Should cobblestone be buffed?

[captaine]

Just barely survived day 7 horde (Random gen/Solo/60min/Nomad, Level 15). I built a base consisting of a 4x4 wooden center tower, surrounded by one trench of wood spikes, surrounded by a 4 block wide cobblestone wall, surrounded by a final outer layer of spikes. By midnight, the dozens of zombies had ripped a hole straight through 4 layers of cobblestone and started ripping the bottom out of my central tower.

 

It seems like cobblestone is the only viable building material early game, but it still got complete wrecked. Should I be rethinking my base design, or is cobblestone just too weak? (1500HP)

[enragedcamel]

Zombies do a lot more damage to blocks now, so that's probably the issue.

 

I think it makes sense to barely survive the first few 7 day hordes. I mean, if you could build an impenetrable base on your first week, then what would be the challenge?

[Oragepoilu]

Don't even try to have anything hold a horde. Either avoid damage (you can still build a plate-form and nerdpole on it) or kill them somehow before they attack the wall.

 

It's slow to build, better spend your energy on farming ammo and get some xp back.

[Feycat]

Don't even try to have anything hold a horde. Either avoid damage (you can still build a plate-form and nerdpole on it) or kill them somehow before they attack the wall.

 

It's slow to build, better spend your energy on farming ammo and get some xp back.

 

I thought zombies went straight for your supports now?

[enragedcamel]

I thought zombies went straight for your supports now?

 

No, but if they can't find a path to you, they go nuts and start destroying everything in sight... including supports.

[captaine]

I feel like building is kind of pointless now. Going out looting and fighting is the best and most profitable use of time in terms of higher level gear and XP, and the 2-3 days you spend mining resources / building could be spent doing that instead. Why bother building a base to defend if the optimal strategy to deal with the horde is just to dump all your gear in storage and run out into a field, die multiple times, and deal with the death debuff for a day?

[Feycat]

I feel like building is kind of pointless now. Going out looting and fighting is the best and most profitable use of time in terms of higher level gear and XP, and the 2-3 days you spend mining resources / building could be spent doing that instead. Why bother building a base to defend if the optimal strategy to deal with the horde is just to dump all your gear in storage and run out into a field, die multiple times, and deal with the death debuff for a day?

 

Why wouldn't you just die and then not respawn til the night is over?

 

Sounds like a super amount of fun either way!

[Morloc]

Why wouldn't you just die and then not respawn til the night is over?

 

I'm not certain time passes when you're at the "spawn at bed?" menu anymore.

 

 

-Morloc

[thraka]

The fact that players are actually discussing deliberately dying repeatedly as a rational strategy on Blood Moon nights tells you a lot about the current state of design.

[ravend]

Built a 4 post stilt highrise platform with alternating spikes and barbed wire about 5 deep. In the center I placed a wooden pillar. This attracted the zombies to attack it before the flagstone pilliars. Remember zombies will attack the weakest link. Give them a distraction to chew on.

[Royal Deluxe]

The fact that players are actually discussing deliberately dying repeatedly as a rational strategy on Blood Moon nights tells you a lot about the current state of design.

 

+1

 

You can try

* Swim in a Deep lake during the first nights

* Drive arround

* Later fly arround

 

or try this

[Feycat]

I'm not certain time passes when you're at the "spawn at bed?" menu anymore.

 

 

-Morloc

 

Well, it does when you're playing with friends!

 

And yeah, this is not a great solution.... but what are you supposed to do when you get rads on day 7?

[Shiana]

True, crafting, etc. is merely pointless in a17. Just try to scavenge for weapons and ammo like in any other shooter. Just forget the base building and crafting part of the game. If you want that, go play a16, or wait for mods. a17 is just a bland shooter.

[captaine]

Built a 4 post stilt highrise platform with alternating spikes and barbed wire about 5 deep. In the center I placed a wooden pillar. This attracted the zombies to attack it before the flagstone pilliars. Remember zombies will attack the weakest link. Give them a distraction to chew on.

