PC Demo zombies damage is stupid...

[HungryZombie]

Imagine how an inexperienced player tries to adapt to the Demolisher and fails time and time again. The demolisher must seem like an unstoppable juggernaut to such players. I imagine that this as very frustrating and not very beneficial for the fun of the game.

I have to disagree. I think this kind of game appeals to the type of player who is going to try and figure out a solution to the demolishers. Survival type games don't seem to attract the type of player who hits a wall and gives up in my experience. Perhaps I'm mistaken?

 

[DeadGerry]

snip

Thank you for your well thought out and presented reply; I greatly enjoy such exchanges and think any reading Devs do too.

As I indicated, modding and rolling back are extreme options - if it comes to it - as in, if a player cannot wait for the update which will, doubtlessly, tweak them. The other options come first - but it is far more useful feedback for a player to be saying 'I made this mod / change and here is my experience' than 'I'm not engaging with this at all - change it'.

Equally it is far better for a player to go 'on X difficulty, at X gamestage and with X alive at a time this proved beyond me, but when I turned it down to X it was manageable; as that helps zero in on where the Demolisher ought to sit. All of the tweakable settinjgs are there ingame for this exact reason; so that is something is proving beyond you, you can change settings to find a level at which is it manageable and feed that back.

I recommend settings and practise for those who are saying they want to engage and find strategies which deal with Demos; but I recommend mods or rollbacks to the players who are saying 'this is stupid and I don't want to deal with it'.

Yes, people are saying they are fundamentally broken and, to quote the OP 'stupid'. This is not the only person making such claims, but the majority of those people are also demonstrating a failure to read, explore, adapt and accept that the new challenges are challenging.

I have to disagree with you - none of the traps are obsolete now, nothing is 'off the table' - you just have to use them differently. Watching Kage848 - who is not a GREAT player - shows all of these things being used and it only fell apart when he made mistakes. It is entirely correct that making mistakes should cause you problems. Had his intended strategy of using M60 with AP ammo been performed without his mistakes he would have had no problems at all. I am not a GREAT player, and I am managing with a similar strategy and having some success with others. The problem is that you can't use pre alpha 18 strategies the same way anymore; and it is a player mistake to do so.

The only limited choices I have seen is from players saying 'I want to build a specific base and use specific weapons and a specific strategy (usually one from alpha <16) and want it to work like it used to. That is their choice to limit their playstyle.

Once again, you specify ONE option for working around demolishers - ignoring 'know what enemies are in your game, know when and where you are likely to encounter them, know what sorts of defences, weapons and strategies are good against them and which are not'.

It's a fairly well known and established trope of games where the threat increases as you level up to be picky about how and when you do so - from Final Fantasy to Fallout, from Hogs of War and Cannon Fodder to any number of games which one could name. I would agree that the documentation and ingame tutorials could make this information clearer - but 7 days to die has NEVER been kind to blind play; from alpha 1 to 18. But such a loud and big deal has been made of the demolishers that anyone who isn't aware of them must be trying pretty hard to not do any prep.

 

[RipClaw]

I have to disagree. I think this kind of game appeals to the type of player who is going to try and figure out a solution to the demolishers. Survival type games don't seem to attract the type of player who hits a wall and gives up in my experience. Perhaps I'm mistaken?

It always depends on how a player sees the game. Some seem to see the game primarily as a zombie shooter. Someone who plays shooters is a different type of player than someone who plays survival games.

 

[Ghostlight]

I have to disagree with you - none of the traps are obsolete now, nothing is 'off the table' - you just have to use them differently. Watching Kage848 - who is not a GREAT player - shows all of these things being used and it only fell apart when he made mistakes. It is entirely correct that making mistakes should cause you problems. Had his intended strategy of using M60 with AP ammo been performed without his mistakes he would have had no problems at all..

If you are referring to Kage's base that utilises 2 hanging Blade traps and (optional) turrets that he tends to turn off, then I have a few comments....

1) Not sure which version he is on but they have patched out the ability to use hanging blade traps on Demolishers. It used to be that they were 3 blocks tall and so such traps could reliably decapitate them without triggering the charge. This is no longer the case. If a hanging Blade Trap can hit a Demo's head then it can now trigger its charge.

2) He is on middle difficulty. I know I know, balance round difficulty 3 and all that. However Kage's approach is to kill Demos very very quickly when they appear (with his M60), and even quicker if their charge is triggered. This does not scale. If his GS were high enough that they were coming 6 at a time, or his difficulty high enough that they could not be killed in time to prevent the explosion, he'd be toast. In short, he *will* soon be toast when either of those things becomes true. Since I believe he restarted his world, we will not know for some time.

