Rick has Opinions on certain playstyles.

[Gamida]

On 10/5/2024 at 1:35 PM, Arez said:

I also think the subject that these two doctors are discussing plays a sizable part in why we see gaming social media looking the way it does.

 

NOTE: What I'm referring to has nothing to do with steroids or working out. Press play and you'll see. The link is timestamped.

 

 

 

Is he talking about turning us into Vulcans?

 

[Uncle Al]

1 hour ago, theFlu said:

Would you agree that Roland was mostly strawmanning Old Crow, to pretend like it's news to him that TFP are reacting to player tactics in the design?

That's all I started talking about digging over; an example of TFP countering players. Is it that, or is it not?

 

The difference of opinion seems to be the nature, or at least the intent, of the 'reaction'. I'll leave aside whether TFP are reacting at all, although it is definitely debatable to what degree designers are actually 'reacting' to player activity rather than just happening to modify stuff that's high profile. Funnily enough, exactly that discussion is being had, mostly light heartedly, in one of my favourite games - https://steamcommunity.com/app/2511500/discussions/0/4849904345517936419/

 

Except where you have studio representatives, usually community liaisons, constantly posting 'this is what we heard, this is what we did' in feedback threads, which very few games seem to have, you're really guessing whether TFP have a 'most wanted' poster of JaWoodle on their wall, as some like to believe, or don't have a clue who he is.

 

Assuming they are reacting, there seem to be two broad schools of thought. You can accept what they state: 'We're trying to avoid players unintentionally, or semi-intentionally, getting a sub par game experience' or go with the viewpoint that secretly 'we believe there's one true way to play the game and we are at war with those who don't play that way'.

 

There's no real evidence for either, but TFP have explicitly stated the former is the case.

 

Also note that, depending on how much you as a developer feel you need to channel a player's actions to avoid them getting a sub-par game experience, they could be the same thing stated two ways. Just with differening biases as to whether it's 'good' behaviour for a developer or not.

 

 

[meganoth]

3 minutes ago, theFlu said:

Would you agree that Roland was mostly strawmanning Old Crow, to pretend like it's news to him that TFP are reacting to player tactics in the design?

 

No, I think Old Crows summary was a rant, and telling him to give examples is a valid reply to a rant. And I do not see that Roland says anywhere it is news to him. But I could have missed it, please show me the line. The one you are citing is not it, it might be that you read something into it that I am not seeing.

 

That TFP does react to players when EA and beta-tests are almost by definition a way to adjust and balance a game to how players play it, is correct. Though in almost all cases it is a way to notice problems or put them higher on a priority list, but the decision to change it at all is largely based on general principles and almost independent of how many people use it momentarily.

 

Example: digging zombies. In my mind there is almost no reasonable justification for zombies not being able to dig. In 99 of 100 parallel worlds 7D2D would have digging zombies, i.e. that is the normal way you would expect for this type of game and only a few reasons exist why a game designer would be forced to make them not digging: 1) technical reasons 2) they can't get digging zombies balanced or it proves to be entirely worse than a non-digging variant 3) overwhelming player feedback demands it and they say "to heck with our vision". I used the word "forced", because you would need a big overwhelming reason to go away from what the norm is.

 

And now look how it came about: In A17 zombie AI was completely rewritten as far as we know. After that zombies digging was turned on. Underground bases were used all the time, now reducing the change to be a reaction to players is, sorry, just the result of too much observing the universe as if it would specifically react to you aka a very ego-centric viewpoint. And a tendency to not want change which suprisingly many players seem to have: "I am bored with the current game, but don't change any of it".

 

Example: arrow-slits where zombies didn't walk over. Again, a case where there is no question that a normal game should not behave that way and like Rick pointed out, if someone stumbled upon this without knowing he would be surprised and probably annoyed from finding such a bug which would make the zombies behave different from expectation. Now the reason to change that is not even dependant on some vision, it is evidently clear this should be fixed. But it was probably players or streamers who made TFP aware of this bug. The reason to change it is that it clearly is a bug. The time it happened was probably triggered by the players. It would have happened sooner or later anyway, I don't think you can say the reason to change it was a reaction to players, only the time to change it.

 

1 hour ago, theFlu said:

That's all I started talking about digging over; an example of TFP countering players. Is it that, or is it not?

 

I hope I have explained above that digging zombies was not about countering players. I am sure it would have happened anyway and it would never have been turned off if there weren't technical reasons. It almost follows from this being a voxel zombie horror game.