 

Good points. I'll have to add some bait blocks to spread out the destruction in my next base. Would probably be a better use of time to build less walls and more traps too. I like the improvements to the zombie AI in general, but sometimes they seem too smart now. Like the will run towards the base, then go around to the opposite corner of the base just to bash on blocks which are already damaged. Instead of attacking your base from all directions, they clump together and form an undead tunnel boring machine.

[Roland]

You have to actively defend your base. ACTIVELY. If you sit and wait out the night your base will get wrecked. Zombies get a buff when several group together to do even more damage. If you do not thin them out by killing them then they will destroy your base. A17 requires rethinking base design and base defense. If you don't want to adapt and want to do A16 strategies then you will need to return to A16 for them to be effective. If you want to be successful with A17 then experiment and be active in defending. Or wait until people who do figure things out post their strategies and then copy them.

[Roland]

Good points. I'll have to add some bait blocks to spread out the destruction in my next base. Would probably be a better use of time to build less walls and more traps too. I like the improvements to the zombie AI in general, but sometimes they seem too smart now. Like the will run towards the base, then go around to the opposite corner of the base just to bash on blocks which are already damaged. Instead of attacking your base from all directions, they clump together and form an undead tunnel boring machine.

 

Bait blocks won't work. They target blocks that prevent them from getting to you. They ignore other things. IF you really want to slow them down you'll need to.....

[captaine]

You have to actively defend your base. ACTIVELY. If you sit and wait out the night your base will get wrecked. Zombies get a buff when several group together to do even more damage. If you do not thin them out by killing them then they will destroy your base. A17 requires rethinking base design and base defense. If you don't want to adapt and want to do A16 strategies then you will need to return to A16 for them to be effective. If you want to be successful with A17 then experiment and be active in defending. Or wait until people who do figure things out post their strategies and then copy them.

 

I went through almost 200 arrows and 80 pistol rounds trying to hold them off. As a solo player there's just not enough DPS to go around.

[thraka]

You have to actively defend your base. ACTIVELY. If you sit and wait out the night your base will get wrecked. Zombies get a buff when several group together to do even more damage. If you do not thin them out by killing them then they will destroy your base. A17 requires rethinking base design and base defense. If you don't want to adapt and want to do A16 strategies then you will need to return to A16 for them to be effective. If you want to be successful with A17 then experiment and be active in defending. Or wait until people who do figure things out post their strategies and then copy them.

 

You are restating the exact problem OP has: what was once a versatile, sandbox game with multiple strategies for success has been crunched into a very small space where only a few strategies can be successful, and if you are not a fan of those strategies, you're out of luck. Your previous style of play, however enjoyable it may have been, was BadWrongFun and has been eliminated.

[captaine]

You are restating the exact problem OP has: what was once a versatile, sandbox game with multiple strategies for success has been crunched into a very small space where only a few strategies can be successful, and if you are not a fan of those strategies, you're out of luck. Your previous style of play, however enjoyable it may have been, was BadWrongFun and has been eliminated.

 

Not to say that I don't enjoy the new update. I'm very pleased with 90% of it, and I think it's mostly a step in the right direction. It just needs a good bit of balancing. I like that the perks offer a lot of choice and flexibility in how the game is approached, but the same can't be said of other parts of the game. There's now a heavy emphasis on questing and looting POIs, especially in the early game. IMO the game should reward multiple playstyles. If I choose to spend 3 days grinding 10 metric tons of stone, crafting how many hundreds of cobblestone, and building something decently fortified, I should be rewarded with a some-what defensible, not completely destroyed position at the end of week one. I'm consciously making that tradeoff to have a secure position in exchange for reduced loot and perks. I'm not asking for complete safety, I enjoy the challenge. I just wish 3 hours of work wasn't completely wrecked 1/4 way through the first BM horde.

