Another "direction of the game thread" and iam concerned...

[Kalen]

I think Ghostlight is trying to say is that while he wants it to be possible to build a nearly zombie-proof base, he also wants it to be difficult to do so, and to do so is the ultimate goal in the same way other players might try to get all purple items.

 

Not quite... he's saying he wants a nearly zombie-proof base on the highest difficulty.

[Ghostlight]

Maybe thats the point of demolishers.... maybe higher difficulties are meant for people that don't want any style of base to accomplish what you are asking for.

 

Gamestage 153 they appear. Hardly higher difficulty. Granted not a threat right away because you will only get a handful then and one at a time, but 153 is still early game.

[Ghostlight]

You want to be able to play on hard mode, but experience easy mode, yes?

 

I want to play on hard and make it feel easy through cunning base design and interaction with the horde.

 

The base I reference will work fine on easy, normal and above normal; with default and double default spawns up to game stage 200 at least and approximately day 56 at least.

 

I have no concerns about that point. Gamestage 200 is nothing. My demolisher issues come at much later gamestages when they come a half dozen at a time.

 

That is sufficient to show demolishers CAN be counteracted and base building is not dead, for anyone playing the game as intended.

 

A video of someone handling one or two Demolishers at a low gamestage is your proof they can be countered. Sorry but LOL. Show me him doing it at GS 600, multiplayer ideally, on Warrior or above. Then we can talk.

 

IF you want to bounce your settings up; it'll need work. Turn them down it'll be OP. BUt if are genuinely looking to find a way that you can crank the difficulty up to max, spawns up to max and still have your base auto kill everything with no risk to yourself.... turn on God mod. Cos you aren't playing anymore.

 

Yet we achieved that through cunning base design before Demolishers were added. Insane level. Gamestage god knows, high hundreds. Multiplayer. Never fired a shot on horde night. No exploits. Total repair bill, a few blade traps. How many people achieved that I wonder?

 

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I think Ghostlight is trying to say is that while he wants it to be possible to build a nearly zombie-proof base, he also wants it to be difficult to do so

 

Absolutely bang on. Thank you.

 

Difficult, not impossible.

 

Difficult, not prohibitively expensive in ammo and repairs.

 

Difficult, not solved by exploits.

[Jugginator]

A video of someone handling one or two Demolishers at a low gamestage is your proof they can be countered. Sorry but LOL. Show me him doing it at GS 600, multiplayer ideally, on Warrior or above. Then we can talk.

 

 

 

Yet we achieved that through cunning base design before Demolishers were added. Insane level. Gamestage god knows, high hundreds. Multiplayer. Never fired a shot on horde night. No exploits. Total repair bill, a few blade traps. How many people achieved that I wonder?

 

So what you're saying is, you want to sit and do nothing easy mode on the hardest difficulty? you're making zero sense lol. hardest difficulty + never firing a shot + total repair bill a few blade traps = the game was easy.

 

Yes anything before A18 you could make do with some wood blocks. The game got harder. You want the game harder, and you're crying that it's harder but you want it harder but you want it easy while being hard.

 

You ok man? Lol

 

hardest difficulty should mean you've accomplished something by just not dying. Shouldn't be any ways to do it easily and cheaply.

[Ghostlight]

Demos are a non-issue if you just focus on them when you see em.

 

All 8 of them that came at once from different directions. Interesting tactic.

 

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So what you're saying is, you want to sit and do nothing easy mode on the hardest difficulty? you're making zero sense lol. hardest difficulty + never firing a shot + total repair bill a few blade traps = the game was easy.

 

Easy due to years of refining base designs and playing with a group of min-maxers till we were an expert oiled machine? We deserved it. Could you do it?

 

What I am saying is that right now there seems to 3 ways to deal with them, and they are all EXTREMES (avoid, exploit or massive bill). It shouldn't be like that. There should be a creamy middle.

[Jugginator]

Dude i literally freestyled random walls with traps and had no issue pre A-18. And yes before you go off on a tantrum, I had the difficulty as high as it could go and edited the spawns to only have wrights/cops/etc. o.O

 

Whatever you wanna say. I've had swarms of demos all around my base. I've had no issues with them. You want to sit at a base and do nothing on the hardest difficulty. Sorry but it's not going to happen. Then it won't be "insane" difficulty...

 

Again, you ok man?

[PaybackXero]

So what you're saying is, you want to sit and do nothing easy mode on the hardest difficulty? you're making zero sense lol. hardest difficulty + never firing a shot + total repair bill a few blade traps = the game was easy.

