Am I cheesing?

[AtomicUs5000]

Just now, Ezed said:

I can't imagine trying to level without horde night. 

 

Not sure what's going to happen when these Demolisher's start showing up.  Haven't seen one in game ever.  I expect I'll die...

I just down some drinks and take the fight outside in the open. I mean, it's not too bad if my base takes damage, but if I can stop it, I'd rather keep them away as much as I can. An obstacle course around your base that you can navigate easily but slows them down helps.

[Dracula]

8 minutes ago, AtomicUs5000 said:

What I meant is, nobody is going to stop you from playing that way in the current version.
In order to understand why, you would have to look at things from the perspective of the developers. Imagine spending 10 years working on some game. You're making puzzles to solve, enemies to defeat, impressive and unique game mechanics. This is your soul, your pride and joy, and of your effort and expertise brought to fruition in a single project and you can't wait to show the world all that you have done. Someone starts up the game, digs three blocks down, places a block on their head, and says "I win"

The way I see it; no matter what you do, there are enough dedicated people out there that will look for exploits no matter what they do to stop them.  My brother is one of those people; he will do everything he can to "cheat" in every game that he plays without actually using "cheat codes" or "cheat mode" in games.

 

I play for my enjoyment and, if something inhibits my enjoyment, only then do I seek to do something about it.

[AtomicUs5000]

Just now, Dracula said:

The way I see it; no matter what you do, there are enough dedicated people out there that will look for exploits no matter what they do to stop them.  My brother is one of those people; he will do everything he can to "cheat" in every game that he plays without actually using "cheat codes" or "cheat mode" in games.

 

I play for my enjoyment and, if something inhibits my enjoyment, only then do I seek to do something about it.

Of course. That's not a bad thing, but using that as an argument to leave obvious exploits in a game is equivalent to saying, no matter what, all encrypted data can be hacked and decrypted, therefore nobody should attempt to secure their data. Or, there will always be someone who can do something better than you, so don't bother doing anything. Or, one day you will die, so don't bother living.
There may in fact always be exploits in this game, but the obvious ones need to be taken care of or the game was nothing but a waste of time.

[Ezed]

7 minutes ago, AtomicUs5000 said:

I just down some drinks and take the fight outside in the open. I mean, it's not too bad if my base takes damage, but if I can stop it, I'd rather keep them away as much as I can. An obstacle course around your base that you can navigate easily but slows them down helps.

 

Probably a good idea but I think I want to wait until I experience one for the first time before I make plans on how to deal with them.  The only thing I know is they explode and AP ammo is recommended so have an M60 with a full drum of AP with their name on it.

[AtomicUs5000]

Just now, Ezed said:

 

Probably a good idea but I think I want to wait until I experience one for the first time before I make plans on how to deal with them.  The only thing I know is they explode and AP ammo is recommended so have an M60 with a full drum of AP with their name on it.

That will be just fine. It's not like you get swarmed with a ton of them right away. They get real nasty in very late game where you could get dozens in a single night, but another big factor is what your max alive count is set to. If it's set to something like 64, then I suppose there is the possibility of something like 10 of them coming at your base at the same moment.

[Dracula]

1 minute ago, AtomicUs5000 said:

Of course. That's not a bad thing, but using that as an argument to leave obvious exploits in a game is equivalent to saying, no matter what, all encrypted data can be hacked and decrypted, therefore nobody should attempt to secure their data. Or, there will always be someone who can do something better than you, so don't bother doing anything. Or, one day you will die, so don't bother living.
There may in fact always be exploits in this game, but the obvious ones need to be taken care of or the game was nothing but a waste of time.

There's also going too far; as I think they've done with swimming zombies and the new AI.  A happy medium would be nice, as the same extremist argument can be made for both positions.

 

The best AI is one that can be exploited if you want, but doesn't NEED to be.  They're moving from one end to the other.

[RipClaw]

35 minutes ago, Ezed said:

I can't imagine trying to level without horde night. 

Mining or building a large base of concrete also provides a lot of XP. And you can increase the XP up to 300% if you want to disable the horde but still level quickly.

35 minutes ago, Ezed said:

Not sure what's going to happen when these Demolisher's start showing up.  Haven't seen one in game ever.  I expect I'll die...

Demolishers at close range are not a big problem when you shoot at the head with AP ammunition. But you should just try to avoid shooting at the chest or using the "spray and pray" tactic.

 

What's your weapon of choice?
 

[AtomicUs5000]

1 minute ago, Dracula said:

There's also going too far; as I think they've done with swimming zombies and the new AI.  A happy medium would be nice, as the same extremist argument can be made for both positions.

 

The best AI is one that can be exploited if you want, but doesn't NEED to be.  They're moving from one end to the other.

