2.0 crawling changes

Originally posted by SCPeach (Math Guy): So I heard about zombies being able to just crawl into 1x1 spaces soon, that sounds like it's gonna be a nightmare and wanted but besides that, what do you guys think?

Cause if they're gonna do that, they need to at least in the bare minimum, fix the damn animations for crawling and fix when zombies decide to do it. Go to swing at a zombies head and it ducks down, go to swing downwards to its head and it stands up, instantly on both accounts and for no feasible reason, we seriously can't have more zombies actively crawling if this remains. Have they mentioned anywhere that they'll be working on that?

It sounds like they’re giving it all a thorough review. From the official forum dev diary:

Originally posted by faatal:

Originally posted by FranticDan: Regarding the new zombie crawling coming in v2. I sure hope TFP have addressed to serious issues with the current zombie crouching mechanic.

1) there are zero frames between when a zombie goes from standing to crouched. There should be a transition animation!
2) zombies get insane extra reach when they are crouching, making them even more likely to hit the player through walls and doors. It's already bad enough the "hugging" attack animation gives them extra reach, as well as when you run away from sprinting zombies having the ability to hit you from 2.5 metres away (single player not server)
3) the trigger for when zombies go into crouching is way too sensitive. Moe and the wight are massive offenders for crouching in doorways when there's plenty of room for them to stand.

Yes, I've spent days improving it and I am still not done.
They have a new crouch anim. They have new rules for when to crouch. Fixed a bug with the head collision offset being wrong.
I am planning on some spine bending for light ducking. Planning on path changes to allow for 1m pathing vs the current 2m tall logic they ALL use.

Just to add some additional information about zombie crawling, it isn't only crawling through low spaces that is being improved but also new 1x1 meter sleeper volumes being added that zombies can crawl out of. Yesterday Laz posted this explanation:

I noticed a few people confused in regards to Faatal's comments on AI improvement and POIs. The AI improvements have nothing to do with how the POIs themselves spawn. He was referring to AI improvements in regards to the new "Crawl Out Zombies" feature. Essentially, POI creators (both TFP and modders) will now be able to create sleeper volumes as small as 1 meter in size that can spawn more than one zombie over time. This is largely most helpful in large enemy encounters where spawning many zombies at the same time is very costly performance wise.
For example, the final encounter in the Shamway Factory originally had roughly 22 maximum zombies active at the same time (non infested). Using this new feature, that number has been reduced roughly to around 15 maximum zombies active at the same time without sacrificing the overall number of zombies for the entire battle. In addition to this performance gain, I was able to inject some stealth kill opportunities as part of the encounter for players who enjoy that play style. I look forward to seeing what you all think when you get your hands on 2.0. 😎

Originally posted by Andi: Yeah but why can't we go full die hard McClane style crawl vent shafts and the like??
There once was a mod that let us crawl 1m spaces, so where's the problem?
If zambies can, it would only be fair if we could as well.

Players used to be able too, but it was heavily exploited because the zeds couldn't. So to fix the exploit, they disabled the ability for the player to.
Then the zeds could, but they didn't update the players because they didn't have animations for it.
I feel like there was a plan to allow players to do it again, but maybe the idea has been tossed, or they have just been pushing it off for later. Kind of like 3rd-person view.

Originally posted by Andi: Yeah but why can't we go full die hard McClane style crawl vent shafts and the like??
There once was a mod that let us crawl 1m spaces, so where's the problem?
If zambies can, it would only be fair if we could as well.

I believe the balance of POIs is a factor. The effort to e.g. burrow your way through a random wall is tuned assuming you must have two blocks of clearance. For instance, there are one-block holes in many walls, behind vents and paintings, for stashing semi-hidden loot or courier satchels. Those would flip from ‘still impassable’ to ‘a no effort way to get through a wall.’

Let’s be clear: of course you can always go through any wall you want. It’s an open world. But as you know, some routes are deliberately a lot harder than others. The work for level design to review all POIs for one block entry could be substantial. So it’ll probably stay where the only purpose-made vent shafts happen to be tall enough to walk through rather than crawl through.