PC Another "direction of the game thread" and iam concerned...

[Ghostlight]

Thank you for admitting it.

Admitting it? lol sounds like a crime.

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Im just going to say it. This is pretty selfish. Stop trying to ruin Insane Difficulty for players who want a challenge. What you want it for Insane mode to be brought down a level because YOU cant beat it and now you're upset.
Well its insane difficulty for a reason and Ill bet if you ask the people who enjoy the mode if they want it made easier they will strongly disagree with you. As a matter of fact some of them even call Insane too easy.

Yeah all those exploit builds handling Insane like it was easy. I'm soooooooooo impressed.

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I can't figure out how you aren't getting GhostLight's point. He wants to figure out how to make the harder difficulties eventually become easy (due to hard work), which is the entire point/endgame for difficulties.

Thank god for the enlightened few who can actually understand the point I am trying to make.

 

[DeadGerry]

I think what Ghostlight is talking about is he wants to feel rewarded personally for all the hard effort that he puts inb, i for one agree with his statement that the game is fairly unrewarding and it kinds kills the insentive to play. its why i have had monthly-long gaps in gameplay, cause it simply isnt willing to entertain me anymore. I dont feel rewarded through mere skill points, I want to feel immersed and rewarded for progression in a unique manner which i dont need to fill out.

You're wrong. If you want to be rewarded for effort; you need to put the effort in. The Demolisher is ONE new challenge; and there are multiple ways to deal with it; but Ghostlight doesn't want to; and has consistently declined to use those. He wants to be rewarded for building the same type of base he always built and not to have to think of new strategies.

He wants hardest possible difficulty to be made easy for him. Read the posts.

 

[Roland]

Admitting it? lol sounds like a crime.

Not a crime at all. People often don't admit settings or playstyles they employ and then complain about balance. We had one guy a few years back who complained non stop about how the game was an eating simulator because he had to eat several times a day instead of what would seem natural -- 3 times a day. He finally admitted later that he had modded his game for 240 minute days.

See? That's no crime either but admitting how you play and how you've modded things etc is important for context.

Like you keep saying that gamestage 154 is still early game. It's not for most players. But min/maxing your experience gain as quickly as possible and on the hardest difficulty with the steepest gamestage multiplier with a group who are all sharing to boot probably does shove that gamestage down into the early game.

So its good to know exactly where you're coming from. You should mod the Behemoths to appear at gamestage 300 if you are going to speedrun the game with your crew.

 

[Ghostlight]

He wants hardest possible difficulty to be made easy for him. Read the posts.

It's you who isn't reading the posts if that's what you think. I want to earn that "easy". Pre-A18 I earned the feeling of "easy" through constant base refinement. A lot of experimentation and lot of hard work. I never never, ever seen a base design like ours in any screenshots or videos. Nothing even close. And no I will never make it public, for obvious reasons.

Please take my advice and stop responding to me - you said you would - because you either don't understand where I'm coming from, or you can't because you've not faced a ton of Demos. Or by all means tell me how you handle your Demolishers and shut me up. And please, don't relist the 6 half-assed ways from earlier. 4 don't work and 2 are exploits/avoidance.

Tell me precisely how YOU do it. As one of the posters most vocal in shooting me down, I can't wait for your solution.

If you want to be rewarded for effort; you need to put the effort in. The Demolisher is ONE new challenge; and there are multiple ways to deal with it; but Ghostlight doesn't want to

So, so wrong.

I put plenty effort in. Tons. The reward I am seeking is surviving horde night with minimal expense, and no exploits.

Demolishers are bad design because they remove a lot of the fun tools from the table and reward exploits. Not because they are unbeatable. They are not unbeatable. I already said that numerous times. They are unfun to fight, unfun to design against, they nullify a ton of base designs, almost completely nullify Blade Traps and are going to put a lot of people off the game imo. If you're not exploiting AI of course. They are the reason we are getting so many threads and posts title "base building is dead" etc.

I would dearly love to see the "2 block jump fail" exploit patched out from the AI, just to see the amount of crying it would cause. But I'm guessing MM uses that design, because it lends itself so readily to a blaze away with an M60 in a kill pit approach, so....

What we have now is a pathetically easy to exploit zombie AI PLUS an extremely destructive enemy type that almost demands to be exploited to be easily handled. Do the math. Mark my words they will never (dare to) fix the AI because of this (despite it being the easiest fix in the world). Never.

Like you keep saying that gamestage 154 is still early game. It's not for most players.

