paladylan

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After a year I see this thread is still up, alive and well with discussion(because I continually get emails with every reply), with many voicing their opinions on the mob at hand. Although I can say that my friends and I are taking a break from this game(mainly due to the endgame feeling cheesy still with the demolisher in its current state), I have thought about how fixes that do not directly affect it could be implemented to make it slightly more 'fair' to deal with him. As I iterated once before, I do not think that having a mob limit the potential of base building or gameplay style is healthy for a game. -Make the demolisher affected by spikes. Slowing him down should give you a bigger window to deal with him, and make him easier to shoot. Allows the player some basic counterplay. To make this a bit more balanced, he could eat the spike health at 2x the normal zombies do when he walks over them. -Make electric traps disable his bomb for a short amount of time. Hes shocked, so his device wont be able to be set off even if shot for a short duration. -A new upgrade for buildings, you can apply a hardening liquid to blocks/walls that makes it more resistant to explosions.

Do you by chance have a screenshot of this so its a bit easier to visualize? Thanks for the ideas in advance. Also, as many other people have posted, I drew a small stair design in paint(its very basic, and from a bilateral view) incase anyone in the future is having trouble visualizing what some people mean with putting turrets so zombies are shot from behind. The graphic has zombies chasing the player upstairs while the turrets shoot them in the back. You could possibly add electric fences near the stairs to slow them down(perhaps when they come within view of the turrets for maximum efficiency). Blade traps seem like they only hinder late game base design(due to triggering demos) unless you apply a zed filtering system, or make it on the third block height to only target demo heads. Hopefully they add more traps in the future( i know they are adding a melee turret in A19, which is pretty unique), as the "Advanced Engineering" does feel a bit underwhelming in terms of unlocks, but its still a good tree overall.

I love that you needed to strawman my entire argument as me trying to play 7d2d as a "tower defense game", its quite laughable. I dont even know where to start with your post because it jumps to so many conclusions and clearly emits a bias. Building a base is a selling point of the game, and a core mechanic as to why it is a unique survival game. Ah yes, lets just completely make one way of playing absolutely trash, and then say its complaining, excellent deduction! With the demo zombie, they severely LIMIT this mechanic for ANYONE who wants to build a base, and makes most of the end game items completely useless, like the turrets that will set off the demo zombie. Do you think its good game design to severely limit creativity in one of the main selling points of the game, and make a whole category of items(electricity/traps) handicapped? But im sure you think that means the entire game is a tower defense game, right? Also, I don't know where you got "I like to play this waay, so change it", as I previously stated, why make a category of late game completely obsolete? Its a poor game design choice. I'm not saying that every playstyle needs to be perfect, but LATE GAME ITEMS should be an option for the LATE GAME. Im not asking to use primitive bows in late game, these are late game items that currently serve little purpose because of one zombie. Also, my suggestion was rather to not nerf the stats of the zombie, but to change the concept of the zombie in some way. I'm not whining, I didn't complain about how "OMG THIS ZOMBIE SUCKS REMOVE IT NOW!!!!". All you did was @%$*#! at my post and call it "whining", while trying to be demeaning with throwing insults like "less intelligent players"(lol, ironic) around.

Exactly, Im not sure why giving feedback on an unfinished product where they value testing and player feedback is considered nonsensical, as opposed to silently modding the game and not giving devs feedback. Its one thing to whine and do nothing, but hes modding the game because he realizes there is an imbalance, and while modding is a temporary fix, not telling the devs about the problem you encountered is certain for a lack of change on the topic at hand. As a previously stated analogy, you would interrupt a chef if they were making a dish incorrectly, and suggest how to properly make it, even though its in progress, as opposed to sitting idly and letting him ruin the dish while you make it correctly on your own. +1

This isnt the same as reading a book where it is fluid and flows together continuously. The game is given in checkpoints(Alpha #s), and as of this "checkpoint", there is little counterplay for the demolisher, and it limits other aspects of the game. It would be logical to give them feedback on what is wrong in the current state of the game. They might not have had any plans for the demolisher to counter it, or maybe they don't realize its an issue. It would be logical to give them feedback incase they do not realize this mistake, rather than silently modding it and rolling the dice hoping they fix it in the next "checkpoint"(which would be apha 19). My guess as to why its so powerful is because it made it through limited playtesting without an issue, so they would not be aware of the problem unless it was brought to their attention. Never once did I mention it being a finished product, almost finished, or that they were adding little content and approaching the publishing of their game. This is how it works in every other game that is in development, even AAA games like Dota 2 see balance discussions and suggestions to improve the experience, should everyone sit with their tail between their legs because its in progress and use that as an excuse to not suggest things and hope they fix it on their own without player feedback?

Is a game in progress not allowed to have their game given feedback in order to possibly help with it going in a direction that is healthier for the game? Would you rather no one discuss balance and have the game be released with flaws that could have been discussed and ironed out in the alpha stages where changes are more likely to be added, so that these problems aren't brought to light and people have to install mods when the game is released to make it more balanced? It would make sense to give MORE feedback during the stage of rapid development and change, in order to make sure the correct changes are being applied, and that progress is being made. You seem to miss the point that even though something is infact in progress, it can still have feedback. These alpha updates are given to give us new content to keep the game fresh, and allow for a greater pool of feedback. If a chef is making the dish incorrectly and using wrong ingredients, should you correct him, or is it a work in progress and you should let him ruin the dish?

