Zombies and Engineering Degrees.

Old Crow

Old Crow

Hunter
I know we're not supposed to be completely safe during Horde Night. But every zombie having a Master's in Structural Engineering is a little old. Can we come up with something else to make them challenging?

Now, I'm not advocating for completely getting rid of the current engineering behavior. But what about giving them only to zombies where it would make some sense? Think of the film Land of the Dead. Zombies in that film have some vague memory of their lives before turning into the wandering dead. What about including some of this sort of behavior? Maybe restrict the structural stuff to Demolishers (purpose-made to demolish), Chuck, and Utility Worker zombies? Janitor zombies cou8ld have some sort of corrosive attack or touch, due to all the cleaning chemicals they've used? It'd make sense.

But why would a Party Girl, or Business Man or Bowler/Tourist have such demolition behavior or ability? Giving the other zombies different sorts of behavior (if it's possible within the engine) would make things a little more interesting.
 
They have painted themselves into a corner with this. The absolute best they could do is make the zombies come from 360 around the player and smash anything in-between. All this other corner case behavior actually makes it easier to kill the zombies and handle the horde than it has ever been before. There is a very common POI in the game that already comes built to be the perfect horde base with as little as like 1000 cobble. As long as you are actively killing the zombies in some way, even with melee, minimal damage is done to the structure and you are basically at zero risk.
 
Two observations:
  1. Regarding zombies using engineering: if we stay within the current lore, we know that the zombies have this type of Hivemind. That would easily explain why every zombie has the same skill at finding gaps and destroying. That would also explain if they'd come up with a coordinated attack against your base (every zombie knows whatever each zombie sees).
  2. TFP have always stated that this is also a Tower Defense game: that means that the Blood Moon behavior is exactly what you should expect. Not simply random chaos, but the ability to direct the zombie "flow" inside a path you can build. Have you ever tried "maze bases"? ;)
I'm not opposed to some degree of variety on the TD mechanics, but if you accept that as the main behavior of the zombies, everything makes much more sense when building and defending you BM base.
 
Old Crow said:
I know we're not supposed to be completely safe during Horde Night. But every zombie having a Master's in Structural Engineering is a little old
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Did you know that 7 Days to Die has its own university just for zombies? Zombie University, or ZU for short, is the university where all zombie football players graduated. The engineering course is great, but the food in the cafeteria isn't so great. But to be fair, it's hard to get fresh brains these days. ;)
 
I don't really see them having any advanced Engineering knowledge. Sure, they rage sometimes and take out a few blocks. Sure, they'll concentrate if that's the path you've given them.

But if they really had any smarts they wouldn't be charging up a ramp then across a tight-rope running headlong into machine gun fire. The whole lot of them would be tearing down the tower under the player. If they were really smart, they would dig under your base both because the dirt is weaker and because being in a tunnel would provide them cover and that path would avoid your traps. They might even use tools, like picks and shovels. If they were really smart, Demolishers would only attack your structure and other zombies wouldn't stand near them. If they were really smart, Demolishers would walk through your spikes clearing a path for the other zombies. If they were really, really smart, the zombie soldiers would still have their assault rifles and shoot back. The rock throwers would stay at range and all attack the same block. Screamers would stay away from you and scream again, and again, and again. The jumpers would jump up to your ladders.
 
If anything, I feel like the engineering zombies "issue" is less of a problem this version because of the increased rage mechanic.

In my current playthrough with my brother, we have a base in the tier 4 shooting range and while they do massively go for the ladder leading to our elevated position, they've been poking holes everywhere in the structure.
 
The operative concept is sensible variety of zombie behavior. If possible, it definitely wouldn't hurt to make regular zombies regular zombies, i.e. do at least less damage to blocks than the "demolisher" zombies, e.g. the construction workers. Giving janitor zombie a chemical attack is a great idea. Dude should've switched to less chemically intensive cleaning products. ;)
 
Jost Amman said:
Have you ever tried "maze bases"?
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I have tried that a number of times and it unfortunately doesn't work well. Zombies don't like to go away from the player more than a very short distance, making a maze not work very well unless it's just side to side over and over, which isn't much of a maze. I would love to be able to do a real maze base and have it work well.

