PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Rassilon]

9 months, 17,500 reply, 3,040,000 views..

What would you like to say to us with this awesome statistics?

 

[vroomfondel]

What would you like to say to us with this awesome statistics?

nothing.

i like numbers.

 

[toores]

Edit: I think you already know the exploit. I guess you're right about being a "max travel time" before the zombie just attacks whatever is in front of him.

Pardon me, I don't quite get what you're saying here.

 

[KingSlayerGM]

It's not about exploiting, why wouldn't I put all my turrets on one side if Zs concentrate all their effort there? In A16 I must be prepared for the horde to come from any direction.This group mentality is all ok with me. What seems unnatural to me is that if I put 2 layers of concrete on 3 sides and 1 layer on the last side, I'm never gonna have to even pay attention about the 3 thicker sides. Players will figure this out and will start "playing" the new AI.

Could there be limit how many blocks zombies would have to walk around to opt for straight route instead?

Hopefully zeds will be a little more intelligent than now, but nothing like human intelligent. I expect them to find the shortest path to you, yes. But not to figure out which blocks to destroy in order to collapse your base, hell they are not engineers! Also, if they come from the north, they should attack the northern wall. Not going around your house because the back door is weaker. How would they know that?

If they have 2 blocks in front of them, 1 is wood and 1 is steel, than it is ok if they target wood first, it is in their instinct, but for sure some balance is needed.

 

[Aldranon]

Pardon me, I don't quite get what you're saying here.

The exploit would be to have TWO (or more!) forts near each other,

each heavily fortified on three sides, 20x20 size,

both use stairs that require the longest travel time to go up to the next floor!

The weak sides are opposite of each other.

Blood moon horde time you stand on top of one in the middle,

wait 10-20 seconds then run to the other fort by some method to cross the two.

Wait 20 seconds and repeat the process! The time to switch over could be longer IDK yet.

Potentially receiving NO damage to your forts as most zombies will try the "easy" way to get to you but never get near you.

 

[Gnomaana]

I know that for myself and those I play with, we don't really feel any incentive to play until the new update comes out.

Then my advice would be to not play until the new update comes out. I know I rarely play a game I feel no incentive to play but that may just be me.

 

[meganoth]

This group mentality is all ok with me. What seems unnatural to me is that if I put 2 layers of concrete on 3 sides and 1 layer on the last side, I'm never gonna have to even pay attention about the 3 thicker sides. Players will figure this out and will start "playing" the new AI.

Could there be limit how many blocks zombies would have to walk around to opt for straight route instead?

Lots of possible AI-improvements could make that strategy not as easy:

1) As soon as the first zombie stands in front of your weak spot and hits on it, it isn't anymore "available" to other zombies. After your weak side is filled with zombies, the rest will really attack the side they are coming from

2) Path length to reach each possible block to attack could factor into the calculation of the weakest spot

3) Randomization. Faatal already mentioned that he is a fan of adding random values (and TFP previously also have a history of doing that). So some zombies will stay and attack the thicker sides. As soon as they have breached enough of the double wall, this spot will be elevated to weak spot nr.1 and suddenly the main force of the zombies really tries to attack this side

4) Combined with all of above there could be "clustering AI": Give blocks besides blocks already attacked by a zombie a random bonus. So as soon as one zombie attacks a thicker side, the chance for more zombies attacking that side gets a lot higher

 

[Gnomaana]

Right now spiders just path like the rest. I'll have to give them some attention at some point, but I'd call that an advanced feature.

Wouldn't you have to take into consideration that some mobs can path in 3 dimensions instead of just 2 while designing the pathing to have a chance to get it to work when it is time to add that "advanced feature." Spider Zombies climb. It is their distinguishing feature. Having pathing that works for them, while less important than general pathing of the 90% of mobs that can't climb vertically, seems like it would be relatively important.

 

[Gnomaana]

I'd quit the game entirely if that happens, 32 slots even at the start of the game is no where near enough.

Then for the love of God DO NOT try to play Subnautica. If less than 32 slots in a game with things that stack to ridiculous levels would make you quit entirely, then Subnautica would drive you to suicide within 5 minutes.

