Lax
Survivor
Or do it old school style: have a high level Zed you must defeat holding the key to the loot room in their pocket and every block surrounding the room with 50k steel blocks.
Roland's Top Ten Ranked: Items that have been added
- Thread starter Roland
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n2n1
Survivor
Unfortunately, the place in the first post that my quota referred to where Roland said:
" Recently, I returned to A16 and the pathing of the zombies was abysmal. They would simply run in circles or endless run up and down ladders and get stuck on corners and blocks. In my opinion the improved AI and pathing that TFP added post A16 has greatly improved the game."
....irretrievably lost.
I replied to this:
"they started running in circles and skipping waypoints after the "AI improvement" began.
You won't see this behavior before the A15
"....what does it have to do with you or TFP?
...i give up, there's nothing to talk about, it needs to end
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Roland
Community Moderator
Unfortunately, the place in the first post that my quota referred to where Roland said:
" Recently, I returned to A16 and the pathing of the zombies was abysmal. They would simply run in circles or endless run up and down ladders and get stuck on corners and blocks. In my opinion the improved AI and pathing that TFP added post A16 has greatly improved the game."
....irretrievably lost.
I replied to this:
"they started running in circles and skipping waypoints after the "AI improvement" began.
You won't see this behavior before the A15
....what does it have to do with you or TFP?
...i give up, there's nothing to talk about, it needs to end
That part you quoted is still there. It’s not irretrievably anything. It’s also true. In alpha 15 and before zombies would just stand below your perch spinning in circles. In Alpha 16 they would endlessly loop around stairways and ladders that led to a one block gap between them and you. They would also suddenly start walking or running in circles while chasing you and many got stuck on terrain never making it to your base on horde night.
A17 was the start of brand new code for pathing and new AI tasks that significantly improved zombie behavior. The first iteration was predictable and exploitable but since that time it has gotten better and better. What we have now is supremely better than what we had in A16 or any alpha before. It’s not perfect but it is objectively better. Zombies can attack in 3d space and not just 2d space. Zombies have variable abilities to see pathways but they all have a much better time navigating the world, They start destroying nearby blocks if there is no path to you instead of spinning in circles doing nothing. They jump gaps. Now they can traverse 1-block openings.
I’ll say it again that the modern AI for zombies is the best it’s ever been and one of the great additions to the game.
Soulmonster
Scavenger
I agree that more variation on POI design, including less maze-y POIs, would be great. But it is not like all POIs are mazes with one single path leading to the loot at the end, there is already more variety than that in the existing POIs, including some of the massive T5 POIs and smaller POIS that simply are not big enough for it. In short, I see the problem, but it is a small problem to me.
I have also tried not following the laid out path at times, and occasionally ended up not having found all zombies and hence not finished a quest, to great frustration. That frustration has been bigger than the frustration over feeling that I am being led by the hand.
I have also tried not following the laid out path at times, and occasionally ended up not having found all zombies and hence not finished a quest, to great frustration. That frustration has been bigger than the frustration over feeling that I am being led by the hand.
n2n1
Survivor
???... they dig stairs, bother trees for no reason, go along a closed path (like in a CIRCLE) like ants along prepared routes during a blood moon and fall in designated places, can find an unobvious passage to the player without knowing the plan of the building, one or more of the attacking crowd can just stand and do nothing, run up to the player along the trajectory of a chess knight ....
...and at the same time, on "this" - they spend a lot of processor time, so much so that the number of zombies has to be limited...
When "solving problems" and "improve", we need to do it in such a way that there are no new problems, or at least so that there are fewer of them and the benefits exceed the costs.
аhem...The behavior of zombies was originally more natural and suitable for the essence of zombies. You don't need to come up with complex algorithms for passages for them. They push straight ahead. Yes, you can stand and tease him and the zombie will lick his lips and stretch his hands to you, and he doesn't need to know that three meters away there is a hole in the fence ... These are zombies. Zombies do not make plans. They gnaw through the fence and eat you in a crowd.
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It seems that you did not quite understand me. The very concept of "optimal" is very broad. What is optimal in one case will be absolutely not optimal in another.
I will give a simple example from programming. Let's say we need to fill an array of 10 elements with numbers from 1 to 10. This can be done in two ways.