 

[theFlu]

25 minutes ago, Uncle Al said:

The difference of opinion seems to be the nature, or at least the intent, of the 'reaction'.

Basically the same thing, tbh; and acting like the player/outsider interpretation of reacting-to-players is somehow unjustified isn't helpful.

 

27 minutes ago, Uncle Al said:

you're really guessing whether TFP have a 'most wanted' poster of JaWoodle on their wall, as some like to believe, or don't have a clue who he is.

I'm not going to assume JaWoodle was lying when he said he met QA, and was jokingly referred to as a "nemesis". QA would be stupid not to keep tabs on a guy providing them literal free labour in his testing series. They're not stupid.

 

17 minutes ago, meganoth said:

No, I think Old Crows summary was a rant,

One liner, factually correct .. "rant". All right. There's plenty of ways you can read

"Problem here is, when players get creative, the Fun Pimps like to go in and either complain about it, or kill it to suit their "vision." "

for sure.

TFP .. like to .. complain OR kill it

Soo, complain about nerdpoling like in the video, or kill it like arrow slit force fields in the game. Not wrong.

 

21 minutes ago, meganoth said:

And I do not see that Roland says anywhere it is news to him.

I don't know of any such things happening, ever, could you give me some examples? Oh right, that's just a valid counterargument to a rant, not ... "not knowing what he's talking about"..? Really? News to me..

 

The rest is .. pointless. Roland asked for examples, I gave a couple that fit; I don't care beyond that.

 

30 minutes ago, meganoth said:

I hope I have explained above that digging zombies was not about countering players.

You have; but any such zombie ability is always going to be about countering players...

[Uncle Al]

41 minutes ago, theFlu said:

Basically the same thing, tbh; and acting like the player/outsider interpretation of reacting-to-players is somehow unjustified isn't helpful.

 

I'm not going to assume JaWoodle was lying when he said he met QA, and was jokingly referred to as a "nemesis". QA would be stupid not to keep tabs on a guy providing them literal free labour in his testing series. They're not stupid.

 

I'd say challenging unsupported assumptions is often helpful, and that cuts both ways. Joel and Rick could be crazy control freaks for all I know, and drunkenly shoot up pick up trucks* while ranting about 'those damn exploiters'. They have tried to state why they do what they do, and it's up to us to decide if it's honest. I do think the fact they don't really appear to script or rehearse their interviews gets them into some difficulties. Things like offhandedly using the term 'exploit' regarding nerd polling which then gets taken by some players as 'they hate me and we are at war'.

 

As for JaWoodle, I was using him more as a throwaway example, but that's interesting to know. Certainly he has the soul of a tester - that compulsive urge to break stuff. I agree any sensible QA would use what's effectively free talent.

 

*To be clear, I mean 'discharge firearms into vehicles in a Richard Pryor stylie', not 'attempt to inject powdered Ford Ranger', although they might do that too for all I know

 

Edited October 7 by Uncle Al (see edit history)

[RipClaw]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

Example: arrow-slits where zombies didn't walk over.

The problem is often the way the Fun Pimps fix bugs. With the arrow slits, they changed the block to work like iron bars. A rather lazy fix, in my opinion. Unfortunately, this also removed a handy feature of the arrow slits. You could connect electrical components through the arrow slits. A godsend if you have 20 electric fences you want to connect. I had to replace about 20 steel blocks in my horde base. Oh, what a joy.

 

 

Edited October 7 by RipClaw (see edit history)

[theFlu]

1 minute ago, RipClaw said:

You could connect electrical components through the arrow slits.

This is how I found about the "fix", during the next horde night. I used slits as a repair window for an eFence, except, now you couldn't repair thru it. Fun times starting to chip away at the wall during the horde...

 

The block is now also broken for its purpose; an arrow slit is supposed to narrow your exposed area while giving you a decent field of fire. Now it doesn't stop any projectiles, while still limiting your view considerably... unless you want to make a pvp wall hack from it, covering the middle strip so there's NO view to you, while somehow controlling enemy location.

[Kosmic Kerman]

2 hours ago, Uncle Al said:

 

The difference of opinion seems to be the nature, or at least the intent, of the 'reaction'. I'll leave aside whether TFP are reacting at all, although it is definitely debatable to what degree designers are actually 'reacting' to player activity rather than just happening to modify stuff that's high profile. Funnily enough, exactly that discussion is being had, mostly light heartedly, in one of my favourite games - https://steamcommunity.com/app/2511500/discussions/0/4849904345517936419/

 

 

And one of the studio responses raises two important points:

 

1) Devs are sometimes aware of (balance) issues before release but are unable to fix them due to other priorities; and

2) Sometimes changes occur due to fixes to unrelated issues.