 

Yes anything before A18 you could make do with some wood blocks. The game got harder. You want the game harder, and you're crying that it's harder but you want it harder but you want it easy while being hard.

 

You ok man? Lol

 

hardest difficulty should mean you've accomplished something by just not dying. Shouldn't be any ways to do it easily and cheaply.

 

I can't figure out how you aren't getting GhostLight's point. He wants to figure out how to make the harder difficulties eventually become easy (due to hard work), which is the entire point/endgame for difficulties.

 

Yes, it's an achievement just to survive on Insane at first, but the goal of Insane is to zombie-proof a base, just like all the other difficulties - it's just harder to do so. At some point, all difficulties become trivial, because you get used to how you have to play on that difficulty. There is no such thing as a hardest difficulty that always stays difficult. You will, at some point, be too good for the game, and all difficulties will be easy mode for you. There should always be a way to do a hard mode easily, because that's the whole point - to get good enough that it is easy.

 

A game that never got easier, no matter how much you improved, would be insanely stupid - which is why they don't exist.

[Kalen]

I can't figure out how you aren't getting GhostLight's point. He wants to figure out how to make the harder difficulties eventually become easy (due to hard work), which is the entire point/endgame for difficulties.

 

Yes, it's an achievement just to survive on Insane at first, but the goal of Insane is to zombie-proof a base

 

Says who? Who says the goal of insane is a zombie-proof base? I'd say the addition of demolishers is evidence to the contrary.

[DeadGerry]

All 8 of them that came at once from different directions. Interesting tactic.

 

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Easy due to years of refining base designs and playing with a group of min-maxers till we were an expert oiled machine? We deserved it. Could you do it?

 

What I am saying is that right now there seems to 3 ways to deal with them, and they are all EXTREMES (avoid, exploit or massive bill). It shouldn't be like that. There should be a creamy middle.

 

So you spent years refining and deserving a prior base, but now 2 months into the latest build you're at you wits end. Wow. Diminishing returns.

 

You want to outsmart the game, but you can't - and that tells you the game is broken... have you considered that it tells you you are not being smart enough yet? That there IS an answer, it's just not one you've found yet? Nope - because you want this clever, cunning earned and refined base NOW - and that's the problem.

 

Gamestage 200 is nothing? 6 at a time? I'd put my money on this base handling 6 demos at a time, no problem at all; and by the time you're at game stage 200+ you'll have had plenty of time to improve on this base. It's only a problem if you don't have the ability to improve on this base on your own initiative, and if that's the case then we can stop discussing earning or refining things.

 

 

Gamestage 600+? Okay - I'll let you know when I or anyone else I'm watching get's there, presuming anyone else plays that long - but If I play that long there is nothing left to accomplish - just playing till I /we get smooshed by a big /hard enough horde... so... won't be complaining when a big / hard enough horde smooshes me/us - because what are you continuing playing for? A World record longest game?

 

How many people achieved that? Alpha <16 I'd guess everyone? Everyone I know did, even my friends who I played with and who weren't very active experienced players. In fact I didn't even use anything electric on mine - rebuild costs were pretty much wooden spikes. Too many people achieved it - that's why demolishers were added.

 

Your repeated failure to acknowledge the various strategies mentioned here to focus on your own flawed notion of 'only having 3 extreme options' makes me question whether or not you have ever actually 'earned or refined' anything on your own - it sounds distinctly like someone who copied an exploit base and is now looking for a new exploit base to copy.

 

I think I will take your advice and stop talking to you though, cos none of it's landing. Enjoyed it (mostly) while it lasted and thanks for being part of an interesting thread full of good ideas - just sorry you can't engage with any of them.

 

There are PLENTY of games which don't get easier the longer you play - in fact back in the ol' days they got harder and harder the longer you played as you improved your skills, timing and mental process along the way to compensate for the increasing difficulty.

 

It seems some of the kids have lost that ability.

 

Shame.

 

It is 100% contradictory to be demanding easier mechanics and easier enemies while insisting on turning up the difficulty - you're wasting your time and everybody else's by asking for it.

[Linkhead2]

The Game has been falling of the rails for a while now, im quite convinced that a Mod team should mod all the pervious options that players can manually Enable and Disable such as certain core elements that have been taken out of the game, since the DEV team dont seem to care anymore.

 

The basebuilding was the most enjoyable part of my experience and I was gutted to see it butchered. In terms of a lot of things, you were most indeed correct. I endorse this post wholeheartedly.

[Linkhead2]

So you spent years refining and deserving a prior base, but now 2 months into the latest build you're at you wits end. Wow. Diminishing returns.

