Clarification on zombie pathing - video demonstration

We know that the zombie pathing is a work in progress and you're still tweaking it, however is it possible to clarify to the community how you want the zombies to path in an ideal world?

Right now they're rat/cheese/maze physic group think zombies who can rip through anything and know exactly where to go. Is this the intended design? Personally, it feels horrible. It's not difficult to overcome, it just doesn't feel realistic of the genre. In A16, they were dumb and ran directly at you. Personally this was more fun for me but some people like the current AI. Can we have an option in the settings in future Alpha's to choose the zombie AI we like?

I've made a video of how obscene their pathing is. It doesn't seem fun.

 
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It would be nice to simply choose the AI that feels most fun, but these elements will conspire to define it:

1) Horde size is limited due to performance.

2) If you have a small horde size, then you needs zombies that are either smarter, stronger or specialized to provide a challenge.

2a) Most people* in the forums have rejected stronger (bullet sponges) zombies as well as the proposed specialized (behemoth) zombies. Feral and irradiated zombies still cause some to grumble.

3) Smarter zombies alienate the Romero crowd and others, but what they want cannot happen due to #1 above, so TFP aims toward smarter zombies.

4) Smarter Zs have more complex AIs to the point of being "too smart" to feel like zombies anymore. This of course doesn't take into account the current pathing exploits that are possible, and likely to be eliminated or greatly mitigated as TFP hones their algorithms.

I think we're in trouble long-term due to the limitations on zombie quantity.

*That's my subjective observation. I'm OK with or without either personally.

-Morloc

 
I'd have to agree with Morloc here.

The Unity limitations for entity controllers, or at least, its lack of efficiency, means that my own preferred option, "zombies dangerous by sheer numbers, bandits dangerous by intelligence" is likely just not within the ken of the engine itself.

 
We know that the zombie pathing is a work in progress and you're still tweaking it, however is it possible to clarify to the community how you want the zombies to path in an ideal world?
Right now they're rat/cheese/maze physic group think zombies who can rip through anything and know exactly where to go. Is this the intended design? Personally, it feels horrible. It's not difficult to overcome, it just doesn't feel realistic of the genre. In A16, they were dumb and ran directly at you. Personally this was more fun for me but some people like the current AI. Can we have an option in the settings in future Alpha's to choose the zombie AI we like?

I've made a video of how obscene their pathing is. It doesn't seem fun.

Click to expand...
Since the new AI was a big selling point of A17, i'd say that is pretty much how

it is supposed to work now. Agree to some degree that it is not fun, just very

useful.

 
We know that the zombie pathing is a work in progress and you're still tweaking it, however is it possible to clarify to the community how you want the zombies to path in an ideal world?
Right now they're rat/cheese/maze physic group think zombies who can rip through anything and know exactly where to go. Is this the intended design? Personally, it feels horrible. It's not difficult to overcome, it just doesn't feel realistic of the genre. In A16, they were dumb and ran directly at you. Personally this was more fun for me but some people like the current AI. Can we have an option in the settings in future Alpha's to choose the zombie AI we like?

I've made a video of how obscene their pathing is. It doesn't seem fun.

Click to expand...
This game is not going for the realistic simulation market. It's also Tower Defense and RPG. It's sort of a unique blend. So not everything is going to be uber realistic. There will be arcade/First person shooter type game elements involved.

That's they way I'm reading what the Game Developers are saying anyways.

 
I'd have to agree with Morloc here.
The Unity limitations for entity controllers, or at least, its lack of efficiency, means that my own preferred option, "zombies dangerous by sheer numbers, bandits dangerous by intelligence" is likely just not within the ken of the engine itself.
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A while ago I saw someone running a mod which allowed for huge amounts of zombies. I'd prefer that to the small number we currently get, who as a result path like physics.

 
1) Horde size is limited due to performance.
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Only the total number at a time, right? And we have a setting for that. I don't think overall horde size is limited.