 

In other words, just because a change occurs does not mean it was a reaction to how players choose to play.

 

[Old Crow]

5 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

Now it would be nice if you explained how this change was a reaction to some player exploit (which is the topic here as far as I know). Unless it is your opinion that anything they change is obviously a reaction to players and is therefore bad.

 

 

I suppose in this case it's less a reaction to player behavior and moreso the addition of artificial difficulty in an attempt to add challenge.

[Scyris]

On 10/5/2024 at 5:59 PM, Old Crow said:

 

Problem here is, when players get creative, the Fun Pimps like to go in and either complain about it, or kill it to suit their "vision."

 

Exactly, each time players find something fun to use in vanilla tfp straight up removes or nerfs it into the ground so its no longer viable or fun. Its happened multiple times with many different things. Random gen is garbage in a22/1.0 because its essentally a static map now as most of the randomness has been removed from it. Making every map made boring and bland since it has trader limits and town size limits. Kinda explains how it generates the map so fast, it doesn't take long when it just has to make the same map over and over with slight variations on biome sizes. Even what poi's can spawn in these towns are pretty static as well, so they often even have the exact same poi's in them, across diff maps.

 

TFP is sucking all the fun out of the game, and its getting to the point that no one plays vanilla anymore after they try mods out, because vanilla is such a crap experience compared. Its honestly sad how some of these mods are made by a single person including models, textures, coding etc and has way more vision than TFP does with a entire dev team at their disposal, like what do they do there? sit and twiddle there thumbs most of the time? as thats sure as hell what it looks like with how the game hasn't gone anywhere since like... a14 or so. Don't get me wrong, the Art team does good work, the game looks way better than it needs to graphically, the problem is the gameplay is where it needs to be polished not the graphics. But almost every update is going on about new looks for this and that, but basically 0 new features or buffs and nothing but nerfing or removal of things. Latest victim in a21 was jars, water still is a non-issue even with how it is now, so there was no real point to the change in the first damn place.

 

A mod I play called Afterlife is amazing, the entire skill system is learn by doing INCLUDING stats, wanna up str? use skills that gain exp for str, and the base stats themselves also increase things like entity damage, carry weight, stamina etc, agility for example increases movement speed, crouch movement speed, and jump height. It also has jars return with a twist, you cannot craft them, but you can dump liquid into storage containers to reuse the jars, this is a much better way of doing it compared to removing them entirely. You also get jars back when you craft stuff like glue, or cook with it, drink whats in it etc. All this stuff in Afterlife was mostly done by 1 person. It makes tfp look kinda sad tbh. As the vanilla game could have been like this if they kept going with the a16.4 skill system. Afterlife also uses the magazine system, stats do not effect what you find, however, you can make a research desk where you can scrap magazines, perk books, schematics you don't need into literature fragments which you can then use the research desk to craft into perk books and magazines you want, its a far better system than vanilla.

[Old Crow]

2 minutes ago, Scyris said:

 

 Latest victim in a21 was jars, water still is a non-issue even with how it is now, so there was no real point to the change in the first damn place.

 

 

This. All removing jars really did was keep things uniform with other items not returning an empty container (which to be fair, TFP did say was one of the the reasons they made the change), but as far as solving the problem of drinkable liquids being too easy in early game? It didn't make that more of a challenge. It just kept the same "problem" and changed how to get drinkable liquids. Dew collectors and boiling water added no additional challenge to staying hydrated.

[Scyris]

1 hour ago, Kosmic Kerman said:

 

And one of the studio responses raises two important points:

 

1) Devs are sometimes aware of (balance) issues before release but are unable to fix them due to other priorities; and

2) Sometimes changes occur due to fixes to unrelated issues.

 

In other words, just because a change occurs does not mean it was a reaction to how players choose to play.

 

 

You say that but tfp has many times removed or nerfed something specifically to counter players, for example the sleeper trigger system was put in in a17 to specifically screw over stealth build players. Players that run and gun aren't effected by this system at all, it was targeted specifically to screw over stealth builds, then you have a22.1 aka 1.1, where they messed with stealth again as they realized the tier 6 assassin set bonus was way to strong. That set in 1.0 basically makes stealth somewhat viable, where as its basically not viable without it. Yeah yeah supposedly if your stealth is high enough you can avoid triggering the trigger blocks, but from experience i've never seen it work like that even with stealth skills maxxed. Haven't played 1.1 vanilla though yet, this is based on 1.0 stealth. Dunno if I'll bother with it in 1.1, vanilla just puts me to sleep to play it as its so damn boring compared to mods.

