PC Please stop trying to tell us how to play

Viktoriusiii said:
Back in the days, we had big open bases. 

Nobody really built a horde base. Because it wasn't just one small corridor. 
You needed a perimeter defense. 
Sure they were too dumb to know what a support pillar was, so you could simply let them run in circles below you, but that was an exploit and could have been fixed.

Nowadays you basically NEED a horde base, because your real base is too big, doesn't#t have a small corridor and if a demolisher shows up, you might lose all your stuff.

We actually built spikepits and gun towers in all directions because they would just straight up run towards you, no matter the cost.

Exactly like a horde SHOULD act.
Now they are all magically attracted to the door.
This is great for complex mazes like underground bunkers, because they will find their way downstairs, but awful for above ground defenses.


 

The more I talk about it... the more I miss A16... might install that when I come home.
I doubt I will have fun, because the rest (visual and feature stuff) was improved A LOT since then... but I think LBD... real horde nights... sneaking :'D
The more they improve, the more they move away from my ideal zombie game I guess... 😕

Well at least there are awesome A16 mods still out there... hope I'll get them to work ^^

Or it is a bias of "everything was better when I was younger" ^^ we'll see
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It is a tower defense game, build a tower/base and defend it. There is very little construction needed for a very nice early horde base. Build a 15x8 square, then dig a moat around it that goes 4 blocks deep with ramps going up the side so they're forced to path to your doorway which you'll defend.

Put traps in your area of defense, i like a good 4x6 being open so they have a ton of space to pile for a good explosive or perhaps a shooting range, i may create the walls to have dart traps that are activated by switches.

I will say the pathing makes for great design trials and many different ways to defend, but with the passive traps being so nerfed its really not worth it to build an unpathed base of some kind unless you dont mind turrets constantly shooting ammo in all directions.

 
Viktoriusiii said:
Back in the days, we had big open bases. 

Nobody really built a horde base. Because it wasn't just one small corridor. 
You needed a perimeter defense. 
Sure they were too dumb to know what a support pillar was, so you could simply let them run in circles below you, but that was an exploit and could have been fixed.

Nowadays you basically NEED a horde base, because your real base is too big, doesn't#t have a small corridor and if a demolisher shows up, you might lose all your stuff.
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In A15/A16 players used separate horde bases as well (at least we did and that suggestions was widely floating around). And basically you only need a separate horde base if you think your base could be breached, a measure of how safe you feel about the danger the zombies represent. So using your crafting base as horde base is not exactly a compliment to the games survival or horror part. 

And you still can have your base be horde base as well, you just need to make sure you have redundant and/or layered defenses to manage the risk. Naturally if you want your containers and the fight on ground level that is hardly manageable, but having the living rooms high above on thick pillars is very safe. I know of numerous occasions of us getting killed and demo breaches on horde night, but our base collapsing? I can't think of a single collapse in all of A17 to A20

Viktoriusiii said:
We actually built spikepits and gun towers in all directions because they would just straight up run towards you, no matter the cost.

Exactly like a horde SHOULD act.
Now they are all magically attracted to the door.
This is great for complex mazes like underground bunkers, because they will find their way downstairs, but awful for above ground defenses.


 

The more I talk about it... the more I miss A16... might install that when I come home.
I doubt I will have fun, because the rest (visual and feature stuff) was improved A LOT since then... but I think LBD... real horde nights... sneaking :'D
The more they improve, the more they move away from my ideal zombie game I guess... 😕

Well at least there are awesome A16 mods still out there... hope I'll get them to work ^^

Or it is a bias of "everything was better when I was younger" ^^ we'll see
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What is stopping you from building simple steel blocks with concentric rings of (submerged, so they are level with the ground) traps in all directions? Lots more work but the zombies will not have any distinct way they prefer.

 
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meganoth said:
What is stopping you from building simple steel blocks with concentric rings of (submerged, so they are level with the ground) traps in all directions? Lots more work but the zombies will not have any distinct way they prefer.
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difficulty.

I don't play on the normal difficulty, but this should somewhat be true on the "main"difficulty:

I can't get concrete before D7. No chance. And I can't get Steel before D14... if I don't rush INT I don't even get it before D28 if I'm not lucky.

