PC 2 Features that Alpha 17 has broken the game with

When the time comes that the AI can make unpredictable decisions, and you are prepared to handle all possibilities and survive, then it is no longer exploiting... you have officially beaten them. I am pretty confident that the AI will improve to achieve this unpredictability... and when it comes, I cannot wait to hear the cries for help.

 
i do not, for the life of me understand why people crave "smart" zombies...for me a zombie is a dumb creature that will head in a straight line for watever food source it detects... and you guys are talking about zombies doing structural integrity calculations...give your heads a shake. this is supposed to be a zombie building crafting game not Death Simulator 2018

 
I want smart-ish zombies. There's always going to be semi predictable behavior. I play PvP shooters all the time, other players are generally predictable AF. Knowing to scope doors and what windows to grenade isn't exploiting either.

However the current model is a bit iffy. It would make more sense to have zombies attack doors and windows as a priority (ferral human intellect) OR badly damaged blocks to get in. Th current system of solid walls and open pit lane full of barbwire and spikes you shoot/Molotov isn't that fun. Zombies that instantly obliterate anything/everything has made improvement of a base irrelevant. Steel vs wood is measured in a few seconds. The current model is build so that they don't actually attack the base but run over traps.

Give them back random wall attacks, make them attack obvious entrances and weak spots on the outer layer. Make them tend to obsess on one spot until they're in or die. That's smart zombie behavior I can enjoy that stays challenging.

And FFS if I can build a wall thicker than tank armor of steel and brick then the wall is all but zombie proof. By the time players are crafting super thick metal walls they should be looking at generally safe-ish bases. At that point the danger is being trapped because there's a horde and screamers meandering outside your base all hours and exploring and repairing is risky AF. Not that a few zombies will show up and obliterate your stone castle faster than a rocket launcher.

 
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 :?
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I don't want the game easier, but your remark about adapting is important. To some extent I'm aware that yes, I learned alpha 16 and enjoyed it, so there's some annoyance learning the new version. But my biggest issue is of what the challenge actually is. It's about imaginary creatures that try to overcome my defenses, and adapting to these new ones feels like cheating. I'm sure it can be made more intuitive without being made easier.

 
If the answer is to Exploit the pathing AI there is something wrong.
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Yes. Absolutely. That's what annoys the hell out of me. My pleasure in a game like this is that I'm bringing an engineer's approach to problem solving to a (sort of) role-playing situation. I love that because my current day-job (as a fiction writing coach) combines with my former day-job (as a systems process and quality engineer). Unfortunately, my engineer's approach looks for, and all too easily finds, an exploits for the pathing AI.

 
I agree to a degree... But... Are we all forgetting the past?!?
Wasn't everyone complaining that A17 was taking too long?!? Yes!

What did TFP say? "Its a complete re-write" or something to that effect.

Therefore if it was a complete re-write then what they probably would have done is to get the AI working good, get everything 'as best as they can' for the time they had... Then release it... As they did. Then we get to B240 knowing full well that a lot of things need to be tweaked. As for the AI its been noted something to the effect that it needs to be dumb down, but this AI that we are indeed seeing 'is the best' they could get to in the time alotted. Now they can make modifications and/or tweaks to their hearts content. I'm 99.3417502 percent sure that this isn't going to be the final Ai.

In Summary: So its been completely re-written and now needs tweaking, albeit we've had only a little time to B240... TFP will get to it as soon as they can or have planed to get to it. I would presume that the POI issue is their next issue, before others.
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This is a fair point. And I'm definitely not abandoning the game. I've been on a lot of open and closed alphas for big studios and small indies and I've never seen a developer as committed, passionate and determined as these guys. I'm sure it will still have it's ups and downs, but I also have a lot of faith that they will make a ****ing amazing game, sooner or later.

 
Im fairly sure that the AI we see right now is intended to npc's like raiders. Or at least that's what I hope.

A17 zombies solved the z-spinning bug but got too intelligent.

Fataal said that we would get more random pathing which I believe would make zombies the best version they ever was.

And now that zombies dont drop loot there is imo no reason for the cliche look of some of the zds. More generic zombies with randomized features like hair and clothes color would make the world feel more realistic. They did a great job on the traders and I hope they will continue it on the zombies!

 
...my biggest issue is of what the challenge actually is. It's about imaginary creatures that try to overcome my defenses, and adapting to these new ones feels like cheating. I'm sure it can be made more intuitive without being made easier.
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This^^ To me the "best" base seems to be some combo of a ramp leading to what the z's see as a path but really isn't so they circle repeatedly to it. I have faith in faatal's ability to fix that tho.

 
This^^ To me the "best" base seems to be some combo of a ramp leading to what the z's see as a path but really isn't so they circle repeatedly to it. I have faith in faatal's ability to fix that tho.
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Maybe a way to mark a calculated path as a failed path if the same one is calculated... to avoid loops. This information could be shared so that other zombies stop following the failed path. I suppose you could then make several of these red herring ramps, but this would require some thought to stall them long enough before they found the best way to go... and to me that would be a valid strategy and not a cheat or exploit.

 
Maybe a way to mark a calculated path as a failed path if the same one is calculated... to avoid loops. This information could be shared so that other zombies stop following the failed path. I suppose you could then make several of these red herring ramps, but this would require some thought to stall them long enough before they found the best way to go... and to me that would be a valid strategy and not a cheat or exploit.
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Why would a fresh zombie know an answer to something he didn't experience?, that's as bad as zombies with x ray vision, I'd rather have Romero's Night of the Living Dead zombies than Land of the Dead ones, that movie sucked

 
Why would a fresh zombie know an answer to something he didn't experience?, that's as bad as zombies with x ray vision, I'd rather have Romero's Night of the Living Dead zombies than Land of the Dead ones, that movie sucked
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After seeing a few zombies climb the ramp and get nowhere... why are they climbing the ramp to begin with? Obviously if another wave of zombies come, they wouldn't know what previous zombies tried.. but the nearby ones should get some kind of clue. Either way, it wouldn't matter... because the first one that found it to be a failure would try something else and if it makes any progress the others are likely to follow.

 
That's what I'm getting at. Go to any POI, axe open the door, throw down a spike and shoot a zed inside. They'll break down the adjacent wall rather than walk through the spike. It's been pretty aggravating to me.
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Yeah this seems glitched for sure. Since a doorway is a 2 block opening and the spikes take a block the AI figures it's easier to bust though the wall or something.

You either have to bust out the block above the doorway or dig one block down and put the spike in there to get them to path though the opening.

 
In A16 you really had to make stuff, now you can just loot it buy it and trade it. A17 broke more than just guns and the AI.

 
In A16 you really had to make stuff, now you can just loot it buy it and trade it. A17 broke more than just guns and the AI.
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I can't relate to this at all. Is there something specific that you made in A16 that you couldn't loot or buy but now can?

 
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