 

[Zadwanaa]

The exploit would be to have TWO (or more!) forts near each other, each heavily fortified on three sides, 20x20 size,

both use stairs that require the longest travel time to go up to the next floor!

The weak sides are opposite of each other.

Blood moon horde time you stand on top of one in the middle,

wait 10-20 seconds then run to the other fort by some method to cross the two.

Wait 20 seconds and repeat the process! The time to switch over could be longer IDK yet.

Potentially receiving NO damage to your forts as most zombies will try the "easy" way to get to you but never get near you.

so... being strategic is an exploit?

Is that like being smart is an exploit while taking SATs? or being physically fit an exploit when doing the spartan race?

An exploit is more like the wall of wooden chairs, hell even nerd poling is more of an exploit than that base design

 

[Gnomaana]

I totally agree.. they are trying to put entirely too much into ONE freaking update when they could have put out a little at a time and pushed more updates out rather than 8 months for one update... to keep everyone interested and more going on... i dont know why they are doing that honestly and if anyone has any insight on why i would love to hear it..
More communication on a game and its updates or at least what you are working on keeps your people interested and those who have so much time vested in the game worth it.

OK. Master Dev. Explain to me how you would move part of a game to a new version on Unity so you could release the alpha quickly and then move the rest to the new version of Unity the next Alpha. How would you put in part of a new physics system for vehicles and save the rest of the system for a later alpha?

When you have no idea what you are talking about it is usually best to just keep quiet.

- - - Updated - - -

Actually they story is going to be in randomgen as well eventually, in RG it'll be tied to specific poi's, so it'll not be the same experence but you'll get the general gist of it. I still blame Higashi Pharmacy for the outbreak. It reminds me of a manga I read, the zombie outbreak was caused by a corporation, bascally one of the people researching it got lazy, and forgot to wash their hands, and it got out starting with them. If you've explored that POI they were too well setup for researching the zombies, almost like they knew it was going to happen.

Source for this? Not doubting you exactly but I don't recall this being said by TFP. It is very hard to put a story mode in RWG and I didn't think they would try.

 

[meganoth]

The exploit would be to have TWO (or more!) forts near each other, each heavily fortified on three sides, 20x20 size,

both use stairs that require the longest travel time to go up to the next floor!

The weak sides are opposite of each other.

Blood moon horde time you stand on top of one in the middle,

wait 10-20 seconds then run to the other fort by some method to cross the two.

Wait 20 seconds and repeat the process! The time to switch over could be longer IDK yet.

Potentially receiving NO damage to your forts as most zombies will try the "easy" way to get to you but never get near you.

Nice.

So the zombies should not switch attack blocks inbetween. If a zombie has decided to remove a specific "weak" block he should remove that first and then recalculate what to do next. Except maybe if a player is directly in path with no obstacle inbetween.

 

[Aldranon]

so... being strategic is an exploit?
Is that like being smart is an exploit while taking SATs? or being physically fit an exploit when doing the spartan race?

An exploit is more like the wall of wooden chairs, hell even nerd poling is more of an exploit than that base design

Well, the Zombie AI is a bit artificial in the first place and by exaggerating a weakness in it, I would call it an exploit. If the word "exploit" offends, call it "Playing the AI and not the game".

- - - Updated - - -

Nice. So the zombies should not switch attack blocks inbetween. If a zombie has decided to remove a specific "weak" block he should remove that first and then recalculate what to do next.

Right! Once a zombie starts hitting something, he should go into a frenzy until that block is destroyed, THEN reacquire a new target. But never changing its target would be the counter to my plan.

 

[Roland]

All of you who are lamenting how easy it will be to exploit the AI have only your own selves to blame for reading up on how it works. I reject that players who are not in the know would eventually learn to build double thickness on three sides and single thickness on the fourth. That way of building is so outside what is intuitive that the only people who do that are those who have learned how the AI works and are using that knowledge to their advantage (or they were clued in by friends who know).

