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Demo zombies damage is stupid...


Haxoonie

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<The Good Place Janet> Not a boomer.

 

 

 

Alright. I will just leave an anecdote. There was a guy here a few months back who mentioned that he likes to play the game as a city renovator, cleaning up rubble, fixing broken buildings, smoothing the roads and planting grass and trees. I thought that was awesome. And if the game mechanics were to change such that he could not play that way - because he must instead be a base builder - then 7D2D would be lesser for the change.

 

Anyhow. Demolishers...what's up with those guys anyway?

 

Can't help but reply because you may be misunderstanding me. In this example there is nothing that deters him from also doing that. Sure, there were people in the past who wanted to play as all kinds of things, there is literally no end to them. And most of them obviously can, through XML/options - never said these should be taken away. As for the core game, consistency is far more important than what Bob the renovator or Mike the naked drunken brawler want. A "participate if you want"-element (TD for example) without an important practical reason for its existence, might as well not be there in the first place. So in the case of e.g. Bob, he should, say, lower speeds or disable horde nights, so that he doesn't have to defend and just renovate at his leisure. As for those who don't actually want to disable them, they ought to use the TD/building elements which atm, to be honest, are kind of optional since there are ways to skip them, even with nightmare speed on (still many improvements have been made on that and more are coming according to MM).

 

 

Of course, at some point a point is reached where this is no longer enough, but no one expects a game to remain interesting forever.

 

Of course there are ways to challenge the player and not the player's patience, with something else other than demolishers. They could even challenge the player at the end-game with normal zombies (not "clever" or glowing ones and without increasing their number), simply with just a few extra animations and some randomness. Or cheaply implementable (in comparison to a colony system) random events that already use the game's existing assets, exploiting every aspect of the game and most particularly survival threats, which are severely underplayed. Better to trick/surprise the player and make each playthrough different, or catching the player unprepared because e.g. he didn't have X perks, rather than adding a cheap arcade-y short-term solution, as far as replayability goes.

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If they changed the explosion so it scaled based on game stage and made it not trigger from zombie hits/blade traps they'd still be challenging and something we'd have to be careful about mindlessly shooting at. Increase the wear and tear on blade traps from armored zombies (that might happen already, don't know how that degradation works). Or better yet, add in other zombies that have special effects that can temporarily disable automated base defenses i.e. a zombie that explodes in sticky goop after it dies that has to be damaged off of blade traps or an electrical zombie that explodes doing shock damage in a radius that acts as a short term EMP. Better yet, add zombies that don't follow traditional attack avenues so it can't be funneled the same way and splits attention while base defending i.e. actual climbers/flyers. .... The late game definitely needs something to be threatening. Maybe that something has to be bandits and we just have to wait til we get there. But demolishers as they currently are just kill my desire to play single player.

 

I get what you are saying. Late game horde need something to up the ante that is not just more zombies doing more damage. But there ya go, in a single paragraph you already came up with several ideas that are FAR superior to the rather poor design that is Demolishers.

 

I've seen in the console it has a number alive that seems to grow with game stage but I still seem to only get 8 alive at any given time regardless.

 

When you start a server there is a server-wide setting called maxAlive which dictates the maximum number of zombies (per player) than can exist in the game at any one time. It defaults to 8 or 12 as I recall, and is there to assist players on poor PCs. Most players increase it. I set it to 24 myself and typically play 2-player co-op so we have 48 zombies alive at a time. I believe that no other in-game affect, including the maxAlive parameter for each scaled horde night, can override the server's global maxAlive setting.

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The general TD concept is trying to prevent pathing enemies with traps/towers/etc from reaching something. Yes, if we want to be specific, those games have extra elements on top, but their whole gameplay revolves around the above. 7DTD fits the bill of having TD elements, but it has to adapt them with voxels and everything else, so a cluster♥♥♥♥ of problems is expected. The concept of being able to skip any part of the game you want (or "my playstyle" as people fallaciously called it), makes those parts meaningless, creating even more confusion. Thankfully they seem to be getting away from that and paying more attention to balance lately.

