledge around the roof of your base and wood log spikes around the base. Then you can just ignore the spider zombies

[[IPD]Argh...]

Originally posted by Saxon:

Put an overhang ledge around the roof of your base and wood log spikes around the base. Then you can just ignore the spider zombies

This +1

I LOVE spider ZOMBASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS :P they should make a record of em screaching and play it for the OP all day :) unescapable......

[Swissbw2]

Also something that might help and that I usually do: if you're playing on a PVE server, or have an extra claimblock, just make a little cabin or mine a little way away from your base and do all your forging/cooking there. I used to do it just across the river in another biome after I got swarmed by hordes when cooking biofuel, didn't get any more after that. Now it's just across the road and I can still hear the 'ding' from my forge, but if any spiders do come to that, I never see them.

Oh and r.comer13: Thanks for that intel, I knew about the heatmap but never read any figures on it.

[r.comer13]

Originally posted by Swissbw2:

Also something that might help and that I usually do: if you're playing on a PVE server, or have an extra claimblock, just make a little cabin or mine a little way away from your base and do all your forging/cooking there. I used to do it just across the river in another biome after I got swarmed by hordes when cooking biofuel, didn't get any more after that. Now it's just across the road and I can still hear the 'ding' from my forge, but if any spiders do come to that, I never see them.

Oh and r.comer13: Thanks for that intel, I knew about the heatmap but never read any figures on it.

:P I don't think there are any actually figures listed anywhere at present - I've just been toying around and watched the heat map % in debug mode change so that's just observation at present - the numbers may not even stay where they are and get tweaked later on (who knows :P). Sometimes it changes pretty randomly lol but I figure that's gore blocks appearing/disappearing in the zone and not actually anything broken.

I know there's no delay interval set between spawns though - I spawned like 4 sets in a single day while clearing out some space with an auger (though I'm well fortified so I can just ignore them). Unfortunately, I've seen quite a few things in the xml files that don't quite match up to the behavior in the game (figure it's old code that hasn't been removed yet). In 10.2, the supply drops were still listed (in about 4/5 different groups, medical, food, melee, ranged, and general, I think) but now they're absent. The ones I saw in the xml file were still set to the behavior from 9.3 however (3 drops, etc)

I also suspect that's the reason for the "null error" that springs up in the console when the drop happens (they've missed removing a check for those files from at least one of the drop codes).