Low zombie count/low loot across servers

[Mezzanine 1]

Hey all, I'm posting this because surprisingly no one else has! I have been on several servers over the past few days and I've noticed that on most servers I log into, the zombie count is extremely low. I remember when I started playing this mod a little over a week ago, zombie counts on servers were anywhere from 600 to well over 1000. 2 Nights ago I was on a server that had only 20-30 zombies spawned at any time. I thought it was an isolated case, but the next day, playing on a new server, I saw only 60 zombies. Mind you this was a 50/50 server. This trend has continued up to this very moment, with several servers hovering around 150. Has something changed in the code? Is it a server issue? What's going on here?

I'm not even scared to walk into villages anymore, the suspense is gone. Which leads me to the other problem: loot. You can find loot sometimes, and in certain spots, but overall i've been finding it hard to even find 1 tin can inside an entire, zombieless village.

So what's going on?

[Jester. 6]

This is only US servers that are doing this for some reason. The Russian server I play on to avoid night time, has full loot and zombie tables.

[MR DELICIOUS 297]

We're experiencing it on the AUS servers as well. After patch 1.5.4 the fog and weird zombie/loot spawning issues have arisen big time. I used to be able to net 70-100 Zombie kills per town. Now I'm find there to be about 20 zombies or so. I'm really missing the zombie presence. Without them it's just PvP and Deer Standing.

[Bower 4]

This is happening in EU servers too.

[funionz 7]

Just came here looking for info on this, in main cities theres no zombies (even with zombie population count of 150+) and the only loot to be found is tons of backpacks. I found 4 alice packs in the same building even.

[FreedomTea 9]

Yup EU2 last night had an average of 100 zombies, ussualy staying around 80 but peaking at 250.

No loot respawned, not even cans. Every now and again there would be a little jump and loot would pop up but ussualy once per two hours.

Playing with a group of four is hell as the servers are full, so we tried KC2 which had like 2,000 ping (being in EU), exact same problem there.

Because its widespread im assuming its to do with the main server rather than each individual city server.

[BlackAlpha 12]

Yesterday, on EU8, I ran through 5 towns. There were no zombies whatsoever. I only found backpacks and body bags with no loot inside.

Then I joined UK1. I entered Stary Sobor. A couple of zombies spawned and there was a little bit more loot, but most looting spawns at the tents were completely empty.

Clearly, something was wrong.

[htl (nor) 0]

Same thing at the Norway servers yesterday.

It was like playing on "easy" mode with less loot.

[worbat 13]

I'm going to hazzard a guess and say that this tends to happen around peak times (11pm gmt) which is around 5/6 east coast. At this point almost daily servers (server using as an example is us4) Will tend to desync on occasion the loot and zombie tables don't seem to be updating/are delayed. The reasoning is probibly mentioned above. Peak user time, probibly something to do with the main server all the servers talk to, and it slowing down due to large connection atempts.

With popularity of this mod expanding so fast it's expected for something like this to happen.

Also alpha.

[JimiEZ (DayZ) 0]

I'm going to hazzard a guess and say that this tends to happen around peak times (11pm gmt) which is around 5/6 east coast. At this point almost daily servers (server using as an example is us4) Will tend to desync on occasion the loot and zombie tables don't seem to be updating/are delayed. The reasoning is probibly mentioned above. Peak user time' date=' probibly something to do with the main server all the servers talk to, and it slowing down due to large connection atempts.

With popularity of this mod expanding so fast it's expected for something like this to happen.

Also alpha.

[/quote']

Nah, I've been having this at pretty much all times after 1.5.6, regardless of the time of day / serverload.

At first there's no zombies or loot, then if you run around an area for about 5 minutes, zombies and loot will spawn and thereafter will keep spawning every couple of minutes or so. Rocket tweaked the spawning scripts in 1.5.6 which is probably the reason behind this.

[Grey2ham 1]

Its due to Server Performance. Basically if the server isn't restarted every 6 or so hours the performance starts to drop and less stuff is spawned in to compensate.

[Derbysieger (DayZ) 0]

I don't think it's because of the update. Right after the 1.5.6 Update I played 3 hours on Norway 1 and there were tons loot and a lot of zombies when you entered villages and towns.