Why should I (same with other exploits) build up a massive base with all surround defenses that cost me 1000s of ammo and will be breached after an hour anyways because Z's block strength is insane and Demolishers blow it up anyways, if I can simply funnel them to one point and just blast them with machine-guns, occasionally repairing the door?
It is pretty boring... but at least now I can focus on what TFPs love so much: looting/questing :D

rambling again:

Building a spikepitd wasn't fun in <A16 and even less pre auger. BUT we did it because it was the only reliable way (without exploits) to defend your base, because you can't repair 20 blocks at once.
I mean the base discussion we agree on:
If there is a ridiculously easy way to do something and a harder, fun way, the devs should try to fix it. (your comment was in regards to underground bases)

And funneling is just ridiculously more effective and requires only like 2 in game ours of setup. (7x5x3 cobblestone bunker with metal bars and a metal door and you can just shoot and throw cocktails and grenades as much as you want)

Building a base around my crafting base (that needs to look nice so is pretty big) is super hard and will get breached in seconds. Traps will be super inefficient and and and.

Perimeter defenses are dead. Full stop. At least in a survival sense.
Maybe you could make it better by increasing max zombies, decreasing their damage by a lot and then have fun with friends...
But as a serious attempt... it would need to be a challenge like a nuzlocke or "dead is dead". 

Why shouldn't I drive away on my motorcycle on horde night? Because of the birds! (<--- this was their fix to the problem)
Why shouldn't I build a super easy funneling system that makes the best use out of traps and ammo? 
I should. Because it is a TD game. But THAT bites itself with the horror genre.
Predictable is not horror. Never was, never will be. But I have talked about TFPs wanting to fit every genre en masse before and nobody understood my point back then so I'm not going to start another discussion xD And not under this thread, because that is not what OP wants to talk about. #sorry

 
Viktoriusiii said:
difficulty.

I don't play on the normal difficulty, but this should somewhat be true on the "main"difficulty:

I can't get concrete before D7. No chance. And I can't get Steel before D14... if I don't rush INT I don't even get it before D28 if I'm not lucky.
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Naturally I meant steel in end-game. Concrete or even cobblestone will work for first horde(s). If it doesn't on higher difficulties, setting block damage of zombies a bit lower might work.

Viktoriusiii said:
Why should I (same with other exploits) build up a massive base with all surround defenses that cost me 1000s of ammo and will be breached after an hour anyways because Z's block strength is insane and Demolishers blow it up anyways, if I can simply funnel them to one point and just blast them with machine-guns, occasionally repairing the door?
It is pretty boring... but at least now I can focus on what TFPs love so much: looting/questing :D
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If we are talking game theory or what TFP should do you may be right to argue like that. But speaking about you personally, if you have specific likes that can only be satisfied if the zombies attack from all sides then make them. Its your own fault if you play a boring horde night but can't be bothered to adjust game play to your liking. So turn down zombie block damage, build a blocky castle and defend that.

Viktoriusiii said:
rambling again:

Building a spikepitd wasn't fun in <A16 and even less pre auger. BUT we did it because it was the only reliable way (without exploits) to defend your base, because you can't repair 20 blocks at once.
I mean the base discussion we agree on:
If there is a ridiculously easy way to do something and a harder, fun way, the devs should try to fix it. (your comment was in regards to underground bases)

And funneling is just ridiculously more effective and requires only like 2 in game ours of setup. (7x5x3 cobblestone bunker with metal bars and a metal door and you can just shoot and throw cocktails and grenades as much as you want)

Building a base around my crafting base (that needs to look nice so is pretty big) is super hard and will get breached in seconds. Traps will be super inefficient and and and.

Perimeter defenses are dead. Full stop. At least in a survival sense.
Maybe you could make it better by increasing max zombies, decreasing their damage by a lot and then have fun with friends...
But as a serious attempt... it would need to be a challenge like a nuzlocke or "dead is dead". 

Why shouldn't I drive away on my motorcycle on horde night? Because of the birds! (<--- this was their fix to the problem)
Why shouldn't I build a super easy funneling system that makes the best use out of traps and ammo? 
I should. Because it is a TD game. But THAT bites itself with the horror genre.
Predictable is not horror. Never was, never will be. But I have talked about TFPs wanting to fit every genre en masse before and nobody understood my point back then so I'm not going to start another discussion xD And not under this thread, because that is not what OP wants to talk about. #sorry
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"Predictable is not horror". Yes. But the A16 zombies were predictable as well.

At least I was never thinking "Oh my god, now they come from the south, when I expected them to still come from the north-west. Oh the horror, they now will hit pristine new defenses instead of the worn down blocks on the north-west side".