 

You want to outsmart the game, but you can't - and that tells you the game is broken... have you considered that it tells you you are not being smart enough yet? That there IS an answer, it's just not one you've found yet? Nope - because you want this clever, cunning earned and refined base NOW - and that's the problem.

 

Gamestage 200 is nothing? 6 at a time? I'd put my money on this base handling 6 demos at a time, no problem at all; and by the time you're at game stage 200+ you'll have had plenty of time to improve on this base. It's only a problem if you don't have the ability to improve on this base on your own initiative, and if that's the case then we can stop discussing earning or refining things.

 

 

Gamestage 600+? Okay - I'll let you know when I or anyone else I'm watching get's there, presuming anyone else plays that long - but If I play that long there is nothing left to accomplish - just playing till I /we get smooshed by a big /hard enough horde... so... won't be complaining when a big / hard enough horde smooshes me/us - because what are you continuing playing for? A World record longest game?

 

How many people achieved that? Alpha <16 I'd guess everyone? Everyone I know did, even my friends who I played with and who weren't very active experienced players. In fact I didn't even use anything electric on mine - rebuild costs were pretty much wooden spikes. Too many people achieved it - that's why demolishers were added.

 

Your repeated failure to acknowledge the various strategies mentioned here to focus on your own flawed notion of 'only having 3 extreme options' makes me question whether or not you have ever actually 'earned or refined' anything on your own - it sounds distinctly like someone who copied an exploit base and is now looking for a new exploit base to copy.

 

I think I will take your advice and stop talking to you though, cos none of it's landing. Enjoyed it (mostly) while it lasted and thanks for being part of an interesting thread full of good ideas - just sorry you can't engage with any of them.

 

There are PLENTY of games which don't get easier the longer you play - in fact back in the ol' days they got harder and harder the longer you played as you improved your skills, timing and mental process along the way to compensate for the increasing difficulty.

 

It seems some of the kids have lost that ability.

 

Shame.

 

It is 100% contradictory to be demanding easier mechanics and easier enemies while insisting on turning up the difficulty - you're wasting your time and everybody else's by asking for it.

 

I think what Ghostlight is talking about is he wants to feel rewarded personally for all the hard effort that he puts inb, i for one agree with his statement that the game is fairly unrewarding and it kinds kills the insentive to play. its why i have had monthly-long gaps in gameplay, cause it simply isnt willing to entertain me anymore. I dont feel rewarded through mere skill points, I want to feel immersed and rewarded for progression in a unique manner which i dont need to fill out.

[Roland]

Easy due to years of refining base designs

 

It’s been months with the new meta. The difficulty of base design is coming up with a good one. Once you find it the game is easy once again. So the difficulty you crave is in the figuring out what to do. You should be glad that TFP has given you a puzzle that couldn’t be solved in 2 month’s time.

 

and playing with a group of min-maxers

 

Thank you for admitting it. I wish everyone who is dissatisfied with the current direction would just lead their comments with “Hello. I’m a min/maxer. My highest priority is efficiency. I always speed run all my games.” Then at least we would have some context for the complaints.

 

TFP is definitely heading in a direction that will make the game dissatisfying for min/maxers. There’s no debate about that.

 

What I am saying is that right now there seems to 3 ways to deal with them, and they are all EXTREMES (avoid, exploit or massive bill). It shouldn't be like that. There should be a creamy middle.

 

“Seems to be” is right. You’re experiencing the difficulty you like. Give it some more time and no doubt you or someone else will crack the meta.

[Jugginator]

A game that never got easier, no matter how much you improved, would be insanely stupid - which is why they don't exist.

 

I guess this is how people treat games nowadays, but games of the previous age were brutal and unforgiving on harder difficulties. It's called insane difficulty. Insanity. Not "Hard but you can become immortal and make it easy street". This game literally says "you will die". The hardest difficulty should make it to where no matter how good you are you'll always be challenged.

 

He wants the hardest difficulty to provide no challenge at the end. That's likely going to disappoint people who sign up for the hardest difficulty just to find out as soon as they build a decent base they don't even need to shoot a bullet or use the tones of resources to repair the base.That's what he likes and that's cool, but to say "demos need to be removed because I can no longer have immortal bases that I don't have to defend on the hardest difficulty" is silly.

 

The game was never meant to be "Build a base and you win the game" it's "build a base that helps you defend against the hordes". That's one big reason why so many didn't like A16 very much. It was easy no matter what you did. Soon as you built a base, unless you built it out of twigs, you were done. "Brutally unforgiving" is in the store page description. Not "optionally brutally unforgiving", alas, you can mod it if you want "easy hard difficulty".