 

 

 

Well, it's not impossible to both challenge the player and make something that at least fits more with the theme or involves more interesting mechanics than pop-a-mole. Everyone should be a base builder btw (as well as anything else).

 

This reads like some sort of existential philosophy being applied to video games. Why shouldn't someone ignore base building or zombie killing or resource gathering or POI clearing if they don't enjoy it? The concept of 'playstyle' clearly exists. You can define it as 'ignoring things you don't like' but that's the same end result as 'paying attention to things you do like' which is how most people define it.

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This reads like some sort of existential philosophy being applied to video games. Why shouldn't someone ignore base building or zombie killing or resource gathering or POI clearing if they don't enjoy it? The concept of 'playstyle' clearly exists. You can define it as 'ignoring things you don't like' but that's the same end result as 'paying attention to things you do like' which is how most people define it.

 

They can always try to adjust the game so that they can do that through options or XML editing beforehand - not through half-baked and lowly incentivized features that are disconnected from the rest of the game and unimpactful enough to ignore. That only hurts the game for those who have actually bought it for... what it is. It's hardly any sort of existential philosophy, it's more like common sense.

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Happy Friday!!! If you havent seen it already, here is alittle something I cooked up to help cure some demolisher angst. Enjoy!!! ������

 

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?142553-Explosives-vs-Demolishers

 

I would say it does exactly the opposite. This chain reaction in a horde base is every base builder's nightmare.

And by the way, this charges are meant to be used on safes and chests. They are pretty much useless against zombies.

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I would say it does exactly the opposite. This chain reaction in a horde base is every base builder's nightmare.

And by the way, this charges are meant to be used on safes and chests. They are pretty much useless against zombies.

 

The real builders nightmare comes in, if you think about the fact, that demos can generate craters like this below the reinforced concrete foundation of your base. The concrete above may stay intact - but the blocks below might get withered away over time and at some point the SI will be compomised enough to have your base crumble.

While demos only do 10% damage to dirt, 500 damage is still a lot and quickly erodes the surface layers.

 

I guess it's time that the player gets access to that xray technology that zombies already seem to have. :smile-new:

Either that or my next base will have to have a foundation 5 blocks deep made of half-blocks so it can be accessed by tunnels and repaired after horde night.

 

Just had my day 77 horde night / GS ~300 yesterday and demolishers get really common then - about 40 demos out of ~500 total and maximum of 4 at a time. In a SP world this means for me that some demo explosions are to be expected - so I plan for them beforehand.

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We finally did our first demo-inclusive zombie party last night. They and their cop friends destroyed a corner of our base and even got to one of the internal pillars on the same side (the modern fire house POI), but thankfully nothing collapsed. I can see how nerfing them just a bit might be a good idea. Of course this is (stupidly) also our main base; we figured we could use it for a few hordes while we built a horde-specific base. It handled the first two hordes fine, but this one nearly was a disaster.

 

By the next horde we will have traded "tower defense" for "pit defense" to see how it goes. The motorcycles will be parked and ready at the end of our escape tunnel if things go really sideways. The pit is double-walled steel-reinforced concrete, but after seeing last night's damage I dunno if it will hold up. At least it can't really collapse on our heads...

 

Eventually we'll get back to a bespoke tower-style base. That base, though...I'm thinking it's going to need some ablative defenses to absorb demolisher damage. We've never even tried any type of funnel/maze defense; maybe we'll look into that. Or maybe we'll try to run over as many as we can in a 4x4. The game gives us many options, which is nice. It would suck if XML editing was the only way we could try out different strategies.

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I would say it does exactly the opposite. This chain reaction in a horde base is every base builder's nightmare.

And by the way, this charges are meant to be used on safes and chests. They are pretty much useless against zombies.

 

You make a good point. If explosive damage can trigger demos I can see if your GS is high enough to have that many at once maybe a good balancing change is to nerf that.

