Rick has Opinions on certain playstyles.

[meganoth]

43 minutes ago, theFlu said:

They could, and they'd be correct. You're literally inventing a counter for my tactic on the spot, are you not?

 

So we should simply say that "arms race" is the derogatory equivalent of "balancing"? I mean, if something in the game is too powerful (irrespective of other powerful items or methods in the game I have to add) a game designer should try to nerf, change or remove it. That includes idiotic behaviour of an AI. And it really makes no difference if it comes from a bug report made by a player, a video on the net, or testers finding this.

 

Fine by me. Though this also means I will regard everyone an idiot who uses "arms race" in a negative way, only an idiot would think balancing is a bad thing in games development.😇

 

An arms race usually means one side tries to get the upper hand. Now it seems logical that TFP are not trying to get an upper hand. Zombies having an upper hand would mean nobody would play or buy the game anymore because losing isn't fun. They try to give the player a task that is neither too easy nor too hard. But any "exploit" is making it too easy. That is why I don't think "arms race" is the correct term, as practically TFP wants to loose (the in-game battle for survival) no matter what, but they surely want the gap to be small.

 

57 minutes ago, theFlu said:

Tell me you haven't even dug a ditch in the game, without telling me you haven't dug a ditch. They'll mostly stand at the outer edge and start digging their way down. Sometimes the crowd will push random zeds into the pit via collisions. Give them an exit, they'll climb back up to join the digging crew. All the Force field does is prevent the need for a ramp at a corner.. big gains. Big gains.

 

A perfect example where a bug report would make sense. I don't this behaviour is correct, it should eventually be fixed. Your argument is basically a whataboutism, and a bug report would be much better than sort of campaigning for a return of the arrow slit force wall (or force moat) because there is a similar AI problem around the corner.

 

1 hour ago, theFlu said:

They didn't fix the force field issue, as there are other blocks to achieve the same result.

 

--> bug report. So that the game eventually gets better and veterans can't complain the game is too easy. I don't know of any other block to achieve the same result. Do the developers?

 

1 hour ago, theFlu said:

They didn't fix the "ditch issue" as that is what they like to see, I guess. Or JaWoodle just hasn't made a video showcasing the ditches yet. 😛 

 

Yeah well, maybe it takes a streamer to make a bug either get noticed or go up in priority. Again, are you sure, TFP knows about this?

1 hour ago, theFlu said:

None of that means there's no arms race, it just means TFP likes to go in and kill (random) features the players are creatively using.

 

You can whitewash anything with that language. The only creative person in the arrow slit affair was Jawoodle when he searched and found this exploit. And he made a video with it. Kudos to that. After that there was nothing creative about the overpowered arrow slit anymore. It's application was shown in the video, even jawoodle himself couldn't really make anything creative with it after that, and all the other players were just copying. It's use also made everything else in the horde night game trivial and non-creative.  "Feature"? Nonsense

 

 

[theFlu]

28 minutes ago, meganoth said:

So we should simply say that "arms race" is the derogatory equivalent of "balancing"?

It's not perfect, as balancing can happen without an adversary. But it's close enough for me. You calling people idiots is entirely up to you.

 

Upper hand, would be both sides trying to. The pairing was TFP vs players, not players vs zombies. TFP want the zombies to lose in particular ways, but not in others - that's game dev, yes. Their end of the arms race is making the game function as they deem correct, not killing player characters. How convoluted are we going to get here?

 

28 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Again, are you sure, TFP knows about this?

 

If their AI testing doesn't include a simple moat, I can't help them. Besides, I'd rather argue about whether on not an example of a thing works as an example of a thing on the forums than file pointless bug reports.

 

The other force field options; the devs have made some vague reference to knowing about them, but I don't care enough for a fix to a thing I'm not using to waste my time on it. Neither do they, it seems.

 

You're trying to argue the merits of a "fix" without understanding what it changed, or how the "acceptable" alternative to it functions. That's ... a first amendment right, sure. But not much beyond that.

 

28 minutes ago, meganoth said:

You can whitewash anything with that language.

Yeah, I'm good at calling out irrelevant claims. Thanks

 

28 minutes ago, meganoth said:

After that there was nothing creative about the overpowered arrow slit anymore.

So... "creative", in the sense of "when players get creative, TFP reacts"? So, now the arms race can only apply to something that is constantly being changed by players? What are you even arguing by now?

 

EDITing to add:

 

28 minutes ago, meganoth said:

It's use also made everything else in the horde night game trivial and non-creative.

Again, exactly the same as a ditch.

 

30 minutes ago, meganoth said:

"Feature"? Nonsense

Sure, but it was a bit tongue-in-cheek; reference to "it's a feature!". Sometimes it even applies.

