Did they adjust the door fixation they had in A19?

[sbaker10]

As a player since 2013, I don't necessarily mind the changes between alphas that force people to figure out new strategies but in the case of A19, I found the programming initially feel extremely cheap and unfair up until the point you figure out their AI and then they become so easy to manipulate that it practically removes the sense of danger completely. I feel like the most dangerous thing about the horde and what's kept it exciting for hundreds of hours over the years is that their AI was utterly unpredictable, you had no idea where they'd try to come through at or what they might end up doing and their occasional stupidity made them more dangerous, years ago I remember being somewhere in the day 40-60 range and I and a couple friends had gotten lucky on RNG that game and built up a completely steel plated fortress with numerous escape paths and support walls, after spending the night picking off the horde from the roof I went down to inspect the damage and found that they'd dug under the base and hollowed out a massive cavern right underneath and that it could've collapsed entirely had that managed to dig it out just a bit more. It was that sort of chaos that's made the game fun enough over the years that with A20 released I'm ready to shell out the money for a new GPU so I can play again.

 

However compare that to my experience in A19 where we decided to reinforce the entrance to the base just a little too much only to see them instantly fixate on a exact spot right where we are at and have them tear through the steel plated concrete wall in literally a couple seconds, sure they're more dangerous than before in that instance, in fact so much so that it was the first time it ever just felt un fun and I've been playing since 2013 back when every single night every zombie in the area would start demolishing whatever you're hiding in, by the next horde we'd figured out you could simply bait them with a door or even a series of doors and they'd line up in a nice tight group for you to unload on and would completely ignore the much weaker iron bars in-between you and them and if you don't take advantage of their AI, then horde's new psychic ability to instantly identify and target the weakest point of your base with pinpoint precision means they'd tear a path to you within seconds every single bloodmoon. So I'm curious if their AI has been tweaked a little for Alpha 20 or if horde mechanics are largely the same, either way A20 is still making it tempting to buy a new GPU now rather than waiting a bit longer for prices to drop but honestly  defending the base with friends and trying to predict the horde has always been one of the most fun parts of this game so I'm hoping it's not going to be the exact same A19 mechanics again, what's been everyone's experience so far?

[Whiteshark68]

As far as i know they will target the weakest blocks to enter the base so your door must have been the "weakest" point in your defense ring so once you upgraded the door it must have had more hp than the blocks.

[sbaker10]

1 hour ago, Whiteshark68 said:

As far as i know they will target the weakest blocks to enter the base so your door must have been the "weakest" point in your defense ring so once you upgraded the door it must have had more hp than the blocks.

They definitely are programmed to prioritize to target doors alone over weaker points to a certain degree, I had a room set up as a killzone with iron bars and unreinforced concrete blocks making up the wall in between where I was at and where the horde was entering, to access where I was at by going through the doors you had one fully upgraded steel door that opened into a small hallway before a second fully upgraded steel door opened into the room I was in.

[pahbi]

The current AI, while impressive in a lot of ways, is pretty brutal at tearing a path to get to the player.

 

This has led to players developing bases that exploit pathing so that zombies won't attack blocks, and are instead funneled into kill corridors.

 

I don't know what the future holds, but there are some folks coming up with innovative bases to survive horde night like this fight ring base.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l29XW-cNgw8

 

 

[BarryTGash]

4 hours ago, pahbi said:

exploit

 

I really don't think that's the right word. This is a self-proclaimed tower defence game after all and funnelling is a primary tactic of that genre - otherwise it'd just be a battle of attrition, like two boxers not moving, not defending, just alternating punches at each other until one falls down*. 

 

*Hyperbole warning:

Spoiler

 

[pahbi]

2 hours ago, BarryTGash said:

 

I really don't think that's the right word. This is a self-proclaimed tower defence game after all and funnelling is a primary tactic of that genre - otherwise it'd just be a battle of attrition, like two boxers not moving, not defending, just alternating punches at each other until one falls down*. 

 

 

 

I guess I could have said, 'take advantage of' or 'make the most of' or something similar, but it all boils down to the same thing.  Figuring out ways to keep zombies from attacking blocks so your base isn't destroyed.

