The AI need to evolve in order for this game to survive.

[Deanster]

When the game came out people were constantly struggling to survive and barely holding it, this is how the game was meant to be played, then some smartass found a way to exploit the AI and of course youtubers and streamers help spread the dirt for their own gains, and ever since it has not been a survival game, we see pyramids and moats all over built to exploit the weakness in the ai,  i propose we do the same they did with conan when people did that, we evolve the ai.

 

And the way to do this is make them able to climb fast and also jump enough for them to never be trapped or stuck in places, if they can do that then people have no way to to exploit the ai like now, they will have to put in the hard work or die. I'm sick and tired of seeing people hide behind their cheat buildings, it's time to evolve the ai so people can see how its meant to be played, not locked safely behind a building but keeping the ai at bay with teamwork and dedication like before.

 

You can still however funnel or delay them enough to survive, that is the point of the game not to exploit the ai.

[Black Hat]

 

That's all what you need. xD

[Deanster]

9 minutes ago, Black Hat said:

 

That's all what you need. xD

You did read that i mentioned climbing right, that means they can climb up on any surface including doors and everything else, if you somehow prevent themfrom climbing up a entrance  they will destroy whatever your building is resting on, nothing should be indestructible if your under a blood moon.

 

My point is you have to rebuild most of your base before every single bloodmoon, otherwise the game is just a laugh. As it is now you don't even need a team or a fancy construction, i survived several bloodmoons just in a normal house, it's too easy.

 

 

 

 

[gaffers]

I've found a client-side workaround for this AI problem that could save the development team a huge amount of time that could be spent elsewhere;

 

Start a game as normal - any difficulty setting will do. 

Build a base as you normally would. The materials you use don't matter.

Now, and I stress that you need to follow this next part EXACTLY, otherwise the AI fix won't work;

  Don't build exploits in your base

 

If you follow these steps, you should find that the AI pathing issues resolve themselves and you get the survival experience you're looking for.

[Deanster]

10 minutes ago, gaffers said:

I've found a client-side workaround for this AI problem that could save the development team a huge amount of time that could be spent elsewhere;

 

Start a game as normal - any difficulty setting will do. 

Build a base as you normally would. The materials you use don't matter.

Now, and I stress that you need to follow this next part EXACTLY, otherwise the AI fix won't work;

  Don't build exploits in your base

 

If you follow these steps, you should find that the AI pathing issues resolve themselves and you get the survival experience you're looking for.

 

I knew someone would post about simply not using it, but i do not play singleplayer, i play online where you do not have such options what others do with their buildings. It heavily effect my online experience when others cheat death and i try to find a server that just survive, but most use these moat buildings in reality.

 

I still believe in teamwork for this game i just want a true survival experience without cutting corners.

[Scyris]

23 minutes ago, Deanster said:

When the game came out people were constantly struggling to survive and barely holding it, this is how the game was meant to be played, then some smartass found a way to exploit the AI and of course youtubers and streamers help spread the dirt for their own gains, and ever since it has not been a survival game, we see pyramids and moats all over built to exploit the weakness in the ai,  i propose we do the same they did with conan when people did that, we evolve the ai.

 

And the way to do this is make them able to climb fast and also jump enough for them to never be trapped or stuck in places, if they can do that then people have no way to to exploit the ai like now, they will have to put in the hard work or die. I'm sick and tired of seeing people hide behind their cheat buildings, it's time to evolve the ai so people can see how its meant to be played, not locked safely behind a building but keeping the ai at bay with teamwork and dedication like before.

 

You can still however funnel or delay them enough to survive, that is the point of the game not to exploit the ai.

They only struggled if they sucked, I'm sorry to say it but its true, when I started, I never had any real issues even as a new player. I've never starved to death, or dehydrated to death, if you did manage to do that my hats off to you, as with all the food sources I don't even know how the hell you managed that. I started in a9 or 10, and went in blind, it also was my first survival game.

 

Sadly with the way 7dtd is setup exploiting the AI is pretty much the game in terms of horde night. They chew thru blocks way to fast for punching with their bare hands, I 've personally always found it really REALLY stupid how a zombie can punch thru stone, it should destroy their hands and blow their arms off.