 

People used to like making underground bases and bunkers, oh look, tfp now has zombies that dig, removing that option from the players as well.

 

Next you have the screamer change in 1.0, they now spawn at 25% heat, instead of 100% heat, so now Run n Gun builds have a hard counter since you'll get a screamer after about 20 shots fired. Before you could clear a poi at least without them, but now? clearing a t3 poi is prob going to cause at least 2-3 screamer spawns during it. Again, this was done specifically to screw over/counter a certain playstyle

 

Need I go on? there is 2-3 concrete examples you cannot really argue against. Both being directly to counter a certain playstyle cuz tfp don't like it and had a hissy fit over players using it.

3 minutes ago, Old Crow said:

 

This. All removing jars really did was keep things uniform with other items not returning an empty container (which to be fair, TFP did say was one of the the reasons they made the change), but as far as solving the problem of drinkable liquids being too easy in early game? It didn't make that more of a challenge. It just kept the same "problem" and changed how to get drinkable liquids. Dew collectors and boiling water added no additional challenge to staying hydrated.

 

Thats bs though, as they could just add say making glue return the jar as well as give the glue, many mods do this, so that excuse tfp has doesn't fly one bit. They just didn't want to put it in was all it was. Its not that they couldn't its they did not want to, again if a modder can do it, there is no reason the devs themselves that made the game cannot. In Afterlife anything you make that uses a jar gives the jar back after, including stuff in the campfire like boiled meat and glue. Honestly that mod like most other overhual mod makes the devs of the vanilla game look like idiots, just because of all the new features they introduce to the game, and I do mean new features, some mods have completly new things that do not exist in vanilla at all, game mechanics wise, not just item wise.

[FramFramson]

6 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

Fake history, sorry. AI was rewritten for A17 and there the AI was so strict that the term structural engineer was coined. All further AI changes made them less strict aka dumber, so they followed the optimal path less and less. For example they introduced a chance for zombies to just attack random blocks or go along suboptimal paths.

 

The only exception were how they reacted to block shapes where they simply failed completely, i.e. shapes where they fell down from in all cases or shapes they couldn't cross. But that didn't give them the name structural engineer. Or would you say a zombie that now crosses flat layered arrow slits is more structural engineer when even the dumbest dog in reality could walk over that?

 

The AI rewrite in A17 was specifically the example being made. Watering it down since then hasn't really changed the basic model.

 

Again, the problem isn't a specific AI model, it's that there is only one model. You know how many blocks they will rage at, you know what they'll path to, and so on. And those were changes made in response to zombies being too "dumb" earlier on, but the thing was that the supposedly-dumb zombies were actually less predictable.

[Uncle Al]

22 minutes ago, Scyris said:

 

You say that but tfp has many times removed or nerfed something specifically to counter players, for example the sleeper trigger system was put in in a17 to specifically screw over stealth build players. Players that run and gun aren't effected by this system at all, it was targeted specifically to screw over stealth builds, then you have a22.1 aka 1.1, where they messed with stealth again as they realized the tier 6 assassin set bonus was way to strong. That set in 1.0 basically makes stealth somewhat viable, where as its basically not viable without it. Yeah yeah supposedly if your stealth is high enough you can avoid triggering the trigger blocks, but from experience i've never seen it work like that even with stealth skills maxxed. Haven't played 1.1 vanilla though yet, this is based on 1.0 stealth. Dunno if I'll bother with it in 1.1, vanilla just puts me to sleep to play it as its so damn boring compared to mods.

 

People used to like making underground bases and bunkers, oh look, tfp now has zombies that dig, removing that option from the players as well.

 

Next you have the screamer change in 1.0, they now spawn at 25% heat, instead of 100% heat, so now Run n Gun builds have a hard counter since you'll get a screamer after about 20 shots fired. Before you could clear a poi at least without them, but now? clearing a t3 poi is prob going to cause at least 2-3 screamer spawns during it. Again, this was done specifically to screw over/counter a certain playstyle

 

Need I go on? there is 2-3 concrete examples you cannot really argue against. Both being directly to counter a certain playstyle cuz tfp don't like it and had a hissy fit over players using it.

