PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17
- Thread starter Roland
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I was all set to make fun of the genius remark but this IS genius. I hope Faatal sees it.@faatal:
I had another brilliant stroke of pure and utter genius, what if certain zombies attacked blocks that were under the heaviest SI load?
...goodbye supports, hello crashing base?
/geniusing since 1971
The Gronk
Colon Pounder
She may have been a stripper in her former life but she got bit by a zombie and became a fully qualified structural engineer?I was all set to make fun of the genius remark but this IS genius. I hope Faatal sees it.
Nah, it's a zombie, it shouldn't know about structural engineering at all.
I've been wanting this since the first bloodmoon was over, they need to be way more destructive .@faatal:
I had another brilliant stroke of pure and utter genius, what if certain zombies attacked blocks that were under the heaviest SI load?
...goodbye supports, hello crashing base?
/geniusing since 1971
Cazmyr
New member
My question to you Mr. Cur is:@faatal:
I had another brilliant stroke of pure and utter genius, what if certain zombies attacked blocks that were under the heaviest SI load?
...goodbye supports, hello crashing base?
/geniusing since 1971
If you have been geniusing since 1971, how long have you been Forum Whoring?
layful: Yay! Back on the topic of how smart or dumb zombies should be! *No, It really is a good topic no sarcasm implied*
The question should be: How dumb should the zeds actually be? And How will it affect the game? and how will it play?
Because, 'IF' what we have now is any indication of how dumb zeds should be!.. No TY, I'll pass!
(Not talking about the path finding either)
Make the zeds dumb as rocks for vanilla (lowest difficulty setting) but please let those that want it, be able to change it.
The only way that's going to happen (outside of doing it all ourselves, which is possible through sdx atm) is to make the zeds capable of being smarter then what we have.
The Gronk
Colon Pounder
I can see a zombie following the trail of a human either through sight, sound or smell. It doesn't take a genius to figure out fresh footprints lead somewhere or that a sound is likely to be made by food. With little abiliy to reason they're pretty much just going to try and batter their way to whatever has attracted them with others following behind because of the commotion made by those in the front.
I'm not entirely convinced about them all going for the weakest block though. Sure some of them may have a bit more grey matter left than others but when being infected with zombieism (zombism?) gives you an insatiable lust for raw flesh and a PHD in structural engineering I think we may be straying a little too far from the Romero classic.
I'm not entirely convinced about them all going for the weakest block though. Sure some of them may have a bit more grey matter left than others but when being infected with zombieism (zombism?) gives you an insatiable lust for raw flesh and a PHD in structural engineering I think we may be straying a little too far from the Romero classic.
Roland
Community Moderator
This is one of those cases where I think how and why zeds target particular blocks should be kept secret by the developers. You can have zombies actually target the block with the highest SI load on them as Gups suggested as long as they openly appear to be randomly berserking on blocks around them.
In other words the zombies themselves don't really thematically know which blocks are weakest and are targeting those, it's just that their coding has them target those blocks so that destructive progress is made and the player feels pressure to actively defend.
If the zombies appear to be hitting random blocks and the players don't know the exact algorithm then the players simply fight and react to zombies as they hit blocks. If the players know the secret sauce behind it all then they start setting up metas and building defenses around the known coded routines of the zombies and this takes away from gameplay in my opinion.
faatal has said he is mainly trying to get the zombies to hit targets rather than randomly throwing punches that may hit or miss and go nowhere. Once he has them successfully targeting he can work on randomizing and maybe some go for weakest block and others go for highest SI load and others look for workstations and storage crates and others target hatches-- but all in a mixture of inscrutable patterns so that we as players just see them as frenzied monsters and can't plan using knowledge as purveyors of the forum that our character in the game wouldn't really have.
Roland
Community Moderator
The devs need to make the zombies smart in the sense of choosing targets so that they can make destructive progress and put pressure on defending players but not make them appear like intelligent zombies that are scrutinizing where to place their next best punch. Knowing the prioritized list of targets that a zombie will go through is really information we as players should be oblivious to unless we notice the pattern in game by observing the zombies and not because we looked at the code or read the forums. If the devs are good they will make the zombie behavior appear to have no recognizable pattern and that the zombies seem stupid even though under the hood the zombies "know" exactly which linchpin blocks will undo all your defenses. As good players we shouldn't be trying to learn the coded patterns so we can exploit them in the game.Yay! Back on the topic of how smart or dumb zombies should be! *No, It really is a good topic no sarcasm implied*
The question should be: How dumb should the zeds actually be? And How will it affect the game? and how will it play?
Because, 'IF' what we have now is any indication of how dumb zeds should be!.. No TY, I'll pass!
(Not talking about the path finding either)
Make the zeds dumb as rocks for vanilla (lowest difficulty setting) but please let those that want it, be able to change it.
The only way that's going to happen (outside of doing it all ourselves, which is possible through sdx atm) is to make the zeds capable of being smarter then what we have.
faatal has to be like a good DM that lies when it suits the gameplay and so must keep ALL die rolls hidden behind the screen and we have to be like good players not trying to peek and second guess each and every DM decision.
Part of me somewhat envies the soul that picks up this game in 2019 or 2020 without ever having read a single forum post or update changelog and just plays it experiencing the game with no clue of how the AI is coded or how the heatmap works, or how SI is governed and just plays by trial and error...
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Phoenixshade35
New member
When it comes to zombie brains, always together lol, the only one i can see actively going for being "smarter" is the infected survivor, name wise he is the closest to being smart, maybe we need new zombies as recently infected so they have some intelligence left and are still holding the weapons from when they died, almost like instinct before the rot gets them, almost like the runners in dying light, recently infected and can climb the buildings after you, it would be neat to see at some point and add to the apocalypse setting, do you think it would be a good idea Guppycur?
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