[REVIEW] Dynamic Spawning of Infected

[Weyland Yutani (DayZ) 1159]

When justifying the current stable infected spawning, Hicks said that zombies are attracted to high traffic area's like The Walking Dead. I counter that and say that TWD had those roving hordes which is pretty neat and would be awesome to see a roving horde of 50 zeds lumbering through the Black Forest or etc.

It feels like a trigger system w/o the trigger. So if I hide my base in a town that nobody goes to and someone stumbles their way through they see infected and are like, hey people are here on a regular basis...lets check the surrounding area for camps. Poof, there goes my camp...

I was pretty optimistic for the new dynamic spawning of infected but its the same dang thing again. It feels like there are a few infected in any given area and the longer you stay, the more infected start spawning. So when I get into a town and there area bunch of infected there, that means survivors have been there recently. The end result is exactly like a trigger. If I'm wrong on the mechanic can someone correct me please?

What I want to know is why can't the new engine handle anything more than 1,000 infected? Hicks said that on a Twitch panel two demo conventions ago. 1,000 infected was what they were playing with the old engine right? I've tweeted Brian, Eugen, Nespesney, and the Devs on what the max infected the game can handle and I get crickets. Why is this hidden from us?

I want to see Cherno with a few hundred zombies in it at all times...its a big city and big cities should have residual infected.

I just don't want people in the treelines scoping towns, seeing infected and saying there are players because there are a marginal amount of infected.

Edited November 19, 2016 by Weyland Yutani (DayZ)

[OliverPlotTwist 458]

I believe that the trigger radius is much large then it was in the mod. So if you go into a treeline to scout a town and you see infected then it more the likely that you were the one that spawn the infected in. 

And of course the old system is still in place. So some infected will be spawning regardless of player interaction. 

Edited November 19, 2016 by OliverPlotTwist

[Weyland Yutani (DayZ) 1159]

9 minutes ago, OliverPlotTwist said:

I believe that the trigger radius is much large then it was in the mod. So if you go into a treeline to scout a town and you see infected then it more the likely that you were the one that spawn the infected in. 

Hello and thanks for the reply!

Are you talking about stable or experimental?

[OliverPlotTwist 458]

3 minutes ago, Weyland Yutani (DayZ) said:

Hello and thanks for the reply!

Are you talking about stable or experimental?

Experimental.

[Weyland Yutani (DayZ) 1159]

10 minutes ago, OliverPlotTwist said:

Experimental.

If you have any sources on more info about the dynamic spawning of infected I would like to read them.

Thanks!

[OliverPlotTwist 458]

8 minutes ago, Weyland Yutani (DayZ) said:

If you have any sources on more info about the dynamic spawning of infected I would like to read them.

Thanks!

Well first I have this picture: It's old but I haven't read anything take suggest that this has changed. This is a picture of the zoning tools the devs use to 'paint' areas in which infected can be spawned by the dynamic spawner. 

 

I also have this short video from RTX talking about the dynamic spawning of infected. But I think they changed how the spawning works it's no longer dependent on the amount of players in the area.:

 

[odin_lowe 3686]

I've played a lot of 0.61 experimental, and the dynamic spawning system is exactly has Weyland describe it. 

Currently, when you scout a city or town from 500-600M +, and there's no infected roaming around, it simply means there's no player there. When you get closer to the town, you can actually see them spawn right before your eyes. 

In 0.60 or before, the infected were there, but stationary, and only started moving if a player was in the vicinity, but right now, it's much more similar to what we have in the mod.

Even though I really like how many there are when you start shooting weapons and a few players are in the area, it's still too depended on players and gives away too much info about players in a certain area.

Also, right now you can't clear out areas, the infected will respawn endlessly. 

They just kept coming...

 

Of course, we all know it's still a work in progress, and I'm looking forward to the changes for the forests, new vehicles, new animations and player controller, refined lighting and shadows, the rest of the animals coming back, etc.  But I would love to have an independent system for the infected spawning that doesn't rely on players in a certain area.

[Weyland Yutani (DayZ) 1159]

1 hour ago, odin_lowe said:

I've played a lot of 0.61 experimental, and the dynamic spawning system is exactly has Weyland describe it. 

Currently, when you scout a city or town from 500-600M +, and there's no infected roaming around, it simply means there's no player there. When you get closer to the town, you can actually see them spawn right before your eyes. 

In 0.60 or before, the infected were there, but stationary, and only started moving if a player was in the vicinity, but right now, it's much more similar to what we have in the mod.

