PC 2 issues

[BarryTGash]

start adjusting settings. Unfortunately, this probably means i won't be able to discuss balance issues in the future, but then again maybe thats why nobody else seems too concerned about it, 

Don't forget you can uninstall mods any time and game settings that you change are highlighted yellow so you can always find the default value again.

I'd also suggest that if you have a specific map you want to play in your main playthrough, do not use it whilst experimenting with settings and whilst looking for the perfect mod combo. You might become too familiar with it, removing the exploration aspect, so use another map for testing purposes.

Have fun!

 

[ElDudorino]

If you only have a t1 stone axe and some flowers by the time night 1 rolls around you are doing something wrong.

That's why I said as a newbie. A day 1 dire wolf will surely kill a newbie but who cares, it's part of learning the game and the penalty is minor. Having played a bit, if I encounter a dire wolf on day 1 I'm going to cook it.

 

[JCrook1028]

Honestly that part is irrelavent though, the primary concern is that they know your location and it dosen't matter if I am crouched in the dark being sneaky, they still spawn in as angry zeds and will start attacking your base if you are near it

  i have noticed that after every horde night the next special zed is spawned, On day 8 a screamer spawns outside my base. On day 15 a spider spawns, on day 22 a cop spawns..

That's absolutely untrue. Nothing spawns a screamer except heat so............. think what you may but it is NOT the game progressively throwing you "sample" zombies. Just not at all what it happening.

The second again is not what is happening. The wandering hordes do NOT have an "attack base" command order given to them. Period. End of sentence. Full Stop. They have a path near you then IF they see you they aggro against you. Nothing aggros them against your base unless you are in it when they see you and they enter destroy area to get to you.

 

[meganoth]

What i mean by that is that when I open my game menu looking for defense solutions I am presented with traps and defensive structures to build, so I would argue that these are the games intended tactics, however in effect they are largely ineffective and the primary method of defending a base is to take advantage of the AI travel path, such as leading them along an endless loop. I don't want to remove the latter because there are some players who like it, but I think it's fair to say that it is not really an intended style of play.

Traps are only ineffective if you can't lead the zombies through them. So I would argue that leading the zombies through a specific path is exactly how you make traps work. Case in point:

Our current base in my MP game has a path to us and a pit beside the path. On the other side of the path is a sledge turret with flaming mod installed pushing the zombies into the pit. On the floor of the pit there is a blade trap where the burning zombies falling down get their first major damage.

The pit has a narrow exit path for the zombies but at a turn of that path are two dart throwers with a motion detector shooting at all the zombies trying to get out of the pit again. Result: Even glowy cops and soldiers get killed by that combination of traps.

Naturally only a part of the zombies get pushed down and the rest continue on the path, but there is a large difference between having to shoot all the zombies or only part of them. And who says I can't add more traps (or simply another sledge turret for less zombies getting through)

If you think building stuff like this is not possible in the time you have then maybe you forget that you can easily adapt POIs as defense bases, that saves you a lot of time and resources initially.

 

[PinkLed5]

to each’s own

Smart.  Really smart.  But I'm smarter than you're!

 

[Roland]

however...if you opt to live in a horde base that feels natural and in sync with the game

That's why everyone else in the world that didn't get a force-field for their compound is dead.

 

[Roland]

What i mean by that is that when I open my game menu looking for defense solutions I am presented with traps and defensive structures to build, so I would argue that these are the games intended tactics, however in effect they are largely ineffective and the primary method of defending a base is to take advantage of the AI travel path, such as leading them along an endless loop. I don't want to remove the latter because there are some players who like it, but I think it's fair to say that it is not really an intended style of play.

I think that designs that lead them on endless loops are probably not the intended way to play but making a design that funnels them in to where those traps and defensive structures are is.

Case 1: Spikes

If you place spikes in concentric rings around your bunker on the ground zombies will see them as blocks and behave towards them as other blocks. If there is no way around they will attempt to jump up on them or bash them. If there is a way around they will go around rather than jump. This means that as soon as one open path exists, the zombies will all funnel to that path and ignore the rest of the spikes.

