Just some ideas

[jjh5874]

So I've seen a lot of people when talking about zombie AI and other stuff that TFP has done to "stop cheese bases from working", mainly about how TFP has changed the AI in a way where if you want to have a realistically fortified or bunker base it is highly un-viable as zombies just plow through the weakest route (instead of the fun old days where hordes would try plow straight towards you), now having toggle able AI to switch between fun and anti-cheese base may take a lot of effort (unless the AI is purely weight based and the weights are stored in a file and not hard-coded in the AI) so i wont go in to that much.

 

But why not just add new zombies, horde specific or not, for example spitters that instead of a normal projectile, spit one that produces gas that penetrates blocks and damages only players for area denial, or a zombie that charges directly towards the players location and on a block hit does large amounts of block damage (which would have more of a dangerous affect to cheese base supports than a big thick wall) or maybe even just by fixing spider zombies so they climb the posts and if they cant climb any higher due to hitting their head they attack forward (meaning they climb the post then start destroying it from the top) or maybe even have zombie meat-pile work so if too many zombies die on a specific path they try to get under the player, and if they can they tower up on each other and break the floor from under the player

[meganoth]

The "AI changes" were (according to the programmer who did it) a complete rewrite of old code because the old code was too inflexible to handle NPC as well, especially bandits. So a rewrite was done more than 3 years ago that could accomodate anything from dumb (for zombies) to intelligent (for bandits and NPC). Just that "dumb" didn't mean exactly like with the old AI code but a different sort of "dumb".

 

It was not a reaction to any cheesy player bases. It was work that had to be done for bandits. Case in point, the new AI can be cheesed as well, that wasn't the goal.

 

Your proposed solution is not a solution for TFPs problem. And their new AI is probably widely used right now to make the bandits work well, so there is no chance in hell they will ever go back to the old AI. Your only chance is to hope for a modder to implement some A16 AI compatibility mode inside the new AI.

 

PS: Tastes differ. I like the new AI much better than the boring old AI.

 

Edited January 12 by meganoth (see edit history)

[jjh5874]

Thanks for the clarification! I’ve been on the Reddit a lot and it seems over there the view is that the change was made to prevent cheese bases, the new ai makes the game harder and more fun in some ways.

 

but, to me at least, you can’t beat the old feeling of that chunky house with defences like mote+spike and mine fields being more effective where the zombies came from all directions and didn’t take the weakest route and you could have a roof or multiple balconies you’d have to dart between to kill off zombies before they did too much damage to one side of the base or too many built up (the new ai is definitely better for path finding in stuff like POIs though), ah well, unless someone manages to integrate the old ai as a mod or at least work an ai task in that charges towards the player attempting to break blocks in the way if there’s no clear path change within a few blocks that it’s never happening.

 

looking forward to the bandit and other npc integration though! Saw the old bandit and survivors with the debug menu of a previous alpha and they seemed like fun new enemies/allies.

Edited January 12 by jjh5874 (see edit history)

[meganoth]

59 minutes ago, jjh5874 said:

Thanks for the clarification! I’ve been on the Reddit a lot and it seems over there the view is that the change was made to prevent cheese bases, the new ai makes the game harder and more fun in some ways.

 

Humans like to attribute changes to things they do or have seen first hand. This is why people in older times blamed a dead cow either on whatever they did shortly before or on some stranger that came into the village a few days before 😉 At least that is my theory why almost all changes in this game are blamed as being a reaction to some streamer or group of players doing some cheesy thing. In a few cases they are or it is part of the reason but mostly these are just wild and false guesses by some player and perpetuated from then on.

 

59 minutes ago, jjh5874 said:

but, to me at least, you can’t beat the old feeling of that chunky house with defences like mote+spike and mine fields being more effective

 

If you plant spikes one block down, so their top is level with the surrounding area they are as effective as in A16. This is because the AI sees spikes simply as blocks and when they are flush with the ground they don't count as obstacles for the AI. Even better, a destroyed buried spike leaves a hole in the ground that then counts as an obstacle. The zombies will then walk over nearby spikes instead of walking through the hole. Won't bring back the general feeling but you will see spikes in a new light.

 

59 minutes ago, jjh5874 said:

where the zombies came from all directions and didn’t take the weakest route and you could have a roof or multiple balconies you’d have to dart between to kill off zombies before they did too much damage to one side of the base or too many built up (the new ai is definitely better for path finding in stuff like POIs though), ah well, unless someone manages to integrate the old ai as a mod or at least work an ai task in that charges towards the player attempting to break blocks in the way if there’s no clear path change within a few blocks that it’s never happening.

 

I think I heard there is a setting in the AI that handles for how many blocks ahead the zombies can plan their routes. If this were set to a small number the zombies should (in theory) react somewhat similar to the old ways. Though I don't know of any mod doing this so this "naive" approach may not work after all (?).

