[2023] POIs

To me the use case for ‘tier 0’ POIs is to have a place to hole up when starting a game, without having to clear a whole POI of zombies. Because if you woke up naked in the zombie apocalypse, would your first instinct really be to start a carpentry project and build a new freestanding structure? Not me; not when there are houses already there.

The downside to increasing the proportion of tier 0 POIs would effectively be urban sprawl. Meaning, those wanting to do trader quests would be annoyed at the increased travel time, going past all the empty buildings to get where, arguably, the ‘meatiest’ part of the gameplay occurs.

Also, luck could certainly be a factor here. In my A21 world, I have a downtown area that seems to have its fair share of non-questable POIs. This includes not just abandoned buildings but other ‘filler’ like several small parks strung together. Which is not to say they’re useless! I built my first base at Arch Park and, after building on top of it, it’s served me well through many horde nights. Come to think of it, perhaps the RWG populates plenty of tier 0’s in downtown and rural areas, but is weaker on tier 0’s in suburban residential areas like OP is talking about.