That said, Demolishers HAVE been considerably nerfed recently. It is now possible to prevent the blast once triggered, if you kill them fast enough. This is damn near impossible on Insane - 2 seconds is just not enough time - bur fair enough - it is fairly easy on anything else - at least f they are coming only one or two at a time. Previous to this nerf, it was the case that once their charge was triggered, you could not stop the explosion except by doing enough damage to completely vapourise the corpse - damn near impossible unless playing on something simple like maxAlive 12. In addition, a Demolisher exploding will now KILL any other Demolishers nearby without triggering them!! This used to cause an unstoppable chain reaction.

So this is a very VERY huge nerf they have undergone. I no longer have any issue with them to be honest and have once again managed to construct a base that pretty much (almost) auto-kills everything for me even on Insane. However, I still feel a lot of the fun stuff is off the table. I have had to greatly reduce my reliance on Blade Traps and Turrets, and the current design is far less "fun". And would not work without a couple of very good t6 Sniper rifles with very good mods, a ton of AP ammo, and players who more or less never miss with headshots.

 

[quyxkh]

When the demolisher exploded, they didn't know what happened. Also, the players tried to shoot the demolisher with a shotgun, which is completely pointless.
The demolisher is so different from other zombies that it is not possible for an uninformed player to adapt to it or be prepared for it.

So, they're new, nobody could see that coming, they're terrifying, seemingly unstoppable, and the first few times you see them odds are very high you're going to be reduced to running from the wreckage of your formerly-comfy "base" chased by half the entire zombie horde, until some week in your desperation you finally try something that happens to have at least _some_ effect on them and start piecing together some workable defense tactics. Assuming you live that long, of course.

That description would make me want to play that game.

 

[RipClaw]

I have to disagree with you - none of the traps are obsolete now, nothing is 'off the table' - you just have to use them differently. Watching Kage848 - who is not a GREAT player - shows all of these things being used and it only fell apart when he made mistakes. It is entirely correct that making mistakes should cause you problems. Had his intended strategy of using M60 with AP ammo been performed without his mistakes he would have had no problems at all. I am not a GREAT player, and I am managing with a similar strategy and having some success with others. The problem is that you can't use pre alpha 18 strategies the same way anymore; and it is a player mistake to do so.

You better check out the videos from Vedui. Kage is a good entertainer but does not analyse what happens but makes assumptions. Vedui, on the other hand, does experiments.

Dart trap:

The final conclusion is that the dart traps do not trigger the explosion, while blade traps and turrets do trigger the explosion.

There are also ragdoll motions that can lead to additional problems. As long as things are not fixed like the demolisher turning around or hovering one meter above the ground while standing up, certain traps cannot be used without risk.

And it is highly unlikely that you can always react and kill the demolisher within 2 seconds. So you should not rely on this.

I have evaluated many different base designs. The safest and most cost efficient method is to drop the zombies into a pit and use pipe bombs / grenades to kill them. Since the zombies in the pit cannot reach any critical areas of the base, they can do as much damage as they want.

 

[wicketness]

These demos are great for mining.

That's my pretzel.

 

[RipClaw]

So, they're new, nobody could see that coming, they're terrifying, seemingly unstoppable, and the first few times you see them odds are very high you're going to be reduced to running from the wreckage of your formerly-comfy "base" chased by half the entire zombie horde, until some week in your desperation you finally try something that happens to have at least _some_ effect on them and start piecing together some workable defense tactics. Assuming you live that long, of course.
That description would make me want to play that game.

And others do not want to see their base destroyed, in which they have invested so much work. So this description would rather scare them off.

It's like war in the Anno game series. Some people love it and want to fight all the time and others don't want to see their settlement in flames.

And since not everyone likes the demolisher, there are already modlets to remove him from the game:

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?129728-Claymore-s-Modlets&p=1042638&viewfull=1#post1042638

Spoiler

NO DEMOLITIONERS:

Description: Removes the demolitioner zombies from the game. Once and for all. A quick mod, done for Killerlady12, because the community is really annoyed of this entity. Understandable. So: Removed.

Compatibility: A18+

https://www.mediafire.com/file/tvt24...olitioners.zip

 

[DeadGerry]

snip

1) . He's not using the old system of using their height to target them and not other zombies. The blade trap could always set them off; but if you path it so that they are walking up a ramp it hits their heads first and not the detonator. Combined with an electric fence to stun them there the blade trap was killing them on it's own without setting them off. The dart traps also helped; and his AP ammo killed them very quickly.

It only went wrong when he accidentally used non-AP ammo and couldn't kill them fast enough. It is perfectly viable, and works well.