If you place the spikes at -1 block so that the top of the spike is even with the ground then the zombies will run over them as normal ground and never try to go around them. In addition, rather than go down into a dip and then back up they will prefer to run across level ground so they will not go through a hole where a spike used to be but will instead run over the next spike block that they see as level.

I believe this is a case of using the intended trap in an effective way that takes zombie behavior and pathing into consideration without going so far as an endless loop. The problem with this strategy is that it yields no xp and many people have changed their view of horde night from an event just to be survived to an event to farm massive xp. 

Case 2: Blades/ Darts/ Fences/ turrets

If you place them haphazardly around your base without any preparation you will only haphazardly kill the random zombie that crosses their path. I don't see this as a natural and true way to build traps-- more like a bad strategy for placing these traps.

If you create a corridor that funnels zombies into a path where they must come into contact with these traps then I believe that is a good strategy and very much in line with classic tower defense.  I don't think this is on par with creating an endless loop. Building structures and taking advantage of the landscape to force most if not all zombies into a path of your choosing is very rewarding and then setting up traps that mow them down as they run where you planned for them to go can be equally rewarding,

Case 3: Elevated paths

These are designed to get the zombies lined up single file and slow them down and thin them out. The path can be one that zombies often fall off of on their own or get jostled off as they move toward you in their line plus a sledge can be used to knock off every second or third. This allows the players to easily keep up with the onslaught through a combination of melee and ranged defense plus any of the traps can be employed along the path as well.

This is probably gray area as you are causing at least a portion of the zombies to loop in order to take on the horde at a trickle. I like these okay--they just seem to get a bit boring and start to  really feel like I'm harvesting xp rather than trying to survive a horde onslaught.

There are more but my point is simply that players can choose how far they wish to go in using their knowledge of zombie behavior against the zombies. A method is usually labeled as "cheesy" by those who don't use that method and feel that that method took less effort for better result than the one they are using.

 

[Speaking The Truth]

That's absolutely untrue. Nothing spawns a screamer except heat so............. think what you may but it is NOT the game progressively throwing you "sample" zombies. Just not at all what it happening.

The second again is not what is happening. The wandering hordes do NOT have an "attack base" command order given to them. Period. End of sentence. Full Stop. They have a path near you then IF they see you they aggro against you. Nothing aggros them against your base unless you are in it when they see you and they enter destroy area to get to you.

1. I see that you have a good bit of posts and have some experience, so I will take some of what you say as true and try to do some more testing to see what is really happening, but I am telling you that in my games i consistently get these sample spawns after every horde night. It's a thing I tell you!

2. I never suggested that zombies have an attack base function. You are twisting my post up, I said that they will spawn near the player as an aggressive entity and attack the base if I am near it. This is usually because of the ai pathing, and I believe they think that my base is an obstacle in their way to me. An unalerted normal zombie will simply walk into my spikes or go around the base where as these *random spawns will start attacking which adds to my initial theory that they have been spawned in to hunt the player.  

here are more but my point is simply that players can choose how far they wish to go in using their knowledge of zombie behavior against the zombies. A method is usually labeled as "cheesy" by those who don't use that method and feel that that method took less effort for better result than the one they are using.

First off sorry for shortening the post in the quote, i read the entire thing and it was a really good response that I'll be referring to in whole, I just didn't want my next reply to look like a wall of bricks lol.  I think you did a really good job at breaking down the concepts behind a base defense and it's helped me decide on what my primary concern is with a standard horde night.  Ultimately, I don't have a problem with other players using what I consider cheese bases, I see now that by using that term I have made a few players think that I am advocating for the removal of these and I'm really unconcerned with how others play in their own game. 

In your three stages of a base defense every single strategy involves either predicting or manipulating the ai pathing system. Now some players have pointed out that I am still doing the same thing by using traps at all, which is a fair point, however I do believe my methods do it to a lesser extent and I think that there is a happy medium here. Afterall the entire game is as you've said a tower defense game and if the zombies attacked with zero predictability, then our base building and strategies would probably be less enjoyable.  So with everything you and others have said I would like to refine my original post topic number 2...

