So I've noticed some odd things about need zones, and that's the fact that they cause some pretty intense performance issues the more you discover. I have about 200+ hours logged on Layton Lake at this point and noticed as I played the map more and discovered more, the lag only grew so much more intense. To a point where exiting and entering binoculars or scopes would hitch the game. Eventually it got unplayable. Finally, I got tired of the unplayability of my Layton Lake map and was told deleting the need zones file (basically starting the map fresh) would help. Suddenly I am back up in frames, the performance of my game has returned to what I would expect, and everything is good except....now I don't know my need zones. Of course I did backup my need zones file but loading it back onto my save would just bring back the issue. We need, absolutely MUST have better optimization for need zones. As it is currently, it heavily impacts the long-term playability of maps and is an unusual thing to even cause such issues in the first place.
#We NEED Optimized Need Zones
inner jay
inner jay
I feel a system that could help with this is not loading all the need zones onto a map at once, instead having the map empty (aside from outposts, towers, deployables, stands, and lore spots) and players can search (and pin so they load instead of turning off the moment a player leaves the map screen) specific animals need zones. Along with this, being able to filter out currently active (as in the timezone is applicable to the current in-game time) or having all zones for that animal shown.
Example; I only want to hunt Whitetails, so I can search up Whitetails on the map and all the zones will show to me that I have discovered for Whitetails. Then I can toggle a filter for either displaying zones that align with the current time, or showing all zones discovered for Whitetail regardless of time. Another cool feature that could be implemented is if I have a animal pinned, a UI outside of the map that could show up (maybe along with a perk?) that shows a bar as a visual sign of how long until the zones swap over? Like for Roosevelt elk they sleep from 20:00-4:00, drink between 4:00-8:00, eat between 8:00-12:00, sleep again between 12:00-16:00, then eat again between 16:00-20:00. Having a visual thing showing this would be really nice in knowing what to expect your animals to be doing on your reserves and narrow down where you want to be looking to need zone grind and begin that diamond/GO grind!
grave quarry
I've had this problem on my filled in maps, some areas get really laggy.
inner jay
It can get especially bad if you grind out zones from watch towers using the perk, which I often will spend 1-2 hours a session (which is half my time usually) hunting from towers with the new speaker caller. I get some fantastic bow hunts done this way with several stands and tents. On top of that, if you play with friends or multiplayer and they discover zones, you get to keep those! And the zones you'll discover wandering? It tends to add up quicker than people think, especially if you're going out of your way to set up for GO or diamond grinding, you are always managing zones for a while until you got the population to where you need. The lag that forms from this is intense especially after my 200+ hrs on Layton.