PC 2 Features that Alpha 17 has broken the game with

H

HJBWD

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Start with the minor one:

Crafting firearms. It's now far too easy to obtain firearms, and it just makes the game into a shooter. I really enjoyed taking risks and exploring far and wide to obtain rare components - especially the weapon parts needed for turrets. Now, as soon as I have the perks needed to craft firearms, I feel like I'm in God Mode. No more fun.

The Zombie AI is both improved and has broken the game completely. I'm talking about the zombies' psychic-sapper ability. "Sapper" is an old-fashioned term for a military engineer; an expert in detecting weaknesses in defenses and exploiting them. In Alpha 17, ALL the Z have a PhD in military engineering, and they all target the same weakness instantly. The result of this is that there is no more fun in defending. None whatsoever. All you have to do is set up a base where there's an obvious, highly accessible weakness, and they all go for it. There's no longer any risk of being flanked or surprised. Add to this the fact that the Z no longer lose their legs (which was funny) and do crazy amounts of block damage, and you remove all the fun that had otherwise been added by their much better ability to jump - especially jumping on top of each other to get over walls - love that, and of course, the new ragdoll effects.

The game is now fun until you build a base, and that makes it kinda pointless. Which is a pity. I enjoyed it up to now.

 
Yup, both points are very true.

But somehow saying this means we want the game easier/cant adapt, as you will see if you read many other posts saying the same things you do :?

 
Crafting firearms: The thing is, weapons are useless right now unless you have all levels of perception. The quality level doesn't affect the weapon's damage anymore, just the durability. This means that a level 1 (grey) shotgun is just as efficient as a level 6 (purple) shotgun.

There's no need to craft firearms if this is the case, and to be honest, with the amount of firearms you can just find while exploring, it really isn't that big of a deal.

Zombie AI: I disagree wholeheartedly. One of the great things this alpha has been the much needed improvement of zombie AI. Now zombies are actually fun and somewhat challenging.

You say that all they do is attack the weak points of the base. I mean, that's what they should do, otherwise they just smack at random places of the house like before, which isn't fun or challenging, just annoying since you know you'll have to repair it next morning.

 
Crafting firearms: The thing is, weapons are useless right now unless you have all levels of perception. The quality level doesn't affect the weapon's damage anymore, just the durability. This means that a level 1 (grey) shotgun is just as efficient as a level 6 (purple) shotgun.
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This is not completely correct - Higher tier weapons can fit more mods and each mod gives more damage in addition to the other perks it gives. So a tier 6 shotgun should do a ton more damage than a tier 1 if moded. For example, a moded tier 3 iron club went from (I think) 21 to 31 damage, with just color and burning shaft mod.

 
You say that all they do is attack the weak points of the base. I mean, that's what they should do, otherwise they just smack at random places of the house like before, which isn't fun or challenging, just annoying since you know you'll have to repair it next morning.
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Really? How many of the first 7 days do you spend building defenses? BC before a17 I spent 4-5 days and now I spend half a day.

 
Zombies shouldnt have enough reasoning to attack weak points and this is where ai is overdone. Multiple hits at exactly the same point are just too devastating on any surface atm. We know eventually they will find a way in, its one of the games biggest problems. They had to come up with puking cops, irradiated and feral zombies just to overcome bases people were building. Where in almost all lore its sheer weight of numbers that is the threat, they will get in but it takes time. The game cant support the numbers needed.

People have already circumvented the ai and always will, I dont think theres a way to satisfy everyone with the current engine and we just have to adapt to survive. Builders have been hit hardest in the new system and it should be addressed.

 
Why cant we have 2 kinds of zombies - the super smart structural engineers we have now and another type that comes in the form of droves of mindless, lower resolution (cant think of a better term for low resource usage), full frontal assault type zeds that are easy to kill, but can also easily overwhelm you if you arent paying attention?

Let them fight together - deal with the pathfinders while keeping an eye on the mass that is building up on the left flank.

 
The Zombie AI is both improved and has broken the game completely. I'm talking about the zombies' psychic-sapper ability. "Sapper" is an old-fashioned term for a military engineer; an expert in detecting weaknesses in defenses and exploiting them. In Alpha 17, ALL the Z have a PhD in military engineering, and they all target the same weakness instantly.
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I agree that they should have some randomness in their attacks. In every film/book zombies are just stupid killing machines only driven by their need for fresh meat.