Method 1.
Method 2.
Which of these methods is optimal? The correct answer is both. Method 1 is optimal in terms of RAM consumption. Method 2 is optimal in terms of CPU time consumption.
Let's get back to the game. Here, the same concept of "optimal play" will be different for everyone. For one, optimal play is to reach the highest possible level as quickly as possible. For another, it is to get the best equipment as quickly as possible. For a third, it may be the ability to build the safest base possible. And so on. Therefore, I am interested in what a specific player means by "optimal play".
InfiniteWarrior
Survivor
So, can we concentrate on that last for a moment? It's the one, actual issue with POIs that needs to be resolved somehow, whether it's a Unity scripting restriction or not. Is not the reason that manual and proximity triggers are scripted to fire? And, if you miss one, the zombies associated with them don't spawn. Simple as that.
If that's the reason and not some "floating error," what other way around it is there but linear paths?
theFlu
Hunter
Linearity doesn't guarantee much either; you can still walk past a trigger by breaking something manually.
Optimally I'd have clears be clears; you put your nose into every room and check the corners there. If there are no zombies, it's clear. If grabbing a key teleports 15 more zeds in from a pocket dimension, that's not part of a clear; that's arcade magic.
If you want to make arcade magic clears.. well, communicate the requirements. I appreciate the effort to mask the magic, but since it can fail, it will fail. I'd suggest "Make every required trigger visible", but I don't want to play that
In a sense they do that already, once you've cleared enough the last few targets are shown; an issue with those is you still don't know how it'll trigger, making the floating indicator interactable to force the trigger might help with that.It's a bit of a "what level of handholding" -issue as well. You followed a yellow marker to the POI, so that's the "minimum skill level" to start one. If completing it requires you to actually think about the 3d-structure of the place, just to find all the rooms, that's a different skill set. So once you bring in people who can barely follow the yellow HUD marker, I guess that's where your skill floor is and that's where you should aim.. yellow markers all around. So, please don't
Roland
Community Moderator
Yeah, I don’t care. People can optimize whatever they want. It’s a single player game and if you’re playing with friends hopefully you all have a similar philosophy of what is fun.
I just want people to have fun with the game they bought. If optimizing in whatever fashion someone does brings joy and fun then that’s fantastic. If doing so leads to misery, boredom, and dislike then they should stop even if it seems like the game encourages it.
I flatly disagree with anyone who claims that the game forces anything.
I can’t define optimizing in a way to fit everyone and I don’t care to try. But I do believe that the game can offer anyone fun if they are willing to adapt or mod or just try something different—-experiment. That’s the true genius of this game.
theFlu
Hunter
I was trying to ask about that earlier; maybe I sounded snarky or w/e, wasn't my intent. Honestly curious, "anything"?
For me, things I'd called "actually forced" are things that will lead to character death if not done. Directly those are "obtain food and water". And since you need to move around for both and the game is intent on throwing zeds at you, you'll run into zeds; so "interacting with zeds" would also be "actually forced". "Fighting zeds" is less of a forced thing, you can kinda evade them; but I'd still count that in. Especially given horde nights.
From there we could go into arguments about "there's a setting to turn off zeds, so you don't need to interact with them" and "just give yourself food and water from creative". For me, those aren't part of the game; it's the same as alt-f4 in my book. You aren't playing the game either way. So those don't solve the arguments about "actual forcing" in the game.
Then there's sort of a "soft forcing", everything is depending on looting POIs, whether it's plastic for water or water itself; cooking books for meals, and equipment to handle zeds. I'd call looting POIs a forced element as well; not as strict as the above, but still practically mandatory. Your other option is to pick flowers for Rekt until he feeds you... and ain't nobody got time for that
From there the step to something "feeling forced", like most complaints tend to be phrased .. well, that's a longer convo, and a little separate from this; so I'll leave that up to you.
Roland
Community Moderator
Okay not "anything". That was admittedly hyperbole. I didn't see your earlier reply so I don't know whether it sounded snarky or not. I just mean that the game doesn't force you to do nothing but loot magazines before anything else. It doesn't force you to do multiple quests per day. There are some playstyle choices that players make and they use the word "forced" in association with it when it is plainly a choice. (I know because I choose differently).