Especially bad was that just by moving to stand before a different block you could make them ignore a block they had nearly run down and hit on new blocks. Where is the horror in that?

And since you bring the efficiency argument against building a full 360 degree base in A20, why didn't you always build a stilt base in A16 and complain that it was unfun? Since this AI bug was never fixed in A16 you would be forced to use a stilt base and let them run around below.

When you say perimeter defenses are dead I simply get the impression you are stuck in your routine of building always the same 7x5x3 bunker and working from there. I still use a lot of perimeter defense to slow zombies down. My suggestion is simply to build the horde base that gives you fun defending it, even if it isn't the most efficient design.

I still have fun designing varied horde bases and trying them out, they are seldom perfect or really efficient, but this is probably not your thing,

 
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Darklegend222 said:
Build a 15x8 square, then dig a moat around it that goes 4 blocks deep with ramps going up the side so they're forced to path to your doorway which you'll defend.
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You probably put iron bars in the way, too! It was CHEESE then and it's CHEESE now! ;)  

images


 
meganoth said:
When you say perimeter defenses are dead I simply get the impression you are stuck in your routine of building always the same 7x5x3 bunker and working from there. I still use a lot of perimeter defense to slow zombies down. My suggestion is simply to build the horde base that gives you fun defending it, even if it isn't the most efficient design.
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but the whole horde is balanced around the funneling. I would need an option for 5% block damage :D  maybe I am biased because I only see the concentrated damage (because they only hit one spot) but I feel like they are still FAR stronger than back then.

meganoth said:
"Predictable is not horror". Yes. But the A16 zombies were predictable as well.

At least I was never thinking "Oh my god, now they come from the south, when I expected them to still come from the north-west. Oh the horror, they now will hit pristine new defenses instead of the worn down blocks on the north-west side".
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they constantly did random things. I never knew where they might break through next. And if I didn't have a perfect base yet (first 4-5 hordes) it was ALWAYS scary, because defending perimeter could never be perfect, so you'd hope they would come from one side, even going outside to lure them away from your weak side and stuff.

meganoth said:
And since you bring the efficiency argument against building a full 360 degree base in A20, why didn't you always build a stilt base in A16 and complain that it was unfun? Since this AI bug was never fixed in A16 you would be forced to use a stilt base and let them run around below.
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pretty sure you know why. 1) I did. I was ALWAYS pro fixing exploits. 2) it was an exploit, and it felt like using the console. At least with funneling I still have to do SOME stuff. Even if it is boring stuff like shooting for 5 minutes xD So I never felt like I am supposed to do that or suffer. 
But the whole horde is and will be balanced around this mechanic now. Doing something different will probably make it way harder to do.

But enough of designtalk.
I just wish they would focus more on horror instead of cheap wall-zombie scares and tower defense (tower defense can also be nonlinear and somewhat unpredictable). But I guess I will need mods if I want horror in my horror survival game 😛

 

JCrook1028 said:
They already do that...
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I can tell you... no they don't. At least not to any significant amount.

If you held up in a smaller poi in early alphas, they would make the house collapse.
Now they just try and get to you one by one by using their comrades as ladders.

Which is a nice mechanic... but they never feel like a threat. But this might be bias on my side.

 
Desmondbratcat said:
I am a long time player, I have thousands of hours invested in this game and that's because I love it.  I love what you guys are doing with the scenery, textures, roads, cities, POI's, you have made a fantastic game. 

Having said that, I get very frustrated with being forced into a certain play or build style because you guys don't like the way I do things.  You give me these tools and then you try and dictate how to use them.  I'm pretty sure you already know what I'm talking about, the no more building underground, the block strength being changed on some blocks, the farming, the zombie pathing - please, stop stuffing around with this stuff.  If I want to build a base underground out of poles that is my decision, it is not for you to decide that is not how I should play, I will play how I want to play and if I can't then I will look around and find something that I can.  There are many other things you guys can stuff around with for example fix the blocks and items that go invisible.  Sort out the optimisation.  Fix the stability issue.  Get the story line going.  There are many things you could be getting on with without annoying me by telling me how I should build and play the game.  Honestly guys, with the current world situation and our governments telling us what to do and how to do it how about you give us a break and just let us play how we want to play, not how you want us to play.  I don't know how to make this any clearer - just please stop.
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Literally nothing stopping you from playing the way you want, they just tweak the risks and rewards of those style, if you want a base that zombies cant destroy just set zombie block damage to zero, If you never want hunger to be an issue just change the xml.