Even though I really like how many there are when you start shooting weapons and a few players are in the area, it's still too depended on players and gives away too much info about players in a certain area.

Of course, we all know it's still a work in progress, and I'm looking forward to the changes for the forests, new vehicles, new animations and player controller, refined lighting and shadows, the rest of the animals coming back, etc.  But I would love to have an independent system for the infected spawning that doesn't rely on players in a certain area.

Funny you mention the infected appearing right before your eyes. I saw that the other day in experimental (0.61) and thought I was bugging.

Although 500 meters is a much bigger area than the mod which was around 150m-300m (I'm embarrassed I can't remember exactly as I ran a mod server and remember this stuff from the .cfg's but I think 300 is too high and it was probably 150m-200m), it still works like a trigger

But this isn't new to the Dynamic Spawning of Infected as 500m was posted 9 months ago in this reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/dayz/comments/3zkuxg/zombies_are_triggered_at_about_500m_100/

Triggers are lame and Hicks said so in other words during one of these recent demo conventions (I could find the source if I had to). Yet here we are...triggers sneaking their way back in.

1 hour ago, OliverPlotTwist said:

Well first I have this picture: It's old but I haven't read anything take suggest that this has changed. This is a picture of the zoning tools the devs use to 'paint' areas in which infected can be spawned by the dynamic spawner. 

-snip-

I also have this short video from RTX talking about the dynamic spawning of infected. But I think they changed how the spawning works it's no longer dependent on the amount of players in the area.:

-snip-

Hey man, thanks for the detailed responses. That's mighty nice of you!

Edited November 19, 2016 by Weyland Yutani (DayZ)

[odin_lowe 3686]

55 minutes ago, Weyland Yutani (DayZ) said:

 

But this isn't new to the Dynamic Spawning of Infected as 500m was posted 9 months ago in this reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/dayz/comments/3zkuxg/zombies_are_triggered_at_about_500m_100/

 

Yep. I know it's not new, thus me saying "in 0.60 or before, the infected were there, but stationary, and only started moving if a player was in the vicinity..."  

Currently in stable it's just that they start moving when players are in the area, meaning you can still see that if they're not moving, it means there's no players and vice versa.

Still, I totally agree with you. Those triggers should be gone by 1.0 or during beta test, if not before.

[Weyland Yutani (DayZ) 1159]

2 hours ago, odin_lowe said:

Yep. I know it's not new, thus me saying "in 0.60 or before, the infected were there, but stationary, and only started moving if a player was in the vicinity..."  

Currently in stable it's just that they start moving when players are in the area, meaning you can still see that if they're not moving, it means there's no players and vice versa.

Still, I totally agree with you. Those triggers should be gone by 1.0 or during beta test, if not before.

I wasn't citing you, what I meant by that was this is old tech. On another note, I did notice infected standing frozen and wasn't sure what thats about.

Honestly, the AI are very limited. Wouldn't it be cool to see an infected laying in a bed, sitting in a chair, or etc zoned out until they were alerted? The AI could use a little more AI =P.

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

3 hours ago, odin_lowe said:

Of course, we all know it's still a work in progress,

This is the most important point.

We are seeing a very bare bones Alpha version of a mechanic here.

There will be something in place that will stagger the respawn of infected as well, but we have not seen this in play yet.

I would like to see the game take into account our sight distance whether aided or otherwise and have something in place to make sure we see infected where they will be when we arrive regardless of other players prior presence.

 

Edited November 20, 2016 by ☣BioHaze☣

[BeefBacon 1185]

Well, no, it's a mix.

As I understand it, a number of zombies are spawned server-wide. If you scout out a village and you see zombies, those could be zombies spawned globally, or they could have been spawned locally. If you actually see zombies spawn in front of you then that's a fair bet that you're the first person to visit that area in a while, but if you see any zombies at all that doesn't necessarily mean that they were spawned in by somebody else.

I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to actually see them spawn in. I expect it'll be tweaked in future.

It's a similar sort of thing with doors being randomly opened or closed. Maybe they were opened by a player, maybe they were spawned like that. On that note it'd be nice if doors reset after a while. A couple of hours of a server being up makes it difficult to find a single closed door.

[kopo79 426]

so,is this infected spawn system what we got in 0.61 to be final?
it really bugs me out that if i go examble that little camping area...kill all infected,loot the cabins and then log out...when im logging,just few moments and infected are in again....
i really dont have to do much than log in and be silent...infected spawn.
infected are just like some alarm clocks that there is players near.
has there been any news from the devs that is there gonna be some tweaking in the system or is this final and be included 0.62/0.63 and future updates?

is there any ideas roaming from community that how spawn system should be handled?

