4 Player Cod Zombies

[Ezekiel Tulagan]

Seemslike whenever I erect a safehouse, zombies will show up pretty soon to start banging on the windows or door, what's up with that? Seems to me that if a zombie isn't actively following a sound or person, they shouldn't be attacking structures in the first place, why would they when there is no motivation?

What you report there sounds like either a bug, or this barricade brush is generating sound (not audible game sound but game logic sound the zombies hear). This is not behaviour we've added to the zombies in this game. simple as that.

Very strange because I've heard similar experiences from other people I know who play the game. A location will be relatively deserted at first, but once the player has built up a few barricades and such, zombies seem to be attracted to it for some reason. Might just be random coincidence though.

As I say, it may be a bug, I don't know. OR as I say if whatever cheat tool placing those barricades indirectly triggers a WorldSound like hammering one up does, then nearby zombies will hear it regardless of if it plays a hammering audio clip.

My point is we're not about making zombies have extra perception of the player or barricades, and the suggestion we've done it intentionally for difficulty is incorrect. This is a massively complex emergent system based on lots of tiny behaviours of the zombies, so just because the result is you had a barricade and the zombie started walking toward it could mean a million things, combinations of many factors. Just whatever it was we're not being cheap and giving the zombies magical perception powers except the basics of A* pathfinding that are required to make any AI thing remotely able to move around an environment. Sadly A* pathfinding in rare circumstances can lead to improbable situations, but when they happen they are an undesired side effect.

Personally I don't use the cheat menu, I like doing things the regular way and yeah I can imagine that generates noise but I don't think its the noise itself, just the player structures existing seems like it attracts them but I'll take you up on your word, has to be random coincidence then.

Did my own test using something like Cheat Menu, barricaded 1 out of 4 windows on the side of a building and placed some walls nearby, spawned 25 zombies in the middle, between the walls near the unbarricaded windows.

Most of them dispersed, two went for the windows, one went for the barricaded one and the other for unbarricaded one. I figure that they decided to go inside and their pathfinding decided that the best way to get inside was through the window, they didn't seem more attracted to player build stuff than they were for barricades or walls.

In a huge group, zombies tend to push each other, if a zombie ends up being pushed too close to a wall or destructible object he will attack it, same if his pathfinding made him wander too close to one.

Bit off-topic, but this is also happening to me right now. The longer the days pass, the more you get complacent. At the same time it drives you insane not knowing where the zombies are or if they're amassing somewhere. Each meta-noise gets more dangerous as it brings the ever growing horde closer to your vicinity.

In most zombie lore this is how the late-game survivors die. I tell myself to always be on the lookout and keep increasing defenses, but it's hard to sustain a prolonged sense of alertness. It's a mental test of sorts, right?

They do attack structures randomly. If you leave town and go back after a couple of months, you will see broken windows everywhere even if you never led them to that area to begin with. Sometimes it's meta-noises, sometimes just because something is in their way. Sometimes they just want to rock out beside a house. XD

It's just that the frequency of spawn in build32 has been upped. It looks like they appeared near you on purpose because you can only ever see the area surrounding you, but if you actually had a magic, 100% zoomable map, you will see that they spawn all over the place.

Ive spent some time sitting in ghost mode and observing zombie behaviour although i was also using the highest population. An important note not brought up yet is that zombies banging on stuff generates noise, and things breaking probably more noise. It only takes one Z banging on a window to lure many, and before long the entire building is decimated, because the endless noises prevent Z's from wandering off. Instead only more come.

Chances are, if you've thinned out the Zeds around your base, you're making it a more attractive position for the AI to send zombies to. Thus combined with this noise generation, and meta event noises, you might eventually have a swarm showing up on your doorstep.

I haven't done any real experimentation, but I've noticed this in the past - I think the issue stems from the fact that if a zombie pathfinds into a normal wall it walks on, whereas if it brushes against a player made wall, it sees ot as an 'enemy' and attacks.

Combine that with them migrating to the area you cleared to build your safehouse means that they appear to be seeking you out to knock down your base. They brush past the normal buildings harmlessly until they reach your base, then go into attack mode because its there and they can. It's not because they are particually attracted to it, but because its a big target that they collide with.

Ideally I'd like to see the migration turned down (only a small amount) and put some kind of modifier in place to stop zombies seeing player built things as targets unless they have a reason to. Perhaps make it so that high quality walls made by a skilled carpenter have a greater chance of being ignored, at they seem more like impassable objects that 'something in the way'?

Zombies shouldn't be attacking any structures at all unless they hear something inside of it, and even then, they should treat walls made by players the same as normal walls (unless it is a shoddy one filled with holes and gaps that they know they can go through if they beat it down enough.) Though zombies attracting others through the sounds of them pounding on doors or windows makes sense, but just randomly decided to just hit a wall that happens to be right next to them just ruins the game for me a slight bit. You may as well just not make any structures at all if the zombies will just home in on it.

But if zombies won't attack safehouse it would make a darn boring game... I like the idea that zeds focus on players for two reasons:

1. IF YOU STAY IN THE AREA, YOU NEED TO BUILD. The version I played didn't encourage building bases, as it was useless. Zombies never were a threat.

2: IT FORCES PLAYER TO BE ALERT AND KEEP MOVING. Your tomato garden might suffer from it, but then again, building a wall might help. Or then, run

I have played enough past Farmville Project Zomboid versions to know this. This game wants players DEAD, and losing is FUN.

I am sure zombies don't seek you out or your structures just because they are player made. I am on day 21 at the McCoy Logging Co. and I still have not killed a single zombie up there (minus the ones that were in the bathrooms and etc on day 1) nor are they migrating my way for no reason. Every day I make a walk down the road towards town and no zombies are migrating my way. Mainly because I am quiet and sneaky. I never sprint at my base, I never sprint home. I sneak into town and scavenge then sneak home being sure to not drag a group my way and the zombies don't leave town.

Makes exactly 0 sense for zombies to be attracted to an area just because there's no zombies there. You're forced to thin the herds near your base because they attack your doors/barricades solely because they were walking in it's direction and it got in their way. Due to helicopter noises, random gunshots, screams, etc. Which is of no fault of the player. When I mess up I want it to be my fault, but this mechanic ruins the game for me. Zombies keep respawning and instantly going straight for your safe houses just because you didn't want them breaking down all your stuff.

This is the reason why I have stopped playing recently. This change (build32) sapped a lot of the fun out of it for me, Now I don't really see the point of playing. I don't mind zombies being challenging but I don't like impossible, Right now the only way to effectively survive long term is to constantly be on the move/switching bases like crazy because zombies are always going to be zooming in on you - you clear an area set up base within a certain period of time zombies WILL be on their way to you from miles away (How do they see so far? Who is telling them that there's an area a few miles up the road that been cleared out by a human? a hive mind like the borg?) Your downfall was clearing the area in the first place, it's stupid, what was the point.

I enjoy fighting zombies but I don't enjoy fighting some sort of intelligent zombie god hive mind borg enemy. It constantly breaks immersion and reminds me that I'm not fighting zombies I'm fighting against the devs game script.

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