Edited October 9 by theFlu (see edit history)

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, theFlu said:

It's not perfect, as balancing can happen without an adversary. But it's close enough for me. You calling people idiots is entirely up to you.

 

Upper hand, would be both sides trying to. The pairing was TFP vs players, not players vs zombies. TFP want the zombies to lose in particular ways, but not in others - that's game dev, yes. Their end of the arms race is making the game function as they deem correct, not killing player characters. How convoluted are we going to get here?

 

No idea, calling it an arms race seems already convoluted enough for me.

 

1 hour ago, theFlu said:

So... "creative", in the sense of "when players get creative, TFP reacts"? So, now the arms race can only apply to something that is constantly being changed by players? What are you even arguing by now?

 

I am arguing that there is nothing creative lost when a well-known exploit is fixed. Sure we can postulate that someone else will go creative and look for such exploits, find this one and BANG another creativity explosion. I'll weigh that one person against all other players just seeing this exploit in a video and using it because it is a lazy way to play, and often inadvertidely destroying their fun in the game and complaining. And a few novices stumbling on this and being surprised at such a bug.

 

1 hour ago, theFlu said:

Again, exactly the same as a ditch.

 

Again, the ditch is an AI bug if it works like you describe. Faatal has fixed ways that would make zombies run in circles in the past, his intention is surely not changed, the only question is if fixing some behaviour is doable without too much work and breaking off other stuff or introducing new bugs.

 

[Riamus]

This topic has really become a "them against me" thread, which was expected from the start of it.  It'll always be seen that way by players who want to see it that way, and no explaining how it isn't true will change anything.  It is a pointless circular topic and always will be. 

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, theFlu said:

You're trying to argue the merits of a "fix" without understanding what it changed, or how the "acceptable" alternative to it functions. That's ... a first amendment right, sure. But not much beyond that.

 

I understand the changes to the arrow slit fix. I didn't know about the quality of the ditch exploit, sure, but so what. If it works like that, it needs a fix as much as the arrow slit. Period.

 

In other words: No matter how bad the ditch exploit looks it is no reason to reinstate the arrow slit exploit.

Edited October 9 by meganoth (see edit history)

[theFlu]

22 minutes ago, meganoth said:

No idea, calling it an arms race seems already convoluted enough for me.

Yeah, it's a complicated concept, with two parties and some kind of a virtual battlefield; enough to bedazzle even the brightest of minds.

 

14 minutes ago, meganoth said:

I am arguing that there is nothing creative lost when a well-known exploit is fixed.

All a matter of framing.. I mean, being free to sit on a couch all day, watch telly, exercise at will in your own gym and have a chef prep all your meals sounds like great time, until you hear it's the scandivanian punishment for a mass murderer. Then it just sounds odd all around...

 

The fixing is a necessary step in the arms race, of course..

 

35 minutes ago, meganoth said:

No matter how bad the ditch exploit looks it is no reason to reinstate the arrow slit exploit.

 

How do you decide if it's an exploit? It's literally a hole in the ground in a minecraft game. I'm also not advocating for the reinstating of anything, just pointing out that this "fix" didn't achieve anything, while breaking the block.

[Rotor]

1 hour ago, theFlu said:

....the brightest of minds.

 

In this forum?

 

[Lax]

Regarding playstyle, how anyone chooses to play is of course an individual thing and there is no wrong or right way of playing the game. The goal is having fun.

 

Which is why I absolutely love this crazy game. I can play any way I see fit. I play on Xbox Series X and played the Tell Tale version constantly, right up to the release of 1.0. So I was excited once it finally released. I currently play with Blood Moons disabled for now, so I can get use to the new game mechanics. Once I feel more comfortable with how things are done, I'll probably turn it on later.

 

But again, having that choice to play with it on or off in my opinion is great. I don't like being rushed to build a base in 7 days. Which is another great feature that gives you choice: change the frequency of the Blood Moons to 14 days or 30 days or completely disable it like I did. I also have yet to do a single Trader Quest. I simply explore the game world at my I own pace and I'm having a ball.

 

I definitely don't agree with every decision the Pimps have made like removing jars and cans or learning by reading books, but you know what, it's still OK. I'm still having a blast with plenty of water to drink despite the beloved jars being removed. And my progression is still advanced even with hunting down books to do it.

 

The only real improvement I want to see is optimization for the console. The poor Xbox hardware is struggling to keep up with everything the game throws at it. And even with poor optimization, I'm still having a ball.

 

I have well over 300 games in my library and I keep coming back to play 7 Days because of its unique gameplay. At the end of the day the goal is still having fun playing the game you love. And 7 Days does that for me, even with all its flaws.

[theFlu]

12 minutes ago, Lax said:

The goal is having fun.

Agreed, but I'm not sure should I feel threatened, or offended by your profile pic...

