How bad is it for bunker lovers these days? (Haven't played since like Alpha 16)

[Roland]

Wait a minute....this is turning into a PVP thread. We haven’t had one of these since forever.

 

Maybe Poojam will even post if he can navigate the current interface...

[alphaniner]

Wait a minute....this is turning into a PVP thread. We haven’t had one of these since forever.

 

Maybe Poojam will even post if he can navigate the current interface...

 

That's my fault, shutting up now.

[RestInPieces]

Maybe Poojam will even post if he can navigate the current interface...

 

I can tell that you've missed him!

[OzHawkeye]

Nobody does that, curiosity always kills the cat.

 

No argument there, I was just responded to the potential for players to endlessly sit in their bases, to demonstrate that despite some assertions to the contrary, digging zomies have not rendered underground bunkers uesless, indeed, with some minor modifications to behaviour, location and/or game options, they remain pretty much just as invulnerable as they ever were.

 

[Aldranon]

All this opinionated claptrap is just silly, right?

 

100% safe? Sure! Just carry a stack of wood frames and a bit before horde night start nerd poling to the top of the game. You might get some vultures, I don't know. But no one I know does it, because it's boring.

 

An interesting idea is, allow the player to set the characters DNA limits!

This will be the maximum level each attribute can have. We all work within our limits IRL, why not make it part of a game?

[Scyris]

They don't have infinite y-axis sensing. You can get deep enough to be beyond their sensing range but it has to be where the surface is at a high altitude so that the distance is far enough down to bedrock. Hence, I said dig to bedrock under a mountain.

 

I disagree that digging zombies ruins what differentiates this game from other games. It enhances that aspect. Why have destructible terrain that is completely impervious to the enemy mobs of the game that live in it? The only reason that it would ruin the experience is for PVP play where you don't want zombies giving away your location. But this game isn't primarily designed as a PvP game. In a co-op and single player game you can still build elaborate bunkers and then have to defend them.

 

If all you want is to build something elaborate and amazing underground and have it be untouched then turn off the zombies and have your building game.

 

Or just have it so zombies cannot dig unless its a bloodmoon night? because other than that its just annoyance for no real reason. Me? i'd prob make a spike pit around my entrance, make sure the spikes are 1 below the rest of the surface otherwise the AI will just path around them, which is yet another issue, zombies shouldn't be smart enough to walk around traps it defeats the purpose of them..

 

This is also one of the reasons why I said Tfp kinda is fail at balancing things, when they do stuff like that with the traps and such making them mostly pointless unless you force the ai into only going down that path. Like the only way to really make a good base is to exploit the ai in a17/18. You really do not have much of a choice. On the other hand it makes it easier in a way as well, as you can setup a kill box since they'll always come from that direction.

[Pr00ch]

Pretty bad, not only are zombies professional excavators now, but A17 has generally drastically changed the progresison, too. You can't really have a lot of different things going at the same time, because the perk system gatekeeps you from it. You need to either specialize, or grind out the other perks by killing zombies all day. So building a nice bunker will be a lot more tedious than it used to be, e.g. you'll have to branch out and grind like hell if you want to both make concrete and do any farming. So if you were planing to have a self-sufficient underground bunker with its own farm type of deal, you're out of luck. If you were also planning on having a vehicle, oh boy, may god rest your soul.

Broadly speaking, an entire segment of people who used to love the game pre-A17 remains very disillusioned with the game, you may or may not be part of that group.

 

I feel like this seemingly centuries old "should zombies dig" controversy could be remedied easily by simply making it a gameplay option (like Daylight hours, etc). That way everyone would be happy.

[theFlu]

I've done one underground playthrough in A18, started in .0 or .1 .. went just fine. Up to day 98, just ended up bored. Default settings, plus one to difficulty.

 

My rules weren't strict, I wasn't about to just starve to death if it didn't work, but the idea was to keep digging while doing the absolute minimum in other areas of the game. Ran to the trader on Day 1 and established my base right into the mountain behind his compound. Did a few digging quests for potential recipes and dukes/food for the early days, plus a reason to go hunting. If I needed engines etc, I went and wrenched. I did do some quests later to map out a bit, find shale etc. Sold stacks and stacks of rock (3 stacks every reset from like week two)

 

I got breached by digging zombies once; during a horde night where I had redone my entrance and ended up blowing a demolisher at a critical spot => no access to me via the intended path, the new spawns started digging in. The "horde handling area" was about 5-10 stone blocks below the surface at that point, so no surprises there. Sure I had to pop out every once in a while to take out some screamers / random zeds, but that was roughly a once a day occurrence - mostly a nice change of pace.

 

Never really got close to hungry, got my early tools by speccing into them, never really had difficulties, other than my own short-sightedness...

 

How bad is it?

No.

[hellourd]

how hard would it be to implement a toggle for digging?

 

Why wouldn't a game company want to appeal to a larger range of players.

[canadianbluebeer]

diggers and their broken pathing (IMHO), stacking a bunchaton of zeds in 1 block, and demos, are why I turned zed block damage down to 25%.

