Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[XCOUNTRY]

Hopefully we can get some nice AI intelligence scaling working, so they get smarter and more capable as the player gets more skilled and capable.

 

Is animal AI getting some attention too? I love everything you're describing so far, just wondering if there was any tweaking going on under the hood of the creatures as well to make them feel more natural and less rigid in their actions.

[XCOUNTRY]

May have just figured out a cunning trap, a heavy platform supported by weak pillars to crush the Z's when they demolish the pillars.

 

True, but you would potentially have to waste expensive resources to do so and spend the time building the thing. This wouldn't be hard late game, but I can imagine a more efficient way of dispatching zombies at that stage.

[The Gronk]

True, but you would potentially have to waste expensive resources to do so and spend the time building the thing. This wouldn't be hard late game, but I can imagine a more efficient way of dispatching zombies at that stage.

 

Spread them around the area, on horde night they should stop to demolish those before attacking your base. Resource wise? A hardened wood platform should suffice to splat, or at least damage, early horde night Z's.

[XCOUNTRY]

Spread them around the area, on horde night they should stop to demolish those before attacking your base

 

It will be interesting to see how they react to something like that. I would think that on horde night, since they know your exact location, they would ignore those traps and head directly for the structure you're in. Perhaps if you put up a perimeter "fence" of this style that forces the zombies to attack it first I can see that working once until a hole is made and they pour in. But again you spent that effort to build and it is only a one shot deal. Additionally, in my experience collapsing structures don't always hit what's underneith 100% of the time.

 

I've found that the best traps don't keep zombies out, or even kill them. They take advantage of pathing and the zombies take damage getting through "openings" you left in the perimeter to funnel them into. Don't need 8 turrets when 2 will do just nicely pointed at the one hole in your outer wall. Spiked channels in the ground chop off limbs and slow them down and barbed wire slows them down more. Well placed crossbow does the rest.

 

edit: I think a "dumb" standard mode works, but have a timer associated with the spotted/sensed attribute. If they can't find/get you after sensing or hunting you for 'x' amount of time they berserk and hit all the important stuff for a set time then calm down and move on if they still can't find you.

 

On horde night you would have to make sure you hit the zombies that have been banging on your wall the longest before they berserk and do real damage since they can't move on and always hunt you

[Demonoid74]

The one change I would love to see for animals is them running into and getting killed by a cactus or spikes...I hate running thru the desert and hearing a rabbit or chicken dying near me to vegetation...should just make all animals immune to cacti in general. Nothing major but something that has always bothered me! But they should definitely always avoid spikes no matter what...hearing a pig outside my base killing itself on spikes is sort of funny...and hey , free food! but still...kind of lame...

[The Gronk]

I usually build a small tower on my first night, this also serves as my last line of defence should they breach the perimeter walls during later stages. This is then fortified with concentric rings of walls with overhanging battlements (known as machicolations). The zombies should never have a clear path to your position although I can see the logic in leading them into bottlenecks, preferably with murder-holes above them. We have a lot of castles in this country, source material isn't hard to find. :-)

 

I was kind of assuming the behavior of attacking blocks would only come into effect if they can't find a clear path to your location otherwise there would be no point in adding it as the z's would rather destroy your base than kill you.

 

Walking around your battlement will attract horde z's directly below you, all it takes is a line of spikes and a few shots to the head to kill them while minimizing damage to any particular area.

[The Gronk]

The one change I would love to see for animals is them running into and getting killed by a cactus or spikes...I hate running thru the desert and hearing a rabbit or chicken dying near me to vegetation...should just make all animals immune to cacti in general. Nothing major but something that has always bothered me! But they should definitely always avoid spikes no matter what...hearing a pig outside my base killing itself on spikes is sort of funny...and hey , free food! but still...kind of lame...

 

That happened to me during my last game. I heard a lot of noise outside, opened the door to see a pack of wolves flailing around on the spikes, closed the door until the noise stopped. I ate well that night :-)

[XCOUNTRY]

Ok, I see where you're coming from now, and why you wouldn't necessarily want smarter Zeds.

 

I think I saw fataal post something where the new AI will give preference to blocks that are closer to getting to you.

 

For example: You are in a 4x4x4 concrete base, no walls and no door. You put 1/4 wood poles on the outside corners, which now makes the corners 2 deep. The Zeds will still target the 1 deep concrete wall separating you from the Zed. They read it as 1 concrete vs 1 wood+1 concrete.