2) . Perhaps - but I didn't see anything to indicate such a thing was going to change - the ramp ensured they'd always be hit by the blade traps on the head, and the fence stun locked them there, and a few rounds put them down, with dart traps chipping in. Something could always go wrong, but that's the whole point; if something goes wrong or you make a mistake you are in trouble. That's why he had built in redundancy; and it becomes a trade off between how much time and effort you put into building fallback plans and how many mistakes you can afford.

Everything else you say is fine - but has to tempered by the decision to play on harder modes with more max alive and MP - if fun is your purpose why not turn it down a notch so it's more fun? IF you feel the need to play on harder modes then just accept it's going to be harder and you'll have less scope for novelty and mist

 

[DeadGerry]

You better check out the videos from Vedui. Kage is a good entertainer but does not analyse what happens but makes assumptions. Vedui, on the other hand, does experiments.
Dart trap:

Thank you, I have checked out the videos you recommend - and your own thoughtful post is welcome too - it validates the notion that there are various strategies and various sources which can give a player these; and it's up to the player to investigate, experiment and adapt - a failure to do so does not make the specific enemy or mechanic 'stupid'.

 

[Ghostlight]

I have evaluated many different base designs. The safest and most cost efficient method is to drop the zombies into a pit and use pipe bombs / grenades to kill them. Since the zombies in the pit cannot reach any critical areas of the base, they can do as much damage as they want.

Serious question here....how do you get them to fall into a pit? I've tried a few methods and they just won't do it. I've tried being across the pit from them, I've tried me under them and down in the pit, and several other variants to boot. I can't get them to drop in (without AI exploit - if you use the one gap jump "infinite ramp" exploit, it is very easy to get them into the pit but I do not want to go there). In all my non-exploit experiments, 90% of the horde will just walk back and forth around the lip of the pit and only about 10% fall/jump in.

 

[Ghostlight]

1) . He's not using the old system of using their height to target them and not other zombies. The blade trap could always set them off; but if you path it so that they are walking up a ramp it hits their heads first and not the detonator. Combined with an electric fence to stun them there the blade trap was killing them on it's own without setting them off. The dart traps also helped; and his AP ammo killed them very quickly.

It is not just the height thing they patched, it's the ramp trick that has also been patched out. In short, if a Blade Trap can hit them anywhere, it can hit their charge, end of story. It's not 100% but it can. (As the linked video above demonstrates). Notice in his final, most successful setup test his blade trap took 500 damage to kill a single Demolisher. Now add a half dozen more concurrent Demolishers, plus the rest of the horde (another 20 Zeds, 50% Irradiated?) to his test....

 

[Ghostlight]

Thank you, I have checked out the videos you recommend - and your own thoughtful post is welcome too - it validates the notion that there are various strategies and various sources which can give a player these; and it's up to the player to investigate, experiment and adapt - a failure to do so does not make the specific enemy or mechanic 'stupid'.

However the videos basically illustrated how all the fun stuff IS indeed off the table. You can't use Turrets at all in my experience because they knock them down and they can stand up facing in any direction, so you have a random chance of them exploding no matter what you try, even from behind. Blade Traps similarly problematic. Use of Shotguns by the player is obviously right out as well.

I've tried all these tests myself.

There is another super-important factor that none of his tests show....Demos can be triggered simply by the presence of other Zombies. Realistic tests need to have multiple Demolishers surrounded by multiple random riff-raff, all of whom are attacking blocks - because that is the "real world" situation on horde night. We have had Demos blow when doing them no damage whatsoever, and our only conclusion is that nearby Zombies that are attacking random stuff is what triggered them. No one was shooting and no traps were in play and they still just trigger and blow. This is a major problem....their explosions feel random as heck when there are a lot of them at once surrounded by the rest of the horde. [We play maxAlive 24, 2 player co-op, so 48 concurrent zombies].

 

[RipClaw]

Serious question here....how do you get them to fall into a pit? I've tried a few methods and they just won't do it.

The base is a shaft down to the bedrock. I am on a platform above the pit which is attached to the ceiling. The upper part of the shaft are wedges. These are so steep that the zombies slide down instead of walking around the pit.

 

[DeadGerry]

It is not just the height thing they patched, it's the ramp trick that has also been patched out. In short, if a Blade Trap can hit them anywhere, it can hit their charge, end of story. It's not 100% but it can. (As the linked video above demonstrates). Notice in his final, most successful setup test his blade trap took 500 damage to kill a single Demolisher. Now add a half dozen more concurrent Demolishers, plus the rest of the horde (another 20 Zeds, 50% Irradiated?) to his test....

