21 experimental Zombie pathing and behavior

[ungkor]

I was watching some videos by "guns nerds and steel", "kage848", and "glock9", and they seem to be having the same issues I am. 

 

In Alpha 21, it seems like zombies almost seem to get 'distracted' and won't follow a path to me.   And it seems to be influenced by distance.   

 

If I have a base with a killing corridor, that wraps around to the side and merges with the platform I'm on, the zombies will completely ignore the path around my island, and instead attack the front of the corridor. 

 

If I back up 10 steps, they instead ignore the front of the corridor, and start rushing the wrap around path to my 'island'.   I'll upload some graphics if people can't picture what I'm talking about.   But the Zombie pathing in 21 seems really weird. 

 

 

[theFlu]

32 minutes ago, ungkor said:

But the Zombie pathing in 21 seems really weird.

I think you've already figured out though, it sounds like it's just really short paths. I saw JaWoodle struggle with it a bit, but it didn't look that out of the ordinary; he had an unusually long loop for his penetrator spec. Similar effect, stand on the wrong side of your safe area and zeds would not path, stand on the right side and suddenly at least some would.

[Old Crow]

I've been noti8cing this as well, but with shorter distances too. They look right at me as they wake up or attack, but decide they need to take the long way around and turn to beat on a nearby wall to reach me. Like, dude.. I'm right here. I'm three feet in front of you with a clear path.

[theFlu]

2 minutes ago, Old Crow said:

and turn to beat on a nearby wall to reach me.

That is pretty common too, now that you mention it. I've actually been abusing the three meter Parkour to trigger it lately, just jumping high enough makes them go into "destroy area" -mode pretty reliably. But even without jumping they'll just waddle off somewhere, on occasion.

 

I did have some issues getting them to path a .. "horde base". A playground fence of a Poopy Pants, three high half blocks, on top of which I made two little boxes, to different sides from a corner I placed an up ramp to. They did walk the fence fine to one of them, but couldn't figure out the other, so they spun in circles couple meters away from the confusing one. Shortening the distance didn't help, so I think it was something to do with the plate-pole blocks I ended up using. But if it was a "no-path" situation, they should've gone Destroy Area, but didn't really; they were just running a tiny circle like a zombie mosh pit...

[Riamus]

They also tend to run past you when inside a smaller area in a POI like a hallway with rooms and then turn around to attack.  It's almost like you are stealthed and they run to where they last detected you or something.  It usually happens near a doorway where they'll run into the doorway and then turn around to come toward you.  Pathing does seem worse in A21.

[canadianbluebeer]

The pathing seems to just *break* at times.

 

Bloodmoon.  Using the grain mill next to trader jen (pregen10k)

on the catwalks, about the 3rd level..

 

they come up onto that walk, which is straight, goes past the actual grain silo thing, makes a turn to go up to the next turn ,

which is the short level to the ladder to the top of the silo.

 

When they come up the first stairs, some will stop on the first stairs and start banging on the walls, blocking the zeds following. (kinda funny)

Shoot the dumb one, the rest boogy along the path.

 

They get up to my level where I'm waiting, most come right at me and get blasted.

Some come part way, stop, turn, and start banging on the silo, IN FULL VIEW OF ME.  no blocking, nada.

I shoot them of course.

 

This spot I have my back to the wall, and the stairs going up are to my left.

Some zed will run right past/through me, and start beating on the outside wall!!??!!

I'm  RIGHT BESIDE THEM!

 

I do notice a fair number of shots to the chest at short range seem to just go right through them. ??

 

Very weird.

 

(of course there's also the tendency when bursting out of the hidden areas, for them to drop into the stupid crouch/crawler position

and get confused.  Worse is just as I take a swing at them with an axe, they drop to crawler position at warp 90 and whack my ankles, then pop

back up right after, also at warp 90. (as in no animation, just a 1 frame position swap)

 

hrmmm...

[Scyris]

2 hours ago, canadianbluebeer said:

The pathing seems to just *break* at times.

 

Bloodmoon.  Using the grain mill next to trader jen (pregen10k)

on the catwalks, about the 3rd level..

 

they come up onto that walk, which is straight, goes past the actual grain silo thing, makes a turn to go up to the next turn ,

which is the short level to the ladder to the top of the silo.

 

When they come up the first stairs, some will stop on the first stairs and start banging on the walls, blocking the zeds following. (kinda funny)

Shoot the dumb one, the rest boogy along the path.

 

They get up to my level where I'm waiting, most come right at me and get blasted.

Some come part way, stop, turn, and start banging on the silo, IN FULL VIEW OF ME.  no blocking, nada.

I shoot them of course.

 

This spot I have my back to the wall, and the stairs going up are to my left.

Some zed will run right past/through me, and start beating on the outside wall!!??!!

I'm  RIGHT BESIDE THEM!

 

I do notice a fair number of shots to the chest at short range seem to just go right through them. ??

 

Very weird.

 

(of course there's also the tendency when bursting out of the hidden areas, for them to drop into the stupid crouch/crawler position

and get confused.  Worse is just as I take a swing at them with an axe, they drop to crawler position at warp 90 and whack my ankles, then pop

back up right after, also at warp 90. (as in no animation, just a 1 frame position swap)

 

hrmmm...

 

I actually had issues with this even in A20 with this sort of behavior. Some zombies at my horde base just have trouble pathing properly, it worked fine in a17, 18 and 19, but since a20 its been.. weird at best. They often just randomly go and hit a random wall while still looking at me, the problem? they are hitting a pillar nearby that has a electric fence pole on it, that has NO valid path for them to go to me from as its 5-7 blocks away from the bunker, so they basically are just annoying me. Usually shooting them once gets their Ai to "wake up" and path properly.. usually. They take no fall damage, so its not being triggered by a fall, I do have log spikes thou as this is in darkness falls. So I thought maybe it was them taking damage from the traps that was causing this? but no, its not, as even without them walking on flat ground they still randomly do this behavior. Gonna be intersting when I try my horde base in a21 from what I been hearing, might need a redesign.

[ungkor]

I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one.  Hopefully they figure it out.  I'm not a fan of random behavior.  

Edited July 14, 2023 by ungkor (see edit history)

[Abusimplea]

I experienced the same and guess, that this is fallout from very greedy AI performance optimizations.

 

The only actually annoying thing is the animation-less stance changes, which also can happen when zombies get back up from prone position (sometimes the animations starts fine but then a part is cut from the end). Makes zombies really goofy.

 

Zombies occasionally being extremely stupid actually increases immersion for me - they are zombies, not the Borg.

[hotpoon]

I also prefer stupid zombies. I’ve had the opposite experience of unnecessarily long pathing. The other day I was on a building roof and took a shot at a bear, which immediately ran around the back of the building to the entrance, to break down the door, obviously planning to come up several flights of stairs and break through the roof to get to me.