 

On the AI, what the hell do you want man? they are zombies, zombies are not smart. They are only deadly in large numbers the problem is the numbers are never high enough in the game. IMO cities/towns should be packed with TONS of zombies on the street, enough that its a real fight to manage to clear enough to get into a poi, with there being far less of them outside of towns/cities.

 

Honestly I miss when we had a choice to bother with horde night, I used to like my underground bases, if I wanted to fight the bloodmoon horde I could, or I could ignore it entirely if I so wanted. Me? I often ignored it, not because I can't kill them, but because its a waste of resources and it just jumps my gamestage, making everything else more annoying. To this day I still rarely bother with the bloodmoon mechanic as its just not worth the waste of resources just for exp I can get anywhere else for cheaper due to sneak attacks and such.

[Telric]

I think its the whole.. build a 30 foot wall only makes people create 31 foot ladders problem. Say a zombie can climb up 50 blocks.. that just means exploiters will make 51 block tall walls. Same with jumping. Are you going to make it so zombies can climb 256 blocks so they cannot be stopped? That seems excessive. The only way to stop this is to play with others that share the same view of not exploiting.

[gaffers]

2 minutes ago, Deanster said:

 

...It heavily effect my online experience when others cheat death...

Now I'm just a little concerned

[Scyris]

1 minute ago, Deanster said:

 

I knew someone would post about simply not using it, but i do not play singleplayer, i play online where you do not have such options what others do with their buildings. It heavily effect my online experience when others cheat death and i try to find a server that just survive, but most use these moat buildings in reality.

Play single player if it bothers you so much, I hate to say it but humans will always take the path of least resistance, and the current path in 7dtd is to make exploit bases to make horde night trivial. I never make any of the exploit bases I've seen people stream, I just tend to make a small maze, and I stand above shooting down at them its what i've always done, sadly with the current AI it works way better than it used to as they pretty much always follow the path I set out. Lets be real here only an idiot would honestly go toe to toe with zombies if given a choice. I generally use a poi for my base as well, as I hate the SI system, and how putting 1 block over the limit somehow can cause the entire base to fall apart, it SHOULD only drop the most recently added block and leave the rest stable IMO.

[Deanster]

11 minutes ago, Telric said:

I think its the whole.. build a 30 foot wall only makes people create 31 foot ladders problem. Say a zombie can climb up 50 blocks.. that just means exploiters will make 51 block tall walls. Same with jumping. Are you going to make it so zombies can climb 256 blocks so they cannot be stopped? That seems excessive. The only way to stop this is to play with others that share the same view of not exploiting.

Not if those zombies can break your 256 block building before getting to the top, but i do get your point people will always try to jump over where the fence is lowest.

 

We just have to help the developers to make sure the fence has no weaknesses or low points to jump over and i have seen how climbing/jumping completely transform the way people build their bases, it's not a means to an end but its a step in the right direction.

 

Gentlemen, if you can trap or freeze your enemy its no longer a survival game, or a good one at least.

[Scyris]

1 minute ago, Deanster said:

Not if those zombies can break your 256 block building before getting to the top, but i do get your point people will always try to jump over where the fence is lowest.

Honestly? I find the old AI far better, they came from all directions and you couldn't herd them so easly like you can now, meaning you had to defend all 4 sides instead of now where you can easly setup a base so they all will only come in from the same direction. the brown church for example, if you knock the back stairs out, they will always come in the front, 100% of the time, they will completly ignoring the back and sides, and run around to the front to come in that way, so you just have to guard the front and your good.

[Sellsents]

Lets be honest here for a minute. There would be a lot less players in 7 Days to Die if the streamers wouldn´t advertise the game that much as they do. People are interested in chessy gameplay. Nobody wants to see the same stuff over and over again for years. People playing the game and watching youtube for the fun stuff, they simply don´t want the game to be 100% linear. Thats also the reason why mods are popular and welcome. They make the game different every time you play or start a new game. 