 

Edited January 12 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Roland]

Larger bases with a footprint of at least 20 blocks per side (assuming a square base) do result in AI behavior more akin to the past. You will get zombies attacking your base walls at various points as the pathway all the way around to the other side of the base to get to that weakest spot ends up being longer than the pathing accounts for.

 

It is only smaller 7x7 bases (for example) where all zombies can detect that weakest spot from everywhere around your base and so they all go there. Take over the ground floor of a large existing building and try to defend it from inside during your next horde night and you will see the zombies trying to break through from multiple points.

Edited January 12 by Roland (see edit history)

[SylenThunder]

2 hours ago, meganoth said:

The "AI changes" were (according to the programmer who did it) a complete rewrite of old code because the old code was too inflexible to handle NPC as well, especially bandits. So a rewrite was done more than 3 years ago that could accomodate anything from dumb (for zombies) to intelligent (for bandits and NPC). Just that "dumb" didn't mean exactly like with the old AI code but a different sort of "dumb".

 

We can cite other similar changes as well. Like when you could just make a pyramid of inverted wedges, and be safe because zeds couldn't walk up that slope but the player could.  Fixing it so that zeds could walk up those slopes wasn't done to combat cheese bases, but because the zombie AI should be able to walk on the same blocks the player can to follow the breadcrumbs. So in reality, it was an effort to improve the zed AI and make it behave properly, rather than being just to fix a cheeze exploit.

 

Same reason log spikes were removed. Zed pathing had a problem navigating them. Though that was also heavily exploited just by turning them upside down.  So now you can make the shape, but the block does not deal damage.

[jjh5874]

5 hours ago, meganoth said:

If you plant spikes one block down, so their top is level with the surrounding area they are as effective as in A16. This is because the AI sees spikes simply as blocks and when they are flush with the ground they don't count as obstacles for the AI. Even better, a destroyed buried spike leaves a hole in the ground that then counts as an obstacle. The zombies will then walk over nearby spikes instead of walking through the hole. Won't bring back the general feeling but you will see spikes in a new light.

oh cool, better than just making a wall of spikes too then

5 hours ago, meganoth said:

I think I heard there is a setting in the AI that handles for how many blocks ahead the zombies can plan their routes. If this were set to a small number the zombies should (in theory) react somewhat similar to the old ways. Though I don't know of any mod doing this so this "naive" approach may not work after all (?).

i might try have a look at that once i get some free time, best worst case scenario with that i see with that (if it works) is zombies detecting you but not being able to path towards you from further away, not too bad if i could set it to only enable on horde nights and get them spawning closer (although it would probably only work with a base design stopping them from re-pathing around corners) unless i disable the horde nights omniscience and just set them to head towards a waypoint/large heat source in the base until they see me and just set up a bunch of torches or campfires in the base

 

4 hours ago, Roland said:

Larger bases with a footprint of at least 20 blocks per side (assuming a square base) do result in AI behavior more akin to the past. You will get zombies attacking your base walls at various points as the pathway all the way around to the other side of the base to get to that weakest spot ends up being longer than the pathing accounts for.

 

It is only smaller 7x7 bases (for example) where all zombies can detect that weakest spot from everywhere around your base and so they all go there. Take over the ground floor of a large existing building and try to defend it from inside during your next horde night and you will see the zombies trying to break through from multiple points.

especially during later horde nights that might be a lil tough to get around in time unless i have lower zombie spawning/damage or attempt it with a group

 

4 hours ago, SylenThunder said:

We can cite other similar changes as well. Like when you could just make a pyramid of inverted wedges, and be safe because zeds couldn't walk up that slope but the player could.  Fixing it so that zeds could walk up those slopes wasn't done to combat cheese bases, but because the zombie AI should be able to walk on the same blocks the player can to follow the breadcrumbs. So in reality, it was an effort to improve the zed AI and make it behave properly, rather than being just to fix a cheeze exploit.

 

Same reason log spikes were removed. Zed pathing had a problem navigating them. Though that was also heavily exploited just by turning them upside down.  So now you can make the shape, but the block does not deal damage.

oh cool, i didn't even realize those were issues in previous alphas, much less that the log spike still did damage upside down, i always wondered why those got removed

[Roland]

6 hours ago, jjh5874 said:

especially during later horde nights that might be a lil tough to get around in time unless i have lower zombie spawning/damage or attempt it with a group

 

I said "at least 20" but it's more like 20-ish and maybe even less. You'd have to experiment.

[jjh5874]

54 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

I said "at least 20" but it's more like 20-ish and maybe even less. You'd have to experiment.

true true, i could probably also make diagonal walls going out from the corners to block the pathfinding if in doubt, but they might be a pain to get around lol, thanks for the help!