PC Feedback for The Fun Pimps on Alpha 17

[Roland]

Huh. I thought devs said Digging was getting a setting. Guess more Dev diary digging.

The only dev comment I have seen was from faatal who said that putting that option in was not as easy or straightforward as others because it isn't just a digging tag they put on zombies. It is part of the pathing system. So it will take some extra work to do something like that.

For myself, I'd like to see it stay in without option until at least A18. When A17 first dropped the immediate response was that underground mining and bunkering was now impossible. Now we are getting reports of people finding out it is possible. So maybe without the option available for a time, more people who would normally just hit that toggle immediately without even trying to innovate will come to learn the Ways of the Mole and figure out how to survive in the underworld despite digging zombies.

But I would like to see a toggle for it eventually for sure.

 

[Jackelmyer]

The only dev comment I have seen was from faatal who said that putting that option in was not as easy or straightforward as others because it isn't just a digging tag they put on zombies. It is part of the pathing system. So it will take some extra work to do something like that.
For myself, I'd like to see it stay in without option until at least A18. When A17 first dropped the immediate response was that underground mining and bunkering was now impossible. Now we are getting reports of people finding out it is possible. So maybe without the option available for a time, more people who would normally just hit that toggle immediately without even trying to innovate will come to learn the Ways of the Mole and figure out how to survive in the underworld despite digging zombies.

But I would like to see a toggle for it eventually for sure.

I would love a toggle. Until zombies turning my world to Swiss cheese becomes a digger thing of the past, I'd like it turned off.

 

[Cirion]

I don't think anyone is arguing that building underground is impossible.

It's possible - I already know how to do it - but you have to build several layers thick, which isn't *as* big of a deal above ground, but underground it is a massive chore to do so, lots of digging, and carefully too without collapsing terrain on yourself. The payoff of building underground no longer exceeds the effort involved. IMO. That's different from saying "you can't make viable underground structures".

That said I do plan on eventually playing around with underground building with the new AI, but when I do, it will be via making the base in creative mode and then just inserting it into the world because the sheer scale / cost of such a project is completely prohibitive in a normal playthrough.

The more accurate statement is "you can't make viable underground structures in any sort of reasonable timeframe" - which does indeed eliminate most players from bothering with it.

I go back to my tax example. Put a 200% tax on something and see how many people buy it now. Sure it's not "banned" but might as well be. Same here, it's basically a 200% tax on effort required. This "soft ban" as I'll call it does indeed eliminate options for the sweeping majority of players.

There is a semi-viable partially submerged base design that would likely work, that I would base upon something I saw someone else make, but I don't count that as purely underground. When I'm talking about underground I'm thinking about bases that go pretty much to bedrock.

I really don't understand the arguments often made which is "well the old method of building underground was OP and too easy".... even discounting the fact you can just avoid the horde outright by running or driving all night, taking over a big POI is even easier than building underground... and often virtually as effective. and no one complains about this? Some of the biggest POI you can just camp on the roof all night, and be safe from everything (except maybe vultures). I just feel like this community is very selective in what they call OP. If the dev arguments are "we don't want people avoiding the horde" well I just named off two more ways to do so other than the old way of building underground.

I guess my point of the previous paragraph is be consistent. If you're going to put a soft ban on one method of cheesing the AI, then put a soft ban on all the other methods too (like fall trap bases also - they can also still be done but also got a "200% tax" applied to it). Don't just put soft bans on random stuff and leave other things in the game or it makes no sense at all to then use the argument of "well we don't want it to be too easy".

I mean, don't get me wrong, nerfing the ability to take over POI's or be able to run from the horde would annoy me, but at least it would make consistent sense in the grand scheme of things that you truly want us to fight the horde and not hide or run from them. I personally would actually kind of like to see a true "Tower Defense" mode where zombies, instead of targetting you, target either your bed roll or your land claim block, which makes participating in the BM horde no longer optional. I mean, it sounds like the dev's goal is to make BM horde fighting mandatory, so, that seems to be the logical approach to me.

 

[Roland]

The more accurate statement is "you can't make viable underground structures in any sort of reasonable timeframe" - which does indeed eliminate most players from bothering with it.