[Irish. 4886]

Hopefully this helps..

Hicks in the last SR:

"over the last week or so, I saw something that concerned me: hearing conversation in regards to gameplay mechanics or systems currently implemented in the most basic form, and if they are intended (by developers) to ever change."

"Nearly every gameplay system or mechanic the player touches is at a basic functional level, meaning the tech/script/animations are present and it operates in one way or another. Fleshing it out, addressing functional and gameplay issues - that isn't something we should be wasting time and resources on, especially when so much of it is being replaced."

"The reality of the situation is, with pretty much everything on that proverbial list being dependent upon the new player, and the focus for BETA being on getting the game stable and playable on the new engine modules - we're playing our cards close to the chest."

[Sqeezorz 839]

@ Kopo79 I can tell you there some experiences of me.

1) the spawnradius (player network area) of infected is very large, I could never see with a huntingscope how infected spawn they are always there what you can see at this distance. The radius is very large which is almost only possible with a Lada is fast enough to approach an area to observe the spawn. But you have to be fast and know where to look.

2) a see of infected tells you so not that it has other players, provided you are a while on the server (more below).

3) the infected disappear when you logout makes sense, it relieves the server. If you are away and no other player in the span of the AI is then it is senseless to calculate the AI further.

4) If you eliminate infected, then the server has a cooldown for new spawning of AI, which applies to "your" range. If another player comes into your area, the cooldown will still run. You could be warned otherwise, on the other hand it would be a player notice if he comes into your "clean" area wherever infected, and then there is none. (Therefore my tip: reste live and safe the infected;)).

5) if you log off and log in again shortly thereafter (if deun system is quite fix with login -> game on ssd) then you can watch with luck the birth of the infected .. psst I write very quietly: "they become 1m Born above the ground, in the fresh air of Chernarus ". But if you can see the new log in it already infecdet has run around and their food search, then you know that you are not in your area alone .. I mean as a player. This means a certain metagaming can only be done with login / logout and also that does not give you an exact statement about the situation ... another player can be far away or very close ... run only into your area or leave him.

I think this system is quite good, I would rather, and as I believe and hope on the new controller and the Devs (yes please @hicks and co. Read) that the infected become much more intelligent and have more sense. For example: to hear better, to see differently (like a cat that only recognizes good things that move, or blinded by the sun, so tactics in the morning and in the evening are possible), maybe even smell (with new shader for wind and damaged clothes or sore the smell it should be possible to build tactics --> move against the wind.And lastly, they can also perceive the ingame as a noise.

 

A little story from me:

My character, Thondra Stingbro has been a long time in Chernarus, he lives on an RP server, has been under the bridges at home for 20 years. It was on a sunny morning in Chernogorsk when he drank at the well and did not notice an infected woman wanted to attack him from behind. At the last moment, Thondra noticed what was happening, jumped up and ran off ... he ran around his life until he realized shortly before the total exhaustion that the infected woman had lost the interest in him. That made the breathless Thondra stupid ... he could see that the woman stopped and only looked to him. That aroused Thondra's interest in the woman in the black fishnets and the red dresses. He went closer and said to her, "Hey, I tell you Luzij," "Why do you stop?" Luzij said something, but Thondra could not understand, he was close to her, could feel her breath and she just looked into his eyes. Something lovely was in her eyes, blue eyes. Thondra tried to talk to her, she also replied as if she understood him, but she was very quiet and did not lose sight of Thondra. Luzij could not be distracted by anything. Thondra sat next to her and tried to move her to sit, but she stood there, always looking into Thondra's black eyes, and said incomprehensible words. Then Thondra came to the idea of giving her something to eat, he opened a can of sardines and stretched the can of Luzij. That was not good, Luzij now began to scream and got angry, she hit Thondra with all her might. Luckily, Thondra still had the knife in his hand from the opening of the can and could stop Luzij.

I spoke the next morning with a colleague about what happened to me (Thondra). He said, "haha that was a bug, Tom, do not worry, I nodded .... but in my soul I knew: it was not a bug, it was love, the love of a vegetarian woman ... the sardines have destroyed them.

Therefore, live with the AI they are a part of Chernarus, and do not always kill immediately, it could be your love.

( <3 infected ... ^^ )