On the topic of looting. Yes, of course looting has a huge footprint in this game. You don't have to loot, or interact with zombies, or eat, or drink but then you aren't really playing the game at all. If someone doesn't enjoy looting, or fighting zombies, or managing their hunger and thirst then there's the creative mode for ultimate sandboxing. So if someone is willing to enable features to play in their own way without needing to loot or ever see a zombie then they can still make those choices.
This list is from my own perspective and I enjoy looting and clearing POIs. It is a major reason that I play. So by my perspective, the fact that looting is a big part of the game, especially with the addition of the magazine system for crafting progression, is one of the top additions to the game. Even after two years of playing, I still enjoy opening containers and getting magazines to read. Obviously, they aren't going to be everyone's cup of tea and we've heard from them. My feedback is that the magazine system is fun and enjoyable.
Roland
Community Moderator
That is them interacting with the world in 3d instead of 2d. The fact that they can attack downward as well as upward rather than just straight ahead was a clear improvement. Sorry if you don't like it but I do.
That is destruction mode. They see trees as nearby blocks and when they can't reach the player they start destroying things around them. This is a clear improvement over the legacy game when they just stood under or above the player they couldn't reach and spin around helplessly.
This is not my experience. The zombies in my game leap across gaps and attack. As I stated, any AI is going to be able to be cheesed by players so if you are looking for ways to break their pathing, you will be able to find it for any system. Having played A16 and 2.0 it is my opinion that the zombies do far better at pathing to the player.
Some can and I love that they find cracks in the defenses. The description of the game says (used to say?) they have a hive mind so with so many of them running around and connected to each other they stumble upon weaknesses and unobvious pathways. It is very much like a horror movie where the monster shows up in unexpected places inexplicably having gotten there by ways nobody could fathom. In my opinion, there is too little of that now. I really liked the relentless tide of zombies in A17 who could break through a wall and run around the roof to drop in on you from another direction. That was scary.
In 2.0 it is one but in A16 it was all of them so....clear improvement.
I don't know what this means in terms of 7 Days to Die.
Maybe you can find a mod because those zombies sound boring and impotent. It's like people who say that being able to punch through wood is not classic zombie-like behavior so they want that ability removed. But then a day one rectangular prism of wood would be your endgame base.
It boils down to the fact that any creator can design their own monsters to do whatever they want. The monsters in this game are called zombies but have abilities different than what you have seen in other monster shows. The Walking Dead had very classic zombies but never called them zombies. 7 Days to Die creatures are called zombies but are not very classic in their abilities. Producers, directors, and devs do what they want.
n2n1
Survivor
I agree. The game rather gives you a choice, and whether you choose a more "complicated" or "simpler" path is your choice. I periodically read discussions about another game (RimWorld), where the game provides a huge selection of game options. Moreover, some are very complex, and some are very simple. But for some reason in the discussions I have never heard that the game makes you do something this way and not another.
This is probably the main reason why I still play. With each update I have to reconsider tactics, and sometimes even strategy.
... they dig stairs, bother trees for no reason, go along a closed path (like in a CIRCLE) like ants along prepared routes during a blood moon and fall in designated places, can find an unobvious passage to the player without knowing the plan of the building, one or more of the attacking crowd can just stand and do nothing, run up to the player along the trajectory of a chess knight ....
"Bother trees" aka destruction mode was AFAIK upon request from many players who wanted more diversity of zombie behaviour, not just all zombies going for the holes in your base.
Many of the other things you list made it possible for the first time to really play tower defense at horde night. I agree that leading the zombies by your position was a nice action-game feature but it meant there was no reason to design your base with any sort of trap-riddled path. For me tower defense and base design started with A17, before that any base that didn't look like a square was useless embelishment.
We have enough action-elements in the game. So while we lost a bit of action-feature, we won a lot of interesting challenge in horde base design. That goes to waste if you just look on the internet for an exploit to copy though.
I agree that this change has disadvantages at well, and different people value the advantages and disadvantages differently. So yes, for you it might have been a chance for the worse, for me it was a game changer in the positive sense and I would put it at the top of my personal ranked list of improvements.