I don't think that is an accurate statement at all. You said you know "the way" to do it using layers but that it is prohibitive to do it. Here's a thought... your layer idea is "a way" but probably not "the way". Again, you are saying that the game has made digging essentially impossible before you have even tried it other than doing some mental exercises about how you would go about it. Others are actually doing it and "more ways" will continue to come to light.

I really don't understand the arguments often made which is "well the old method of building underground was OP and too easy".... even discounting the fact you can just avoid the horde outright by running or driving all night, taking over a big POI is even easier than building underground... and often virtually as effective. and no one complains about this? Some of the biggest POI you can just camp on the roof all night, and be safe from everything (except maybe vultures). I just feel like this community is very selective in what they call OP. If the dev arguments are "we don't want people avoiding the horde" well I just named off two more ways to do so other than the old way of building underground.

Not selective. Methodical. Those other ways of overly easy avoidance are next on the list. Oh, and don't think treading water above a deep lake isn't also known and planned to be dealt with as well. faatal's answer was best. When asked where the player was supposed to be able to find a safe place he said, "The Main Menu."

I bet that people (in their excitement over the blood moon toggle) didn't realize that with a legitimate way to turn blood moon off in the options menu for those who don't like it, TFP now has full green lights ahead for making it as horrific and ubiquitous in the game for those who choose to have it enabled. Muwahahahahahahaha!

Spoiler

Now maybe they'll even make it so your avatar remains in the game for a time after you log out for those gamers who log out just before BM. ;-)

 

[Cirion]

I don't think that is an accurate statement at all. You said you know "the way" to do it using layers but that it is prohibitive to do it. Here's a thought... your layer idea is "a way" but probably not "the way". Again, you are saying that the game has made digging essentially impossible before you have even tried it other than doing some mental exercises about how you would go about it. Others are actually doing it and "more ways" will continue to come to light.

I admit I haven't looked up what other players are doing but I really doubt they're doing it without layering it up, that's how the current AI works... I've tested it repeatedly and that is what I have found to be how the current AI works and how to work around it and there really is no other solution because otherwise, they'll break out blocks at other locations instead.

The bigger the base, the more layers required. In a game with a friend of mine, we took over a very large POI and found that we needed 5 or 6 layers of concrete before they finally decided to take our two long corridor entrances that we had constructed for horde killing.

Not selective. Methodical. Those other ways of overly easy avoidance are next on the list. Oh, and don't think treading water above a deep lake isn't also known and planned to be dealt with as well. faatal's answer was best. When asked where the player was supposed to be able to find a safe place he said, "The Main Menu."

I bet that people (in their excitement over the blood moon toggle) didn't realize that with a legitimate way to turn blood moon off in the options menu for those who don't like it, TFP now has full green lights ahead for making it as horrific and ubiquitous in the game for those who choose to have it enabled. Muwahahahahahahaha!

Allright, at least they're being consistent then. I appreciate that more than just picking and choosing methods they want to nerf.

As for the treading water comment - funnily enough, I actually am eager for swimming zombies, because this is one instance where allowing swimming zombies actually INCREASES the number of options for base building. I never bothered too much with lake building before because it was annoying, they'd always end up digging the terrain up / tearing up my supports. now maybe we can do things like castles built on a lake and then long bridges with death traps laid up all along the bridge....

 

[Roland]

As for the treading water comment - funnily enough, I actually am eager for swimming zombies, because this is one instance where allowing swimming zombies actually INCREASES the number of options for base building. I never bothered too much with lake building before because it was annoying, they'd always end up digging the terrain up / tearing up my supports. now maybe we can do things like castles built on a lake and then long bridges with death traps laid up all along the bridge....

THIS.

This was exactly my sentiments about underground building from the time they removed digging zombies until A17 returned the game to its roots.

 

[Cirion]

I think one thing that would make me less salty about underground bases & the A17 zombies is if zombies weren't so quick to dig straight down even if there's a clear entrance to your base.

Maybe that's my complaint. Personally, I think avoiding the horde entirely is boring. I rarely do it. But I also think giving them the ability to dig straight down 60 meters is absolutely ridiculous, especially if there is a clear path down to your base they could use instead that they completely ignore in favor of digging down 60 blocks.