[Yisiscreise]

Not to say that I don't enjoy the new update. I'm very pleased with 90% of it, and I think it's mostly a step in the right direction. It just needs a good bit of balancing. I like that the perks offer a lot of choice and flexibility in how the game is approached, but the same can't be said of other parts of the game. There's now a heavy emphasis on questing and looting POIs, especially in the early game. IMO the game should reward multiple playstyles. If I choose to spend 3 days grinding 10 metric tons of stone, crafting how many hundreds of cobblestone, and building something decently fortified, I should be rewarded with a some-what defensible, not completely destroyed position at the end of week one. I'm consciously making that tradeoff to have a secure position in exchange for reduced loot and perks. I'm not asking for complete safety, I enjoy the challenge. I just wish 3 hours of work wasn't completely wrecked 1/4 way through the first BM horde.

 

I think u have said the most important thing here, if u spend your time working on build something it must reward u in some way.

 

Roland, a lot of people enjoy building bases on this game and defending them, and it loses sense when u spend hours working on buildings that can be destroyed that easily.

 

I love many of the new features too, but i think that some others should be balanced

[iejen]

As a builder/grinder I agree that the current form of base defending is too difficult.

I spend 4 out of 7 days building a full cobble fort with spikes and barbed wire all around it.

The ammount of zombie's that just rammed through is too high.

It took them (4 zombies) 15 secondens to get trought barbed wire, spikes and a cobble stone wall.

I could not do enough DPS with my Tier 2 shotgun to kill 'em.

[Scyris]

You have to actively defend your base. ACTIVELY. If you sit and wait out the night your base will get wrecked. Zombies get a buff when several group together to do even more damage. If you do not thin them out by killing them then they will destroy your base. A17 requires rethinking base design and base defense. If you don't want to adapt and want to do A16 strategies then you will need to return to A16 for them to be effective. If you want to be successful with A17 then experiment and be active in defending. Or wait until people who do figure things out post their strategies and then copy them.

 

That buff is it only block damage or entity damage as well?

[Zourin]

You have to actively defend your base. ACTIVELY. If you sit and wait out the night your base will get wrecked. Zombies get a buff when several group together to do even more damage. If you do not thin them out by killing them then they will destroy your base. A17 requires rethinking base design and base defense. If you don't want to adapt and want to do A16 strategies then you will need to return to A16 for them to be effective. If you want to be successful with A17 then experiment and be active in defending. Or wait until people who do figure things out post their strategies and then copy them.

 

Even armed with an SMG and a rocket launcher, you can't even 'thin' the first horde before they've had their way with the base. The only thing that stopped by base from collapsing completely was an interesting tether distance where they couldn't decide whether they wanted to path at me or attack the next block, and the miraculous structural properties of flagstone. Had they not drifted ever so infrequently back into my line of fire, they would have levelled the POI LONG before any 'active' defense could have worked.

 

The argument is amazing, only in theory. In practice, trying to hit a dozen coked up death-rockets that destroy EVERY block it touches every six seconds for about ten minutes, is currently extremely implausible (and based on current observations from literally every veteran 7DTD content creator who's tried, impossible). Zombies move too fast for a solo player 'actively defending', and 'walls' don't work period and haven't for several versions because TFP has been overbalancing against extreme base setups and players who had quality iron tools by day 2, not a damn primitive with a pile of sticks, a rock, and an idea of what's coming. Once they chew through that poi wall, or any wall, good luck.

 

Zombies and horde sizes need to be toned down for 'active defense' to even come close to a competitive strategy. You have 0 (zero) seconds before a breach will occur with any material you can scrounge up with a stone axe. You can't defend against that. I've even heard stories of cops and irradiated in that first horde night. For someone with a mere 8 shotgun rounds, that's the point where survival stops being an achievable obstacle.