That being said, faatal has repeatedly said that he is working on basics and core for now and will add advanced features second but all of you are acting as if the basic AI features he has revealed are the whole sum of what you will face. Perhaps in A17 that will be true but faatal has distinctly mentioned he is a fan of randomness in zombie behavior and that he will be working in features to make them less predictable but that these are advanced features that will be added in zombie AI 2.0

Finally, in regards to pathing, faatal has also said that there will be a limited range in how the pathing calculates the optimal path. Aldranon's idea of two separate bases sound to me like they would be beyond the range of the pathing algorithm to really work unless the bases are right next to each other and really really small. Even the one base with three sides double thickness and one side single thickness probably won't work unless you are talking about a very small base. In most cases zombies coming from a direction will stay on that side of your base hitting the weakest blocks on that side and not detecting blocks on the other side of your base unless your base is small enough to be in the range of their pathing.

So please remember that no AI is going to be smarter than human ingenuity and you only have yourself to blame if you spoil it for yourself by following the AI development so closely that you know how to beat it before ever booting up A17 and also that the first iteration is basics and faatal has advanced features planned that will help obfuscate and randomize zombie behavior so that they are not quite as predictable as what many of you are planning on (again provided you aren't using your early access privileges to fully analyze and overcome the AI before ever experiencing it ingame).

 

[KingSlayerGM]

All of you who are lamenting how easy it will be to exploit the AI have only your own selves to blame for reading up on how it works. I reject that players who are not in the know would eventually learn to build double thickness on three sides and single thickness on the fourth. That way of building is so outside what is intuitive that the only people who do that are those who have learned how the AI works and are using that knowledge to their advantage (or they were clued in by friends who know).

I disagree.

Figuring out that zombies go for the least resistance path is super easy in my opinion.

Also, when I first started playing this game a few years back, this is what I thought they were doing. As I started the game for the first time, I ALREADY expected zeds to go for the weakest part of your wall.

This is what any player would instinctively think.

Whether the path of least resistance is based on number of blocks to destroy, type of blocks, or how damaged they are, it doesn't matter.

 

[meganoth]

i always wonder why does we need two windows with slots one just to show and one is usable. whats the point of having two if there can be just one window. slots under statistics could be usable and the slots on the left removed
View attachment 24482

Excellent point. When they have time to clean up UI (I think this might be more like a task for beta) this could be a low hanging fruit. The main advantage would be the (noticable) time saved to bring up that window. Also the "assemble" command could be removed completely.

 

[DaVegaNL]

Guys. You are 'fighting' over something which hasn't even come out yet. Let's see how it works when A17 is released around Halloween.

Hmm. That felt weird. That's usually one of the arguments used against me.

Ps. No matter how difficult the developers will make the AI, players will always find a way to exploit it.

 

[Aldranon]

In a game, I hate wasting any resources: The very opposite of my RL behavior.

Of course, throw a real apocalypse at me and I might start saving sandwich bags and lint! The lint goes in the bags, duh!

 

[Gamida]

All of you who are lamenting how easy it will be to exploit the AI have only your own selves to blame for reading up on how it works. I reject that players who are not in the know would eventually learn to build double thickness on three sides and single thickness on the fourth. That way of building is so outside what is intuitive that the only people who do that are those who have learned how the AI works and are using that knowledge to their advantage (or they were clued in by friends who know).
infoinfoinfoinfoinfo......

Is that how they will work? You can build 3 walls of concrete 5 blocks thick and a single wall of concrete blocks and they will know to go for the single block side?

I was thinking they would go for an individual block that was weaker (maybe from previous damage or of lower durability material such as wood) no matter where it was.

Would they only go for the outside wall?

If I made a base with a double wall of concrete blocks on 4 sides and but on west wall I put one wood block in center of inside wall, will they go for that wooden block?

Just some things that popped into my head. Apparently driving out things like where I left my wallet and if you don't breath it is not good...

 

[Roland]

Is that how they will work? You can build 3 walls of concrete 5 blocks thick and a single wall of concrete blocks and they will know to go for the single block side? I was thinking they would go for an individual block that was weaker (maybe from previous damage or of lower durability material such as wood) no matter where it was.

Would they only go for the outside wall?

If I made a base with a double wall of concrete blocks on 4 sides and but on west wall I put one wood block in center of inside wall, will they go for that wooden block?

Just some things that popped into my head. Apparently driving out things like where I left my wallet and if you don't breath it is not good...

Maybe if your base was 3x3 and only predictably until faatal adds in his advanced features...