 

Digging has broken more than a few pathways. They'll dig instead of taking stairs.

they'll bash on the wall, instead of walking 2 blocks and using that opening.

a dozen plus all stacked up trying to break a door.

The demo of course is new, and needs balancing. boom is too big, and when you get a bunch all at once...

 

I like a large base at bedrock. so now I build UP, and the wandering zeds are easy to deal with.

For horde, 60 dart traps, and I could probably sit there and not fire a shot.

(for 8 zed per player, np. 64 zeds on insane, and still I could, but it gets a bit boring, so I shoot at the ones that make it past the first 3 rows. Day 91 that was. on insane)

 

Day 98 I'll see how long I can go without shooting at any of them. (circling vultures are an exception)

 

 

[Xtrakicking]

how hard would it be to implement a toggle for digging?

 

Why wouldn't a game company want to appeal to a larger range of players.

 

Because there comes a moment when you've added so many customizable fields in your game, it's lost its original identity and no longer has any defining features besides the fact that it's customizable. There already are many options to turn down the difficulty of the game, including options to disable hordes, and even turning zombies off. How many more options should they add to their "survival horde crafting game"?

 

What if someone doesn't like crafting, but likes every other aspect of the game. Should they add an option to turn off crafting as well?

[Roland]

how hard would it be to implement a toggle for digging?

 

Why wouldn't a game company want to appeal to a larger range of players.

 

At the moment, it is hard. Digging is not some added zombie behavior that can be deleted from the AI task list. It is integrated into the pathing system. The hp of blocks that may be broken in order to get to the player is part of the formula used to offer pathways from the zombie to the player. All blocks that may be broken--whether that be horizontal, or above, or below. It isn't really "digging" it is breaking blocks that are between the zombie and the player in general. That the blocks between the zombie and the detected player happen to be in a vertical configuration is what we interpret as digging.

 

faatal has stated that untangling digging from from the rest of the pathfinding system would be a major endeavor and not something he has time for right now. It may be something he never has time for if TFP decide that it isn't worth doing. What you can do for now is change zombie vs blocks to 25% which slows them down quite a bit. You can also dig to bedrock under a mountain so that your vertical distance exceeds their perception range.

[hellourd]

On 4/22/2020 at 2:15 AM, Roland said:

 

At the moment, it is hard. Digging is not some added zombie behavior that can be deleted from the AI task list. It is integrated into the pathing system. The hp of blocks that may be broken in order to get to the player is part of the formula used to offer pathways from the zombie to the player. All blocks that may be broken--whether that be horizontal, or above, or below. It isn't really "digging" it is breaking blocks that are between the zombie and the player in general. That the blocks between the zombie and the detected player happen to be in a vertical configuration is what we interpret as digging.

 

faatal has stated that untangling digging from from the rest of the pathfinding system would be a major endeavor and not something he has time for right now. It may be something he never has time for if TFP decide that it isn't worth doing. What you can do for now is change zombie vs blocks to 25% which slows them down quite a bit. You can also dig to bedrock under a mountain so that your vertical distance exceeds their perception range.

then why in a16 did the zombies not hit anything below them?

[JCrook1028]

Because the digging behavior was not IN A16...

[Roland]

....and it wasn't an easy change.  1.5 years....

[Laz Man]

On 2/29/2020 at 6:28 PM, TheProphet said:

 

Why would one disable zombies in a zombie survival themed game.

There are actually players out there that enjoy the survival and/or building aspect of the game and dont mind no zoms.  It's actually a more relaxed/theraputic playthrough but still fun.

 

[Stranded_Napkin]

On 2/28/2020 at 6:53 PM, Roland said:

They don't have infinite y-axis sensing. You can get deep enough to be beyond their sensing range but it has to be where the surface is at a high altitude so that the distance is far enough down to bedrock. Hence, I said dig to bedrock under a mountain.

 

I disagree that digging zombies ruins what differentiates this game from other games. It enhances that aspect. Why have destructible terrain that is completely impervious to the enemy mobs of the game that live in it? The only reason that it would ruin the experience is for PVP play where you don't want zombies giving away your location. But this game isn't primarily designed as a PvP game. In a co-op and single player game you can still build elaborate bunkers and then have to defend them.

 

If all you want is to build something elaborate and amazing underground and have it be untouched then turn off the zombies and have your building game.

Zombies being able to dig isn't bad in and of itself. It does kind of make sense. The problem is the way they do it. The zombies dig by smashing their knees into the dirt. That's got to be the goofiest way of "digging" that I've ever heard of. Then, absolutely every zombie digs. It's not just a single zombie type. On top of that, they all pile onto a single block. The devs decided to also put in a bonus that increases block damage when zombies attack the same block. In the end they dig through concrete faster than you can say "Oh @%$*#!, this was a mistake?"

 

They built the zombies to absolutely destroy bunkers. I love bunkers. I've found a way to still kind of have those, but they're not true bunkers.