 

Keep in mind, I had a ton of dynamite layered around the demos, so the crater wasnt just from the demos...😂

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You make a good point. If explosive damage can trigger demos I can see if your GS is high enough to have that many at once maybe a good balancing change is to nerf that.

 

I don't know if it is still the case that the AEO damage can trigger the explosion. When I first tested the demolisher, AOE damage could still trigger the explosion but I think that has been changed since then.

 

Anyway, I didn't have a demolisher that exploded due to the AOE damage in the base that works with grenades and pipe bombs. However, most of the time these are one-shot kills if you throw 5 pipe bombs into the pit and then ignite the explosion with exploding crossbow bolts.

 

The most resource-efficient horde base I currently have is a melee / shotgun base. It is based on the base JaWoodle uses in his Fists Only challenge.

 

I primarily use a Q6 baseball bat. Since I have all the books from the Batter Up series I can use the Power Attack permanently. Every zombie kill refills my stamina.

The Q6 shotgun is loaded with slugs and I have the Shotgun Messiah book which gives me a high chance of fragmentation if the target is less than 3m away. And I get a 20% damage bonus if the target still has full HP. So I can often kill Demolisher with a single head shot.

 

The last night I only used 90 slugs in the last horde. But the base is only designed for 8 zombies at the same time. Maybe up to 16 at the same time would work but I would not recommend more with this type of base.

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I don't know if it is still the case that the AEO damage can trigger the explosion. When I first tested the demolisher, AOE damage could still trigger the explosion but I think that has been changed since then.

 

Anyway, I didn't have a demolisher that exploded due to the AOE damage in the base that works with grenades and pipe bombs. However, most of the time these are one-shot kills if you throw 5 pipe bombs into the pit and then ignite the explosion with exploding crossbow bolts.

 

The most resource-efficient horde base I currently have is a melee / shotgun base. It is based on the base JaWoodle uses in his Fists Only challenge.

 

I primarily use a Q6 baseball bat. Since I have all the books from the Batter Up series I can use the Power Attack permanently. Every zombie kill refills my stamina.

The Q6 shotgun is loaded with slugs and I have the Shotgun Messiah book which gives me a high chance of fragmentation if the target is less than 3m away. And I get a 20% damage bonus if the target still has full HP. So I can often kill Demolisher with a single head shot.

 

The last night I only used 90 slugs in the last horde. But the base is only designed for 8 zombies at the same time. Maybe up to 16 at the same time would work but I would not recommend more with this type of base.

 

Cool strat! I like it!

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I absolutely love the demolishers.

 

Hulking tanks that draw all your attention in the middle of a frenzy. Kill it immediately, or watch all you love be turned to rubble.

 

Currently the best 35+ bloodmoon strat is to engage in an open field or street with thousands of rounds and just run circles around them.

 

If you rely on a base to save you from a bloodmoon, you are a fool. For their greatest weakness is... lag.

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I absolutely love the demolishers.

 

Hulking tanks that draw all your attention in the middle of a frenzy. Kill it immediately, or watch all you love be turned to rubble.

 

Currently the best 35+ bloodmoon strat is to engage in an open field or street with thousands of rounds and just run circles around them.

 

If you rely on a base to save you from a bloodmoon, you are a fool. For their greatest weakness is... lag.

 

Run and gun is certainly a strat but is not the only one...but if that is what you find fun, more power to you.

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I absolutely love the demolishers.

 

Hulking tanks that draw all your attention in the middle of a frenzy. Kill it immediately, or watch all you love be turned to rubble.

 

That's one reason I don't like the Demolisher. Statements like yours discourage players instead of encouraging them. They say that it is not worth the effort to build a base if the demolisher destroys them anyway. So instead of building a base, some players hide on the roof of a big POI.

 

Currently the best 35+ bloodmoon strat is to engage in an open field or street with thousands of rounds and just run circles around them.

 

Not exactly an efficient way to fight the Horde.

 

I can defeat any opponent if I expend enough resources. The challenge for me is to keep the resource consumption low when fighting the horde.

 

If you rely on a base to save you from a bloodmoon, you are a fool. For their greatest weakness is... lag.

