PC Demo zombies damage is stupid...

[RipClaw]

but it makes sense Why they wear armor. their Military Ordnance. (AKA they work with Bombs/explosives) would you work with bombs without armor?

Show me the military unit where someone from the bomb disposal unit is wearing a biker helmet and leather clothes.

A bomb suit looks completely different.

now about them i think they they should have a Weakness. "Like a turtle with a Hard shell, but low speed" the demolisher should be kinda slow due to his armor. and they should have a Easy leg cripple weakness so they could be "easier" to deal with.

The demolisher does not necessarily have to have a weakness, but the player should have more options than either triggering the explosion or shooting at him with AP ammo and hoping not to trigger the explosion.

or maybe Electricity can Disable the C4 but thats sounds a bit too OP.

Not if the effect only lasts a few seconds. Then you'd have to use lots of electric fences to keep him stunned.

If the C4 charge is temporarily deactivated, you could use blade traps again without fear of triggering the explosion.

but i think their kinda balanced and they are kinda fun to fight IMO. instead of just having to blow up zombies, you have to be careful or else you could have a big hole in your base. when a see a group i always get scared

In my opinion, he is completely unbalanced. As far as I know, Madmole simply set the values of the demolisher in a spontaneous decision.

Originally the demolisher did more entity damage than block damage. When two demolishers exploded in his base without doing much damage he said that he will increase the block damage to 5000. This was done the next day and has not been changed since.

now maybe later on the Alphas. maybe there could a Charging Zombie , a Long range sniper, Spiders could Be super Wall Jumpers? cuz i and many people always want a challenge

And what about the players who don't care about the challenge and just want to have a good time?

There are options to make the game harder for yourself. Rather than making the game extremely difficult by default, it is better to provide options to set the difficulty and keep the default difficulty moderate so that new players are not discouraged.

The Twitch Streamer Jonah Birch is currently playing on Insane, Always Run, 300% XP and Permadeath. This is almost as hard as it can get in Vanilla. If that's not enough for you then there are mods that make it even harder.

 

[HungryZombie]

debating about what the demolishers are wearing is kinda overthinking it imho

 

[Niil945]

On one hand I think that they're ridiculous. On the other I completely understand what they're trying to do. In single player getting established in a defensible base can be rough initially, but I feel like the difficulty of the hordes ramps up pretty well to a point. Many of the early bloodmoon nights can be frantic (particularly in coop multiplayer where the amped up game stage means facing powerful zombies and more of them) and I often find myself just barely able to keep repairs on a door up and defend the entrance with a junk turret and the ammo I have scavenged. Those nights are a lot of fun when I have to worry about being overwhelmed. Then there comes a point where it's nigh impossible for z's to break into my base to cause me problems, usually right around the point where I get to steel and can get enough made to put a vault door on and start upgrading the important bits to concrete. There's this lull in how threatening bloodmoons are. In singleplayer it can last a long, long while.

I've got a permadeath singleplayer game using all normal settings where I just did the day 56 bloodmoon and it was completely trivial with no electric traps, no falling pits, just me using a single junk turret (not int spec'd) and a pistol. That character is level 67 and at game stage 146 and I haven't seen a demolisher yet. I know they spawn at ~150+ but I've spent a lot of hours facing hordes that are a yawn. In contrast, I've got a coop game going on where we're at day 27, bloodmoons are set to 5 +/- 2 days, run speed is increased but it's default difficulty, on night 26 we had our 4th bloodmoon and we thought we were going to lose the base at several points because we're getting tons of cops and irradiated zombies. And it was extremely fun because it was touch and go for a while.

With the current zombie AI I'm not sure how they maintain that difficulty/threat curve without doing something outlandish like a zombie that blows up everything in 5 blocks for 5k block damage. If that explosion was removed even they would be trivial. In multiplayer I feel like it's not terribly imbalanced though it is a threat (at least in the coop games I play where it's me and up to 3 others playing together). We call them out and try to focus fire them down and that usually works even if we sometimes get an explosion. In single player I tend to stop once I reach the point where I'm getting them on bloodmoon nights because other zombies seemingly hit and trigger them while I'm shooting them from behind and I can't kill them fast enough to stop them from just obliterating my base anyways.

If they changed the explosion so it scaled based on game stage and made it not trigger from zombie hits/blade traps they'd still be challenging and something we'd have to be careful about mindlessly shooting at. Increase the wear and tear on blade traps from armored zombies (that might happen already, don't know how that degradation works). Or better yet, add in other zombies that have special effects that can temporarily disable automated base defenses i.e. a zombie that explodes in sticky goop after it dies that has to be damaged off of blade traps or an electrical zombie that explodes doing shock damage in a radius that acts as a short term EMP. Better yet, add zombies that don't follow traditional attack avenues so it can't be funneled the same way and splits attention while base defending i.e. actual climbers/flyers. Maybe scale up the number alive by game stage. I've seen in the console it has a number alive that seems to grow with game stage but I still seem to only get 8 alive at any given time regardless. Or all of that.

