Rotor
Hunter
I agree insofar as AI pathing, on horde nights, you should be attacked from all corners of the universe.
I dont want longer early game make end game content
- Thread starter Ragnor
- Start date
I agree insofar as AI pathing, on horde nights, you should be attacked from all corners of the universe.
InfiniteWarrior
Survivor
You are attacked from all corners of the universe if you're not copying the megabase builders and how they play.
Riamus
Hunter
Kind of. You almost have to build a base specifically to get attacked from all sides. No way to reach you or the same paths from all directions. It doesn't have to be a megabase or any kind of meta or whatever that prevents them from attacking from all sides. If there is a path to the player on only one side, they won't normally attack from all directions unless they go into demolition mode. So you can definitely get them to attack from all sides, but it is a conscious decision to build so that happens.
Another thing that can help if you want that to happen is to damage some blocks on all sides of the base. It doesn't have to be much damage - a single hit with a stone hammer will do it. Zombies like to attack damaged blocks and may ignore a path if they find a damaged block they can attack. Having those all around a base and cause zombies to attack from all directions. Of course, they only come from one direction at a time.
Rotor
Hunter
Ding!
More planning than I care to do, AND, I would still know where they are going to hit.
Riamus
Hunter
I've had them go around my base to attack another side when there was a damaged block, though. So even though they come from one direction, they can attack from any if given incentive.
Sure, but that just causes them to pile up in one place again. I miss when they'd attack from all over regardless of your base design or damage to blocks.I've had them go around my base to attack another side when there was a damaged block, though. So even though they come from one direction, they can attack from any if given incentive.
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You can just put double walls on a base sitting on flat ground with no changes in elevation, and the zombies will go to any place you have a single block thick wall. You literally have to try to get them to attack from all sides, and then as soon as some blocks get damaged, they'll all congregate at the damaged blocks.
InfiniteWarrior
Survivor
Who said anything about builds?
You don't have to build a blessed a thing if you don't want to and just enjoy the chaos if you like...and if you can survive it, of course. I honestly don't get why TFP is so concerned about people who try to avoid zombies on horde night when there's an option to turn it off altogether. Send birdies after people who take off in their gyrocopters and circle around? Why? If they want to circle around, let 'em circle around. I don't see the appeal of that myself, but there we are. A lot of people who do stuff like that, of course, go on YouTube and beat their chests because they think they've found an "exploit" when I wouldn't rate something like that an exploit at all. It's where I've come by the impression that there use to be, at least, a creative tug of war going on between TFP and certain players that actually resulted in improvements to the game, but maybe turned into something not quite so creative later.InfiniteWarrior
Survivor
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they spawn and start to move in from three points and directions? It's been a while since I've tested and my memory may be faulty, but I recall them coming from two diagonal directions from the front and one from the rear (or vice versa depending which direction you're facing). Would a few more spawn points alleviate the sense of knowing precisely where they're going to hit?
Rotor
Hunter
Guess so, but I am not the one to be asked that question. However, if you make a 10x10 block, and stand to one edge there are going to come for you on that edge. So, not sure.
InfiniteWarrior
Survivor
I think, maybe, the zombie AI has been over-engineered in an effort to plug holes when I very much doubt most players are megabase builders. Certainly not all of them are. Look at Glock9. Can't be the only one who's perfectly happy with a few hatches.
Riamus
Hunter
The discussion we were having was specifically about bases.... the old way of zombie AI attacking bases on horde night versus the current way.Who said anything about builds?
Not that I've seen anytime recently. They start from one wide area and come from that direction for a certain amount of time, then they come from another wide area. There is some overlap when that change occurs. Lately, it seems there are 3 stages for where they come from and I think it's random for each stage because sometimes they come from the original direction again instead of a new one. I may be off on the number of stages as I really haven't paid much attention to it. Once I can't keep up with killing them at a distance, I'm mostly focused at where they are attacking my base and not where they are coming from. The wide area the come from may be as much as a 90 degree arc, but I think it's lower than that. Perhaps 60 degrees or even 45 degrees.
InfiniteWarrior
Survivor
Obviously not your response to me above. The discussion you're referring to came later.
Anything else to recommend on that front? Zombie AI pathing has more or less been designed at this point to accommodate those megabases and funneling zombies precisely where you want them, as far as I can tell, as opposed to an "attack from all sides" sort of affair. Not sure anything can be done about it at this point.
theFlu
Hunter
Had to check as I thought I was tripping, but no, the two of yous' exchange was about building ever since you claimed, paraphrasing, "you'll be attacked from everywhere if you don't follow a megabuild." Which does sound weird to me too.. doesn't take much of a build to end up with a single AI-pathable entrance, which they'll happily lemming along to breach thru.
They'll attack random things only if they have no path; otherwise they congregate to the weakest point.