 

They are changes that were made, yes. That those changes were made to 'screw over certain play styles' is a claim I don't really see any evidence for.

 

The sleeper trigger system, I would strongly suggest, is only in the game because of performance. If consoles could constantly run AI for 100 zombies without breaking a sweat, while also running complex listening for noise calculations for each of those zombies so they don't start smashing things before they can reach the player, I'd bet a fair whack the trigger system wouldn't exist in its current form. I see the messing around with stealth, and the entire creation of the assassin armour, being an attempt to keep stealth viable when the 'oh so very necessary for performance' trigger system screws stealth over so badly. The subsequent nerf to assassin armour was a perfectly reasonable balance pass - tier 6 assassin was too good when it was released. You could crouch and machete a zombie bear to death over numerous swings in broad daylight, and it couldn't find you despite you being basically embedded in the bear's intestines.

 

Digging zombies doesn't 'remove the option to make underground bases'. It removes the ability to make absolutely safe bases that zombies cannot reach with two minutes work using a stone shovel and a wooden hatch. Anything that makes the player totally safe goes against TFP design intent. That they have stated on more than one occasion. You can still build an underground base just fine, but it doesn't mean zombies just cease to exist for you.

 

The screamer changes, I would suggest, were made to add 'randomness and danger to the world'. Again, trying basically make up for performance constraints, which, in my opinion, is what TFP are constantly fighting against and kludging around. I think both they and most players really want terrifying tides of zombies all over the place,  but that's not compatible with having a game that will run on consoles and lower end PCs. Hence work arounds that only allow zombies to start burning resources when they're actively engaged with a player. Triggers, screamers, they're techniques for making sure all your active zombies are right on top of a player, not wandering around somewhere burning up CPU resource.

 

Sure, they chose to support almost obsolete PC specs and consoles. They could have said 'we'll build this to run well on what we predict is an above average gamer rig in three years time and screw the console market, they're all lamers' and I think the game would be light years better for it, but that would also probably be commercial suicide and they're a business at the end of the day.

27 minutes ago, FramFramson said:

 

The AI rewrite in A17 was specifically the example being made. Watering it down since then hasn't really changed the basic model.

 

Again, the problem isn't a specific AI model, it's that there is only one model. You know how many blocks they will rage at, you know what they'll path to, and so on. And those were changes made in response to zombies being too "dumb" earlier on, but the thing was that the supposedly-dumb zombies were actually less predictable.

 

There is the explanation wandering around that current AI is actually testing out rudimentary bandit AI, and they're a lot smarter than they should be, but I don't know if that came from an official source. Even if it did, that viewpoint may have gone by the wayside.

 

I'm really hopeful when bandits come in, zombies get stupid again, at least some of them do, but I'm not holding my breath. You're quite right when you say if there's only one model you know what they're going to do. Even if it was one AI model per zombie type, Moes just break nearest, Arlenes aim for weak spots, Spiders attempt to gain elevation and jump etc. it would add a hell of a lot of factors to consider to base design.

[Arez]

5 hours ago, Gamida said:

Is he talking about turning us into Vulcans?

Well, if our main purpose in life, on a species level, is to overcome our limitations then the goal is to become more like a Vulcan; to shed most of our automatic response systems that seemingly get in the way of truer autonomy. 

 

A lot of people would think that's crazy. But that's only because of what we're used to. And throughout history we used to be used to a lot of things.

[FramFramson]

Yeah, like, I actually AGREE with Rich's assertion that gimmick bases shouldn't be a thing, not because I want to deny players agency, but because one-trick bases and horde nights are just incredibly boring.

 

I miss the chaos of pre-A17 horde nights. They would dig, rage, beeline, come from all directions, and so on.

[Arez]

From a zombie-purist's perspective, I think it would be cool if there was variety in zombie behavior. Much like in the George Romero series, most zombies are dumb but some zombies are smart. And MAYBE, just maybe, overall zombie intelligence could increase over time throughout a playthrough, adding a little bit more depth to the increasing difficulty, which would in turn feel more engaging. 

[Riamus]

1 hour ago, Scyris said:

 

Exactly, each time players find something fun to use in vanilla tfp straight up removes or nerfs it into the ground so its no longer viable or fun. Its happened multiple times with many different things. Random gen is garbage in a22/1.0 because its essentally a static map now as most of the randomness has been removed from it. Making every map made boring and bland since it has trader limits and town size limits. Kinda explains how it generates the map so fast, it doesn't take long when it just has to make the same map over and over with slight variations on biome sizes. Even what poi's can spawn in these towns are pretty static as well, so they often even have the exact same poi's in them, across diff maps.