I do understand giving the zombies the ability to dig straight down is kinda needed if you block off all entrances. but that shouldn't happen if they have a path to you

As far as I can tell through my testing, there are effectively 5 types of blocks that the zombies react differently to

1. Player built blocks

2. Player built traps like iron spikes

3. "Air" blocks (empty air)

4. "Water" blocks

5. "Terrain" blocks

Because I don't have access to the source code, I can not tell you how exactly each is deemed significant for calculating "most efficient path" but I can say this much...

It seems that terrain blocks are considered "easy" pathing, they'll tear through lots of terrain to get to you. Air blocks are weighted less than player blocks as described later. It almost seems like they consider going through terrain as easy as air, so they'll happily go through 50 layers of terrain to get you. <---- THIS is what I am salty and complaining about. Is this working as intended?

Example: If a zombie has to choose between traveling 100 blocks of empty air VS. tearing through 5 blocks of concrete, I have found this is roughly the conversion rate. So you need 5 layers of blocks for every 100 blocks of empty air they have to path to get to you. Very roughly. More precise testing is needed to find this exact #. I was also somewhat surprised to find it doesn't matter whether its wood or steel blocks. All they care is the # of layers, not the durability of the layers. I wonder if they can change the coding such that steel blocks are considered more of an obstacle than wood in their calculations? This would reduce the pain of having to layer things so heavily.

Trap blocks are considered "blockages", but not weighted as heavily as full concrete blocks. Still, if you have too many traps, they may opt to ignore them and wail on your walls instead. Some more testing needed here probably too for exact calculations. You can exploit their reaction to traps by just putting several layers of spikes around your perimeter, which can be a cheaper solution to putting 3-4 block high layers of concrete around your base though and is useful in the rare case they decide to go after a wall, because they'll die trying. I find it very effective to layer up AND put traps for this reason. Makes your walls almost impregnable.

No idea on current calculation on water. Probably similar to trap blocks.

 

[Jackelmyer]

I can't stand zombies, and my least favorite experience, is largely due to when they do start digging down, you've got zero options to minimize the damage they do on their way down. Especially if they dig down from directly overhead.

I would actually MUCH rather terrain be made 8 blocks deep and resources balanced for that limited depth. Then I could strip mine instead of making these winding paths that take forever to mine out and leave you cornered when zombies come walking up.

To dig defensively adds to some of the worse game content that 7D2D has. Mining as a whole.

I'd probably more readily accept a balanced game adjustment that stopped digging all together. Made stuff like cement blocks or mix lootables or purchased from Traders.

Actually. TFP. Gimme that. Make blocks cheap to buy/balanced with duke income from scavenging and selling. Maybe give me a machine that automines. And get rid of digging all together.

 

[JCrook1028]

I don't think anyone is arguing that building underground is impossible.
It's possible - I already know how to do it - but you have to build several layers thick, which isn't *as* big of a deal above ground, but underground it is a massive chore to do so, lots of digging, and carefully too without collapsing terrain on yourself. The payoff of building underground no longer exceeds the effort involved. IMO. That's different from saying "you can't make viable underground structures".

That said I do plan on eventually playing around with underground building with the new AI, but when I do, it will be via making the base in creative mode and then just inserting it into the world because the sheer scale / cost of such a project is completely prohibitive in a normal playthrough.

The more accurate statement is "you can't make viable underground structures in any sort of reasonable timeframe" - which does indeed eliminate most players from bothering with it.

I go back to my tax example. Put a 200% tax on something and see how many people buy it now. Sure it's not "banned" but might as well be. Same here, it's basically a 200% tax on effort required. This "soft ban" as I'll call it does indeed eliminate options for the sweeping majority of players.

There is a semi-viable partially submerged base design that would likely work, that I would base upon something I saw someone else make, but I don't count that as purely underground. When I'm talking about underground I'm thinking about bases that go pretty much to bedrock.

I really don't understand the arguments often made which is "well the old method of building underground was OP and too easy".... even discounting the fact you can just avoid the horde outright by running or driving all night, taking over a big POI is even easier than building underground... and often virtually as effective. and no one complains about this? Some of the biggest POI you can just camp on the roof all night, and be safe from everything (except maybe vultures). I just feel like this community is very selective in what they call OP. If the dev arguments are "we don't want people avoiding the horde" well I just named off two more ways to do so other than the old way of building underground.