I do not think that the AI should be constantly searching for the quickest and easiest route to the player. I think that on spawn the AI should decide on one path to the player and the travel path should only update interrupted by damage, or by having their travel path get updated. Additionally, I think that the games AI should pick out a path from a pool of options that is +/- 20% efficiency from the quickest and easiest route. This will ensure that as zombies spawn in they will stay on their pre-determined path unless interrupted. As a result the zombies would come bashing into a players fortified home from multiple different entry points which would allow a player to make use of a perimeter defense, rather than a funnel defense. By keeping the travel path at or near 80% efficiency we can still allow players to create a single-entry funnel point if they prefer.

My new and refined gripe with the current state of horde night is that the only viable base defense is not necessarily cheese, but rather the player is forced to create a funnel for the zombies. This can be changed by lowering settings, but the zombie behavior would stay the same and such they still all pile up in the single most efficient path, which I believe ruins emersion in the game. 

 

[Sithdarth]

This is me defending against a 32 zombie blood moon. I actually didn't realize I had defeated all the waves until after I repaired the traps (I'm probably going to up it to 64). Except for the questionable use of open frames that I can fire through (cop spit gets through as well) I've done vary little in terms of "cheese". I just kept reinforcing my walls until my front door was considered the weakest point and made it as easy as possible for the zombies to get there. I then setup my traps there.

Right now zombies go for the weakest point but any alteration to AI would still theoretically have them plotting the most efficient route to a place they can actually physically get to my walls. So I did also dig a moat that's sloped outward from my base so any zombie that falls in can just walk out away from my base and also put stairs leading out of it to my front door. The moat was largely a waste of effort with the current AI but I'm not sure if forcing people to spend time digging moats and trapping every square inch of perimeter is a better way to do things. I could build more turrets and blade traps and surround my entire base like my front door and I'd probably enjoy it because I'm a builder but I can see how other people would find it tedious and boring. (I stopped with what I currently have because anything more is wasted resources.)

Changing the AI to make it harder to funnel just means giving people more construction busy work. Personally I wouldn't mind it but its definitely not for everyone and also I'd rather spend the time building cool things rather than iterating pathing obstacles or building 50 traps. Literally nothing would change about my approach I just might have to spend more time on manipulating pathing which is boring.

I will say that it was super annoying before I figured out that they just go right for the weakest point. I had a lot of early breaches before I had the resources for any traps because they'd concentrate on the weak point or get stuck and go after the bit of wall in their way to the weak point. This resulted in me not focusing enough on the actual weak point (which wasn't my door) and getting breached.

 

[Roland]

My new and refined gripe with the current state of horde night is that the only viable base defense is not necessarily cheese, but rather the player is forced to create a funnel for the zombies. This can be changed by lowering settings, but the zombie behavior would stay the same and such they still all pile up in the single most efficient path, which I believe ruins emersion in the game.

That is much less true in Alpha 19-20 than it was for Alpha 17-18. There is currently code that assigns random zombies shorter path information so that they can't "see" the perfect least cost path to you although some still can. There are others that abandon paths altogether and go into destruction mode. The developers had to, in fact, dial back destruction mode a bit for Alpha 20.1 because too many were getting into that mode and getting stuck in it. So there is quite a bit of variety in behavior now

but

You may not notice it as much if your base's footprint is too small. If you are fighting in a base that is a 7x7 or smaller tower then even "short path" zombies will get around your base to the weak spot. I recently tried surviving a horde night on the ground floor of a standard brick POI which was probably more like a 20x15 sized structure and I had to repair blocks in several areas because the zombies with shorter path information were unaware of the near breaches on the other side of the POI so I did have a few different spots and they weren't all funneling to one place.

It's a tough balance. Maybe try surrounding your base with a wall that is 15 x 15 blocks and start the night fighting from the wall. If it breaches then you can fall back to your smaller base. I think you will find that there will be multiple places the zombies will be breaking on that wall because it is big enough to keep the short-pathers from finding an already existing weakness so they pound in a different spot. 