This is an incredibly customizable game, you can play however you want, but thats not what you are asking, you are asking for your specific playstyle to be the best and to never be rebalanced because you dont want to adapt to dangers and only want to recycle the same tried and proven methods over and over.

Stop being dishonest.

The Fun Pimps have rebalanced things to allow other playstyles to be playable, nerfing your particular playstyle because its too easy is just game development. You can still do it but you will need more investment. you can still have infinite farms you just need living off the land, you can still build strong bases but you might have to use the basic blocks that lose out on some added benefits.

Alpha honestly only means its not at content lock, they are running beta balance at the same time which is number tweaks and polish. i dont think the modellers, engineers, writers and artists are getting pulled aside to change the value of pole blocks, and a few minutes to change pole block values isnt delaying bandits.

 
@JCrook1028 yes because it was a stilt base. I was there when that was implemented :D

But whole buildings don't get collapsed. They'd rather build themselves stairs inside the wall than randomly hit the walls they come across.

THAT is what I meant. If either one is better is up to preference I guess... but I liked the threat of the whole building collapsing a bit more :D

OR lets bring back gore blocks. Never understood why they removed them in the first place. They were an awesome mechanic.

All that needs to happen is that they gradually degrade. Lets say 1 hp per second at 200 hp. 

Buuuut I guess I am shouting in the clouds right now ^^

PS: I just randomly stumbled across this and thought it would support my point perfectly:
Lovecraft once said “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”

The more predictable the horror game, the less horror there is.

 
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JCrook1028 said:
Randoms not pathing up the ramps took out the base. As I said, they already do what you referred to.
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I'm not sure that's what caused the base to collapse. I watched the moment of the collapse frame by frame and there was only one zombie down there. The janitor who fell down moments before. During the horde, zombies kept falling down and they probably attacked the pillar before making their way back up.

 
I've never felt like I was being told how to play the game.  You can play any way you want to.  Most people I see complain about this are basically saying that they are mad because their favorite way to play the game isn't the "best" way to play.  You can play however you want to but you have to deal with the consequences of choosing to play that way.  

 
Viktoriusiii said:
but the whole horde is balanced around the funneling. I would need an option for 5% block damage :D  maybe I am biased because I only see the concentrated damage (because they only hit one spot) but I feel like they are still FAR stronger than back then.
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Lets say this: If you want to stand in a 7x5x3 melee cage at insane difficulty then yes, this definitely won't fly in A20 unless you turned down block damage to 5%. But I don't know how you built in A16, what your self-imposed limitations are exactly (like "I want to fight on the ground") and what you wanted to do.

In general, if you want to melee, especially after demos turn up, you can't do that without redundancy and a way to either cut off access ways or leading them elsewhere.

In A18 I had a SP game where I used to knife them in melee (vanilla, difficulty 2). Naturally I was breached sometimes when I forgot to repair in time, but then I would go to my other position and melee from there. The secondary position was a different design and there were multiple positions for meleeing. But the zombies likewise tried to breach at different spots. If that position was breached I still had a building with roof (no melee from there). The base worked quite well and it was a very dynamic way of fighting.

I didn't play the game long enough for demos to turn up in numbers. But sure, demos would have meant at least more redundancy and upgrades if not a change of plan.

But if you want a shooter base, I don't see the problem. You just present them with lots of stuff to break and they will break it. If there is no direct path to you they will break random spots. Your repair bill will be big, just like in A16. If there is a direct path you can lead most of them away from blocks you want them not to hit anymore.

Viktoriusiii said:
they constantly did random things. I never knew where they might break through next. And if I didn't have a perfect base yet (first 4-5 hordes) it was ALWAYS scary, because defending perimeter could never be perfect, so you'd hope they would come from one side, even going outside to lure them away from your weak side and stuff.
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Strange, that happens to me a lot since A17 😉. Mostly in SP.

Viktoriusiii said:
pretty sure you know why. 1) I did. I was ALWAYS pro fixing exploits. 2) it was an exploit, and it felt like using the console. At least with funneling I still have to do SOME stuff. Even if it is boring stuff like shooting for 5 minutes xD So I never felt like I am supposed to do that or suffer. 
But the whole horde is and will be balanced around this mechanic now. Doing something different will probably make it way harder to do.
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Well, you want it harder, right? Otherwise why turn up difficulty? And if you turn down block damage to get it back to the block damage at a normal difficulty melee is definitely possible.