Take a look at their thoughts right now:

Oh nice, there is a player. Fresh meat. Hmmmm.. yummie


I will get him I will get him and then eat him limb by limb.


Oh holy ♥♥♥♥.... There is barbed wire. To the left and right to. Ok, I will go around.


Ha.. found a gap. What a stupid fresh meat supplier.


Oh, maybe not. There are spikes. Going through them will hurt me.


Who cares, I'm hungry.


But it will hurt me. Ok, I take another way.


Maybe I will just punch myself through that concrete wall. That won't hurt me.

Ok, really????

 
Easy solution.

Make zombie leaders. Let feral zombies (the ugly ones, not the ordinary glowing eyes ones) be kinda intelligent - instinct-wise -, they are the least human and most adapted to their zombie lifestyle. Also they only appear on later game stages.

Let them go for the weakest spots. And if they breach somewhere THEN the other zeds (in a specific radius around the feral) are following them in. Inside though going for random stuff again. Because... normal zeds are stupid. While the feral will still use his engineering degree to get to you the fastest possible way.

Rinse, repeat.

 
Really? How many of the first 7 days do you spend building defenses? BC before a17 I spent 4-5 days and now I spend half a day.
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really? well, i spend still 4-5 days (that includes ressource gathering) to prepeare for hordnight and then my fort is good enough to last 7th and 14th day horde with only minor fixes. use AI pathing for your advantage, they do not break much, if you make them easy path to death ;) ofcourse you can stay in top of poi first horde, but that technique does not pay out very long.

for builders: you have sleeping bag and lcb. make your nice fancy house on one place and your horde defense other place. this way you can relatively safely keep building and do not need worry about everything being wrecked in bloodmoon.

 
Zombies shouldnt have enough reasoning to attack weak points and this is where ai is overdone. Multiple hits at exactly the same point are just too devastating on any surface atm.
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And too boring.

Horde nights are a shadow of what they used to be. Gamestage 2000+, which is roughly day #150 and later so few people ever saw it, on A16 was absolutely amazing. I had full-on day #150 Steel bases with massive passive defences, and three of us defending it, being torn half down in a 6-hour war of attrition. That will NEVER happen with this new AI. Horde night is just "meh" now.

 
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really? well, i spend still 4-5 days (that includes ressource gathering) to prepeare for hordnight and then my fort is good enough to last 7th and 14th day horde with only minor fixes. use AI pathing for your advantage, they do not break much, if you make them easy path to death ;) .
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If the answer is to Exploit the pathing AI there is something wrong.

 
This is not completely correct - Higher tier weapons can fit more mods and each mod gives more damage in addition to the other perks it gives. So a tier 6 shotgun should do a ton more damage than a tier 1 if moded. For example, a moded tier 3 iron club went from (I think) 21 to 31 damage, with just color and burning shaft mod.
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Sure, but that's just assuming you have mods. If you're just using vanilla guns, you get the same damage from all quality weapons.

 
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Really? How many of the first 7 days do you spend building defenses? BC before a17 I spent 4-5 days and now I spend half a day.
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Actually, I don't even bother building defenses anymore till I get concrete, but something I've definitely noticed is that zombies are quite harder to defend against now compared to previous alphas because they don't just randomly wreck anything they find, they actually look for the best path to get you, which has actually gotten me in plenty of tough situations thinking they'd never be that smart.

 
Actually, I don't even bother building defenses anymore till I get concrete, but something I've definitely noticed is that zombies are quite harder to defend against now compared to previous alphas because they don't just randomly wreck anything they find, they actually look for the best path to get you, which has actually gotten me in plenty of tough situations thinking they'd never be that smart.
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This "be that smart" is the Problem with the current AI. They are not only smart they are godlike if it comes to finding a way. They know exactly how you build your base including your house from the inside. It make not much sense that a zombie break into a house and exactly know he need to go up the stairs then left then right then again left break the wall jump to the roof and reach the player.

Smarter ok fine but not every single zombie with such stupid OP abilities. Add some sort of Leaders with a chance to show up in Horde or random attacks. Let this leaders have better abilities but still not such OP abilities.

take spikes as example. i placed one inside the base behind a door for horde night. what happend? Can tell you no one attacked the door but the wall left from the door to get inside. so how could a zombie know inside behind the door is a spike and he cant break the door to get inside?