Day 28 horde we got our first Demolishers. 3-players. Warrior. That's not early game?

 

[Ghostlight]

But min/maxing your experience gain as quickly as possible

Min-maxing just means playing as efficiently as possible. In this alpha that very specifically means NOT maxing XP gain. :/

 

[Kalen]

The reward I am seeking is surviving horde night with minimal expense, and no exploits.

You are assuming that is a reward meant to be earned. Maybe one of the points of insane difficulty is that you're not supposed to be able to earn that reward. It seems like you're not even willing to consider that possibility.

 

[Ghostlight]

If I thought that then there really would be no point in ever engaging the horde. Driving on a bike all night would be optimum. No, I therefore refute that possibility. That would be crap. The game would be no challenge on any difficulty setting ever.

And btw it's nothing to do with Insane. Everyone will reach a high GS eventually and have their base flattened. And MP groups of decent size hit it fast too.

Or does everyone just go to day 50 and declare the map won these days????

 

[Kalen]

If I thought that then there really would be no point in ever engaging the horde. Driving on a bike all night would be optimum. No, I therefore refute that possibility. That would be crap. The game would be no challenge on any difficulty setting ever.
And btw it's nothing to do with Insane. Everyone will reach a high GS eventually and have their base flattened. And MP groups of decent size hit it fast too.

Or does everyone just go to day 50 and declare the map won these days????

Not sure why you equate GS with difficulty. A GS 200 horde on scavenger is going to be vastly easier than a GS 200 horde on insane.

And did you really say that if you couldn't build an essentially zombie proof base the game would not be challenging on any difficulty level? Wouldn't that make the exact opposite true?

 

[Jugginator]

Yeah all those exploit builds handling Insane like it was easy. I'm soooooooooo impressed.

Thank god for the enlightened few who can actually understand the point I am trying to make.

So what you're saying is, that anyone that actually performs combat and considers Insane a bit too easy at times are automatically exploiting the AI? Dude I soloed, with a basic square base with layered walls and no roof, no pits, no anything that exploits the AI. Insane. 16 + spawning. Game stage 400. Horde night every night with the minimal 24-hour time span, max night length. I did just fine.

Just because you and two other people in the world consider the only victory the ability to stand in their base and do nothing doesn't mean that's the only worthwhile goal.

You're the epitome of contradiction; you say "lel bro lower your difficulty if it's too hard" "A16 was the only challenge to the game", now "A18 is too hard now on insane it needs to be easier but it needs to be harder". Nobody understands you because you're constantly in contradiction lol.

Whats kinda funny is you want to exploit the AI without exploiting the AI, to cheese horde nights without cheesing horde nights. Lol. Come on man. You do you, that's cool, but don't discredit EVERYONE that thinks/does otherwise.

By the way, I lasted about 17 or so days of that setting up there^ My base was never flattened. I ran out of ammo and that was my goal, to run out of ammo and delete the world since it was an old build. I blew up my base. Not zombies, not demos. Although I did let them in, I stood in my basement-home waiting for them with grenades for fun (this took 2 horde nights). Perhaps you aren't as much of an "uber leet pro gamer 7 days to die god" you thought you were.

 

[Dimpy]

And did you really say that if you couldn't build an essentially zombie proof base the game would not be challenging on any difficulty level? Wouldn't that make the exact opposite true?

 

[Kalen]

snip

I think I'm missing your point....

If you're saying that getting to end game is the fun of the game, I wouldn't dispute that... its a perfectly reasonable opinion. But what does that have to do with the claim that not being able to build a zombie proof base makes the game unchallenging?

 

[Dimpy]

Yeah, I misread your post.

In response to what you actually said, Ghostlight was saying he'd give up trying not to cheese/run away if it was impossible to build a sufficiently strong base, and that running/cheesing would keep the game from being challenging to him.

 

[Jugginator]

From what I've been reading, the only strong bases he coniders are ones that don't cost anything to maintain and lets him stand there and do nothing. *shrug*

 

[Kalen]

From what I've been reading, the only strong bases he coniders are ones that don't cost anything to maintain and lets him stand there and do nothing. *shrug*

Yeah, I misread your post.
In response to what you actually said, Ghostlight was saying he'd give up trying not to cheese/run away if it was impossible to build a sufficiently strong base, and that running/cheesing would keep the game from being challenging to him.