A16 hordes on gamestage 2000+ used to be hundreds if not thousands strong, often still coming after morning the next day, and it was fine.

 
i got to say i honestly prefer the more intelligent pathing. it means you can make rooms of traps and layers of defence for them to run through, a gauntlet to reach you. appealing to a tower defence itch that i have. that said you accurately highlighted how easy it is to exploit the current ai but, such things im hoping will be tweeked. that and hordes have a blend of different enemy types, long distance cops and the like, so standing on such a build doesn't stop that from harming you. or the spiders with there now terrifying leap ability.

i suppose now its just up to deciding what kind of special zombies should be added to the game to make such builds either redundant or simply not as effective. (as well as AI tweaks to make adjacent blocks to be able to be jumped on.) besides, ironicly this ai is similar to the one we started with. back when light used to slow down the zombies and they came after you every single night. you would spend time makeing a maze of defences in order to handle each nights horde....

man they were the days... i still remember the old horde mode. where you were put into a small map, with air drops each day and a small amount of time to set up defences before the next night. good times...

 
The Unity limitations for entity controllers, or at least, its lack of efficiency (...)
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I'm quite interested in AI and recently started learning Unity to visualize my weird ideas :strawberry: and I wonder if the above statement is really true. I've read this repeated on this forum many times in the past... Could you point me to some docs, blog post or anything that goes technical on this? I've been googling about this a few times already and cannot find anything relevant to this... OTOH I've seen videos like this

that shows otherwise (and this is even not using ECS).
 
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I'm quite interested in AI and recently started learning Unity to visualize my weird ideas :strawberry: and I wonder if the above statement is really true. I've read this repeated on this forum many times in the past... Could you point me to some docs, blog post or anything that goes technical on this? I've been googling about this a few times already and cannot find anything relevant to this... OTOH I've seen videos like this
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I think it might be less about unity and more about being a voxel world.

 
I'm quite interested in AI and recently started learning Unity to visualize my weird ideas :strawberry: and I wonder if the above statement is really true. I've read this repeated on this forum many times in the past... Could you point me to some docs, blog post or anything that goes technical on this? I've been googling about this a few times already and cannot find anything relevant to this... OTOH I've seen videos like this
Click to expand...
Well, not being a Unity programmer myself, no, I couldn't tell you exactly the problem, only that TFP have cited it as a major issue with regards to zombie numbers. If one of them should see this and post that would be good, but I lack the technical knowledge of the engine itself to go into much further detail on it.

 
I think it might be less about unity and more about being a voxel world.
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Yeah, voxels do make things more difficult in each dimension possible. But I'm sure there are some clever ways to work with voxel too ;-).

Well, not being a Unity programmer myself, no, I couldn't tell you exactly the problem, only that TFP have cited it as a major issue with regards to zombie numbers. If one of them should see this and post that would be good, but I lack the technical knowledge of the engine itself to go into much further detail on it.
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Ah, I was hoping you might point me in the right direction. Thanks for answering though. Now I can only hope that some good soul from TFP will read this and have time to reply (@faatal? :help: ).

 
2a) Most people* in the forums have rejected stronger (bullet sponges) zombies as well as the proposed specialized (behemoth) zombies. Feral and irradiated zombies still cause some to grumble.
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When did people reject the behemoth? I remember not a single topic that people disliked the behemoth. Most people wanted the behemoth as a way to introduce high level / scary enemies for late game, that can breach your defenses.

Feral zombies are irritating because they changed the game play dynamic. Slow zombies during day, runners during night / blood moon. Its the same reason why some people hate dogs. They simply introduced more HP "dogs", that are using the same texture/model as normal zombie, they are hard to spot at times ( especially in buildings ) and feel wrong.

Radiated zombies look like a child took a glow sticks to zombies. If the Pimps wanted more hard enemies, then introduce new models for those zombies that fit the theme. Its been what, 3 years from seeing new models?

I've made a video of how obscene their pathing is. It doesn't seem fun.