 

On another note, come on you're complaining about repair bills? What's the point with the MASS of resources you always have all the time? It's way too easy to gain mass resources to spend on anything... should we just remove resources period on Insane mode and just let you build for free? That better? lol

[JaxTeller718]

All 8 of them that came at once from different directions. Interesting tactic.

 

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Easy due to years of refining base designs and playing with a group of min-maxers till we were an expert oiled machine? We deserved it. Could you do it?

 

 

Im just going to say it. This is pretty selfish. Stop trying to ruin Insane Difficulty for players who want a challenge. What you want it for Insane mode to be brought down a level because YOU cant beat it and now you're upset.

 

Well its insane difficulty for a reason and Ill bet if you ask the people who enjoy the mode if they want it made easier they will strongly disagree with you. As a matter of fact some of them even call Insane too easy.

 

Seriously drop the difficulty down. Your group just isn't the type who wants a true Insane mode. You THINK you do but you dont.

[Ghostlight]

So you spent years refining and deserving a prior base, but now 2 months into the latest build you're at you wits end. Wow.

 

We can crack it, sure, in fact I think we just have, but Demolishers take all the fun stuff off the table.

[Ghostlight]

Thank you for admitting it.

 

Admitting it? lol sounds like a crime.

 

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Im just going to say it. This is pretty selfish. Stop trying to ruin Insane Difficulty for players who want a challenge. What you want it for Insane mode to be brought down a level because YOU cant beat it and now you're upset.

 

Well its insane difficulty for a reason and Ill bet if you ask the people who enjoy the mode if they want it made easier they will strongly disagree with you. As a matter of fact some of them even call Insane too easy.

 

Yeah all those exploit builds handling Insane like it was easy. I'm soooooooooo impressed.

 

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I can't figure out how you aren't getting GhostLight's point. He wants to figure out how to make the harder difficulties eventually become easy (due to hard work), which is the entire point/endgame for difficulties.

 

Thank god for the enlightened few who can actually understand the point I am trying to make.

[DeadGerry]

I think what Ghostlight is talking about is he wants to feel rewarded personally for all the hard effort that he puts inb, i for one agree with his statement that the game is fairly unrewarding and it kinds kills the insentive to play. its why i have had monthly-long gaps in gameplay, cause it simply isnt willing to entertain me anymore. I dont feel rewarded through mere skill points, I want to feel immersed and rewarded for progression in a unique manner which i dont need to fill out.

 

You're wrong. If you want to be rewarded for effort; you need to put the effort in. The Demolisher is ONE new challenge; and there are multiple ways to deal with it; but Ghostlight doesn't want to; and has consistently declined to use those. He wants to be rewarded for building the same type of base he always built and not to have to think of new strategies.

 

He wants hardest possible difficulty to be made easy for him. Read the posts.

[Roland]

Admitting it? lol sounds like a crime.

 

Not a crime at all. People often don't admit settings or playstyles they employ and then complain about balance. We had one guy a few years back who complained non stop about how the game was an eating simulator because he had to eat several times a day instead of what would seem natural -- 3 times a day. He finally admitted later that he had modded his game for 240 minute days.

 

See? That's no crime either but admitting how you play and how you've modded things etc is important for context.

 

Like you keep saying that gamestage 154 is still early game. It's not for most players. But min/maxing your experience gain as quickly as possible and on the hardest difficulty with the steepest gamestage multiplier with a group who are all sharing to boot probably does shove that gamestage down into the early game.

 

So its good to know exactly where you're coming from. You should mod the Behemoths to appear at gamestage 300 if you are going to speedrun the game with your crew.

[Ghostlight]

He wants hardest possible difficulty to be made easy for him. Read the posts.

 

It's you who isn't reading the posts if that's what you think. I want to earn that "easy". Pre-A18 I earned the feeling of "easy" through constant base refinement. A lot of experimentation and lot of hard work. I never never, ever seen a base design like ours in any screenshots or videos. Nothing even close. And no I will never make it public, for obvious reasons.

 

Please take my advice and stop responding to me - you said you would - because you either don't understand where I'm coming from, or you can't because you've not faced a ton of Demos. Or by all means tell me how you handle your Demolishers and shut me up. And please, don't relist the 6 half-assed ways from earlier. 4 don't work and 2 are exploits/avoidance.

 

Tell me precisely how YOU do it. As one of the posters most vocal in shooting me down, I can't wait for your solution.

