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I once loved this game...


scorcher24

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.. then the door homing missiles were introduced, aka regular zombies. I gave this a shot more than once with A19 and the only way to somehow sustain is to make sure there is no door and try to make them spread out, so they don't get the idea to focus on one weak point. YouTube also seems to revolve around cheesing horde night.

 

For the love of this game, just remove this stupid mechanic and make them come in from all sides again as it was. 

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Well...."door-homing" was actually abolished as of A17. Pre A17 all zombies had the AI-Task to "Destroy Door" which meant nobody that I knew of actually used real doors on their ground level where zombies could reach because they would always seek it out. In fact, people would "cheese the AI" by placing doors in the fields around their base to draw them to those areas.

 

Currently, many zombies do zero in on the weakest blockage point for their path to you although it has been toned down quite a bit since A17. Many zombies have shorter paths and "forget" the way to the weakest point and end up bashing on nearby blocks so that there actually are more zombies bashing on different parts of your base than before.

 

I also don't think cheesing horde night is exclusive to this new AI. There was plenty of cheesing within the old system as well. No matter what the AI leads the zombies to do, people will find a way to exploit them. The nice thing about the new AI is that you can plan for the most likely pathway that most zombies will follow and make your traps more relevent on hordenight.  In the past, you could set up traps and never have zombies interact with them because they didn't follow the path that would bring them to your traps. I think that the current AI is more fun for trap builders and base designers who like to design kill corridors. Not all gauntlets that people are building for the undead to run are exploitive and cheesy and not everyone agrees on the line where you cross into unfair cheesy territory.

 

Your plea to abandon the current AI, if followed, would upset a whole other group of people who really enjoy the current preparation strategies for horde night. The developers are pretty set on the current AI being the permanent AI the game will ship with. faatal will continue to polish and randomize and close any blatant exploits but the general behavior we see right now is the way it will be. The zombies will generally follow the path of least resistance with some randomization and alternate behavior. As players learn how the zombies are going to approach their base they can make alterations and kill zones along that path to better defend and those defenses will come into play because the zombies (with some exceptions) will run that path.

 

 

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Its funny to see some people, being personally mad at something in the game, requesting adjustments from the devs, like its due to them, like they own that game.

 

What's nice about the current AI is that you can replicate the approach you could have in a real-life situation, naturally : study the behavior of the threat and use it against itself to neutralize, contain and idealy suppress it. All humans tend to do this with their survival instincts. Its actually a tour de force from the Pimps to have been able to develop an AI that features those aspects, that constitutes so many entities and at the same time and that gives players the possibility to creatively circumvent, face and adapt to that dramatic situation (the Blood Moon) in an efficient way.

 

They can also fail if they cant adapt adequately, that's the beauty of the thing. Even if you think you got it and hold the Zs by the balls, there's always something that can happen and screw you up in a second. I've watched enough of Glock9 and Capp videos to see this happen and those guys are far from being noobs. This also nullifies the claim that "7DtD Youtube revolves around cheezing horde nights". Maybe some videos show some cheap and boring way to play the game, but its nothing wide-spread like OP claims.

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Agree with Roland. However there hopefully will come some further optimizations. Im fine with Zs finding a kill korridor, but that they often absolutely magically know the weakest point of a e.g. wall is "surprising".

Spikes are also quite... hmpf. Once there is a path through them, almost all Zs will follow that path and most of the other spikes are completely useless. And that they ignore spikes that are placed on block below the floor imho is also a really strange behaviour. Spikes seem to be the only "trap" that Zs recognize as an obstacle in their way, so they avoid it.

 

But in general it works. E.g. using the prison POI as a base, they are indeed coming from all sides. They surprisingly care very little for the door on the front. Also Zs coming from south don't circumvent the whole prision if there is already a hole in the wall on the north side. But everything coming from north will head for that hole.

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15 hours ago, Ramethzer0 said:

1. Are you here to actually have a discussion, or, to vent?

2. What exactly does 'Cheesing Horde Night' mean to you?

3. You have the ability to go back in time and play previous alphas.

 

 

 

1. what does it matter to you?

2. even i understood the essence through the translator

3. Wow. this is a universal solution!

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1 hour ago, n2n1 said:

1. what does it matter to you?

2. even i understood the essence through the translator

3. Wow. this is a universal solution!

...why do you need to be a @#&? about this? He asked legitimate questions, there's no big deal about it.

 

1. What does it matter to you to know how it mattered for him to ask?

2. He wasnt asking him to formaly translate this, but what sense it made to him.

3. Well, yeah, that's the easiest solution currently available. What, the devs should automatically abide to whoever whines about certain aspects of the game with poor arguments? If one's not happy about a game, they usually can put it down and play something else or adapt. Here, its even better, there's a third option and its to revert to previous versions still available, since OP thinks it was better in earlier constructs of the game.