On one hand you say it is boring (which can only mean the zombies have no chance and there are no breaches), on the other hand you say it would be too difficult to defend a base with less than the optimal strategy. Doesn't it make sense that there is a sweat spot between those two poles?

Viktoriusiii said:
But enough of designtalk.
I just wish they would focus more on horror instead of cheap wall-zombie scares and tower defense (tower defense can also be nonlinear and somewhat unpredictable). But I guess I will need mods if I want horror in my horror survival game 😛

 

I can tell you... no they don't. At least not to any significant amount.

If you held up in a smaller poi in early alphas, they would make the house collapse.
Now they just try and get to you one by one by using their comrades as ladders.
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MY zombies hit walls. Though current A20 zombies have some bugs in the AI because of all the new shapes.

Viktoriusiii said:
Which is a nice mechanic... but they never feel like a threat. But this might be bias on my side.
Click to expand...

 
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meganoth said:
Lets say this: If you want to stand in a 7x5x3 melee cage at insane difficulty then yes, this definitely won't fly in A20 unless you turned down block damage to 5%. But I don't know how you built in A16, what your self-imposed limitations are exactly (like "I want to fight on the ground") and what you wanted to do.
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It does. That is the problem. I have infinite ammo, near infinite explosives and repairing that one block/door they always hit is not a problem, even with 100% block damage. That is my entire point. Such a super simple funneling build holds up. Trying a similar perimeter build will get completely overrun by 11pm.

And I play on insane for the ZvP damage, not the ZvB damage. So I am totally fine with cops ones hotting an unarmored player. But not for them to break the hardest material in about a minute.
In a funneling strategy, they need to be able to break the block quickly, because they die quickly. In a perimeter defense, they might have a minute before they are spotted, so using the same block damage is unthinkable.


But its fine. I gave my thoughts on the matter. I don't think 7d2d is a horror game anymore, except for those cheap jumpscare wall-zombies. 
(Although the fog and the creepy music are nice additions.)

 
Desmondbratcat said:
I am a long time player, I have thousands of hours invested in this game and that's because I love it.  I love what you guys are doing with the scenery, textures, roads, cities, POI's, you have made a fantastic game. 

Having said that, I get very frustrated with being forced into a certain play or build style because you guys don't like the way I do things.  You give me these tools and then you try and dictate how to use them.  I'm pretty sure you already know what I'm talking about, the no more building underground, the block strength being changed on some blocks, the farming, the zombie pathing - please, stop stuffing around with this stuff.  If I want to build a base underground out of poles that is my decision, it is not for you to decide that is not how I should play, I will play how I want to play and if I can't then I will look around and find something that I can.  There are many other things you guys can stuff around with for example fix the blocks and items that go invisible.  Sort out the optimisation.  Fix the stability issue.  Get the story line going.  There are many things you could be getting on with without annoying me by telling me how I should build and play the game.  Honestly guys, with the current world situation and our governments telling us what to do and how to do it how about you give us a break and just let us play how we want to play, not how you want us to play.  I don't know how to make this any clearer - just please stop.
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please stop pretending that anyone is trying to tell you how to play.

 
I'm going to side with Roland here.

The devs can't cater for everyone, so they will stick to their design plan. It feels like they are changing a lot over time, but that is simply because the game is still under active development, and the path to their end goal is not necessarily linear. 

Luckily for all of us, TFP realized that they are creating a game that will have endless ways of approaching problems, and have made the game open to modders. So now, thanks to the amazing modding community, you can tailor make the game for your own play style. 

TLDR; There is no need for pitchforks. Use  mods to make the game you want. 

 
Marinxar said:
Luckily for all of us, TFP realized that they are creating a game that will have endless ways of approaching problems, and have made the game open to modders. So now, thanks to the amazing modding community, you can tailor make the game for your own play style. 

TLDR; There is no need for pitchforks. Use  mods to make the game you want. 
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You can't mod everything, or at least not yet. For example that the zombies can dig is hardcoded. People asked to add a setting or at least to expose this part of the AI, but as far as I know that hasn't happend yet.

You can try to workaround this by making the topsoil invunerable to zombie damage but nevertheless will the zombies try to dig.
 

What I would like to see from the Fun Pimps is at least to better communicate big changes in advance. The block nerf was a pretty big change and it came from nowhere.

 
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