 

I said it a lot of times before and I say it now again: the Funpimps should stop forcing people into a certain playstyle. They might like people to use more weapons or buffs like candys. They might like the player following a certain way trough their dungeon homes.  But people like diversity in games. They like to find their own path and even change their gamestyle every now and then to gain some more fun.

 

I am certain that no matter the game, every AI can and most likely will be chessed at some point. And I don´t think thats a big of an issue. If people like to spend their time having fun with messing with the AI then be it. But they spend time on the game and they are having fun doing so. And this is what matters at the end. Because happy players are happy customers and happy customers leave happy reviews and buy copys for their friends.

[Deanster]

12 minutes ago, Scyris said:

Play single player if it bothers you so much, I hate to say it but humans will always take the path of least resistance, and the current path in 7dtd is to make exploit bases to make horde night trivial. I never make any of the exploit bases I've seen people stream, I just tend to make a small maze, and I stand above shooting down at them its what i've always done, sadly with the current AI it works way better than it used to as they pretty much always follow the path I set out. Lets be real here only an idiot would honestly go toe to toe with zombies if given a choice. I generally use a poi for my base as well, as I hate the SI system, and how putting 1 block over the limit somehow can cause the entire base to fall apart, it SHOULD only drop the most recently added block and leave the rest stable IMO.

The problem is that path is not natural, it is a exploit or weakness in the ai that should not be there and every player online depend on it to survive. I say give the zombies a means to climb out of the moat and see what happens.

[Liesel Weppen]

23 minutes ago, Deanster said:

i play online where you do not have such options what others do with their buildings.

I play online and i have such options. Only thing is, it won't work if you want to play with random people.

My friends and i did some different playstyles online together by just agreeing not to do that or this... even if we COULD do it all the time.

 

The dedicated server btw is free. You can setup your own one, if you don't like the people on other servers. 😛

[Scyris]

38 minutes ago, Deanster said:

You did read that i mentioned climbing right, that means they can climb up on any surface including doors and everything else, if you somehow prevent themfrom climbing up a entrance  they will destroy whatever your building is resting on, nothing should be indestructible if your under a blood moon.

 

My point is you have to rebuild most of your base before every single bloodmoon, otherwise the game is just a laugh. As it is now you don't even need a team or a fancy construction, i survived several bloodmoons just in a normal house, it's too easy.

 

 

 

 

How many zombies do u have it set to? set it to 32 or 64 and see how well that normal house stands up to it. if its set to 8, or even 16, those are pretty easy to dispatch to be honest.

9 minutes ago, Sellsents said:

Lets be honest here for a minute. There would be a lot less players in 7 Days to Die if the streamers wouldn´t advertise the game that much as they do. People are interested in chessy gameplay. Nobody wants to see the same stuff over and over again for years. People playing the game and watching youtube for the fun stuff, they simply don´t want the game to be 100% linear. Thats also the reason why mods are popular and welcome. They make the game different every time you play or start a new game. 

 

I said it a lot of times before and I say it now again: the Funpimps should stop forcing people into a certain playstyle. They might like people to use more weapons or buffs like candys. They might like the player following a certain way trough their dungeon homes.  But people like diversity in games. They like to find their own path and even change their gamestyle every now and then to gain some more fun.

 

I am certain that no matter the game, every AI can and most likely will be chessed at some point. And I don´t think thats a big of an issue. If people like to spend their time having fun with messing with the AI then be it. But they spend time on the game and they are having fun doing so. And this is what matters at the end. Because happy players are happy customers and happy customers leave happy reviews and buy copys for their friends.

Problem here is, they made the game linear again in a19, with how the loot works now, its tiered primitive->iron->steel, but also your guarnteed a quality 6 item from every loot container once your midway to the next tier. Thats very linear, and I hate it. I wish they;'d make quality 4 very rare, 5 super rare, and quality 6? you have to be blessed by rngesus to find one. A19 currently kills crafting yet again, because its usually not worth it due to how easy it is to find quality 6 items in every single container. I don't mind the primitive->iron->steel tiering part, but they need to make it like a18 where getting qual 4 and above was rare, compared to a19 where you get qual 6 items from every loot container.

