yeah, me too

Originally posted by ninjacowan123:

I see other people (including me) have had this bizarre occurrence; nearly all survivors they come across start following you on the first day. I feel like the Pied Piper walking through town and having the citizens follow me. Is this intentional? Is this a bug?

its not a bug, the dev said it because they are friendly and tend to group up

im not a fan of it either

they should make it so it is rare for a citizen to follow you, but most should be unfriendly/uninterested in teaming up and the military should try to kill everything that moves. I ended up shooting like 20 grunts before I realized they were friendly, and then we they sorta followed me around Louisville like I was their commander or smth

Yes some of them follow players for the following reason. If npcs are free they disperse and player never witnesses the action because it will be off the screen. You will only find dead bodies. Then instead of npcs we will have random deadbolu generator.

As a matter of fact this mod spawns quite many individual npcs. But the fact that you don't mention them proves my point.

The overall experience will depend on the spawn location and amount of zombies. If there is not enough zombies then you will get many followers.

I can maybe a little tune it. Currently they follow you if there is no threat around. I could possibly increase the threat radius.

This is by design? I thought the mod was broken. Spawned in downtown Louisville and was swarmed by a horde of normal people, all staring at me like I was the city chief.

one thing i would suggest is to add more "guard" type npcs where they would be 50-50 hostile to anyone (zombie or survivor) entering their homes.

adding hostile npcs into the mix would be cool too like criminals and inmates fighting everyone would add more chaos too if its possible.

This mod is amazing and is definitely how i'll start playthroughs from now on, its so chaotic.

I do agree that hordes of people all standing the main player is immersion breaking. I'd much rather just see bands of survivors around, and maybe a rare few follow the player.

Do they need to follow the player? Perhaps the most immersive experience is if they did not follow anyone at all most of the time, trying chaotically to escape the area, with some random survivors (perhaps those with guns) being followed as people "cling to them for safety". Eventually, moving off map and despawning

When I loaded in on a fully vanilla world with just these two mods enabled, default settings with high spawns, within about a minute I was followed by around 20 NPCs.

I think instead if perhaps 1-4 followed me, and the others broke off into groups of similar sizes (or went at it alone) - this would feel amazing.

Anyway, I truly love the sound design and the ambience that this mod creates - I've been playing and modding for many years and I don't think I've ever come across something that's felt as immersive as this.

Mods like Wandering Zombies cause similar issues with vanilla meta-events. Normally, zombies only migrate about twice a day, but with that mod, they're always wandering around. So, when you come across events like house/vehicle/zone stories, there often aren't any zombies there because they've already wandered away. Even though it's more realistic, it interferes with the player experience of encountering zombies themed around a story.

The independent NPCs in this mod have this same problem where they're always wandering, which makes them disperse and die before the player can encounter them. So, theoretically, the solution should also be the same as vanilla zombie migration, which is to not let them constantly wander.

So, I still think more guard/defender AI is the most logical fix here, instead of the NPCs always following the player.

The idea of NPC's grouping together for survival is a neat idea but I agree that it needs to be tuned way down or at least modifiable in the settings to a degree. I know you're very limited in fine tuning stuff due to the current build but it is very jarring when I turn around and realizing that my day one apocalypse has turned into Pikmin 😅

I think maybe having some kind of hard cap (player adjustable?) for the amount of people who will follow you is the easy answer because it's less immersion breaking when it's a small group compared to having literally 12 Army soldiers follow you around like you're the president. Either way the mod is very cool, I hope it can reach it's fullest potential

Yeah the following is overtuned. How am I supposed to loot houses when there are THIRTY people following me around?

I too am in this discussion, but I wanna hand my two cents.

I'll do my best to keep anyone I meet safe.

Originally posted by Bejasc:

Do they need to follow the player? Perhaps the most immersive experience is if they did not follow anyone at all most of the time, trying chaotically to escape the area, with some random survivors (perhaps those with guns) being followed as people "cling to them for safety". Eventually, moving off map and despawning

When I loaded in on a fully vanilla world with just these two mods enabled, default settings with high spawns, within about a minute I was followed by around 20 NPCs.

I think instead if perhaps 1-4 followed me, and the others broke off into groups of similar sizes (or went at it alone) - this would feel amazing.

Anyway, I truly love the sound design and the ambience that this mod creates - I've been playing and modding for many years and I don't think I've ever come across something that's felt as immersive as this.

I second this. The atmosphere this mod creates is incredible, but NPC's shouldn't treat you like you are the return of Jesus. At least make us able to customize the maximum number of followers.

I like the idea, I think it's will implemented. I don't have a deep problem with it. But split some to follow and some other wandering around just killing zombies would be more intensive.

Mybe, but need a new feature, some survivors in panic running out of the place (I suppose you need to kill them when get to far somehow), I haven't seen cowards alive in this mod.

On the other side, what I wish to see is a much much higher value for defenders in the first day than in the bandits value for the rest of the game. That's easy to watch and very immersive if it's possible.

I haven't played with this mod, and I only briefly experienced the parent mod (Hostile Bandits), for precisely this reason. I like the idea of friendly and bandit NPCs. What I don't like is the idea of NPCs that aggro or follow a player for no other reason than they're programmed to do it. It would be a major improvement for somebody like me if the survivor NPCs operated independently of the player UNLESS some manner of trust or reputation was established with them as individuals. Actions like offering food, treating their wounds, or saving them from a zombie encounter could contribute to a story-like sense of camaraderie that would bind them to you. Conversely, causing harm to them, withholding food and medicine when needed, or leaving them to die to zombies could inspire them to develop a negative relationship with the player.

It's one thing to make the world not feel empty. It's another to make the world feel alive -- even while you're fighting the undead.