The late game definitely needs something to be threatening. Maybe that something has to be bandits and we just have to wait til we get there. But demolishers as they currently are just kill my desire to play single player.

 

[RipClaw]

With the current zombie AI I'm not sure how they maintain that difficulty/threat curve without doing something outlandish like a zombie that blows up everything in 5 blocks for 5k block damage.

Making the game increasingly difficult and increasing the threat of zombies is not the only and certainly not the best way to keep players interested.

Many games change pace to keep players interested. For example, action, story and puzzles alternate.

One way to keep players interested is to give them tasks that keep them busy for a long time. One suggestion was to build a colony, populate it with NPCs and defend it. Due to the limitations of the game, the NPCs could not do much except to give the player quests, but that would be something to give the player something to do.

Of course, at some point a point is reached where this is no longer enough, but no one expects a game to remain interesting forever.

 

[Niil945]

Making the game increasingly difficult and increasing the threat of zombies is not the only and certainly not the best way to keep players interested.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that I like demos at all as they are. I'm simply saying I understand they are trying to develop an engaging endgame and this iteration might be the sorta brute force method of ensuring that endgame stays challenging while they develop other things (bandits, other zombie types, story stuff that pushes us away from established bases, whatever) to take on that function before they fine tune the balancing on demos.

 

[RestInPieces]

<The Good Place Janet> Not a boomer.


Alright. I will just leave an anecdote. There was a guy here a few months back who mentioned that he likes to play the game as a city renovator, cleaning up rubble, fixing broken buildings, smoothing the roads and planting grass and trees. I thought that was awesome. And if the game mechanics were to change such that he could not play that way - because he must instead be a base builder - then 7D2D would be lesser for the change.

Anyhow. Demolishers...what's up with those guys anyway?

Can't help but reply because you may be misunderstanding me. In this example there is nothing that deters him from also doing that. Sure, there were people in the past who wanted to play as all kinds of things, there is literally no end to them. And most of them obviously can, through XML/options - never said these should be taken away. As for the core game, consistency is far more important than what Bob the renovator or Mike the naked drunken brawler want. A "participate if you want"-element (TD for example) without an important practical reason for its existence, might as well not be there in the first place. So in the case of e.g. Bob, he should, say, lower speeds or disable horde nights, so that he doesn't have to defend and just renovate at his leisure. As for those who don't actually want to disable them, they ought to use the TD/building elements which atm, to be honest, are kind of optional since there are ways to skip them, even with nightmare speed on (still many improvements have been made on that and more are coming according to MM).

Of course, at some point a point is reached where this is no longer enough, but no one expects a game to remain interesting forever.

Of course there are ways to challenge the player and not the player's patience, with something else other than demolishers. They could even challenge the player at the end-game with normal zombies (not "clever" or glowing ones and without increasing their number), simply with just a few extra animations and some randomness. Or cheaply implementable (in comparison to a colony system) random events that already use the game's existing assets, exploiting every aspect of the game and most particularly survival threats, which are severely underplayed. Better to trick/surprise the player and make each playthrough different, or catching the player unprepared because e.g. he didn't have X perks, rather than adding a cheap arcade-y short-term solution, as far as replayability goes.

 

[Ghostlight]

If they changed the explosion so it scaled based on game stage and made it not trigger from zombie hits/blade traps they'd still be challenging and something we'd have to be careful about mindlessly shooting at. Increase the wear and tear on blade traps from armored zombies (that might happen already, don't know how that degradation works). Or better yet, add in other zombies that have special effects that can temporarily disable automated base defenses i.e. a zombie that explodes in sticky goop after it dies that has to be damaged off of blade traps or an electrical zombie that explodes doing shock damage in a radius that acts as a short term EMP. Better yet, add zombies that don't follow traditional attack avenues so it can't be funneled the same way and splits attention while base defending i.e. actual climbers/flyers. .... The late game definitely needs something to be threatening. Maybe that something has to be bandits and we just have to wait til we get there. But demolishers as they currently are just kill my desire to play single player.

I get what you are saying. Late game horde need something to up the ante that is not just more zombies doing more damage. But there ya go, in a single paragraph you already came up with several ideas that are FAR superior to the rather poor design that is Demolishers.

I've seen in the console it has a number alive that seems to grow with game stage but I still seem to only get 8 alive at any given time regardless.

When you start a server there is a server-wide setting called maxAlive which dictates the maximum number of zombies (per player) than can exist in the game at any one time. It defaults to 8 or 12 as I recall, and is there to assist players on poor PCs. Most players increase it. I set it to 24 myself and typically play 2-player co-op so we have 48 zombies alive at a time. I believe that no other in-game affect, including the maxAlive parameter for each scaled horde night, can override the server's global maxAlive setting.