I agree fully, and I often bring that up in discussions like this one. If things aren't done carefully, you can end up with just a single way to play this game... or even worse, no way. Swimming zombies solves the problem of people avoiding everything by simply swimming into the middle of a lake. That problem to solve was just as bad as the digging down three blocks problem. Other ideas were proposed to solve this, but they were not well received.

In general, all AI in games needs to be beatable. Finding the methods to beat AI should require effort and skill. This goes all the way back to the first AI in games... PacMan. By understanding the 4 different AI behaviors of the ghosts, someone can eventually beat it on a pro level. Figuring out the AI and beating it is not exploiting it, it's understanding it, adapting to it, and skillfully defeating it.

[Dracula]

2 minutes ago, AtomicUs5000 said:

I agree fully, and I often bring that up in discussions like this one. If things aren't done carefully, you can end up with just a single way to play this game... or even worse, no way. Swimming zombies solves the problem of people avoiding everything by simply swimming into the middle of a lake. That problem to solve was just as bad as the digging down three blocks problem. Other ideas were proposed to solve this, but they were not well received.

In general, all AI in games needs to be beatable. Finding the methods to beat AI should require effort and skill. This goes all the way back to the first AI in games... PacMan. By understanding the 4 different AI behaviors of the ghosts, someone can eventually beat it on a pro level. Figuring out the AI and beating it is not exploiting it, it's understanding it, adapting to it, and skillfully defeating it.

I definitely agree that the swimming problem needed to be solved; but I'm not sure that zombies that can outswim the player are the answer.  A moot point, from my perspective, as that's something that I never cared about or used.  Though; I did like seeing zombies pop out of the water out of nowhere.  The first time that happened it was legitimately impressive.

 

I do think that they are going too far in making the AI unbeatable in any manner but the single-focus that they want; no hiding in a base and letting it take hits, you HAVE to either run-and-gun OR build a base specifically aimed at funneling/pathing zombies to decrease their threat level.

[Ezed]

19 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

Mining or building a large base of concrete also provides a lot of XP. And you can increase the XP up to 300% if you want to disable the horde but still level quickly.

Demolishers at close range are not a big problem when you shoot at the head with AP ammunition. But you should just try to avoid shooting at the chest or using the "spray and pray" tactic.

 

What's your weapon of choice?
 

M60...have one with a full drum of AP.  With the base design in my OP, I'm probably hitting headshots 75-80% of the time but I am glad you posted that...I thought I was supposed to aim for the chest

[AtomicUs5000]

19 minutes ago, Dracula said:

no hiding in a base and letting it take hits, you HAVE to either run-and-gun OR build a base specifically aimed at funneling/pathing zombies to decrease their threat level.

I'm not 100% certain on that. I have played some games where my base is just three sets of double-walled rings with bars on top to shoot down. Spikes, barbed wire, turrets, electric fences, dart traps. The demolishers will get close to the center, but have yet to get all the way in. I will also have walls going outward perpendicular to the rings as to actually spread out the attack as opposed to funneling it. The idea here is to prevent the zombie group damage bonus they get as much as possible.

EDIT: actually it's more than double-walled. It's more like quadruple-walled. because I do plate, wall, wall, plate, plate, wall, wall, plate, plate, wall, wall, plate. The inside corners will use uncentered poles since you can't use two plates. The reason for the gaps with plates is so that it forms maintenance halls I can squeeze though in between the walls.
 
I've also played where my "base" is suspended on poles, and before every horde night, I add on another section. Later on, I'll fight off the horde from one section, and before the poles get too weak to collapse anything, I just walk over to the next section. After A19 goes stable, I want to try to make this across an entire town.
 
I really think right now the main problem is that a lot of players don't want to put in the effort of trying different builds out. They just want to stick with what's easiest or with whatever they saw was easiest in the videos they watched.

[Dracula]

8 minutes ago, AtomicUs5000 said:

I really think right now the main problem is that a lot of players don't want to put in the effort of trying different builds out. They just want to stick with what's easiest or with whatever they saw was easiest in the videos they watched.

I'd say it's not more the effort involved; it's more that people like building a specific type of base that fits with what they would expect to build in a real-world situation.  I've built several bases on stilts, but gave it up when loading issues have collapsed my base into nothing.

 

For the return/reward, I've found that it's easiest to dig to bedrock, tunnel 30 to 40 blocks away from where I hit bedrock, and build a base.  I can wait out the horde there, if I see fit, and go up and pick them off afterwards and fill in the holes they dug with no worries about a zombie exploding all my resources into nothingness.

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, Dracula said:

I definitely agree that the swimming problem needed to be solved; but I'm not sure that zombies that can outswim the player are the answer.  A moot point, from my perspective, as that's something that I never cared about or used.  Though; I did like seeing zombies pop out of the water out of nowhere.  The first time that happened it was legitimately impressive.