Maybe I will try it too. It might be interesting to see how small the perimeter can get before most of the zombies funnel into the same spot. 

My new and refined gripe with the current state of horde night is that the only viable base defense is not necessarily cheese, but rather the player is forced to create a funnel for the zombies. This can be changed by lowering settings, but the zombie behavior would stay the same and such they still all pile up in the single most efficient path, which I believe ruins emersion in the game. 

Again, It may depend upon the size of your base AND what you want may not even be feasible to defend against if you are playing Solo. As a lone player who cannot check and repair spots behind you on the other side of your base while you are trying to kill zombies right in front of you, having zombies attack everywhere at once is going to be very problematic. For mp, yes, it would  be fine because people could share the task of repairing and killing at multiple potential breach points. Build a larger base and you will get that kind of fun I'm betting.

 

[ElDudorino]

I recently tried surviving a horde night on the ground floor of a standard brick POI which was probably more like a 20x15 sized structure and I had to repair blocks in several areas because the zombies with shorter path information were unaware of the near breaches on the other side of the POI so I did have a few different spots and they weren't all funneling to one place.

That's pretty cool and makes sense as I've been exploring PoIs and found that zombies were trying to break in from different points, and in many cases they could have just followed the path I took to get to me so what they were doing wasn't necessarily "optimal."  It could be that taking a different approach to zombie randomness could make them more interesting, though.  Something that's more in the spirit of what the TC said about zombies having a pool of approach options which range up and down in efficiency, maybe coupled with some zombies being "followers" who tag along after a zombie on an alternate path so multiple zombies will hit the same alternate spot, could lead to some unexpected base defense emergencies.

That said, some designs don't leave zombies any real pathing alternatives, I think.  Like if you have a massively thick steel pillar supporting a platform from the bottom of a pit and then a narrow walkway leading right to the front door, it almost seems crazy to jump into the pit and spend 10 minutes slapping your z-hands at the steel pillar when you have a perfectly good path where you want to go... even though the path is lined with traps and some crazy human is at the other end sending bullets down it.

That sounds like it applies to real life as much as it does to a game, so I don't even think that's a case of exploiting AI frankly.  It's just exploiting... natural defensive advantage.

 

[Roland]

That said, some designs don't leave zombies any real pathing alternatives, I think.  Like if you have a massively thick steel pillar supporting a platform from the bottom of a pit and then a narrow walkway leading right to the front door, it almost seems crazy to jump into the pit and spend 10 minutes slapping your z-hands at the steel pillar when you have a perfectly good path where you want to go... even though the path is lined with traps and some crazy human is at the other end sending bullets down it.

That sounds like it applies to real life as much as it does to a game, so I don't even think that's a case of exploiting AI frankly.  It's just exploiting... natural defensive advantage.

Agreed.  There are all kinds of incentives at work on players on how they build their base. Clean up and repair time, xp and loot rewards, level of active player involvement desired, whether you want to perk into traps and electricity, etc...

Even what they hope to get out of the experience... efficient xp blender vs epic night of near death and breaches and fall backs and rallies. I've played horde night in bases that were so secure and easy for any horde night and I've played in bases that almost killed us. Fun for different reasons. I think I would personally avoid a base design only if it led me to boredom.

 

[Speaking The Truth]

That is much less true in Alpha 19-20 than it was for Alpha 17-18. There is currently code that assigns random zombies shorter path information so that they can't "see" the perfect least cost path to you although some still can. There are others that abandon paths altogether and go into destruction mode. The developers had to, in fact, dial back destruction mode a bit for Alpha 20.1 because too many were getting into that mode and getting stuck in it. So there is quite a bit of variety in behavior now

but

You may not notice it as much if your base's footprint is too small. If you are fighting in a base that is a 7x7 or smaller tower then even "short path" zombies will get around your base to the weak spot. I recently tried surviving a horde night on the ground floor of a standard brick POI which was probably more like a 20x15 sized structure and I had to repair blocks in several areas because the zombies with shorter path information were unaware of the near breaches on the other side of the POI so I did have a few different spots and they weren't all funneling to one place.