 

[uselessjunkaccount]

The general TD concept is trying to prevent pathing enemies with traps/towers/etc from reaching something. Yes, if we want to be specific, those games have extra elements on top, but their whole gameplay revolves around the above. 7DTD fits the bill of having TD elements, but it has to adapt them with voxels and everything else, so a cluster♥♥♥♥ of problems is expected. The concept of being able to skip any part of the game you want (or "my playstyle" as people fallaciously called it), makes those parts meaningless, creating even more confusion. Thankfully they seem to be getting away from that and paying more attention to balance lately.


Well, it's not impossible to both challenge the player and make something that at least fits more with the theme or involves more interesting mechanics than pop-a-mole. Everyone should be a base builder btw (as well as anything else).

This reads like some sort of existential philosophy being applied to video games. Why shouldn't someone ignore base building or zombie killing or resource gathering or POI clearing if they don't enjoy it? The concept of 'playstyle' clearly exists. You can define it as 'ignoring things you don't like' but that's the same end result as 'paying attention to things you do like' which is how most people define it.

 

[RestInPieces]

This reads like some sort of existential philosophy being applied to video games. Why shouldn't someone ignore base building or zombie killing or resource gathering or POI clearing if they don't enjoy it? The concept of 'playstyle' clearly exists. You can define it as 'ignoring things you don't like' but that's the same end result as 'paying attention to things you do like' which is how most people define it.

They can always try to adjust the game so that they can do that through options or XML editing beforehand - not through half-baked and lowly incentivized features that are disconnected from the rest of the game and unimpactful enough to ignore. That only hurts the game for those who have actually bought it for... what it is. It's hardly any sort of existential philosophy, it's more like common sense.

 

[Laz Man]

Happy Friday!!! If you havent seen it already, here is alittle something I cooked up to help cure some demolisher angst. Enjoy!!!

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?142553-Explosives-vs-Demolishers

 

[RipClaw]

Happy Friday!!! If you havent seen it already, here is alittle something I cooked up to help cure some demolisher angst. Enjoy!!! ������
https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?142553-Explosives-vs-Demolishers

I would say it does exactly the opposite. This chain reaction in a horde base is every base builder's nightmare.

And by the way, this charges are meant to be used on safes and chests. They are pretty much useless against zombies.

 

[Oliwhere]

I would say it does exactly the opposite. This chain reaction in a horde base is every base builder's nightmare.And by the way, this charges are meant to be used on safes and chests. They are pretty much useless against zombies.

The real builders nightmare comes in, if you think about the fact, that demos can generate craters like this below the reinforced concrete foundation of your base. The concrete above may stay intact - but the blocks below might get withered away over time and at some point the SI will be compomised enough to have your base crumble.

While demos only do 10% damage to dirt, 500 damage is still a lot and quickly erodes the surface layers.

I guess it's time that the player gets access to that xray technology that zombies already seem to have. :smile-new:

Either that or my next base will have to have a foundation 5 blocks deep made of half-blocks so it can be accessed by tunnels and repaired after horde night.

Just had my day 77 horde night / GS ~300 yesterday and demolishers get really common then - about 40 demos out of ~500 total and maximum of 4 at a time. In a SP world this means for me that some demo explosions are to be expected - so I plan for them beforehand.

 

[Boidster]

We finally did our first demo-inclusive zombie party last night. They and their cop friends destroyed a corner of our base and even got to one of the internal pillars on the same side (the modern fire house POI), but thankfully nothing collapsed. I can see how nerfing them just a bit might be a good idea. Of course this is (stupidly) also our main base; we figured we could use it for a few hordes while we built a horde-specific base. It handled the first two hordes fine, but this one nearly was a disaster.

By the next horde we will have traded "tower defense" for "pit defense" to see how it goes. The motorcycles will be parked and ready at the end of our escape tunnel if things go really sideways. The pit is double-walled steel-reinforced concrete, but after seeing last night's damage I dunno if it will hold up. At least it can't really collapse on our heads...

Eventually we'll get back to a bespoke tower-style base. That base, though...I'm thinking it's going to need some ablative defenses to absorb demolisher damage. We've never even tried any type of funnel/maze defense; maybe we'll look into that. Or maybe we'll try to run over as many as we can in a 4x4. The game gives us many options, which is nice. It would suck if XML editing was the only way we could try out different strategies.

 

[Laz Man]

I would say it does exactly the opposite. This chain reaction in a horde base is every base builder's nightmare.And by the way, this charges are meant to be used on safes and chests. They are pretty much useless against zombies.