 

Lag is not something I would rely on. It can indeed become your greatest enemy.

 

I have already built and tested different base types and they work more or less well. I haven't found the optimal base yet but building and testing is a lot of fun for me.

 

Basically it is possible to deal with the Demolisher. So I would not call base builders fools. Basebuilding is one of the elements that distinguishes this game from simple zombie shooters.

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Ripclaw has it right. Running about in the open is just about the worst way to engage the horde because it is the most expensive. The trick, especially on high difficulty and late game, is to minimise the cost of the killing the horde (assuming you want to kill them of course).

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I think it is time for some competition for 7 days to die, it was and still is very unique in its own genre but the general development speed is way to slow. For years people ask for a better Boss Zombie and they put in this base wrecker....

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The good old way with a corridor works fine for demos.

 

 

The blade traps usually work best when placed at head height. Unfortunately, the head height of most zombies is the chest height of the demolisher. This means there is a high probability that the blade trap will trigger the explosion when placed at head height.

 

I know that the blade traps on the ground can cut the zombies' legs off. Has it ever happened that the legs of a demolisher were cut off and the explosion was triggered while falling down?

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I know that the blade traps on the ground can cut the zombies' legs off. Has it ever happened that the legs of a demolisher were cut off and the explosion was triggered while falling down?

 

Yes i tested it before and i had some crawling demos but it didnt triggered the explosion.

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The blade traps usually work best when placed at head height. Unfortunately, the head height of most zombies is the chest height of the demolisher. This means there is a high probability that the blade trap will trigger the explosion when placed at head height.

 

I know that the blade traps on the ground can cut the zombies' legs off. Has it ever happened that the legs of a demolisher were cut off and the explosion was triggered while falling down?

 

The trick is to use a half block under, that pushes the blade trap up to head level for demolishers where it misses everything else.

 

Here's a queue up timestamp for my video showing using this in a build -->

 

Funny thing happens at times though, that zombie height is not static. At times, cops/wights are high enough to trigger electric fences on the 2.5 height, but most of the times they are not. But normally it's a great way to just hit demolishers.

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The trick is to use a half block under, that pushes the blade trap up to head level for demolishers where it misses everything else.

 

I use this trick in one of my bases. However, I have dart traps on both sides of the entryway that thin out the horde a bit beforehand. In some tests the other zombies pushed the demolishers up when they were knocked down by the blade traps. If you thin out the horde that shouldn't happen.

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What would I do to fix him:

a - reduce his HP/armor, but increase his speed slightly (more like an urukhai suicide guy in LotR)

b - Make his C4 either easier OR harder to trigger by trap. Somehow you never know if a trap (blade or dart) will or will not trigger it and it is in a weird spot where sometimes he will blow up and sometimes he wont.

 

Totally agree. The demolisher is a good idea, but really it's two ideas in one. It would make more sense that a high damage zombie would be less tanky and a zombie that is a tank would be slow and do more damage due to time. Why TFP did it this way doesn't really make sense for balancing.

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So I built the normal way I build I made a pillbox base upgraded to reinforced concrete. I would have done steel but on day 42 and playing solo I found having to juggle looting, farming, building and all tied up all my time and was not able to farm enough to make the steel needed to upgrade it all past concrete.

 

Steel isn't what it used to be. They either need to drop the damage those bastards do or bring back polished steel. One demolisher took 5 steel blocks down to reinforced concrete and left another 20 or so at only 20%. That's an insane amount of damage.

 

You aren't wrong that The Fun Pimps haven't perfected the zombie. That being said, they aren't a bad idea just a poor implementation. They take too much damage. They are both a tank and do massive damage to your base. They finally got the cops right. They do range damage but can be interrupted. They do area damage with a modest boom that can be stopped by their death, also aided by a modest hp. The demolisher is what cops used to feel like. Too much hp and a hell of a lot of damage. My real issue with the dems is that it's damn near impossible to tell when they die. The damn things stun multiple times. I find myself turning away from them way too often thinking "he has to be dead this time".

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