I am not expecting it to be a perfect game. When did I ever mention the quality of the game? Is a game in progress not allowed to have their game given feedback in order to possibly help with it going in a direction that is healthier for the game? Would you rather no one discuss balance and have the game be released with flaws that could have been discussed and ironed out in the alpha stages where changes are more likely to be added? It would make sense to give MORE feedback during the stage of rapid development and change, in order to make sure the correct changes are being applied, and that progress is being made. You seem to think this is a case of whining or that its a major problem I've made 10 threads on, hyperbolizing my argument.

There is no whining going on, I am not complaining about the zombie in a subjective way, because at normal settings the demo completely limits late game possibilities on multiple aspects, it's poor game design. Your solution is like playing an FPS where a gun does almost no damage, and your proposition is "just mod it and play", why should it be that way in the first place? Should we not discuss gameplay mechanics and features that we deem unfun, unfair, or damaging to the game so mods are not required to have a fun experience? If we do not point out these problems, then they will never be fixed. There is a difference between constructive analysis and feedback and whining

Most of your solutions either boil down to avoiding the demolisher as much as possible(gamestage modification, editing them out), or changing the stats of the zombie drastically(which rather suits better as proposed balance changes, and can act as a temporary solution for now). These seem more like putting bandaids on a severe cut- it will work only temporarily. The adaptation of placing two blocks rather than one is quickly nullified when demolishers start coming in large numbers, and it doesnt help that two demo explosions destroy steel. While I do agree that adding some of these custom mods will improve the game, it ignores the problem that the base game has with balance, because not everyone will want to mod their game(consoles most likely will never have the option). Editing out the zombies does not solve the problem, it ignores it entirely. I will look into the custom zombies as an alternative if there is not any progress towards fixing this issue in the next upcoming patches.

explosive bolts will not kill the demo, it just activates the explosive while doing damage i believe, it also doesn't help that exploding arrows are not unlocked through skill unlocks(the wikipedia said its unlocked at yeah science 2, but the wiki page of Yeah Science says otherwise, and I cannot craft them with yeah science 5) (Edited): I have just made an edit to the gamepedia wiki with the correct unlock method for the exploding crossbow bolt schematic in case anyone is looking for proper information in the future

While I may not be fighting the zombie horde directly, strategizing and innovating in order to create a unique base design that works is a way of dealing with the horde. If i farm enough parts and resources to make enough traps/turrets and have enough power to sustain it, is that not a fair exchange for trading me using a gun? I am sacrificing a larger yield of resources and parts in order to make the base function, and ontop of that creating a good base design to combat it. While you can argue that I am not actively fighting them with guns(although I use a crossbow to help the traps/turrets), I am "actively' fighting them when it is not bloodmoon by preparing the defenses, which take substantially more resources than just making ammunition and explosives. I sincerely hope the developers do not consider the only way to fight the horde as spraying into the zombies with firearms, as it would leave the game with a very shallow complexity.

The problem with targeting demos before any other zombie is that in order for this to happen -demos must spawn first, or when zombie count is low so they can be identified and dealt with -identified and killed before reaching base defenses however, on later waves reaching either of these criteria are made substantially harder, because harder waves include -more zombies which make identifying demos harder, and makes the window for killing them before reaching base defenses smaller -more demos spawn, which means more firepower required(try killing 5 demos, or 5000 hp, as a single player. Even with m60 + AP this is very difficult to do, and on top of that other zombies are still present

The demolisher has an identitity crisis with doing too many things with little to no drawbacks, and leaves non-exploitation and non-cheese base building almost pointless in its current state. If the zombie has a lot of HP, fast movement speed that cannot be counteracted by spikes, an almost unavoidable AoE that essentially destroys anything under the strongest block(steel) in only one explosion(if there are two demolishers next to each other you can say goodbye to your steel wall). Traps and others are either very cost inefficient or just add fuel to the fire by triggering the explosion, along with turrets of any kind. This leaves little counterplay apart from spraying down the demos with AP rounds with an m60(snipers become less effective later on because more demolishers spawn and the lack of firerate cant keep up), but not everyone wants to just shoot zombies endlessly, especially people in the late game who have probably already had their fair share of mindlessly killing the zombies. One great aspect that lures people into this game is base building, and how to properly set up a defense against the zombies. With the demolisher, almost any complex base defense is punished. If you are like me and enjoy building a complex base with traps and turrets that try to automate some of the killing, then you find yourself severely limited in the late game in terms of base building. In terms of how to fix this, I feel like the problem is not the stats of the zombie, but rather the concept. Its not fun to play against something that destroys your base in a cheap way and limits what you can use against it(ex: turrets will simply trigger it, so you cant build turrets late game unless you want to roll the dice every time it targets a zombie and hope its not a demolisher), Nerfing its AoE simply just makes it bad, making it slow but still having a large amount of damage doesnt solve it, as managing zombies on later hordes is very hard, and it will more than likely reach your defenses in one way or another. The concept of it simply limits end game content to either avoiding the horde(which is a main enticement of the game, so already not good), or just building a temporary base and hoping you can mow him down in time.