Riamus
Hunter
Nope. It started at the last post of page 1. Then it continued in the first two posts here on page 2 and you replied to one of those and then I replied to you. If you didn't realize that was what was being talked about, then my response to you wasn't relevant since I was referring to horde bases.Obviously not your response to me above. The discussion you're referring to came later.
Anything else to recommend on that front? Zombie AI pathing has more or less been designed at this point to accommodate those megabases and funneling zombies precisely where you want them, as far as I can tell, as opposed to an "attack from all sides" sort of affair. Not sure anything can be done about it at this point.
As far as recommendations go, I'm actually happy with the current AI. I like being able to design a base with a path that they more or less follow. I wouldn't mind if they added a game option to enable a "swarm" mode for horde nights, though. But I wouldn't want them to change this back to how it used to be. If they just come from all directions, there's no real reason for me to build anything special. A pillbox ends up being one of the better options and that's just dull and boring. I like making them come at me up high so I can use the sledge to send them flying. Or to make a maze for them to follow, though unfortunately they don't do well in mazes. Or a tower they climb to reach me. Or any number of other types of bases I've done that wouldn't be much use if you had no control over where they go. Besides, don't forget that the old way allowed you to control zombies as well. It just worked differently.
No matter what they do with the pathing, there will be people who will figure out some meta for horde bases that will make them practically invincible. If they want to do that, I don't really care. Let them, as far as I'm concerned. I'll build bases the way I like.
InfiniteWarrior
Survivor
Don't try to gaslight me, pal. "Paraphrasing" won't help your case. My response was to rotor, which Riamus responded to with building advice. We were having fun and the discussion about building was between him and another person. I can see how you might misunderstand what I said, but the thing to do in that event is to ask for clarification. Feathers unruffled.
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InfiniteWarrior
Survivor
Oh, I realized what it was about and pointed out....
Hope that clears things up between us.
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theFlu
Hunter
Merry Christmas to you too... did my "paraphrasing" significantly change "copying the megabase builders and how they play." into something related to "building", or are you just gaslighting my xmas tree here?
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Nope. It started at the last post of page 1. Then it continued in the first two posts here on page 2 and you replied to one of those and then I replied to you. If you didn't realize that was what was being talked about, then my response to you wasn't relevant since I was referring to horde bases.
As far as recommendations go, I'm actually happy with the current AI. I like being able to design a base with a path that they more or less follow. I wouldn't mind if they added a game option to enable a "swarm" mode for horde nights, though. But I wouldn't want them to change this back to how it used to be. If they just come from all directions, there's no real reason for me to build anything special. A pillbox ends up being one of the better options and that's just dull and boring. I like making them come at me up high so I can use the sledge to send them flying. Or to make a maze for them to follow, though unfortunately they don't do well in mazes. Or a tower they climb to reach me. Or any number of other types of bases I've done that wouldn't be much use if you had no control over where they go. Besides, don't forget that the old way allowed you to control zombies as well. It just worked differently.
No matter what they do with the pathing, there will be people who will figure out some meta for horde bases that will make them practically invincible. If they want to do that, I don't really care. Let them, as far as I'm concerned. I'll build bases the way I like.
Well said. The zombies before A17 had an AI so that building complex bases was totally useless. It was the ideal for action-oriented players who just wanted a box to stand on ideally and shoot at everything. But the game was supposed to have a tower defense element and if you look at typical "tower defense" games, they all had the invaders funneled to paths where you concentrated your defense turrets, no matter if you were also shooting yourself or passively watching the action.
And that is what I specifically like at base building. Before A17 I didn't build horde bases in my co-op games, I let the others build the same cube again and again. My base building started with A17 when I finally could design real tower defense bases.
All the A16 AI needed was an awareness of verticality so you couldn't just dig down/build up to render them completely pointless. Building complex bases totally had a point in trying to direct the zombies where you wanted. It's just that in A16, that wasn't a brain dead exercise like it's been since A17.
I used to have to test base builds, and quite often they would fail, and never would they work exactly how I wanted them to, because it was impossible to 100% control the zombie pathing like it is now. Now I know a base will work before I ever build it, and that's boring. Base building and the tower defense part of the game was why I bought it in the first place (I do not care one iota about zombies) and now it's mostly for aesthetics, as the simplest of bases will always funnel the zombies wherever I want them.
I am not talking about sublevel bases at all. And AI that can actually build ways to you would have been very challenging for TFP. Apart from that it would again just be one more way for action-oriented players to have their type of gameplay. Sure you could build complex bases in A16 but they had no effect on your fight except making your base potentially more vulnerable. And I remember players showing really trivial bases where they survived lategame hordenights as well, if that is your criteria then A16 was not a iota better than A17+
Have you ever tried to increase zombie block damage in games after A17 ? It makes you have "repair bills" just like in A16, but the only thing that makes simplest of bases so effective is that the zombies don't do enough damage to blocks.
By the way, did you look up those simplest of bases from modders? Then it would be your own fault. Exploits always existed in 7d2d.