...and at the same time, on "this" - they spend a lot of processor time, so much so that the number of zombies has to be limited...
When "solving problems" and "improve", we need to do it in such a way that there are no new problems, or at least so that there are fewer of them and the benefits exceed the costs.
The behavior of zombies was originally more natural and suitable for the essence of zombies. You don't need to come up with complex algorithms for passages for them. They push straight ahead. Yes, you can stand and tease him and the zombie will lick his lips and stretch his hands to you, and he doesn't need to know that three meters away there is a hole in the fence ... These are zombies. Zombies do not make plans. They gnaw through the fence and eat you in a crowd.
The issue I have with this is that the modern AI makes it seem like they are not zombies at all. The fact that they are structural engineers and make decisions based on meta knowledge is very strange to me. I'm not saying that it's wrong to enjoy their behavior, I'm just saying it ruins things on an immersion level for me (and even worse when you add the "tripwire" mechanic). If you pretend that this is an alternate universe where zombies are super smart and run really fast, then ok.
Roland
Community Moderator
First of all, how do you play this game at all without realizing it is an alternate universe even without the zombies? It's the year 2034 in this universe and it doesn't even look as modern as 2000 of our world. I never once thought of the 7 Days to Die world as our own (particularly since zombies don't exist in our own...). So the pretending that these zombies are different than ones I saw in a movie or read about in a book is no problemo. In fact, I like the fact that there are different versions of zombie-like creatures in several of the stories/movies/shows/games that I've encountered. How boring it would be to have them all be the same in every instance.
Secondly, this whole argument about them being structural engineers only comes about because people meta the game and look to exploit the AI. Some regular Joe who buys this game and never looks at the xml, never watches a streamer, and never visits a forum or 7 days to die social media destination would probably either take over a POI and simply reinforce it or build a basic rectangular base with walls and or moat and spike traps and not even know or notice the underlying mechanics guiding the zombie AI.
Underlying mechanics are meant to be invisible and unknown mechanics that help to simulate things in the game. When we as players choose to dig into those mechanics and then become unhappy because of our knowledge, that is on us. For example, the heat generated by dew collectors wasn't meant to be a realistic representation. It was an underlying mechanic meant to balance the frequency of screamers vs someone building dozens of dew collectors. Build just a few and the heat generated would be negligible. Build a factory of them and you would be getting a lot more heat.
The fact that the zombie AI can detect the cheapest shortest path to the player allows that portion of the horde that has that ability activated in that moment to be a threat. In A17 that was the entire horde but in V2.3 it is only some at a time and others are destroying nearby blocks, and others are following longer pathways, and others are just befuddled brain rot zombies. So it is a lot more obscurred in the current game but everyone who hates the mechanic acts like it is still A17 and all the zombies are going right to the weakest point even seeing through walls to do it. Maybe in A17 average players might very quickly notice the behavior but I seriously doubt that in 2.3 many players not already in the know would very quickly notice anything like that.
In my last playthrough I returned to my roots and instead of building a trending "horde base" I just reinforced a ground level POI and put spike traps all around it. It was a lot of fun and I did not notice in any way structural engineer zombie behavior. The whole night I alternated between killing zombies and repairing blocks and finally retreating to higher ground when a breach occurred that I couldn't plug. I mean, I also enjoy the modern give-them-an-elevated-path-right-to-you type of base but that base design came from people digging into the underlying mechanics to game their AI which in turn accentuates and emphasizes the exact things that you feel are unzombie-like. Don't build one of those bases and the zombies do seem a lot more zombie like.
BFT2020
Hunter
I enjoy the fact that they find the weakest path to you and follow it in order to get to you quicker. It makes the game more fun and challenging. I don't want a game where I just have to put down 3 block thick walls of concrete and then cheese the zombies around the base if they ever make progress through the first layer.
Kalen
Survivor
Sorry but I don't believe this at all.... I think anyone that plays this game even a little are going to realize, "hey how come the zombies always seem to attack the same part of my base? Oh, because its the weakest point"
They might not figure it out immediately, but eventually everyone is going to realize it.
Edit: I guess I should've finished reading your post before responding.... because you realize that people may notice. I disagree with your assessment of how many people will notice.