It's a tough balance. Maybe try surrounding your base with a wall that is 15 x 15 blocks and start the night fighting from the wall. If it breaches then you can fall back to your smaller base. I think you will find that there will be multiple places the zombies will be breaking on that wall because it is big enough to keep the short-pathers from finding an already existing weakness so they pound in a different spot. 

This is very interesting and good to know, thank you for the pathing information. Oddly enough i felt like the previous versions had been forcing me to go into smaller compact builds and now it sounds the same compact builds may be my problem. I will try to take a villa or something next weekend and see if I can keep them from focusing on a single breach. 

efficient xp blender vs epic night of near death and breaches and fall backs and rallies. I've played horde night in bases that were so secure and easy for any horde night and I've played in bases that almost killed us. Fun for different reasons. I think I would personally avoid a base design only if it led me to boredom.

I am always trying to build the latter. It's really hard for me to make that base that provides a decent level of challenging, without getting immediately overrun, but it's also extremely easy to build something that will protect you with no challenge. It's very disheartening when you prepare a base for 7 days with multiple fallback points and die on the first hour and the horde disappears or build it so good that the horde doesn't push you back, so you never get to test or utilize all of those neat escape tunnels and fallback points lol. 

Your last post encouraged me though. Next weekend I'm going mega big, with multiple safe rooms, tunnels and assorted traps...and beer! Gona be a good time I hope, despite my two gripes, this really is still the best zombie survival game on the market. 

 

[Boidster]

Obligatory, for me: there is no cheese. Did you have fun? Good. Did you survive? Double-plus good. (I'm all in favor of the devs making the "did you survive" part harder and harder with each patch.)

1. I see that you have a good bit of posts and have some experience, so I will take some of what you say as true and try to do some more testing to see what is really happening, but I am telling you that in my games i consistently get these sample spawns after every horde night. It's a thing I tell you!

The scouts/screamers could be spawning due to base repairs, replacing traps, or normal forge-work/torches/other sources of heat. Any other zombie on the day after is probably just a biome spawn which was suppressed during the horde. The console (F1) will actually tell you when/why it's spawning things. It might offer clues.

2. they will spawn near the player as an aggressive entity and attack the base if I am near it. This is usually because of the ai pathing, and I believe they think that my base is an obstacle in their way to me. An unalerted normal zombie will simply walk into my spikes or go around the base where as these *random spawns will start attacking which adds to my initial theory that they have been spawned in to hunt the player.  

Yes and no. The wandering hordes are spawned in with a target position calculated near a player at the time the horde was spawned. Their AI task is basically to walk to that point as though they had heard a noise there. They shouldn't have an actual target on the player unless they see/hear you using essentially normal detection rules. Now, if you're in/around your base when the wandering horde is spawned, then their target spot is likely very close to you and if they see you they'll do their normal thing, including bashing down your base. Are you seeing behavior where you know for certain they haven't detected you and they beeline to your base and start bashing it?

Check the console as soon as you notice one of these. It will show some info I think about the horde spawn.

 

[Speaking The Truth]

Obligatory, for me: there is no cheese. Did you have fun? Good. Did you survive? Double-plus good. (I'm all in favor of the devs making the "did you survive" part harder and harder with each patch.)

The scouts/screamers could be spawning due to base repairs, replacing traps, or normal forge-work/torches/other sources of heat. Any other zombie on the day after is probably just a biome spawn which was suppressed during the horde. The console (F1) will actually tell you when/why it's spawning things. It might offer clues.

Yes and no. The wandering hordes are spawned in with a target position calculated near a player at the time the horde was spawned. Their AI task is basically to walk to that point as though they had heard a noise there. They shouldn't have an actual target on the player unless they see/hear you using essentially normal detection rules. Now, if you're in/around your base when the wandering horde is spawned, then their target spot is likely very close to you and if they see you they'll do their normal thing, including bashing down your base. Are seeing behavior where you know for certain they haven't detected you and they beeline to your base and start bashing it?

Check the console as soon as you notice one of these. It will show some info I think about the horde spawn.

Thank you for the console tip, I will utilize this more in the future. 