 

You have to concede, its a little uncanny how a herds of zombies can instantly pinpoint the weakest point in your base and focus that spot down to get inside.

 

And thus players had to adapt the bases to take into account that zombies can't be stopped just by using strong blocks like concrete to slow them down long enough to kill them and survive the night.  Just look at youtube, the vast majority of the bases are all variations on the same killing corridor theme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEPrIN9CMkI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzR2hooIayc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYWkSVUg8vU

 

Though, to be fair, there are a few interesting builds like this pole jump base https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tVyuUHkS7g

 

 

 

 

[Rotor]

IMO, the short answer is no.  If I understand your question correctly.

 

My current base is a made house on 4 pillars 8 blocks of ground.  Open center on first floor.  At ground level I built 4 corridors one block wide which meet in the middle to form a "plus".  Walls on each corridor make the center a one block intersection.  I put doors on each side of the 4way stop sorta speak.  I line the house pillars with wood spikes.  On horde night they just come up the corridor to beat on doors.  I just shoot arrows from top.  This was default vanilla only change is block damage 50% on blood moon nights.

Edited January 15, 2022 by Rotor (see edit history)

[pahbi]

From a gameplay loop though, overall I think the AI change was for the better.

 

Prior to the AI change, repairing the base after a blood night would take forever and was pretty boring, especially before the nail gun when all we had was a hammer.

 

Since the base doesn't take much damage now, we can just make few repairs, and then its back to exploring, gathering and crafting.

 

Overall, a huge increase in time spent doing fun things.

 

 

Edited January 15, 2022 by pahbi (see edit history)

[BarryTGash]

1 minute ago, pahbi said:

repairing the base

 

I just wish damaged blocks were more apparent - specifically relatively minor damage (I'm a bit obsessively compulsive when it comes to things like repairing). Even a toggleable overlay when a repair tool is equipped that highlights blocks not at 100%, though somewhat immersion breaking, would help pinpoint all damaged blocks. 

[Laz Man]

The AI feels improved in A20 compared to A19 imo.  Yes most will follow a certain path depending on your base setup and what direction they spawned from which is intended for the tower defense side of the game.

 

However, some will be more unpredictable which creates some variability which is much needed.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by Laz Man (see edit history)

[RipClaw]

10 hours ago, Laz Man said:

The AI feels improved in A20 compared to A19 imo.  Yes most will follow a certain path depending on your base setup and what direction they spawned from which is intended for the tower defense side of the game.

Based on what I've observed so far and what I've tested myself, two things seems to have been changed.

 

The zombies switch longer and more often into Destroy Area mode when they fall down somewhere than they used to do. And they switch into Destroy Area mode when a passage is blocked e.g. by other zombies.

 

So as long as the paths are wide enough and the zombies don't keep falling down somewhere, they should remain somewhat predictable.

 

Players should also not be too stingy with resources when building bases. It is better to build a few more supports and everything thicker than necessary instead of standing in front of the ruins of a collapsed base.

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by RipClaw (see edit history)

[Rotor]

7 hours ago, RipClaw said:

Players should also not be too stingy with resources when building bases. It is better to build a few more supports and everything thicker than necessary instead of standing in front of the ruins of a collapsed base.

 

 

Interesting.  I am not a number cruncher.  I protect my pillars with spikes.  I am only up to cobblestones.  I could add some support to the inner side of each pillar.  It is going to reduce my kill zone vision, but maybe I would not have to pay attention to the pillars.  Although if I were to start again, 4 columns per pillar would allow the base foot print to be 2 blocks wider therefor kill zone become equal.  Think I would have to move to flat ground as right now I am on top of a Mesa just the perfect size for 8x8.  Maybe I will forgo a week of looting and start another base.  This might on be bad at all, keep a craft base and a horde night base.  So many choices, so little time :).

[sbaker10]

To follow this up, I bought a GPU and have been playing A20 for 3 hordes now and while they still really like doors they seem to act a bit more chaotic and don't act like they have quite as much of a hive mind compared to A19 and while it's entirely possible the difference has just been luck I've enjoyed the way they've acted so far more than I did their behavior in A19

Edited February 14, 2022 by sbaker10 (see edit history)

[Reth]

They do prioritize doors over much weaker points. I had a fully upgraded door (20K) in a concrete wall (2x 5K), and they would beat up that poor door non-stop, given a chance.