 

I've pretty much stopped playing a19 already due to how boring the loot system has become. Its far to linear and far to predictable, that it just took all the fun out of it.

[iejen]

I have seen this post so many times over the years.....

First of all, why the hell do you care how someone else plays the game? 

 

And if you don't like how other play, play alone. 

And if you want to play MP but people must play the same like you, host a server yourself. 

People brake the rules, you ban them. 

 

Especially on a MP server I  fool the AI once in a while. 
I have a job and a family, I can play like 1/2 hours a day max. 

If I log in every 7th days for a few days in a row, trust me. I will trick the AI. I don't have the resources nor the time to gather them. 

 

But in A19 the loot drops are good from blood moon and so is the EXP. 

So if people keep tricking them, have fun wil progressing slowly. 

 

Anyway, that's my side. 

Byeeeeeeeeeeee

 

- Iejen

[Boidster]

1 hour ago, Deanster said:

My point is you have to rebuild most of your base before every single bloodmoon, otherwise the game is just a laugh.

Wait, your goal is to have your base destroyed by the horde? You and I would definitely be working at cross purposes in co-op! Setting aside any and all discussions of "exploits" or "cheese" even. Just at a basic level, your approach to the game is unusual, IMO. I sympathize with your struggle to find an MP server where the players agree with this strategy.

[leaderdog]

If I'm not mistaken, the AI is why there are so few zombies in the world at large.  It makes the cpu struggle to much so people with less cpu power can't play at reasonable fps.  It used to be a struggle to just find a town, then it was a struggle to clear the area so it was even safe to stay the night.  And then a slight noise made it questionable because it brought zombies in the night.

 

I modded my game for 60 zombies in the world... so far it's constant zombies... may be to many but I'll fiddle with other settings.  I reduced the ridiculous stamina use for clubs (all tiers) so you can at least survive with this many zombies.

 

Guns now are actually not a great idea as it draws more zombies like it should in a zombie apocalypse.   You'd think there should be lots of zombies around considering it's a zombie game... /shrug

 

I'll be fiddling with the loot because I do not like the stone age era in an apocalyptic game.  No one is boxing up stone axes or primitive bows in sealed crates and storing them in houses.  That's nonsense.  Pretty near every house you go to should have at least one hammer in it.  I'll let that slide for rng but still seriously, that's nuts.

 

But overall it's a game.  Play it how you like.  I don't care if someone turns horde night off.  I don't do it, but because they kept changing the AI to adapt for how "SOME" people played it has altered how "EVERYONE" plays.  Which now many people find exploits because as mentioned in an earlier post, zombies shouldn't chew threw concrete in seconds.  It made regular buildings that we used to make basically impossible to defend.

 

And don't get me started on the skill tree.. sadly that's beyond my modding abilities or I'd remove the whole damn thing.

 

The challenge used to be zombies... it really isn't any more, there just kind of there.. occasionally.

[Kosmic Kerman]

1 hour ago, Deanster said:

 

 It heavily effect my online experience when others cheat death and i try to find a server that just survive, but most use these moat buildings in reality.

 

 

I am genuinely curious how other people using cheese bases effects your experience. Are you building bases with other people who are using exploits? Are you playing PVP and irritated that other PVPers are cheesing hordes? 

[beHypE]

Breaks the game. Complains the game is broken. Wuuuut? 

 

I mean, it's really simple. You either decide to cheat the AI or you don't. Well, to be fair, there's layers to it, but you get the idea. 

 

Also, the argument of 'I play multi-player and other people cheese the AI' isn't a good one. First of, what does it change for you? Your neighbor cheesing the AI has literally zeeeero impact on you. None. 

 

Now say we fix the AI exploits. Will you cry about your neighbours logging off during horde night? 

[iejen]

8 minutes ago, beHypE said:

Now say we fix the AI exploits. Will you cry about your neighbours logging off during horde night? 