The zombie hordes that spawn don't seem to be the issue as they will do largely what you describe here. The dogs however will spawn in and run straight for me or my base and start attacking. I have even been outside and watched them spawn, then instead of running for me, they run up to my base and start attacking it, with nobody inside lol. 

 

[Speaking The Truth]

Check out skippy0330 current Base Day 1 series for a good example of a bunker that works and is upgraded over time.  I watched an A19 "Insane Vegan (no meat challenge) Max Hordes, Nightmare, Permadeath, Nomad player; play a Day 2 horde (random) with about 25 upgraded wood blocks and a Level 1 bone knife.  They killed them all (and used a small loop) so there are many ways to skin the horde base cat.  I encourage you to keep designing and experimenting.

I checked out day 7 and 14 of the suggested channel. Overall it was a pretty entertaining and fun looking base, however for myself I would still say that it takes advantage of the ai pathing too much. He basically built a tower with ramps to encourage the zombies to run up into a kill section, which is a viable method. I am looking more for something that looks and feels like a actual livable space, with multiple areas to fallback to, which then have similar style chokepoints to his.  Think of the first nazi zombies if you have ever played it. In that game you typically start each level by trying to shoot the zombies that are breaking in, while repairing your barricades, but eventually you are pushed back into a corner where you must make a final stand. Im looking to replicate a similar concept, that will still blend in well with the surrounding environment and also still be able to hold its own. It's a bit of a challenge!

 

[8_Hussars]

I checked out day 7 and 14 of the suggested channel. Overall it was a pretty entertaining and fun looking base, however for myself I would still say that it takes advantage of the ai pathing too much.

Its about as old school brute force base as you can get IMHO with no AI pathing tricks.  I kind of thought it would be closer to your feel.  It can easily be built into a POI.  The fall back path being vertical instead of horizontal is a matter of semantics.

I would suggest giving it a try, its harder to manage than you think.  I have been using it (one face anyway) in a MP play through (in the remnant Cathedral).  It has been very underwhelming and been breached every horde night with doubled blocks.  YMMV

Not sure of the night (28?) but his base does get breached... and bear in mind he is playing headshot only.  The last horde night was his most intense by his own admission.

 

 

[Speaking The Truth]

Its about as old school brute force base as you can get IMHO with no AI pathing tricks.  I kind of thought it would be closer to your feel.  It can easily be built into a POI.  The fall back path being vertical instead of horizontal is a matter of semantics.

I would suggest giving it a try, its harder to manage than you think.  I have been using it (one face anyway) in a MP play through (in the remnant Cathedral).  It has been very underwhelming and been breached every horde night with doubled blocks.  YMMV

Not sure of the night (28?) but his base does get breached... and bear in mind he is playing headshot only.  The last horde night was his most intense by his own admission.

 

I didn’t have any problems with the escape ladder or anything like that. It is the ramps that lead them up to the floor that is a deal breaker for me. I want to build structures that focus on holding back the horde and killing them. I don’t really care for the idea of building a walkway for them to follow. Just a personal preference thing, I do think that the base idea is solid and I wouldn’t hold it against anyone if they choose to use it.

 

[Roland]

die on the first hour and the horde disappears

If this happens try logging out and logging back in. Usually when you close the game during the blood moon if you log back in the horde starts over.

 

[Speaking The Truth]

The console (F1) will actually tell you when/why it's spawning things. It might offer clues.

So I couldn’t help myself and made a new file and sat on the top of a poi watching the console. It seemed to be constantly updating until night then suddenly I got some odd yellow text that  stated:

WRN No chunk for position: (enter coordinates here) Followed by the types of entity’s:

players:1 zombies:0 entitys:3

I got this chunk of code repeating for a total of 4 times until it changed to:

WRN Calling Animator.GotoState on synchronize layer-followed by

players:1 Zom: 3 Entity:4

Shortly after that a dire wolf and spider zombie came knocking on the door as an aggressive entity and quickly killed me. 
 

As such my theory still stands that the game absolutely spawns aggressive entity’s near the player for no reason other than the passing of time.