I guess my point of the previous paragraph is be consistent. If you're going to put a soft ban on one method of cheesing the AI, then put a soft ban on all the other methods too (like fall trap bases also - they can also still be done but also got a "200% tax" applied to it). Don't just put soft bans on random stuff and leave other things in the game or it makes no sense at all to then use the argument of "well we don't want it to be too easy".

I mean, don't get me wrong, nerfing the ability to take over POI's or be able to run from the horde would annoy me, but at least it would make consistent sense in the grand scheme of things that you truly want us to fight the horde and not hide or run from them. I personally would actually kind of like to see a true "Tower Defense" mode where zombies, instead of targetting you, target either your bed roll or your land claim block, which makes participating in the BM horde no longer optional. I mean, it sounds like the dev's goal is to make BM horde fighting mandatory, so, that seems to be the logical approach to me.

You don't need do anything special at all to live underground other than make sure you are more than 40 blocks deep. My underground base is exactly the same it was in A16. I go up into a POI then down s shaft to bedrock. The only time it is different is on horde night but I never hid down there from hordes anyway so not anything that affects me now.

 

[fishjie]

?????

Maybe my server is glitched but i have had 0 problems making an underground base. i did it same way i always did, go straight down to bedrock, and make a beeline in some direction, put your forges there. only change i made was that on horde night, i purposefully let the zombies dig down to me and overwhelm/kill me. then the next day, i used the hole they dug to construct a shaft, and covered the bottom in spikes. then i threw some pillars up around it. on horde night sometimes they'd ignore the shaft and dig down alternate paths, but after filling enough of the holes with cement, eventually the zombies got the hint and nicely fell down to their impending doom where i waited with slegehammer on horde night. on regular nights the zombies dont even bother me.

(normal difficulty)

Feedback for devs:

When I'm painting, i cant paint the area below a forge/workbench/chem station/bed/etc without moving it. in cases of decorative beds, i have to destroy it to move it. can you make it easier to paint the tiles that are already occupied by an object? similarly, can you make it easier to move decorations that the player has crafted/purchased?

backpack disappeared once - searched everywhere for it. it showed up on the mini map, but when i went to the area i died it wasn't there. it was a tier V POI so i searched every floor where i died (i cleared the entire damn thing) and still couldn't find. can you modify the map so that you can view the exact coordinates, not just lat/long, but also altitude of backpack? better yet, have the backpack drop EXACTLY on the square you hit 0 health (i notice it flies off randomly). it was very frustrating to lose all my gear

 

[RipClaw]

Maybe my server is glitched but i have had 0 problems making an underground base. i did it same way i always did, go straight down to bedrock, and make a beeline in some direction, put your forges there. only change i made was that on horde night, i purposefully let the zombies dig down to me and overwhelm/kill me. then the next day, i used the hole they dug to construct a shaft, and covered the bottom in spikes. then i threw some pillars up around it. on horde night sometimes they'd ignore the shaft and dig down alternate paths, but after filling enough of the holes with cement, eventually the zombies got the hint and nicely fell down to their impending doom where i waited with slegehammer on horde night. on regular nights the zombies dont even bother me.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned but I feel the fact that zombies penetrate my base and kill me is a problem. I had in Alpha 15 an underground base with a fall pit and a feral wight fell in a horde night somehow through the ground and destroyed me a chemistry station. That's why I'm not so excited when zombies hang around near my workstations and my storage.

Sure you can build a base on the bedrock but how far up can you go until the zombies hear you? I don't know any reliable numbers but apparently the zombies can hear you easily through 30-35m rock.

Besides the underground bases are one thing but another thing are mines.

You can't choose the depth in which you want to find the resources. For example, I have an iron mine in which the zombies walk quite often because it lies just below the surface. So I had to build a defense here.

 

[Ghostlight]

Lol. Never been an underground dweller myself, but I LOVE the digging zombies. So easy to cheeze them into starting to dig when you are exploring large POIs, then go up and kill them at your leisure.