 

TFP is sucking all the fun out of the game, and its getting to the point that no one plays vanilla anymore after they try mods out, because vanilla is such a crap experience compared. Its honestly sad how some of these mods are made by a single person including models, textures, coding etc and has way more vision than TFP does with a entire dev team at their disposal, like what do they do there? sit and twiddle there thumbs most of the time? as thats sure as hell what it looks like with how the game hasn't gone anywhere since like... a14 or so. Don't get me wrong, the Art team does good work, the game looks way better than it needs to graphically, the problem is the gameplay is where it needs to be polished not the graphics. But almost every update is going on about new looks for this and that, but basically 0 new features or buffs and nothing but nerfing or removal of things. Latest victim in a21 was jars, water still is a non-issue even with how it is now, so there was no real point to the change in the first damn place.

 

A mod I play called Afterlife is amazing, the entire skill system is learn by doing INCLUDING stats, wanna up str? use skills that gain exp for str, and the base stats themselves also increase things like entity damage, carry weight, stamina etc, agility for example increases movement speed, crouch movement speed, and jump height. It also has jars return with a twist, you cannot craft them, but you can dump liquid into storage containers to reuse the jars, this is a much better way of doing it compared to removing them entirely. You also get jars back when you craft stuff like glue, or cook with it, drink whats in it etc. All this stuff in Afterlife was mostly done by 1 person. It makes tfp look kinda sad tbh. As the vanilla game could have been like this if they kept going with the a16.4 skill system. Afterlife also uses the magazine system, stats do not effect what you find, however, you can make a research desk where you can scrap magazines, perk books, schematics you don't need into literature fragments which you can then use the research desk to craft into perk books and magazines you want, its a far better system than vanilla.

Uh... what does RWG have to do with the topic being discussed?  I can't see any reason to think that changes to RWG have anything to do with being a reaction to how players play the game.  It doesn't even fix exploits or anything like that.  RWG changes are horrible, I agree.  However, that has nothing to do with the current topic.

 

Do you have actual stats on how many people play vanilla?  It sounds like you're making stuff up to suit your view.  Yes, many people use mods, but I find it very unlikely that this game isn't like almost any other game out there, where most players never use mods.  And I'm not even including console players who can't use mods.  You might play with people who use mods and prefer them, but that doesn't mean that's the way everyone else plays the game.  And it doesn't mean that most players agree with you that the mods are better than vanilla.  I can tell you that based on descriptions in most (probably all) of the main overhaul mods, I would not consider them to be overall improvements over vanilla.  Yes, there are things in them that I like, but there are just as many things in them that I don't like.  They are just a different way to play the game.  And, just like with any game, some players like a certain type of game and some players like a different type of game.  You're going to have people who prefer how TFP made this game in vanilla and you'll have players who like a different kind of game that a specific overhaul mod creates and so will like that better.  Although this is my own belief as I don't have any data on it, I am pretty sure that if TFP made the game like any specific overhaul mod, you would have just has many players complaining about it as you do now because you'll have a lot of players who don't like that kind of gameplay.

 

Also, don't forget that it is far easier to mod a game than to create one.  Even for an overhaul mod.  If TFP didn't make this game or didn't make it so easy to mod, none of those mod authors would have had any opportunity to give you their mods.  So you can't really compare them with TFP.  Besides, as I said above, what you think is good or bad is subjective and other players will have a different opinion.  If someone hates jars, do you think they'll consider that mod to be an improvement in relation to jars?  If someone doesn't like LBD, do you think they'll think that mod is an improvement over vanilla?  It's fine to not like what TFP does.  There are a number of things I don't like, but at least be honest about how you talk about it and not try to make it sound like they can't make a game that people enjoy or try to pass off imaginary numbers as fact.

1 hour ago, Scyris said:

 

You say that but tfp has many times removed or nerfed something specifically to counter players, for example the sleeper trigger system was put in in a17 to specifically screw over stealth build players. Players that run and gun aren't effected by this system at all, it was targeted specifically to screw over stealth builds, then you have a22.1 aka 1.1, where they messed with stealth again as they realized the tier 6 assassin set bonus was way to strong. That set in 1.0 basically makes stealth somewhat viable, where as its basically not viable without it. Yeah yeah supposedly if your stealth is high enough you can avoid triggering the trigger blocks, but from experience i've never seen it work like that even with stealth skills maxxed. Haven't played 1.1 vanilla though yet, this is based on 1.0 stealth. Dunno if I'll bother with it in 1.1, vanilla just puts me to sleep to play it as its so damn boring compared to mods.