 

I do think that they are going too far in making the AI unbeatable in any manner but the single-focus that they want; no hiding in a base and letting it take hits, you HAVE to either run-and-gun OR build a base specifically aimed at funneling/pathing zombies to decrease their threat level.

Have you really tried that? Get halfway good as a miner, clear the hospital, remove all access to upper floors and over the weeks put hundreds of thick concrete pillars with only one block space between them on ground level. Walk around third floor and just wait until horde night is over. On default or default+1 I can't imagine the zombies having enough power to win this war of attrition against the amount of concrete you can produce to fix the holes every week.

 

Mmmh, that would be worth doing a test.

[ElCabong]

2 hours ago, Ezed said:

I can't imagine trying to level without horde night. 

 

Not sure what's going to happen when these Demolisher's start showing up.  Haven't seen one in game ever.  I expect I'll die...

Leveling is a little slower but not that much. I'm more focused on exploring and character building than anything else

[Dracula]

30 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Have you really tried that? Get halfway good as a miner, clear the hospital, remove all access to upper floors and over the weeks put hundreds of thick concrete pillars with only one block space between them on ground level. Walk around third floor and just wait until horde night is over. On default or default+1 I can't imagine the zombies having enough power to win this war of attrition against the amount of concrete you can produce to fix the holes every week.

 

Mmmh, that would be worth doing a test.

The base could definitely withstand it; but it was more of a lack of interest in finding every spot that got damaged by vomit or spending the entire day repairing concrete blocks.  It's more effective to have multiple bases or no base whatsoever.

 

Realistically, they can't get through a thick enough wall; but I haven't tested to see how many blocks they can get through and at what level.  I need to start a game, turn on cheats, and build a series of solid reinforced concrete bunkers and see at what level they can get through.

[RipClaw]

1 hour ago, AtomicUs5000 said:

I really think right now the main problem is that a lot of players don't want to put in the effort of trying different builds out. They just want to stick with what's easiest or with whatever they saw was easiest in the videos they watched.

The problem is that it all costs time. If someone doesn't have much time to play then he doesn't spend a lot of time trying out new things. They stick with what works.

 

[Dracula]

3 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

The problem is that it all costs time. If someone doesn't have much time to play then he doesn't spend a lot of time trying out new things. They stick with what works.

 

Time and resources.  Weekends are my main time to play during the week and, if I want to try something new I use a cheat game; as opposed to my main game.

[Darthjake]

5 hours ago, Dracula said:

Time and resources.  Weekends are my main time to play during the week and, if I want to try something new I use a cheat game; as opposed to my main game.

This right here.  I've had too many buildings collapse as I've been building them to want that happen in a real game, especially if I think I'm building within the SI limits.  I've got to know what works and what doesn't.

[AtomicUs5000]

6 hours ago, RipClaw said:

The problem is that it all costs time. If someone doesn't have much time to play then he doesn't spend a lot of time trying out new things. They stick with what works.

 

I guess I can understand that, depending on the kind of person you are. For myself, even at moments when my time is limited, I don't take my failures as time wasted. For me, it's more like lessons learned and if I just repeated what I always do game after game, alpha after alpha, that would really make me feel like I had wasted time.

[Gideon]

I would say that is a form of cheddar, judging by the black wax coating.

 

Personally, my bases are more akin to swiss cheese after the 7 day horde, but that's just me.

[Ezed]

 

29 minutes ago, Gideon said:

I would say that is a form of cheddar, judging by the black wax coating.

 

Personally, my bases are more akin to swiss cheese after the 7 day horde, but that's just me.

 

Hehe...well after the Day 77 Horde, I'd take Swiss Cheese.  Ended up like a big chunk of Cheddar with a big bite out of it.  Two Demo's (shook their little tush and...) exploded on the catwalk (ya, the catwalk).

 

I need to respec and lose the Penetrator perk.  Didn't even see them in the mob, just heard a couple of beeps then BOOM!

 

First time I've suffered any significant damage though, and didn't die (permadeath) so pretty pleased overall.

[Boidster]

3 hours ago, Ezed said:

Two Demo's (shook their little tush and...) exploded on the catwalk (ya, the catwalk).

[Ezed]

Oh good.  Was worried I was only showing my age with that one 

[theFlu]

If only your plate path was a little weaker, it would've broken off before or at the same time as your wall... I'll leave it at that

[Ezed]

11 minutes ago, theFlu said:

If only your plate path was a little weaker, it would've broken off before or at the same time as your wall... I'll leave it at that

That's a thought for the stable release...maybe leave them concrete. Everything in the core is steel now except the bars...wish we could have steel bars.