 

[meganoth]

I don't think anyone is arguing that building underground is impossible.
It's possible - I already know how to do it - but you have to build several layers thick, which isn't *as* big of a deal above ground, but underground it is a massive chore to do so, lots of digging, and carefully too without collapsing terrain on yourself. The payoff of building underground no longer exceeds the effort involved. IMO. That's different from saying "you can't make viable underground structures".

That said I do plan on eventually playing around with underground building with the new AI, but when I do, it will be via making the base in creative mode and then just inserting it into the world because the sheer scale / cost of such a project is completely prohibitive in a normal playthrough.

The more accurate statement is "you can't make viable underground structures in any sort of reasonable timeframe" - which does indeed eliminate most players from bothering with it.

Question about that: Collapsing seems to be only a problem if you dig in ore veins. If you build your underground structure in a veinless area the collapsing threat should be largely gone, right? Not the zombie thread obviously, that is still there.

I really don't understand the arguments often made which is "well the old method of building underground was OP and too easy".... even discounting the fact you can just avoid the horde outright by running or driving all night, taking over a big POI is even easier than building underground... and often virtually as effective. and no one complains about this? Some of the biggest POI you can just camp on the roof all night, and be safe from everything (except maybe vultures). I just feel like this community is very selective in what they call OP. If the dev arguments are "we don't want people avoiding the horde" well I just named off two more ways to do so other than the old way of building underground.

It wasn't "we don't want people avoiding the horde", it was more like "we don't want people avoiding the horde at zero cost/effort". MM was even thinking loud about having the possibility of buying yourself a safe stay at one of the Duke's hotels as one of the ways to avoid the horde.

The bigger the base, the more layers required. In a game with a friend of mine, we took over a very large POI and found that we needed 5 or 6 layers of concrete before they finally decided to take our two long corridor entrances that we had constructed for horde killing..

Not sure if it's the same case but one time I build my defense in a post office building and made the mistake of keeping the entrance to my corridor of death two blocks high. But I also put a trap into the entrance and I think the zombies seemed to look at it as only 1 block open and suddenly a lot of other entrances seemed much more profitable to them. I failed miserably at luring them into that corridor.

Made stuff like cement blocks or mix lootables or purchased from Traders.

Isn't this already in the game in a way? Most poi's (especially the unfinished buildings) have cement (the blue blocks on pallets) and cobblestone resource blocks to loot, just use a shovel to pick them up. In quest pois even a regrowing resource.

 

[Jackelmyer]

It wasn't "we don't want people avoiding the horde", it was more like "we don't want people avoiding the horde at zero cost/effort". MM was even thinking loud about having the possibility of buying yourself a safe stay at one of the Duke's hotels as one of the ways to avoid the horde.

It's pretty clear who actually built bases underground and who didn't.

One could easily spend weeks of in game time setting up an underground base and storage system. Time someone building above wouldn't ever have to do.

In reality, building it all above ground is much easier from a setup perspective. Slap boxes on a roof top. Tadaaaaa. Done.

The big difference between underground and above ground was how people felt about distraction and what they wanted to stay busy with.

Do you want to stay busy with screamers and wandering hordes?

Do you want to stay busy with resource gathering and building?

Which is why a lot of builder type players feel incredibly targeted by A17 and underground base impacts of the A17 release.

 

[Cirion]

It's pretty clear who actually built bases underground and who didn't.
One could easily spend weeks of in game time setting up an underground base and storage system. Time someone building above wouldn't ever have to do.

In reality, building it all above ground is much easier from a setup perspective. Slap boxes on a roof top. Tadaaaaa. Done.

The big difference between underground and above ground was how people felt about distraction and what they wanted to stay busy with.

Do you want to stay busy with screamers and wandering hordes?

Do you want to stay busy with resource gathering and building?

Which is why a lot of builder type players feel incredibly targeted by A17 and underground base impacts of the A17 release.

^^ This. And as I have recently mentioned to Roland, now the amount of effort is so prohibitive that I doubt anyone but those with too much free time OR using cheat menu are bothering. I know I will never make an underground base unless I cheat in a prefab I made in the editor.