Treb said:
If anything, I feel like the engineering zombies "issue" is less of a problem this version because of the increased rage mechanic.

In my current playthrough with my brother, we have a base in the tier 4 shooting range and while they do massively go for the ladder leading to our elevated position, they've been poking holes everywhere in the structure.
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Yeah, I've noticed they attack everywhere a lot more than they used to. The last horde night, with a base that usually didn't take much damage, many still followed the path we set up, but a lot of them just attacked the main base where we were standing from all sides and swiss-cheesed that part of the base instead of using the obvious path. Rather than aiming at the iron door, they decided to go through a double layer of concrete on every side of the base.
 
Riamus said:
Instead of adding a ton of health, each tier could add additional triggers to set off the demolitions. :D
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I'd prefer bigger demolitions (because adding more triggers just makes it easier for me to do what I'm going to do anyway). But both would also be welcome!
 
Riamus said:
Instead of adding a ton of health, each tier could add additional triggers to set off the demolitions. :D
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I think they should have their own tiers, and simply more health would give players more opportunities to trigger their bombs. Electric fences should trigger them a long time ago, since it’s just an electric impulse. Automatic turrets should not stack and should have their own level the highest level meaning the highest accuracy and they should not trigger bombs. Before version 2.5, they didn’t do this, and for a long time they didn’t trigger bombs at all. Right now they do, but maybe that’s temporary.
 
Riamus said:
I have tried that a number of times and it unfortunately doesn't work well. Zombies don't like to go away from the player more than a very short distance, making a maze not work very well unless it's just side to side over and over, which isn't much of a maze. I would love to be able to do a real maze base and have it work well.


Yeah, I've noticed they attack everywhere a lot more than they used to. The last horde night, with a base that usually didn't take much damage, many still followed the path we set up, but a lot of them just attacked the main base where we were standing from all sides and swiss-cheesed that part of the base instead of using the obvious path. Rather than aiming at the iron door, they decided to go through a double layer of concrete on every side of the base.
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My group noticed similar things - our second horde night, many of them would climb our ladders, stop partway up, and start attacking blocks. After that night, I added a stairway to give them an easier way to get to us. More of them started using that, but others would still prefer the ladders and repeat previous behavior of stopping partway up to attack blocks.

We're not even using any sort of maze or AFK bunker - just a raised cage with a few hatches to slow them down (but not stop them - that's what the guns and ammo are for).
 
Old Crow said:
My group noticed similar things - our second horde night, many of them would climb our ladders, stop partway up, and start attacking blocks. After that night, I added a stairway to give them an easier way to get to us. More of them started using that, but others would still prefer the ladders and repeat previous behavior of stopping partway up to attack blocks.

We're not even using any sort of maze or AFK bunker - just a raised cage with a few hatches to slow them down (but not stop them - that's what the guns and ammo are for).
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That's a good thing. Right? Not quite as predictable as they used to be.
 
Okay, I will quantify this opinion with the fact that I havent made it to BM in 2.5 yet.

But just going on what you guys are saying..........I like it!

That may change when I get there, but as much as RnG does to compire against me. Is nice to see the Zombies not just heading straight for the funnel.
 
7DaysToDieEnjoyer said:
Electric fences should trigger [Demolishers] a long time ago, since it’s just an electric impulse.
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That would make sense if the electricity connected with the bomb's circuit. It would also end the utility of electric fences unless your goal was to force an early detonation. The detonations would destroy the fence.
 
zztong said:
The detonations would destroy the fence.
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You could easily have the post out of reach of the explosion, but I wouldn't like the triggering even so.. it would probably be a boon to a well designed base, as the demo would just clear waves of other zeds stuck in the fence .. :D
 
It doesn´t matter what TFP does. Someone will always find a way around rage mode and engineering degrees, unless the building system drastically changes and with it the freedom to build however you want. The only way to prevent people from constantly cheesing, is someone who will dedicate the next few years to constantly update zombie behaviour and that would be wasted time because people find way around it way faster than TFP can update.

I am so sure that they can´t prevent it withoug taking away building freedom that i would bet money on it. If it was possible withoug radical changes to the building system, they would have already done it.
 
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