 

People used to like making underground bases and bunkers, oh look, tfp now has zombies that dig, removing that option from the players as well.

 

Next you have the screamer change in 1.0, they now spawn at 25% heat, instead of 100% heat, so now Run n Gun builds have a hard counter since you'll get a screamer after about 20 shots fired. Before you could clear a poi at least without them, but now? clearing a t3 poi is prob going to cause at least 2-3 screamer spawns during it. Again, this was done specifically to screw over/counter a certain playstyle

 

Need I go on? there is 2-3 concrete examples you cannot really argue against. Both being directly to counter a certain playstyle cuz tfp don't like it and had a hissy fit over players using it.

 

Thats bs though, as they could just add say making glue return the jar as well as give the glue, many mods do this, so that excuse tfp has doesn't fly one bit. They just didn't want to put it in was all it was. Its not that they couldn't its they did not want to, again if a modder can do it, there is no reason the devs themselves that made the game cannot. In Afterlife anything you make that uses a jar gives the jar back after, including stuff in the campfire like boiled meat and glue. Honestly that mod like most other overhual mod makes the devs of the vanilla game look like idiots, just because of all the new features they introduce to the game, and I do mean new features, some mods have completly new things that do not exist in vanilla at all, game mechanics wise, not just item wise.

Stealth was basically a way to be invincible before the 1.1 changes.  The changes aren't an attack against stealth players.  It's a fix of what is essentially a bug.  Stealth should not be a way to be invincible.  Also, triggers are a way to offer a varied experience in POI so you don't have the exact same setup everywhere.  Sure, it can affect stealth (and other types of players), but it's also just another way to handle POI so they have some more variety in how zombies are set up.  I doubt it's any reaction to try and kill stealth players.  It could be a way to make stealth more challenging so it's not too easy, but that's an entirely different thing.

 

Underground bases work just fine.  But you can't hide.  There isn't anything wrong with that.  You should not be able to avoid being attacked just because you build underground.

10 minutes ago, Arez said:

From a zombie-purist's perspective, I think it would be cool if there was variety in zombie behavior. Much like in the George Romero series, most zombies are dumb but some zombies are smart. And MAYBE, just maybe, overall zombie intelligence could increase over time throughout a playthrough, adding a little bit more depth to the increasing difficulty, which would in turn feel more engaging. 

Increasing zombie intelligence as the game progresses could be interesting.  I'd like to see how that could work.

[Gamida]

29 minutes ago, Arez said:

Well, if our main purpose in life, on a species level, is to overcome our limitations then the goal is to become more like a Vulcan; to shed most of our automatic response systems that seemingly get in the way of truer autonomy. 

 

A lot of people would think that's crazy. But that's only because of what we're used to. And throughout history we used to be used to a lot of things.

 

Don't disagree with it. Things some people do today are Spocking......um shocking.

[meganoth]

3 hours ago, Old Crow said:

 

I suppose in this case it's less a reaction to player behavior and moreso the addition of artificial difficulty in an attempt to add challenge.

 

I can accept that. I would even agree, because I think all difficulty in games falls under the term artificial difficulty 😉

 

(Maybe that's only me, but artificial difficulty doesn't conjure in my mind what it should mean. I would call it trivial difficulty, if for example giving enemies more HP is meant by it).

 

[meganoth]

3 hours ago, FramFramson said:

 

The AI rewrite in A17 was specifically the example being made. Watering it down since then hasn't really changed the basic model.

 

Again, the problem isn't a specific AI model, it's that there is only one model. You know how many blocks they will rage at, you know what they'll path to, and so on. And those were changes made in response to zombies being too "dumb" earlier on, but the thing was that the supposedly-dumb zombies were actually less predictable.

 

You said "For a real example, look at the AI changes over the years to address various supposed base exploits.". But afaik before A17 the zombie AI was left alone without any changes because the guy who wrote the AI left a long time ago and nobody wanted to touch it. So from A? to A16 it was the same AI all along until they hired Fataal. Then this whole rewrite for A17 and after that only watering down as you say. Where were the "AI changes **over the years**" done to fix exploits? Only in A17? Then why "over the years"?