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53 minutes ago, Kyonshi said:

...why do you need to be a @#&? about this? He asked legitimate questions, there's no big deal about it.

 

 

because these answers are already f@#&?up.  I don't mind anyone being against it. But i am against those who are against those who are against.

 

..... and ...this is just my opinion ... you're giving your opinion of my opinion. Yes?

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43 minutes ago, Kyonshi said:

You went with this with an arrogant attitude and that was totally uncalled for. Nothing surprising when someone acting this way gets feed back about it. That's what you get. And dont use that "Its just my opinion" excuse. Doesnt work.

But i also think about who wrote that (not yours) post...

But what do you mean "doesn't work"?  What should work?  ...this is my opinion  - and it works. What makes you think i'm making excuses?

 

hmm.... do you think, your opinion worked? Are you saying that - you can speak out about my opinion, but i can't speak out about another person's opinion?  ... is this how it "works"? :) 

 

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Kalen said:

What does it matter to you to know what it mattered to him how it mattered to Roland?  ;)

 

 

Wait a minute....I asked no questions. Not sure why you switched the "him" pronoun to my name in your quote when I very clearly kept ALL of my post to pontificating...

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1 hour ago, Roland said:

Wait a minute....I asked no questions. Not sure why you switched the "him" pronoun to my name in your quote when I very clearly kept ALL of my post to pontificating...

It was a mistake from my part because i just saw your name in the comments. No bad intentions whatsoever. I just put "him", referring to the author of the post n2n1 quoted, to quickly fix my error.

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I personally don't have a problem with the Z's & their magical sense of weak points in your base. 

I do see & agree with what the OP is saying, I would like an onslaught from all sides as well however that is the type of base I build. 

 

I've never used kill corridors myself but they are entertaining in their own right from videos I've watched.

 

I just build whatever the hell I want & deal with whatever weak point the Z's seem fit. 

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As I don't know the lore of the game (hopefully TFP have some ideas), I cant say anything unless no lore is planed for the game.

 

If the game will have no specifics about the zombies pathing "supernaturally", then I would say it makes the game too simple to defend during BM.

Playing SP I can defend a HUGE fortress using two sledge turrets and nothing else. (Edit: I can get away with one, but two, placed correctly can be fun to watch)

 

I have been ambivalent defending my base since A17.

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I think the ai in a19 is better than in previous versions on horde night. It feels like there is a bit more randomness than 17 or 18. I get op’s comment, it isn’t purely random which it sounds like he enjoyed more. My base design, for the most part, hasn’t changed since a14. So, I use a square building with one door, a 5 high iron/wood bar fence ten blocks out from the building with one gate. I use barbed wire on perimeter to slow them down. The ai strikes one side for maybe a game hour before switching randomly to another side.
 

If we can kill them quick enough to prevent them breaching the fence before they switch to another side, then we’re okay. This set up allows us to actually watch how they attack, focus our attack on regions where they cluster. Even if they breach the fence, when the ai decides it’s time to attack from a different side, that fence breach is ignored. I can either repair the breach while my partner engages the new attack or just ignore the breach because the z’s ignore it too once they switch side of attack.

 

A17/18, you get a breach and the zombies make a beeline to it all night, regardless which direction they come from. I’d recommend the op hang in there, as the randomness increases while the smartness stays the same. Fatal has done some great tweaking to the ai behavior.

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On 12/1/2020 at 10:26 PM, Roland said:

No matter what the AI leads the zombies to do, people will find a way to exploit them.

I'll never accept that statement as a valid attitude toward any game. It's repeated in this forum constantly as if it is fact, and it is not.
The AI should be understood and countered by the player as intended by the design of the game without exploits. Anything less is failure.
Try to find any developer of any respectable game make that statement. If this is the attitude with stupid zombies, this game is in for a world of hurt when the bandits come in. 

 

I agree with random attacks on defense.

I agree with zombies attack weakest spot.

I agree with zombies take open route.
I think it should work like this though:
1) Zombies always start attacking at random points.
2) Zombies do not target weak spots until a weak spot is discovered.

3) Zombies do not take open paths to the player until an open path to the player is discovered.
4) Only zombies that are near (can see) another zombie that discovered a weak spot or an open path will join in. Otherwise, they continue their randomness until they discover or "see" another zombie discover.
 
Whatever happened to the meat bomb, or whatever they were calling it? It would be nice to have something in the game to manipulate AI within the intentional bounds of the game. Some real strategy to the tower defense portion of the game would be nice in general. If more focus was put on that, there would be less people looking for trashy exploits for starters. How about a few zombies that will target traps if they are damaged by them? Could be bad for traps, but at the same time, it could be a useful strategy to manipulate that behavior in your favor.