After some discourse with Roland I understand the dev's point of view but its misguided because making legit underground bases takes a lot of effort, and adding digging zombies is adding salt to the wound. I CAN understand though making it not possible to completely hide from the hordes (the point of digging zombies in the first place). So, they just need to address the AI to make it so they don't just dig willy-nilly. As I mentioned to him though if the AI problems are addressed then I'll be mostly ok with it then.

To be clear, I am talking about making an underground HORDE base, not an underground "cheese" or complete zombie avoidance base. It takes quite a lot of effort even using the auger, which you won't have early game, to drill out the required area. So it's not like you can even do this early game. Now early game you CAN just dig straight to bedrock and mine out a few square meters but that's not what I'm referring to. I am talking a legit full base that is also horde proof.

 

[meganoth]

One thing that may be out of balance at the moment is that (according to a miner/builder I talked with yesterday) ore veins are not giving back enough ore to make underground mining competitive with breaking stones above ground. Reason is that more gravel blocks are mixed into the ore veins. That diminishes the average ore you get out of blocks in a vein drastically.

That is even more damaging if you are after resources like coal. I assume the coal situation to be corrected eventually, but making mining harder and reducing the yield at the same time has made ore veins somewhat underwhelming.

 

[Jackelmyer]

One thing that may be out of balance at the moment is that (according to a miner/builder I talked with yesterday) ore veins are not giving back enough ore to make underground mining competitive with breaking stones above ground. Reason is that more gravel blocks are mixed into the ore veins. That diminishes the average ore you get out of blocks in a vein drastically.
That is even more damaging if you are after resources like coal. I assume the coal situation to be corrected eventually, but making mining harder and reducing the yield at the same time has made ore veins somewhat underwhelming.

I don't know who's saying it's not competitive. Mining changed in A17 on where to find the ore/resources. Specifically, they've pushed most ore/resources up to the top layers (top 20ish layers) of terrain. Deep underground mining, at bedrock, is a pain. A severe pain. Resources are more scarce down at bedrock and iron ore is placed funny. A17, once you figure out where the ore is, it's actually I'd say easier to get a ton of resources. From a pure location and mining perspective. However because of diggers... It's a lot harder and more dangerous. Like... not fun dangerous. Since I new have to dig a fighting area, constantly, escape tunnels, constantly, trap myself in, whatever. It's annoying, time consuming, and prolonging my whole mining experience that I really just want to space out, mine my stuff, and then get back to the rest of the fun content.

I've said repeatedly.

* If you're going to make me stupid focus on mining, the make mining a much faster experience and much shorter experience. Get it fast paced and fun.

Anyone who mines at all knows that "blurred and spaced out" mining mode you get into. You lose track of time and how many blocks you've dug, but after a bit, you come out if that spaced out mode with a bunch of stone or iron or whatever.

That blurred and spaced out mode is kinda crucial to the whole mining experience. No one finds tapping W periodically and holding the left mouse button an engaging and rewarding game play experience. It's a Sandbox world. We need those resource for base builds. So we do it. TFP doesn't want people slapping up instant concrete bases. Fine.

But you want me to suddenly stay on edge... for 10+ minutes straight... Tapping the W key occasionally... and holding the left mouse button? TFP? You really want that to be my "engaged" 10 minutes? W + Left Mouse click?

So that what? I can get cornered by a wandering horde in the night?

Are you trying to force us out into the night to do our looting? Mine in the day now? Loot at night?

Do you think we have time to do all that mining and looting in the day when we have an 18 hour day period?

What exactly was the imagined game play experience here?

Instead of just getting into my mine, digging out my resources, and being done with it. You want us building constant mini bases underground? Is that TFP's idea of fun and engaging game play?

At this point, i'd just like to know what they're thinking. I don't understand. At all.

And frankly, pretty much every player I've heard state they "Love Diggers"... Doesn't play under ground. Roland, loves diggers. But I've never once seen him say he did much of anything underground.

Which is the same with pretty much everyone else who seems to "love" diggers. Yet... I never hear any of them share an experience with a digger that they loved. Or even an experience where they engaged a digging zombie.

 

[meganoth]

It's pretty clear who actually built bases underground and who didn't.
One could easily spend weeks of in game time setting up an underground base and storage system. Time someone building above wouldn't ever have to do.