[Fox]

Am I the only one who feels like the AI has been more or less the same since Alpha 1? I mean... I've got screenshots of pretty much the same lazy base design since pretty much the beginning with only minor tweaks since then. I've always been with the mindset of don't fix what ain't broke, and since my base design has always worked with this AI (despite the devs claiming it eventually won't many times over the years), why change it?

 

The only substantial changes to the AI I've ever noticed is that they now have further melee reach than the player and their attack animations don't always work making it impossible to dodge what you can't see. And there is of course the harmless frog zombie that prefers to jump around you instead of actually attacking which hopefully will be corrected soon. And now they can charge through the spikes far easier (ignoring most of the damage now) requiring even more layers of spikes around the base (I'm now needing 10 layers of spikes and 10 of barbed wire) in order to keep them from touching my base (since I don't like the unreliable funneling designs), the only thing that really holds them back now is the 4 layers of electric fencing around the outer edges (which I'm sure will be nerfed in no time like everything else). At some point, maybe in Alpha 50 or something, base defense will be nerfed so much that kiting them around in a vehicle or making long bedrock tunnels will be our only easy options to dealing with bloodmoons, because those several hundred spikes and barbed wires aren't fun to make. And it's sad that it's our only completely reliable option for actual base defense until late game (since AI trickery / cheese traps don't always work or eventually get patched out), and by then, you might as well keep using them since they're already there and just add the electrics around them. IMO, the game seems to always punish creativity instead of rewarding it which I think is just wrong. For once, I'd like to do something completely different with base defense that doesn't involve tedious spikes and barbed wires right from day 1 and works reliably with "ALL" zombies including the ones with bombs.

 

This post may sound contradictory in that zombies are challenging and therefore somehow means smarter AI, but it doesn't. It's just lazy coding to make zombies ignore and/or resist damage while still charging at you in pretty much the same predictable way since Alpha 1 with the exception of minor tweakings here and there to prevent cheesing forcing us down a very linear repetitive path... door cheesing being the only mild exception which is unreliable.

 

Why not add more flying creatures (big and small, like pesky tiny wasps that can pretty much only deal poison effects or locust swarms that hinder your vision)? Why not add some underground creatures to give cave dwellers something to think about, or take away deep underground mining completely since it's not really serving any purpose anymore anyway? Why not make zombies fight in a more fair manner with equal reach and hitpoints but can wear the same armor as players for later stages and their poisonous damage does very little until they rip apart our armor and can deal serious damage to players? Why not allow zombies to crawl around on purpose to avoid spike / barbed wire damage but of course crawl slowly instead of just running through most of them like cheaters? These are examples of good AI.

 

 

In response to the OP, zombies have always been fixated on doors since Alpha 1. Devs refuse to fix this issue... not sure I fully understand why though. And I miss tunneling zombies too, I think maybe the latest engine update might be the reason for this (just a wild guess though), since it was apparently the reason for frog zombies. Also, just fyi, if you're going to make a bold claim to have been playing since 2013, then I'd love to see your kickstarter badge proving this.

[Fox]

@Kuosimodo If you're going to constantly negatively react to my posts all the time, the least you could do is use your words... let us know you're a real human being with actual opinions. Right now, you're just a coward behind a curtain poking ppl with a stick in silence.

 

EDIT: Oh look... another one. 🤦‍♂️

Edited February 15, 2022 by Fox (see edit history)

[bandersnatch]

Zombies now seem to prioritize windows over doors of equal strength.  It provides an easy exploit by having two layers of wall with the inner one being weaker than the outside one but with the window not covered by outer layer - you still need a barrier to keep them from actually hitting the weak window, though.  Zeds will ignore a wooden door and beat furiously on your steel outer wall trying to get at a wooden window they can see but can't reach.  I've tested it on several servers now and its 90% consistent..when it doesn't happen this way I always see weird stuff like "breakdancing" zombies, too, but I don't know what the connection is.  Difficulty might also be a factor because some of these servers are "nomad" while others are on "warrior".

Edited February 16, 2022 by bandersnatch (see edit history)