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On 12/2/2020 at 10:40 AM, n2n1 said:

1. what does it matter to you?

2. even i understood the essence through the translator

3. Wow. this is a universal solution!

1.  Because I want a specific starting point in a discussion.  Unfortunately, people on the internet are so dead inside that some folks take the OP as normal discussion and I don't react well to people being prickish to start a discussion.  If they tried that it real life, it wont work out like they think it will.

 

2 and 3.  I submit these responses as proof of 1.

On 12/2/2020 at 12:03 PM, Kalen said:

What does it matter to you to know what it mattered to him how it mattered to Roland?  ;)

 

 

Haters gunna hate.   When I look at questions like  'What does it matter to you?'  I just like to posit the fact that the reason why forums exist is to invite feedback, otherwise I come back with 'Why post your personal butthurt in a public place?'  Because if you're gunna invite a negative feedback loop, then be prepared to accept it right back atcha.

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On 12/2/2020 at 3:00 PM, Sydious said:

I know I'm stupid at times, but I feel worse after trying to navigate this post.

Wait till you see the tsunami of intellectual commentary on Youtube!

15 hours ago, Outlaw_187 said:

I personally don't have a problem with the Z's & their magical sense of weak points in your base. 

I do see & agree with what the OP is saying, I would like an onslaught from all sides as well however that is the type of base I build. 

 

I've never used kill corridors myself but they are entertaining in their own right from videos I've watched.

 

I just build whatever the hell I want & deal with whatever weak point the Z's seem fit. 

Yeah.  I've seen this go both ways.  I've seen the zeds come at you from all angles and my SMG rather prefers they clump up on vulnerable spots.  I actually wait for it.  I sometimes build walls with built in flaws specifically for this behaviour.

 

I've used kill corridors and I gotta be honest, they are boring because I feel too safe and get bored too quickly because of them.  Some people like them, but.. i don't see a reason to harm on their prefs.

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19 minutes ago, Ramethzer0 said:

1.  Because clearly I want a specific starting point in a discussion.  ////

Maybe... that's probably how it is for you :)

 

But for me, your first post looks exactly like my subsequent posts for most.

Everything is as you described in the answer for Kalen . ;)  I was like you.

 

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1 minute ago, n2n1 said:

Maybe... that's probably how it is for you.

 

But for me, your first post looks exactly like my subsequent posts for most.

Everything is as you described in the answer for Kalen . ;)  I was like you.

 

But, such is the way of the world.  Point of view makes everything a little complicated.

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9 hours ago, AtomicUs5000 said:

I'll never accept that statement as a valid attitude toward any game.

Some people feel the same way about the moon landing....

 

The devs could tie up everything within rules and constraints so that nobody could exploit anything......or.......they can leave the world as an open world pseudo-sandbox with loose rules that some players will exploit and others will not. Rules that govern multiplayer play must be tighter to ensure fairness in a competitive sphere. Other than that, what do I care whether some dude figures out an easy way to manipulate the AI in artificial ways and breezes through horde night?

 

The devs have already stated that they will close those loopholes and exploits they deem to be game breaking but for the rest they expect players to use some restraint and self-discipline. It's like the console. A few months back we had a guy ranting that the game was unplayable because the console was available during play to enable godmode and the creative menu at any time. He demanded the devs to disable the console during play. One could say that leaving such power at the fingertips of the players is a HUGE exploit that could be completely abused to completely destroy any challenge in the game. And yet, the response was for the guy to find some will power because the devs were not going to disable the console. To some degree that is their view of other exploits.

 

The thing is that nobody on the forum can even agree on most exploits as to whether they really are exploits unless they are ways to cheat in competitive PvP play. There was a big debate on whether double dipping a POI selected as a quest was an exploit and the community was split. Madmole stated they had no plans to change it and that he didn't view double dipping a POI as an exploit at all. Now....clipping into the terrain to look around underground in a PVP game is pretty universally accepted as an exploit and the devs have spent years trying to close all edge cases of that.

 

Tactics to stop zombies are always going to be debatable as to how exploitive they are. Often something discovered early on that works well is viewed favorably but as time goes on and that tactic comes to be seen as easy and foolproof all of a sudden people start calling it exploitive.

 

So I agree with you that exploits should be evaluated and removed when possible but at the same time I don't know how restrictive and rule bound I want the game to continue to become-- especially when some exploits you and I might want restricted are not believed to be exploits by others. Freedom is better for those of us who are wise enough not to ruin the game for ourselves.

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