 

Seems like our bases will need redesigning anyways, or risk spending the next 6 days repairing previous damage.

 

Either way, to me this was the most fun: Designing bases that maximized loot recovery, conserved ammo, minimized repair costs.

[The Gronk]

The way I build bases worked until large scale artillery and aircraft made defensive walls obsolete, unless bandits turn up with a Howitzer I think I may be fine. The entrance may need a little tweaking if Z's can jump but that's nothing a door in the middle of a flat wall wouldn't fix. :-)

[Survager]

Probably. I plan to add an attack mode to handle that situation.

 

This is very good news for me and bad news for someone! ) Thank you for answer! I believe in you )

[NukemDed]

sounds like the zds are going to end up smarter than me!

better find me some big guns then :-)

[Marinxar]

I enjoy reading and writing profanity-free posts as a rule of thumb. Profanity has its moments either for humor or to emphasize a strong emotion but trust me, when the censors are gone the standard of writing sinks fast and it becomes a vastly over-used eyesore riddling every post in the forum. I'm glad we have something keeping the level of writing to a higher degree and when the moment suits a ♥♥♥♥ or a ♥♥♥♥ you can type it and everyone knows what the hearts stand for. I do believe that avoiding profanity when in public places and mixed company is a time honored rule of polite society pretty much everywhere and not just an American convention.

 

 

For those moments, though, just remember that "phallus" isn't filtered....

 

Thank you for this stance. Really appreciate it. As a writer and reader, it really is a bad experience trying to read something if it is covered in profanity. It has it's place as you mentioned, but forums and public discussions is not that place.

[archergod]

I have another insane idea on AI. Zombie will learn your attack pattern. As you progress they will learn your attack, like if you melee, they will use AI to save themselves from melee, which make them open for range shot more. i.e. they run zigzag to you to attack on melee. But when they detect range shot they tend to pick path that has walls and tree in between. This way their AI adjust their level and make it little difficult for player. as they kill more they predict and act accordingly. kind a machine learning stuff. Not to make it too hard you can limit the learning from last 200-300 kills only. even at horde night they map your move and attack blocks around where you move lot. so if you are position A for 10 sec they destory +/- 5 position blocks more often then Position point B.

 

I know it is not easy to add, but will be fun as part of "late game" or making it little more hard for everyone, So you cannot stick to one weapon style and have to use mix of all so you can confuse AI.. if you stick one style it become harder for you to kill zeds.

[cevkiv]

Actually, 91% of the player base prefers PVE and 78% of them wear moustaches. Steam stats clearly show that.

(you can't expect a serious response to some nonsense you made up on the spot)

 

Clearly what we need is something put in A17 that, when an individual attacks a player, sends a message to TFP, so they can keep track of how many unique players attack other players, and how many times. It's the only way to be sure.

[kamer1337]

is there a chance hp bar will get critical hit?

[Guest Rassilon]

is there a chance hp bar will get critical hit?

 

It would be awesome to wake up tomorrow and to find out that A17 Experimental got allready released.... A Man may Dream

 

I think its highly unlikely, maybe Roland or Kin can give us another Status Report like some weeks ago, were we got to know what the Folks are working on, or in wich Progress (ca)

 

Afaik there isnt even the Content Lock reached, so i personally dont expect Experimental before July/Aug

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

@fataal, thank you for taking your time and answering the AI Questions, very informative and interesting to read

[The-Walking-Dad]

I don't play PvP but I like having friendly fire on because it forces my friend and I to be more careful when fighting hordes and exploring.

 

We have actually shot each other on a few occasions. Once when he left a building by the door I was coming in (I shot him, and swore loudly, thinking he was a zombie). Once when we were hunting (I'd deliberately provoked a bear, he took a long-range shot to distract it and hit me).

 

Using the in-game friendly fire option to track PvP activity wouldn't be accurate.

[cevkiv]

I don't play PvP but I like having friendly fire on because it forces my friend and I to be more careful when fighting hordes and exploring.

 

We have actually shot each other on a few occasions. Once when he left a building by the door I was coming in (I shot him, and swore loudly, thinking he was a zombie). Once when we were hunting (I'd deliberately provoked a bear, he took a long-range shot to distract it and hit me).

 

Using the in-game friendly fire option to track PvP activity wouldn't be accurate.

 

I appreciate that. It's just that without anything resembling solid metrics, the "how much of the playerbase is PvE vs PvP and is enough focus being put on PvP"-

 

Who am I kidding, if God himself descended from on high and said 99% of the playerbase was PvE and had no interest in PvP, the argument still wouldn't end.