The video above does not use ramps. I don't mean to be unkind, but can you maybe go watch the videos I've pointed you at before discounting them?

In the test video linked above the Demo walks into the traps horizontally; they are places at shoulder height and leg height; then front facing and back facing. The version that same guy created which Kage uses has the blade traps hanging down, but a ramp leading the Zeds up so that they hit it at HEAD height; regardless of zombie type; since they meet it vertically.

The head is always the thing being hit; never the shoulder, ergo never the detonator. The electric fence prevents it reaching parity of height by stun lock; darts and AP ammo finish em off.

(Tried to make a diagram here, but cant)

Your experience is absolutely correct, but only useful for the higher difficulty you are choosing to play at - and the (no criticism intended) limited strategies you are willing to use. I say limited because I know you simply don't want to consider some of the options as you think them 'unfun' - which is fine and cool - but it is an artificial limit enforced by you.

The 'fun stuff' works fine on lower settings; if you use it certain ways and don't make mistakes. If you use it differently or make mistakes and play higher settings, that's fine - but it's on you.

I'm using everything you are claiming is 'out' just fine - doesn't matter how many there are if they are all stun locked by electric fences and getting picked off quick style by Dart traps, blade traps and AP ammo.

luck is, of course, a factor - but you make your own luck through preparation to adapt to opportunity and challenge; and you create the chance to be unlucky by limiting your options.

 

[Ghostlight]

I cant find any videos linked above by you, only those linked by Ripclaw. Which pretty much demonstrate the uselessness of Blade Traps against them.

Apologies, I genuinely want to see them. However if you mean Kage's video I already told you it no longer works like that and wouldn't scale anyway. And I don't mean difficulty scaling. If Kage hadn't restarted his world recently, his design would have eventually gotten to a high enough GS where he'd have many Demos at once. In the video I saw (the one where he makes the mistake and uses the wrong ammo) - which I *think* is the one you keep referring to - his GS was low enough that he got only one Demo at a time max, and his difficulty was low enough that an M60 could easily kill it in the event it triggered the C4.

but a ramp leading the Zeds up so that they hit it at HEAD height; regardless of zombie type; since they meet it vertically.

This no longer works. It's easily tested. A ramp leading up to a hanging Blade Trap is now one of the more reliable trigger conditions.

Just to be 100% clear, in this video

go to 7:48.
Notice if you were to raise the Blade Trap one block higher than he has it in the video, and stun lock them right there, it will not hit the Demo at all now (it used to before a recent patch).

 

[canadianbluebeer]

Finally saw my first demolishers last night. Day 49 horde. GS 154. Got a grand total of 3.

M60 chewed them up just fine. (default difficulty)

The electric fence/dart trap base works just as well in 18.3 as in 17. (meaning I have to turn off the front half of the traps if I want the zeds to even make it up the steps)

One cop blew up, the steel laughed at him. (I turned off the traps on the steps, and guess he was damaged, and then blew up rather than

coming further. oh well)

No idea what happens if I get a bunch at a time, only time will tell.

 

[DeadGerry]

snip.

That's NOT the way which they are used in the videos I have been continually referencing.

In the video you show, there is flat ground, 1 ramp up to flat ground 1 up, then a space and a block. There is no fence stun locking them. having the blade trap off to the side means the zed walks through the arc of the blades, maximizing the hit box, but increasing the probability of hitting the detonator.

The lack of stun lock lets the Demolisher get all the way up the ramp to the flat ground 1 up from where it start. It is upon standing at THIS height - totally up the ramp - that the detonator falls within the Blade traps hit box.

In the one I reference which you have apparently seen;

There is flat ground then a ramp up to level ground 1 up on the start ground. The Blade trap hangs down directly above where the zeds walk up, not off to the side. The Electric fence stun locks them before they have reached the top of the ramp. They do not reach the top of the ramp so the detonator does not end out within the hit box of the blade trap and is, therefore, not set off.

Kage's most recent horde nights were on the most recent patch - there has been no patch since then. I am successfully using this technique now; as are others - and despite not being great at this game, I have not made any mistakes so far and have coped with up to 6 Demolishers at once in addition to the other zeds around; max alive usually around 16-20; though frame rate issues have had me tweaking this a lot of late.

 

[n2n1]

It doesn't matter how well it works.

No need to add any fairy-tale and cartoon characters - they spoil the atmosphere.

What kind of fear can we talk about if spider-man runs at me with a glowing ass?

 

[Adam the Waster]

It doesn't matter how well it works.No need to add any fairy-tale and cartoon characters - they spoil the atmosphere.

What kind of fear can we talk about if spider-man runs at me with a glowing ass?

??????????