Click to expand...
I always find it odd, how contradictory this is with what Joel experienced during his testing. You expect zombie to be brute force, not smart. The new AI is great for sleepers so they do not get stupidly stuck inside buildings but at the same time its annoying that Zombies that are outside POIs ( and far away ) can "sense" you even better then most other players. To run in/up buildings and home in on you like a tomahawk missile.

Great work on the AI by the devs but now the AI feels so out of place in the game, that you feel like your playing a different game. Where as before zombies brute force and numbers was your biggest enemy. Now simply leaving a "path" open, becomes your doom ( Or worse, they find routes you did not even know existed ).

And then we have the issue that the AI is so smart, that you can cheese it. In my world:

* Sleepers get the smart AI to navigate inside buildings

* Bloodmoon get some smart AIs and the rest dumb ( saves on CPU cycles = more Zs onscreen )

* Outside Zombies get the dumb AI, so your not constantly back stabbed by tomahawk zombies.

* If smell is back in the game, have the game switch to Smart AI if a dumb zombie smells you.

That is a good balance in my eyes. Maybe give the smart AI zombies glowing eyes instead of the ferals.

 
It doesn't seem fun.

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First of all. Nice setup in the vid, shows it off very good.

Now, bear in mind that this is 17.1 and is supposed to be fixed. As far as I can see on youtube it's pretty much the same as any other build (17). To me this game is a lost course since It's becoming clear that, from the devs side, all measures are taken to conter any actions the players might find and take.

And this is not made by enhanced "AI" or such, This is done by specifically let the "AI" deal with wath players come up with....

Jeez... We are talking brainlesss Z's that can look trough walls to see that behind these 6 block thick steel walls there are actually one spot that are missing a block inside, so lets hit that... That isnt AI, that is bad design.

I've never seen any game this easy to exploit. The "AI" is so dumb it keeps pathing the "easiest" way over and over and over and.........

How hard can it be to get it a bit random. Let the Z's come from all directions. Then let them all attack whatever playermade, or other, block is nearest between them and the player. Whatever direction that may be.

I've quit playing but keep updated, was sort of hoping the game would be great again. Sadly, I'm almost out of hope.

 
Regarding what they do in the OP video in particular, that’s about what I’d expect them to do, except:

  • They could spread out a little. You could appreciate the number of zombies more that way, and they’d seem more chaotic. Actual awareness of each other for them to give each other space may not be performant, but I believe faatal is working on adding more randomness, so some zombies will zig instead of zag, or choose a slightly different route.
  • When you jump from one block to another, clearly there’s a miscalculation somewhere. They don’t recognize the path they’re on is at that point the best option, with just a short distance added by your jump. Personally, I would consider that an unintended bug. Are diagonals ignored, or weighted too high? Are hatches weighted too high (they shouldn’t take long to destroy)? Are air blocks weighted too low?
  • The zombies change paths almost instantly when you move. But a delay of several seconds would have advantages. They’d seem less ‘psychic’ as the OP put it. It’s less calculation the fewer times you recompute the pathing grid. And they’d have a better chance, at least in this case, in finishing what they started. That is, getting close enough to the player to decide to close the rest of the distance, instead of working the old ‘get behind a tree and make your pursuer change direction forever on the other side’ strategy.


As for Morloc’s categories, I’d have no problem with specialists. I think classes of enemies with different abilities are neat. Even a Romero zombie fan should be happier with, say, a horde of zombies that includes a digging specialist, over a horde of zombies all of whom can dig, and sprint, and jump, etc. etc. Specialists encourage more tactical play, e.g. prioritizing some targets over others. I prefer that over simply mowing down zombies that are interchangeable.

 
I'll consider calling a zombie smart when it runs away from me instead of walking / running

towards me.

 
When did people reject the behemoth? I remember not a single topic that people disliked the behemoth. Most people wanted the behemoth as a way to introduce high level / scary enemies for late game, that can breach your defenses.
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Uh, almost everyone? I don't know what discussions you were watching.

I know lots of us, me included, said we would remove them from the spawning pool instantly. I play to fight zombies, not giant monsters.

 
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