My opinion to this AI is its not better its just more cheating as before.

 
playing smart is not exploit.
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In previous Alphas it was deemed an exploit to build underground because the zombies could not path to you and it was fixed. Building a base above ground where the zombies cannot path to you is an exploit.

 
This "be that smart" is the Problem with the current AI. They are not only smart they are godlike if it comes to finding a way. They know exactly how you build your base including your house from the inside. It make not much sense that a zombie break into a house and exactly know he need to go up the stairs then left then right then again left break the wall jump to the roof and reach the player.
Smarter ok fine but not every single zombie with such stupid OP abilities. Add some sort of Leaders with a chance to show up in Horde or random attacks. Let this leaders have better abilities but still not such OP abilities.

take spikes as example. i placed one inside the base behind a door for horde night. what happend? Can tell you no one attacked the door but the wall left from the door to get inside. so how could a zombie know inside behind the door is a spike and he cant break the door to get inside?

My opinion to this AI is its not better its just more cheating as before.
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Zeds aren't supposed to take spikes into account when pathing (based on what I've read), but I've also noticed this. Something about spikes and doors seems to break their pathing.

I like the leader idea. Maybe a group of zeds that get near a leader will path with the leader using the new ai. Other zeds would use a "dumber" pathing system.

 
1) Zombie AI tweaks:

a) less random jumping about for no apparent reason.

b) not jumping when they should, aka bashing through POI porches instead of using the stairs right in front of them,

c) not digging down through a floor when they can just walk around to the stairs. (houses, the ranger house in particular)

2) Option to just turn OFF digging. It's still messed up. Sorry guys, but it is.

3) RWG fixes. Yes, we know it hasn't gotten the love yet, but it really, really needs it. More traders on a 16k map. It IS generating 5 per map and that is it. No more, no less. Better than when it wasn't generating ANY though.

There is something really wrong with the country road generation in RWG right now. It takes about half the gen time on a 16k map, and it's just.. weird. Huge swaths where there is absolutely nothing, parts of roads that go nowhere, many spurs off the main interstates, and of course, town generation is also messed when it comes to roads.

Biome generation. umm... it's drunk, stoned, and on LSD.

Difficulty, etc is fine, weapons are still too weak. I'm sorry. I use a marksman rifle and shoot a zombie in the head, it should die.

At least the weaker and non-irradiated ones. The glowy guys are mutant zombies, so sure, more shots. Bears, thick skulls so okay there.

9mm? yeah, couple shots. Shotgun to the face point blank? I expect the head to asplodey. (as least the weaker ones, the stronger ones, okay, it'll just piss them off..)

Yes, gun damage is my pet annoyance, and yes, I can and have modded it to do a lot more damage. (too much actually, but it's just too funny not to use) Actually, with all these army camps etc about, really need to get a .50 cal weapon. Not something you're gonna go clearing with, but for horde night. (yes, I could go clearing with an FN using .308. A Barrett? oh hell no!)

Perks/gates: meh. I'll get there eventually, so doesn't matter.

Would I like even more recipies/crafting things? Sure I would. Larger stacks? DUH! Of course, mods will do that (easy to change stack size on our own, so.... meh again. Add a recipe? easy peasy. Already did that. I has a machine gun. Findable, lootable, craftable (I think))

Better NVG (meaning they work)

Chainable power sources. Total PITA keeping circuits separate for large bases. (or just give us ONE multi input switch, that would do it)

That's my list for Santa. :D

Edit: oops, this is in the wrong thread. How did that happen? I'm only drinkin coffee! Sorry'bout that.

 
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Zeds aren't supposed to take spikes into account when pathing (based on what I've read), but I've also noticed this. Something about spikes and doors seems to break their pathing.
I like the leader idea. Maybe a group of zeds that get near a leader will path with the leader using the new ai. Other zeds would use a "dumber" pathing system.
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Z does not recognise spike as threat. spikes are like every other block with value to break or go around. i saw today twice, when z walked in to spikes, because wall around was too strong.

i like smart z. old ones (a16) was too dumb and too easy to defend with spikes

- - - Updated - - -

In previous Alphas it was deemed an exploit to build underground because the zombies could not path to you and it was fixed. Building a base above ground where the zombies cannot path to you is an exploit.
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if you run from z, it is exploit, if you kill z= exploit, outsmart z= exploit, playing game is exploit of devs work!!

 
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