In reality, building it all above ground is much easier from a setup perspective. Slap boxes on a roof top. Tadaaaaa. Done.

The big difference between underground and above ground was how people felt about distraction and what they wanted to stay busy with.

Do you want to stay busy with screamers and wandering hordes?

Do you want to stay busy with resource gathering and building?

Which is why a lot of builder type players feel incredibly targeted by A17 and underground base impacts of the A17 release.

I definitely can see the allure of an undisturbed pure sandbox below where you could just go up to some zombie action if you got bored momentarily and otherwise spend time building like you had those zombie turned off completely. Some builders who wanted that scenario probably really turned off zombies and only turned them on at special occasions (which is not cheating and quite a comfortable way to achieve the build sandbox ideal). Many others probably (wrongly) felt that would be cheating and didn't. Or couldn't because they ALSO wanted to play on public servers.

But TFP obviously doesn't want a compartmentalized world, where you can step from the RPG world to the survival word into the sandbox world, but wants to fuse them. And HAS to in a way, since otherwise it isn't a mix, is it? Just two or three games with a "portal" inbetween.

That doesn't mean that the balance of work to do something underground or above ground is right at the moment. I like the following ideas:

1) pickaxe one-shotting blocks should probably be back or maybe even easier than in A16.

2) Maybe there should be places in the underground with blocks that have more SI than reinforced steel. With no ore veins there, but places where you can build massive caves with hardly any support structures.

3) Cirions idea to make zombies look for entrances to the underground much more.

4) I'm still of the opinion that there should be sleeper zombies in the ground. That way zombie won't need to be able to detect you 35 blocks away. And the underground would have its own rules concerning zombies.

 

[Jackelmyer]

I definitely can see the allure of an undisturbed pure sandbox below where you could just go up to some zombie action if you got bored momentarily and otherwise spend time building like you had those zombie turned off completely. Some builders who wanted that scenario probably really turned off zombies and only turned them on at special occasions (which is not cheating and quite a comfortable way to achieve the build sandbox ideal). Many others probably (wrongly) felt that would be cheating and didn't. Or couldn't because they ALSO wanted to play on public servers.
But TFP obviously doesn't want a compartmentalized world, where you can step from the RPG world to the survival word into the sandbox world, but wants to fuse them. And HAS to in a way, since otherwise it isn't a mix, is it? Just two or three games with a "portal" inbetween.

See, that's not the experience at all that people underground are after.

Underground isn't a pure sandbox experience. And it's not compartmentalizing the RPG experience.

Underground is a work experience. A grind experience. A resource gathering experience. It's not purely about avoidance.

You're RPG moment while you're down there mining is:

* A lot of thought and planning of how you're going to build what next.

* Mass production of resources.

* You're "Gear up to move out!" location.

Think about a lot of the movies or books where there's a rebel base hidden underground. You KNOW, once you stick your head up into the surface, things are going to get very real.

You're down below with your buddies or alone planning the next day. Talking about who's going to get what, who's going to build what.

You're preparing for the war that every next day holds. Simply, you're preparation is undisturbed. Like a good ol bunker rebel base.

The RPG experience is still there. It's just got less distraction. It's less Meerkat.

I get that a lot of people like the whole constant state of Meerkat you have to be in by staying purely above ground.

That simply doesn't work when you're trying to farm out a near castle worth of stone and sand for concrete mix.

You don't go up because you're bored. You still gotta go get food. You still... Well... You still had to go find schematics and books... I guess now... Yeah. Why go out. I guess... Except for bones...

 

[Cirion]

I'm still of the opinion that there should be sleeper zombies in the ground. That way zombie won't need to be able to detect you 35 blocks away. And the underground would have its own rules concerning zombies.

Man, I would LOVE if they added random caverns and cave networks you could discover by digging around underground, some of which would have zombies in it. It would make the underground "biome" a LOT more interesting and engaging. Plus if you lucked out and found a nice big expansive cavern you could take over it, making a lot of the pain of making a base underground less because you wouldn't have to dig it out.

AND, on top of all that, it would make mining resources easier because a big cavern would make finding veins of ore a LOT easier.

Can TFP add this now?? I now really want this.