 

If you want to be rewarded for effort; you need to put the effort in. The Demolisher is ONE new challenge; and there are multiple ways to deal with it; but Ghostlight doesn't want to

 

So, so wrong.

 

I put plenty effort in. Tons. The reward I am seeking is surviving horde night with minimal expense, and no exploits.

 

Demolishers are bad design because they remove a lot of the fun tools from the table and reward exploits. Not because they are unbeatable. They are not unbeatable. I already said that numerous times. They are unfun to fight, unfun to design against, they nullify a ton of base designs, almost completely nullify Blade Traps and are going to put a lot of people off the game imo. If you're not exploiting AI of course. They are the reason we are getting so many threads and posts title "base building is dead" etc.

 

I would dearly love to see the "2 block jump fail" exploit patched out from the AI, just to see the amount of crying it would cause. But I'm guessing MM uses that design, because it lends itself so readily to a blaze away with an M60 in a kill pit approach, so....

 

What we have now is a pathetically easy to exploit zombie AI PLUS an extremely destructive enemy type that almost demands to be exploited to be easily handled. Do the math. Mark my words they will never (dare to) fix the AI because of this (despite it being the easiest fix in the world). Never.

 

 

 

Like you keep saying that gamestage 154 is still early game. It's not for most players.

 

Day 28 horde we got our first Demolishers. 3-players. Warrior. That's not early game?

[Ghostlight]

But min/maxing your experience gain as quickly as possible

 

Min-maxing just means playing as efficiently as possible. In this alpha that very specifically means NOT maxing XP gain. :/

[Kalen]

The reward I am seeking is surviving horde night with minimal expense, and no exploits.

 

You are assuming that is a reward meant to be earned. Maybe one of the points of insane difficulty is that you're not supposed to be able to earn that reward. It seems like you're not even willing to consider that possibility.

[Ghostlight]

If I thought that then there really would be no point in ever engaging the horde. Driving on a bike all night would be optimum. No, I therefore refute that possibility. That would be crap. The game would be no challenge on any difficulty setting ever.

 

And btw it's nothing to do with Insane. Everyone will reach a high GS eventually and have their base flattened. And MP groups of decent size hit it fast too.

 

Or does everyone just go to day 50 and declare the map won these days????

[Kalen]

If I thought that then there really would be no point in ever engaging the horde. Driving on a bike all night would be optimum. No, I therefore refute that possibility. That would be crap. The game would be no challenge on any difficulty setting ever.

 

And btw it's nothing to do with Insane. Everyone will reach a high GS eventually and have their base flattened. And MP groups of decent size hit it fast too.

 

Or does everyone just go to day 50 and declare the map won these days????

 

 

Not sure why you equate GS with difficulty. A GS 200 horde on scavenger is going to be vastly easier than a GS 200 horde on insane.

 

And did you really say that if you couldn't build an essentially zombie proof base the game would not be challenging on any difficulty level? Wouldn't that make the exact opposite true?

[Jugginator]

 

 

Yeah all those exploit builds handling Insane like it was easy. I'm soooooooooo impressed.

 

 

Thank god for the enlightened few who can actually understand the point I am trying to make.

 

So what you're saying is, that anyone that actually performs combat and considers Insane a bit too easy at times are automatically exploiting the AI? Dude I soloed, with a basic square base with layered walls and no roof, no pits, no anything that exploits the AI. Insane. 16 + spawning. Game stage 400. Horde night every night with the minimal 24-hour time span, max night length. I did just fine.

 

Just because you and two other people in the world consider the only victory the ability to stand in their base and do nothing doesn't mean that's the only worthwhile goal.

 

You're the epitome of contradiction; you say "lel bro lower your difficulty if it's too hard" "A16 was the only challenge to the game", now "A18 is too hard now on insane it needs to be easier but it needs to be harder". Nobody understands you because you're constantly in contradiction lol.

 

Whats kinda funny is you want to exploit the AI without exploiting the AI, to cheese horde nights without cheesing horde nights. Lol. Come on man. You do you, that's cool, but don't discredit EVERYONE that thinks/does otherwise.

 

By the way, I lasted about 17 or so days of that setting up there^ My base was never flattened. I ran out of ammo and that was my goal, to run out of ammo and delete the world since it was an old build. I blew up my base. Not zombies, not demos. Although I did let them in, I stood in my basement-home waiting for them with grenades for fun (this took 2 horde nights). Perhaps you aren't as much of an "uber leet pro gamer 7 days to die god" you thought you were.

[Dimpy]

And did you really say that if you couldn't build an essentially zombie proof base the game would not be challenging on any difficulty level? Wouldn't that make the exact opposite true?