Its exactly what Jugg is saying.... he doesn't just want a strong base.... he wants a base thats strong and easy/cheap to maintain, while at the same time playing on insane difficulty. I cant speak for TFP, but I'd imagine that those two things are meant to be mutually exclusive.

 

[Dimpy]

From what I've been reading, the only strong bases he coniders are ones that don't cost anything to maintain and lets him stand there and do nothing. *shrug*

Its exactly what Jugg is saying.... he doesn't just want a strong base.... he wants a base thats strong and easy/cheap to maintain, while at the same time playing on insane difficulty. I cant speak for TFP, but I'd imagine that those two things are meant to be mutually exclusive.

Okay, now this is where I should have brought out the "It's the Journey that counts" picture. I don't think anyone is actually saying that the simple act of having a super-low maintenance base is fun. However, the process of trying, and the unique set of challenges it presented, to make the perfect horde base was fun, at least for me in previous alphas.

But yeah, I don't think the game is going to work like that, at least not until bandits are added, since a zombie-proof base would no longer be OP.

 

[Kalen]

Okay, now this is where I should have brought out the "It's the Journey that counts" picture. I don't think anyone is actually saying that the simple act of having a super-low maintenance base is fun. However, the process of trying, and the unique set of challenges it presented, to make the perfect horde base was fun, at least for me in previous alphas.
But yeah, I don't think the game is going to work like that, at least not until bandits are added, since a zombie-proof base would no longer be OP.

Fair enough, I can't honestly say I know what Ghost's intent is... I can only comment on what he's explicitly stated.

That's the whole point for me and my group - perfect the base design till we can kill any strength of horde with minimal expense of ammo and repairs.

So he wants a base that can kill a horde (minimal ammo) and can't be touched (minimal repairs) without using AI exploits. I'm sorry, but IMO, insane difficulty doesn't and shouldn't allow that. If that is your goal, play on a lower difficulty where that goal is obtainable.

 

[Laz Man]

All 8 of them that came at once from different directions. Interesting tactic.
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Easy due to years of refining base designs and playing with a group of min-maxers till we were an expert oiled machine? We deserved it. Could you do it?

What I am saying is that right now there seems to 3 ways to deal with them, and they are all EXTREMES (avoid, exploit or massive bill). It shouldn't be like that. There should be a creamy middle.

For a group of expert min maxers, its surprising you guys didnt even know demos didnt explode if you kill them fast enough...

Curious...how far in GS (and how many players) were you guys able to last before the demolishers became unmanageable?

 

[RipClaw]

So he wants a base that can kill a horde (minimal ammo) and can't be touched (minimal repairs) without using AI exploits. I'm sorry, but IMO, insane difficulty doesn't and shouldn't allow that. If that is your goal, play on a lower difficulty where that goal is obtainable.

Actually, the difficulty level alone doesn't make a difference whether a base can handle a horde or not. The block damage of the zombies is always the same, no matter if you play on the easiest or the hardest difficulty. To my knowledge, the traps also deal the same damage regardless of the difficulty level.

Only the damage that the players deal and receive is different depending on the difficulty level. So if you have a fully automatic base then it doesn't matter on which difficulty level you play.

 

[Jugginator]

Yah but your gamestage increases faster, and zombie HP increases, if not more stuff. Either way, Ghost is being silly here lol. Really it sounds like he should play insane until he builds a base, then swap it to whatever is the easiest difficulty and lower the zombie block damage to the lowest. Leave Insane and Demos alone plz.

 

[Hazeree]

Yah but your gamestage increases faster, and zombie HP increases, if not more stuff. Either way, Ghost is being silly here lol. Really it sounds like he should play insane until he builds a base, then swap it to whatever is the easiest difficulty and lower the zombie block damage to the lowest. Leave Insane and Demos alone plz.

Yet in A16, I could build a base that did exactly that without exploits. It was not an easy build. It took in-game weeks to get put together, and many experiments to get it right. I wouldnt say it was non-maintenance either, but theres a big difference between repairing a few walls and traps (sometimes during the horde) and having to completely rebuild large sections and crafting/buying 6 or more traps a week. Also, I would actively defend the base but I would be able to do so without a weekly spend of 1500+ AP rounds.

The new shift actually detracts from using half of the traps they designed in the game. They are a liability. Why bother using turrets anymore?

So I dont think its a rediculous thing to expect that if you put in the effort to build something complicated and smart, you get to reap the reward.

The big problem is that right now, its not worth building anything challenging because it wont work, and its super easy to build something cheesy because that will work.