 

There are already ways to tweak specifics about zombies in the game files? Like HP, move speed, etc? Like, 'exact' numbers?

[Demonoid74]

I play on a private server with my 2 brothers...we occasionally shoot each other...throw turds at each other...and sometimes place landmines outside of each others doors , or down in a mine...But no...we do not PVP!

[Dicey]

Hopefully we can get some nice AI intelligence scaling working, so they get smarter and more capable as the player gets more skilled and capable.

 

Not giving them actual brains now are we!? that would be just weird XD ..the answer ((imho)) is to increase zombie pop, decrease player power (i.e: strengths of base blocks, concrete-through-to-reinforced steel) They are not too bad intellectually now ((imo)) the order of the ai tasks were/are the main issue again ((imo))

[ForWar01]

Actually, 91% of the player base prefers PVE and 78% of them wear moustaches. Steam stats clearly show that.

(you can't expect a serious response to some nonsense you made up on the spot)

 

As a guy that played 7 days do die since A1 having probably around 5k hours or more, thats owns Ark, Rust and other big survivals. i can tell you i know personally dozens if not hundreds of people that gave up on 7dtd because of the pvp instability. They switched to Ark, Rust, Connan and so on not because those games are better but because 7dtd is almost unplayable at pvp. I dont know exact amounts but i can tell you i played on every big pvp server, and nowdays there are barley 1-2 europe, 1-2 russia 1-2 Us good servers while back then before a12 when you could run decently 50-60 players on a map there were dozens of servers and all full regardless of week days. No matter what they do or how hard Devs can try this will never be a good single player game or coop. Ai is Ai and you have minecraft building style, in 2 hours you can beat the game is simple as that. While if it is pvp multi everything changes and gets meaning, from hoarding loot into making a good base design, playstyle everything... even the zombies are complementing so good the pvp in game creating amazing situations. I dont know if it was intentional or not but TFP hit the jackpot on the ideea of the survival multi player. And the day they wil focus on the pvp and multiplayer side to have at least 50-60 slots stable. Every other surv game will become a desert.

 

Or if they dont i almost bet at some point somone will copy all the ideeas point it in the right way and will get out a big ass game loved by everyone

[meganoth]

Whoops, may have just figured out an exploit, a lot of sacrificial pillars to keep the Z's occupied while you shoot them.

 

May have just figured out a cunning trap, a heavy platform supported by weak pillars to crush the Z's when they demolish the pillars.

 

"Know thy enemy" always helps to find loopholes, "Know thy enemy exactly" even more.

 

But the better the AI reacts the scarcer the available options for exploit become and you need more elaborate measures to trick the AI.

 

And the better the AI, the longer it takes new players to peek behind the facade of the simulation and get thrown out of the immersion.

[Marinxar]

While baseball bats are created for playing baseball, people using them for other things happens. Doesn't mean the baseball bat was designed for those other activities, just that the baseball bat has the ability to be used in other ways. This is a case of clever humans and their ability to find new ways to use things that were made primarily for something else.

 

Right now the game is being built as a baseball bat, feel free to beat each other with them, but as of right now we won't be changing the baseball bat design so that it supports beating the snot out of each other over it's primary function of hitting baseballs.

 

 

Pretty big reach for an analogy but I do feel that it somewhat applies to the PvP vs PvE discussion. This is a co op game first and foremost in it's current state and design.

 

You can definitely drop the mic with that reply. If anyone still don't get it, they are either trolling, or will never get it.

[trielkee]

I just can't see the pvp aspect here, the moment you set foot in this game it is clear as day that it was made with pve in mind.

[meganoth]

[...] No matter what they do or how hard Devs can try this will never be a good single player game or coop. Ai is Ai and you have minecraft building style, in 2 hours you can beat the game is simple as that. While if it is pvp multi everything changes and gets meaning, from hoarding loot into making a good base design, playstyle everything...

 

It hurts if a game is just right for you, except for some minor details that make it completely useless. I had that too with a few games. For example a game that would have been ideal as a turn-based game, but somehow the developers wanted real-time.

 

Your opinion that it won't ever be a good single player or coop game is "unique" though. It may not be good as a SP game you would play (maybe because you need the competition and the zombies don't provide that). But obviously thousands play it SP and coop every day. With a lot more than 2 hours on their clocks.