[Arez]

On 10/5/2024 at 9:56 AM, theFlu said:

Refining a good point is hard work,

I think if you refine most of the points made on the game's subreddit, most of the messages would say, "I don't like change". 

  

On 10/5/2024 at 9:56 AM, theFlu said:

the whiner they're annoyed at is actually 13. I'm not even sure if anyone's actually anxious, or if it's just the way they speak on the webs...

I don't think there're many 13 year olds complaining on the subreddit. In fact a lot of them are likely between 30 and 50. And people get way too angry about the stupidest things for it to not be habituated anxiety. Some of these lunatics wish death on the devs. 

It could be considered as "just the way they speak" but likely because being miserable to some degree has become their baseline.

Edited October 10 by Arez (see edit history)

[meganoth]

13 hours ago, Rotor said:

 

In this forum?

 

 

Can we aggree on "the most elusive minds" ? 😁

[theFlu]

6 hours ago, Arez said:

I don't think there're many 13 year olds complaining on the subreddit. In fact a lot of them are likely between 30 and 50.

Probably right about the age; but my point was they've been trained on being annoyed at 13 year-olds for a couple decades, roughly since they were 13 themselves. In some groups "KYS" is basically a greeting.

The idea of "undirected anxiety" applied to this case would imply that people who have the crappiest of lives will have the cleanest of language... since they'd be "actually anxious" all the time. Doesn't pass the sniff test IMO.

 

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

Can we aggree on "the most elusive minds" ? 😁

Well, the first step is admitting, so, sure

- (me, being 13 again)

[meganoth]

15 hours ago, theFlu said:

How do you decide if it's an exploit? It's literally a hole in the ground in a minecraft game. I'm also not advocating for the reinstating of anything, just pointing out that this "fix" didn't achieve anything, while breaking the block.

 

I would define it as an unexpected method that gives a substantial advantage with less effort over usual and accepted methods in the game. Wikipedia says "In video games, an exploit is the use of a bug or glitch, in a way that gives a substantial unfair advantage to players using it.^[1] However, whether particular acts constitute an exploit can be controversial, typically involving the argument that the issues are part of the game, and no changes or external programs are needed to take advantage of them.".

 

No matter the definition it is sometimes a subjective classification in a grey area, often very much dependant on some "intent" of what the game should supposedly do exactly, sometimes a clear case.

 

A clear case would be for example if something in a survival game gives you unlimited (in time and effect) invulnerability at no cost while the games intent is to create an atmosphere of danger or horror. A clear case would be a weapon which when used in a specific way is suddenly twice as powerful as any other weapon without any costs or time limit and nobody would have expected this effect from the weapon. The last condition would (IMHO) differentiate an exploit from simply being OP.

 

 

[theFlu]

14 minutes ago, meganoth said:

I would define it as an unexpected method

The game does come with a couple tiers of shoveling equipment, making "digging a ditch" rather .. expected. I'd even say encouraged.

 

I don't disagree with much of that description; I just don't see a moat fitting the bill in any way.

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, theFlu said:

The game does come with a couple tiers of shoveling equipment, making "digging a ditch" rather .. expected. I'd even say encouraged.

 

I don't disagree with much of that description; I just don't see a moat fitting the bill in any way.

 

Most of the moats function is not unexpected, there would be no problem if the moat would hinder them for a limited time or cost them a few seconds all the time, but that the zombies run in circles (if set up a certain way) instead of attacking the inner wall of the moat is unexpected.

 

If there is no path to the player they should not see the outer top of the ditch as a preferable place to the ditch itself but they seem to do, without exception, from your description

 

Make a ditch only one block deep, make it much deeper so they get at least minimal fall damage, make the exit to somewhere inside the ditch (so the zombies would rightly see the exit as a way to get nearer to you), and the ditch works largely as expected and costs the zombies time just like an electric fence will do. This is how I would expect a ditch to work, as a hindrance costing them time.

 

Edited October 10 by meganoth (see edit history)

[theFlu]

For sure that ditch behavior could use improvements, it's just technically difficult. I'm guessing of course, but it's a somewhat educated guess.

 

For a rough description, TFP doesn't want zeds to dig terrain for pathing "in general". For example, you can make a steel wall on sand, and have the zeds beat on the steel, not dig under it for the cheaper path. This looks and feels better in gameplay, otherwise all your bases would need a two-thick floor of the same wall material, to keep that path more expensive. For this reason, terrain blocks are made somewhat "sacred", zeds don't consider them destroyable "in general".

 

There might also be good optimizations to be gained from considering terrain solid, but that's just implementation details; whether terrain is "actually solid" or just "stupidly expensive" for AI pathing, the results are similar.