Tbf, nothing is more annoying than logging in on a server at 21:55 😛

[Boidster]

I would like this thread and the thread about how it totally sucks that wedge tips were nerfed to get together in the octagon for a deathmatch.

[Jeraal]

3 hours ago, iejen said:

I have seen this post so many times over the years.....

First of all, why the hell do you care how someone else plays the game? 

 

And if you don't like how other play, play alone. 

And if you want to play MP but people must play the same like you, host a server yourself. 

People brake the rules, you ban them. 

 

Especially on a MP server I  fool the AI once in a while. 
I have a job and a family, I can play like 1/2 hours a day max. 

If I log in every 7th days for a few days in a row, trust me. I will trick the AI. I don't have the resources nor the time to gather them. 

 

But in A19 the loot drops are good from blood moon and so is the EXP. 

So if people keep tricking them, have fun wil progressing slowly. 

 

Anyway, that's my side. 

Byeeeeeeeeeeee

 

- Iejen

 

Exactly.

[Dracula]

5 hours ago, Scyris said:

They only struggled if they sucked, I'm sorry to say it but its true, when I started, I never had any real issues even as a new player. I've never starved to death, or dehydrated to death, if you did manage to do that my hats off to you, as with all the food sources I don't even know how the hell you managed that. I started in a9 or 10, and went in blind, it also was my first survival game.

 

Sadly with the way 7dtd is setup exploiting the AI is pretty much the game in terms of horde night. They chew thru blocks way to fast for punching with their bare hands, I 've personally always found it really REALLY stupid how a zombie can punch thru stone, it should destroy their hands and blow their arms off.

 

On the AI, what the hell do you want man? they are zombies, zombies are not smart. They are only deadly in large numbers the problem is the numbers are never high enough in the game. IMO cities/towns should be packed with TONS of zombies on the street, enough that its a real fight to manage to clear enough to get into a poi, with there being far less of them outside of towns/cities.

 

Honestly I miss when we had a choice to bother with horde night, I used to like my underground bases, if I wanted to fight the bloodmoon horde I could, or I could ignore it entirely if I so wanted. Me? I often ignored it, not because I can't kill them, but because its a waste of resources and it just jumps my gamestage, making everything else more annoying. To this day I still rarely bother with the bloodmoon mechanic as its just not worth the waste of resources just for exp I can get anywhere else for cheaper due to sneak attacks and such.

This is a lot like how I play; I loved having a secure, underground base and go up and clear off the remnants after the horde amassed.  It also defeats the point of building a base out of steel or concrete when a zombie destroys it with a few whacks.  I could see that with wood frames, but there should be no way that a zombie can smash through a vault door.

 

Granted, I also hate the vomiting zombies, screaming zombies, spider zombies, and exploding zombies.  They seem completely unrealistic and take the fun out of my survival landscape.  I will be modding them out as soon as I can with this version.

 

The zombie homing AI has always bothered me; how can they hear my forge running down at the center of the Earth; it's roughly 100 stories down in some cases, yet they still dig for it and smash away at my hatch.

[Teacyn]

With the current state of how zombies are balanced, these exploits are the only way the game can function at higher levels of difficulty and play.

Zombies are @%$*#!ing architects that know the exact perfect path to break through your base in order to perfectly collapse it or reach you. They know exactly how to avoid most non-ranged traps unless you just make an outright wall of them that cannot be avoided. They break blocks so fast (especially at higher levels + difficulties) that it is physically impossible for you to "weather the storm" in many cases, especially once you start getting high concentrations of cops and demolishers. Either you perfectly deflect the storm with an exploit base or severely overpowered gear, or you get demolished and potentially weeks of in-game work is destroyed in one night. So people turn to one of two things: Exploiting the AI with nonsensical builds, or getting in their vehicle and driving away after ~5 minutes and just driving for the entire night.

 

I don't think it's possible to really "improve" the AI unless something is significantly changed about horde night balancing. Either it would make horde nights completely impossible, or would render your average nights unfun snorefests where you crouch there and afk for however long your nights are set to because if you do anything you'll draw a horde to your base and have to spend a ton of time fixing the damage.