[fox808 40]

It's a bug' date=' relating to the latest patch

[/quote']

and...

Zombie/Loot counts are dependent on server performance. If the server admins are not regularly restarting the server (every six hours) then the server will have difficulty spawning in.

HOWEVER.

Low zombie numbers are NOT an indicator of breaking' date=' unless they are at 0. The server only spawns in what it needs.

[/quote']

[Stikes 0]

I agree, main threat should always be the zombies. Without them people seem to just straight pvp

[worbat 13]

Nah' date=' I've been having this at pretty much all times after 1.5.6, regardless of the time of day / serverload.

At first there's no zombies or loot, then if you run around an area for about 5 minutes, zombies and loot will spawn and thereafter will keep spawning every couple of minutes or so. Rocket tweaked the spawning scripts in 1.5.6 which is probably the reason behind this.

[/quote']

I'll have to disagree, if you enter a town/area that no one has been to for a while (say 30+ minuites) it would appear the server despawns everything in that cell to save processing power. When you enter the cell the server won't know to update it untill the next server tick. All this information is taking only from experiance and I haven't got any other proof to back it up with.

[Bower 4]

snip

I initially thought this but right now I'm in chern, have been for a while, and there's numerous places where loot just hasn't spawned. No cans or anything. There's also a distinct lack of zombies.

[worbat 13]

I initially thought this but right now I'm in chern' date=' have been for a while, and there's numerous places where loot just hasn't spawned. No cans or anything. There's also a distinct lack of zombies.

[/quote']

Odd, there must be more to it then. Who knows!

[WildGunsTomcat 78]

Yeah I logged on last night after being offline for two days. I wandered through the towns on the extreme west, heading up to Vybor airfield to trade with some of the Legion guys.

There were almost no zombies in any of the towns.

Then I get to Vybor itself and walk into a grocery store...and I hit the motherlode.

3 Winchesters with loads of ammo laying around

2 CZ's with loads of ammo laying around.

I got 9 cans of food

An Alice Pack

4 Cokes

Matches

A Map

A Compass

A hunting knife

Binoculars

Shit was ridiculous to have all that spawned in one grocery store.

Something strange is going on with the spawning script.

[Mezzanine 1]

Yeah, I feel like the immersion of the game is really gone right now. I love PvP to death but its supposed to complement the survival aspect of this mod... which is surviving the ZOMBIE outbreak. Hopefully it isn't "working as intended". That would really suck :/.

[cabot696 1]

Yeah' date=' I feel like the immersion of the game is really gone right now. I love PvP to death but its supposed to complement the survival aspect of this mod... which is surviving the ZOMBIE outbreak. Hopefully it isn't "working as intended". That would really suck :/.

[/quote']

I agree. I am pretty sure this is a bug and it is far from working as intended. There was no mention of this in the 1.5.6 patch notes and it makes no sense for something like this to be included intentionally.

I hope this bug will be patched very soon. I know the game is in alpha and it is already buggy in general so this is understandable, but I consider this bug to be game breaking and it should be a #1 priority to fix.

Rocket is really on top of development and updating the game in general so I don't see why a patch wouldn't come out before the weekend but I wish we had a little more information for what to expect.

[worbat 13]

Going to die of thirst, kinda depressing really.

[sleepless 22]

Spent two hours trying to connect, then went through a town and an airfield and collected a backpack and four different types of ammo, killed 14 zombies before my makarov ammo ran out and i got chewed up by the last zombie in town.

Stupid waste of the last four hours, my enthusiasm for this game is waning fast.

[gradinger 0]

yea..experienced same on 3 servers today.. not really scary anymore

[zeru 5]

Last 4 servers I played on also had about 5-20% the normal zombie count.

Perhaps in the debug menu a server uptime line could be added, so that we could get a better feel of what might be causing problems.

[Mezzanine 1]

My main concern is for the future of the mod too. I know it's alpha, but all these new players are, in my opinion, now getting a watered down version of the original concept. Not that it's deterring many, but I do think that it's a major glitch that should be put on top priority, if it hasn't been already.