 

The cases where zeds attack terrain are when they don't really have anything else they're able to do. So if you lock them into a pit, they'll chew on the walls; if you hide under terrain and they can't find another path, they'll dig to you. These are chosen specifically by the pathfinding running into a dead end, after which they circumvent the "sacredness" of dirt.

 

With a ditch, there's a problem of detection. The AI should somehow decide that "this terrain is different", to break the sacredness, but it can't. There's no easy way to distinguish a ditch or a dirt wall within the A* search; as long as the A* doesn't fail, the zeds are blind to the existence of the ditch.

 

It might be possible to detect via other methods, and then run some simulated random attempts at breaching it, before sending zeds to do just that; but those mechanics are not in the game; and I doubt there's any plan to implement any.

 

That aside, being a bit of a ditch connoisseur myself, I don't think they're that exploitative; they're still rather fickle. You can't isolate yourself from the zeds with them, you can only re-direct their pathing; if you leave no path to you, they'll happily eat a dirt wall. Even the muppet suffered from that in his latest d7000-horde video..

Re-directing pathing seems to be the main current meta, most people tend to build elevated bases with a single point of zombie entry; I don't consider that exploitative. And for a "minecraft tower defense", I think it's a prerequisite - methods may of course vary in "fairness".

 

Basically the same applies to the force fields, they're not really that exploitative.

Edited October 10 by theFlu (see edit history)

[theFlu]

Liz just demonstrated a few of the force field options, if someone's inclined to write a load of bug reports, here's a starter package:

https://youtu.be/bqm1sNKo9K8?t=649

 

It's not exactly great for reporting as she doesn't go thru the block IDs, but that's the nature of the beast. I'll leave it to "might get addressed in future AI improvements" myself.

[4sheetzngeegles]

I just read something interesting in one of the posts, that was from the
reddit link. It was about left over zombies. Here is my binary view of it.

 

The thought is if there was a way to severely reduce the polycount of dead
zombies on horde night. Second if a clone of the adaptive terrain were used.
Third if the actual shape of the invisible terrain were in a wedge. Then the
walkers could conceivably climb to higher areas and blocks.

 

If it can be done; then using already available mechanics, would allow for a
simple mechanic to visually look like a more elaborate looking ai response.
Presently they are coordinated enough to just jump on each others shoulders
and walk across the mob.

 

A visual example would be if the dead zombies regressed into an adaptive blob
that stayed low poly, with the adaptive rampshaped collider. It could build
higher and wider but keep nearly the same poly count, which would mean 5 blobs
would not equal the poly count of a single walking model. Think world war Z
on a budget of polys.

 

The blob would need to have a health value, that would reset if you didn't destroy

it before another entity died on it. It won't happen but it would look cool.

[Roland]

4 hours ago, 4sheetzngeegles said:

I just read something interesting in one of the posts, that was from the
reddit link. It was about left over zombies. Here is my binary view of it.

 

The thought is if there was a way to severely reduce the polycount of dead
zombies on horde night. Second if a clone of the adaptive terrain were used.
Third if the actual shape of the invisible terrain were in a wedge. Then the
walkers could conceivably climb to higher areas and blocks.

 

If it can be done; then using already available mechanics, would allow for a
simple mechanic to visually look like a more elaborate looking ai response.
Presently they are coordinated enough to just jump on each others shoulders
and walk across the mob.

 

A visual example would be if the dead zombies regressed into an adaptive blob
that stayed low poly, with the adaptive rampshaped collider. It could build
higher and wider but keep nearly the same poly count, which would mean 5 blobs
would not equal the poly count of a single walking model. Think world war Z
on a budget of polys.

 

The blob would need to have a health value, that would reset if you didn't destroy

it before another entity died on it. It won't happen but it would look cool.

 

We had blobs of gore that built up WWZ style back in the day but they were the terrain block style and didn't look good when on top of spikes or next to or above non-terrain blocks. The devs decided not to continue with them. I enjoyed using them as target practice as they would pop with a squishy sound when you hit them with an arrow. 

 

Personally, I would love a mod that brought back zombie corpses downgrading into gore blocks once again. The mismatching visuals never bothered me and I enjoyed the challenge of those gore blocks building up and changing the terrain.

[4sheetzngeegles]

I remember what you are talking about and they would make that
popping sound and gibs would fly when you hit them. The beginning of
the next morning was cleanup and bag hunt.

 

The only difference was the colliders would make them stack without
touching. What I thought about was the way the adaptive terrain filler
acts by mimicking the surrounding blocks and merging into a single

mass. That we didn't have then. That combined with an adaptive custom collider

would allow those that follow to progressively pass some of the stationary

traps and climb higher. But yeah the leftover carnage was my visual trophy,

the most popular place was the police station aka visitor center in Nav.

 

It was just a random thought that some of the things that didn't work
then, because they had no supporting mechanics, may now have a place
now with all of the advancements that happened between then and now.