 

I simply don't see where your words fit with the history. And especially the AI rewrite of A17 was not to fix some simple exploits and it was not introduced by small changes over the years, it was a total rewrite. And what it especially fixed was zombies running in circles, surely not what everyone wanted to stay in the game

 

Anyway. not that important. I was just hung up on that formulation of yours.

 

Edited October 7 by meganoth (see edit history)

[meganoth]

2 hours ago, FramFramson said:

I miss the chaos of pre-A17 horde nights. They would dig, ...

 

slip of the tongue I suppose?

Edited October 7 by meganoth (see edit history)

[meganoth]

3 hours ago, Uncle Al said:

I'm really hopeful when bandits come in, zombies get stupid again, at least some of them do, but I'm not holding my breath. You're quite right when you say if there's only one model you know what they're going to do. Even if it was one AI model per zombie type, Moes just break nearest, Arlenes aim for weak spots, Spiders attempt to gain elevation and jump etc. it would add a hell of a lot of factors to consider to base design.

 

I disagree (if you meant something like the A16 AI), because I like the tower defense aspect. Like in typical tower defense games where the enemy is lead down a path and you add the right combination of traps to kill them before they reach the target. In 7d2d you are even designing the path itself, most tower defense games provide the path and only the position of the traps is your task.

 

But that would all be useless if the zombies just were attacking blindly from all sides, irrespective of any paths. Then the horde nights would just be a normal shooter game.

 

Edited October 7 by meganoth (see edit history)

[FramFramson]

4 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

slip of the tongue I suppose?

 

No.

 

There was digging years ago under certain circumstances, mainly if the zombies fell into a hole or a block was blown up, they would still attack the soil blocks in front of them to push in your direction. Additionally if you were on a riverbank, sometimes they'd try attacking in a straight line from the river edge. Basically any ground irregularity near your base was still an invitation to dig, because dirt blocks had low HP.

 

They just didn't dig DOWN on untouched dirt ground if you had an underground base. But they would attack dirt blocks and the ground if they did calculate that as the shortest path; it's not like dirt walls were ever an invulnerable force field.

 

I never built underground bases but I DID build on hills and irregular ground, and zombies absolutely would attack that.

 

  

4 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

I disagree (if you meant something like the A16 AI), because I like the tower defense aspect. Like in typical tower defense games where the enemy is lead down a path and you add the right combination of traps to kill them before they reach the target. In 7d2d you are even designing the path itself, most tower defense games provide the path and only the position of the traps is your task.

 

But that would all be useless if the zombies just were attacking blindly from all sides, irrespective of any paths. Then the horde nights would just be a normal shooter game.

 

 

The problem here is that your design can be mind-numbingly simple right now. Yeah, there's a lot of ways to build a base, but they all end up doing the same thing to react to the same zombie AI. You never really have to think about the position of your "towers" once you've played a couple games, because the mobs always path the exact same way. 

[Riamus]

2 hours ago, FramFramson said:

The problem here is that your design can be mind-numbingly simple right now. Yeah, there's a lot of ways to build a base, but they all end up doing the same thing to react to the same zombie AI. You never really have to think about the position of your "towers" once you've played a couple games, because the mobs always path the exact same way. 

If you want to control their pathing, sure.  And, yes, that's going to be more efficient.  But you don't have to control their pathing.  You can make a bunker or make multiple paths from multiple directions or any number of other bases that would give you the same kind (at least similar) of horde night effect as previously.  Your base probably wouldn't look like it did in the past if you're trying to accomplish that, but you can certainly do so.  I've done bases that had no path to me or that had no single path and had zombies attacking from all directions (really, it's only the direction they come from at a given time, but throughout horde night, they come from different directions) and had them attacking all around my base.  Is it efficient?  No.  Can it be a fun change?  Absolutely.  And it's easy to do.  But you have to want to do it.

 

Also, the point of tower defense isn't about positioning your "towers" because tower defense IS about the enemy pathing a certain way.  It's about setting up your "towers" or defenses in a way that will defeat the enemies that are coming along that path.  That's what tower defense is.  I'm not saying this game has to be a tower defense game, but if it is being compared to that, it's doing what it should be doing.

 

I'd rather enemies that can find weaknesses in my defense to come get me, even if I can create those weaknesses to get them to go a certain way, than to have them just randomly attack anywhere every single time.  At least the way it is now, you can build a base that gives you that style horde night but can also build a base that allows you to control pathing.  The other way, you would always have that style horde night and couldn't have the current style horde night (at least without using mods).  So you can have both worlds in the current iteration.  That said, the zombie AI could be improved.