 

 

By the time they had chewed that far, I'd killed all but six of them, but there would be no way I could engage them (I laugh and spit in your face good sir if you think I'm going down there and WIN with a stick and a grass skirt). If they pathed farther in for more supports, the building would be done, and my base, and my multi-year experience with this game. Mind you, I had a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ rocket launcher (with 3 flak rockets) and an SMG with 100 rounds (compliments of an air drop), and STILL had to blow through 200 arrows just to kneecap those half dozen through the gaps while they had a pathing conniption. This building was effectively solid flagstone (500hp blocks), and getting it to brick was out of the question.

 

I chose it specifically because it was the only building with a perimeter small enough, which wasn't made of toilet paper, that I could confidently even TRY to defend with anything I could gather with a god damn rock on a stick. It also has a fair resemblance to the size and durability of what a player could POSSIBLY manage in A16 if a perimeter wall could be put up fast enough. Stone wall, bunch of spike traps, and an overlook. I've done it often enough, but then the construction worker zombies showed up and I knew that it didn't matter what kind of setup I had, it was going to get trashed IMMEDIATELY.

 

I have seen only ONE instance where someone survived the first horde night, and that was because Grumbul had a second damn base within sprinting distance after his first collapsed entirely. Everyone else is getting completely trashed. This screenshot doesn't count as a second, on account of a flak rocket blast.

 

 

 

The 'Best' current solution to the 7-day feral hordes is to strip buck fk'in naked and stand out in a field for the night and just eat the death penalty for what the effort is worth. It's better to watch a youtube Cat Compliation Video while respawning, then pay off the 1 hour in the 'Time out chair", than ruin 5-7 hours of work that wasn't meant to be defended in the first place. Repeat until you get a bicycle or motorcycle and then just drive off 'till dawn. InB4 these 'magically' stop working on blood moon horde nights.

 

 

1. Zombies' block damage needs to be toned down. Trunk tips are gone, dude, let it go. Let. It. Go. Make Wood great again, at least for that first horde. Let people free-build again. No more special damage bonuses. Let it go. You can relax, you gave us an electric slap chop for Christmas and it's great when the irradiates show up. You don't need to coke up your party regulars anymore, they're fine being normal posthumus humans. Let it go. Those thirty-block deep layers of steel trunk tips in the first week can't hurt you anymore.

 

2. Zombies run/animation speed needs to be turned down slightly. You can't hit them for sh*t even when they stand 'still'. It also looks cheap and wierd, like I left a stream on 1.5x speed.

[thraka]

"InB4 these 'magically' stop working on blood moon horde nights."

 

Your whole post is on point, but this little tidbit here is great. This entire alpha is, as I said in another post, like the DM is angry that you outsmarted his traps and monsters and is punishing you. Anything other than going directly in and fighting toe to toe has been nerfed. Anything outside of the box, no matter how reasonable, is 'exploitive' and disallowed.

 

When simply choosing to die and eat the penalty is the optimal strategy for Blood Moon nights, it indicates the design philosophy has veered far off course and needs to be re-evaluated.

[JCrook1028]

Not to say that I don't enjoy the new update. I'm very pleased with 90% of it, and I think it's mostly a step in the right direction. It just needs a good bit of balancing. I like that the perks offer a lot of choice and flexibility in how the game is approached, but the same can't be said of other parts of the game. There's now a heavy emphasis on questing and looting POIs, especially in the early game. IMO the game should reward multiple playstyles. If I choose to spend 3 days grinding 10 metric tons of stone, crafting how many hundreds of cobblestone, and building something decently fortified, I should be rewarded with a some-what defensible, not completely destroyed position at the end of week one. I'm consciously making that tradeoff to have a secure position in exchange for reduced loot and perks. I'm not asking for complete safety, I enjoy the challenge. I just wish 3 hours of work wasn't completely wrecked 1/4 way through the first BM horde.

 

I'm a builder too and this is the first Alpha I have no idea what to build for horde night. From all I've seen anything available D7 is just gonna get wrecked so I'm just gonna take to the streets and fight there rather than wasting my time. No clue how long term we are supposed to build a base that we don't have to rebuild large swaths of daily. Hopefully some balance to z block damage occurs as now it seems really over the top.