You make a good point. If explosive damage can trigger demos I can see if your GS is high enough to have that many at once maybe a good balancing change is to nerf that.

Keep in mind, I had a ton of dynamite layered around the demos, so the crater wasnt just from the demos...

 

[RipClaw]

You make a good point. If explosive damage can trigger demos I can see if your GS is high enough to have that many at once maybe a good balancing change is to nerf that.

I don't know if it is still the case that the AEO damage can trigger the explosion. When I first tested the demolisher, AOE damage could still trigger the explosion but I think that has been changed since then.

Anyway, I didn't have a demolisher that exploded due to the AOE damage in the base that works with grenades and pipe bombs. However, most of the time these are one-shot kills if you throw 5 pipe bombs into the pit and then ignite the explosion with exploding crossbow bolts.

The most resource-efficient horde base I currently have is a melee / shotgun base. It is based on the base JaWoodle uses in his Fists Only challenge.

I primarily use a Q6 baseball bat. Since I have all the books from the Batter Up series I can use the Power Attack permanently. Every zombie kill refills my stamina.

The Q6 shotgun is loaded with slugs and I have the Shotgun Messiah book which gives me a high chance of fragmentation if the target is less than 3m away. And I get a 20% damage bonus if the target still has full HP. So I can often kill Demolisher with a single head shot.

The last night I only used 90 slugs in the last horde. But the base is only designed for 8 zombies at the same time. Maybe up to 16 at the same time would work but I would not recommend more with this type of base.

 

[Laz Man]

I don't know if it is still the case that the AEO damage can trigger the explosion. When I first tested the demolisher, AOE damage could still trigger the explosion but I think that has been changed since then.
Anyway, I didn't have a demolisher that exploded due to the AOE damage in the base that works with grenades and pipe bombs. However, most of the time these are one-shot kills if you throw 5 pipe bombs into the pit and then ignite the explosion with exploding crossbow bolts.

The most resource-efficient horde base I currently have is a melee / shotgun base. It is based on the base JaWoodle uses in his Fists Only challenge.

I primarily use a Q6 baseball bat. Since I have all the books from the Batter Up series I can use the Power Attack permanently. Every zombie kill refills my stamina.

The Q6 shotgun is loaded with slugs and I have the Shotgun Messiah book which gives me a high chance of fragmentation if the target is less than 3m away. And I get a 20% damage bonus if the target still has full HP. So I can often kill Demolisher with a single head shot.

The last night I only used 90 slugs in the last horde. But the base is only designed for 8 zombies at the same time. Maybe up to 16 at the same time would work but I would not recommend more with this type of base.

Cool strat! I like it!

 

[SirFfuzzyLogik]

I absolutely love the demolishers.

Hulking tanks that draw all your attention in the middle of a frenzy. Kill it immediately, or watch all you love be turned to rubble.

Currently the best 35+ bloodmoon strat is to engage in an open field or street with thousands of rounds and just run circles around them.

If you rely on a base to save you from a bloodmoon, you are a fool. For their greatest weakness is... lag.

 

[Laz Man]

I absolutely love the demolishers.
Hulking tanks that draw all your attention in the middle of a frenzy. Kill it immediately, or watch all you love be turned to rubble.

Currently the best 35+ bloodmoon strat is to engage in an open field or street with thousands of rounds and just run circles around them.

If you rely on a base to save you from a bloodmoon, you are a fool. For their greatest weakness is... lag.

Run and gun is certainly a strat but is not the only one...but if that is what you find fun, more power to you.

 

[RipClaw]

I absolutely love the demolishers.
Hulking tanks that draw all your attention in the middle of a frenzy. Kill it immediately, or watch all you love be turned to rubble.

That's one reason I don't like the Demolisher. Statements like yours discourage players instead of encouraging them. They say that it is not worth the effort to build a base if the demolisher destroys them anyway. So instead of building a base, some players hide on the roof of a big POI.

Currently the best 35+ bloodmoon strat is to engage in an open field or street with thousands of rounds and just run circles around them.

Not exactly an efficient way to fight the Horde.

I can defeat any opponent if I expend enough resources. The challenge for me is to keep the resource consumption low when fighting the horde.

If you rely on a base to save you from a bloodmoon, you are a fool. For their greatest weakness is... lag.

Lag is not something I would rely on. It can indeed become your greatest enemy.

I have already built and tested different base types and they work more or less well. I haven't found the optimal base yet but building and testing is a lot of fun for me.

Basically it is possible to deal with the Demolisher. So I would not call base builders fools. Basebuilding is one of the elements that distinguishes this game from simple zombie shooters.

 

[Ghostlight]

Ripclaw has it right. Running about in the open is just about the worst way to engage the horde because it is the most expensive. The trick, especially on high difficulty and late game, is to minimise the cost of the killing the horde (assuming you want to kill them of course).