PC Horde Night feedback - less smart zombies

[John Black]

What you call breaking the AI is in reality just playing one of the genres in 7D2D. This is typical tower defense. Typical in tower defense games is to find weaknesses of your enemies and use the terrain to your advantage. Same here.

You are 100% correct. Zombies are designed to do X, players are just doing what works best against X.

I’m sure it is all technically WAI but the end result might not be what the devs envisioned.

So what do you guys want (EDIT) for horde night zombies? (POI should have smart zombies as per OP)

1. Leave it as is
   
2. Make the zombies smarter to avoid them ending up in death corridor
   
3. Make them dumber and allow for more randomness and scalability options
   

I want no 3.

 

[kidmo31]

You are 100% correct. Zombies are designed to do X, players are just doing what works best against X.

I’m sure it is all technically WAI but the end result might not be what the devs envisioned.

So what do you guys want?

1. Leave it as is
   
2. Make the zombies smarter to avoid them ending up in death corridor
   
3. Make them dumber and allow for more randomness and scalability options
   

I want no 3.

We have already had that. Go back to A12 and it was just dumb zombies trying to get to you. It adds no randomness or scalability because every entity still has to be calculated by the CPU. The number of zombies will always cap in Unity because of resource management. Right now you can go into the XMLs and remove the one line that makes them look for weakness first. You can actually test anything your wanting here as the coding is not hard at all in the XML.  The issue will always be the never ending war of player and dev trying to outdo each other BUT still be fair and balanced within the bounds of what Unity allows.

 I am looking at this not only as a player but as someone who has broken this game doing game night mods for my group. I know the limits of what it can handle on a beast of a rig.

 

[Roland]

So what do you guys want?

1. Leave it as is
   
2. Make the zombies smarter to avoid them ending up in death corridor
   
3. Make them dumber and allow for more randomness and scalability options
   

I vote #2 hands down. BTW, making the zombies smarter does not make them avoid death corridors-- it encourages them into those corridors. TFP dumbed things down and randomized things with zombie pathing in A18 and A19 and now we have zombies that hardly ever leap over a gap, often ignore you when you are just on the other side of a door, and that can't path back to you if you knock them off of a ledge. I'm talking about POI exploration and I see that as a much larger footprint in the game than the horde night. Making the zombies dumber might make for a more chaotic horde night but it will further kill the POI exploration experience.

POI exploration was at its best in A17, in my opinion. Zombies were relentless and could find you anywhere in the building when they were aware of you. Even zombies wandering in from outside could find you while you explored. Zombies almost always leapt over gaps making the claustrophobic interiors a lot scarier. (Not to mention the POIs were packed with zombies compared to now). Of course, as much fun as their superior pathing was for POI exploration, it was bad for horde night. 

So now they've been made dumber and horde night is better than it was but POI exploration is worse. I'd like to backtrack that just a smidge. I want zombies to once again better include gaps in their pathing so they jump them more often and for crying out loud if I am on the other side of an open door I want the zombie to walk through it instead of bashing the wall next to it. If I knock a zombie off of a ledge and it falls two floors down I would love if it came back to get me maybe 5 minutes later.

#3 would just kill POI exploration completely. MAYBE it would make the horde night more fun but that's debatable because a lot of people like building kill corridors so you would be removing their fun in favor of yours while at the same time destroying something that everyone does the other six days of the game week.

 

[Laz Man]

You are 100% correct. Zombies are designed to do X, players are just doing what works best against X.

I’m sure it is all technically WAI but the end result might not be what the devs envisioned.

So what do you guys want?

1. Leave it as is
   
2. Make the zombies smarter to avoid them ending up in death corridor
   
3. Make them dumber and allow for more randomness and scalability options
   

I want no 3.

I think somewhere between 1 and 2 if anything more would be good.

3 might sound cool at first but it invalidates the tower defense aspect too much and is not scalable.

As stated by others, with #3, horde bases just revert back to building solid steel I win platforms with no need to build anything else. 

Might satisfy some immersion senses based on Romero zombie lore but at the cost of more enjoyable scalable gameplay.

 

[kidmo31]

Here are my suggestions. 

Bring back the smell system. If your carrying raw meat it should be drawing attention even from the predators

Sleeper Zombies should have better sense in wake conditions . Scare closets work only once. Sleepers should only be effective for stealth builds. Otherwise activity in the building should wake them easier and less warning. Zombies screaming everytime they are aggroed leaves zero chance for surprise and single path structures make it impossible to sneak behind the player. What made A17 good was there were still open plan houses where zeds could take multiple paths and be quiet.

And stop the conga line timed wandering hordes. Make them more like Screamer Hordes they come from all sides and spawn based on GS. 

Biggest issue I have is players are given too much leeway to prepare for day 7 because there is no pressure days 1-6 cause everything is predictable. Making day 7 hordes too easy because there is no real threats looting besides maybe a early dog POI. 

And add POI kill conditions to the final loot chests. Have a hidden system that rewards players who actually clear a POI rather than loot room skip. If POI has a known amount of Zeds then make the chest require X percentage to allow for good loot. Otherwise if that is not met make it a garbage chest.

 

[Vaeliorin]

I think somewhere between 1 and 2 if anything more would be good.

3 might sound cool at first but it invalidates the tower defense aspect too much and is not scalable.

As stated by others, with #3, horde bases just revert back to building solid steel I win platforms with no need to build anything else. 

Might satisfy some immersion senses based on Romero zombie lore but at the cost of more enjoyable scalable gameplay.

Actually, with 3 (if we assume that A16 was basically 3) it was entirely possible to build a killing corridor base (I know, I did it several times) it was just a lot more work.  You basically had to make a 5 wide gap all the way down to bedrock, then line the outside with something to slow the zombies down so they didn't fling themselves off the edge before they realized there was a big hole.  You'd still end up with the random zombie down at bedrock, but the vast majority of them would cross bridges you built across the gap.  Like so:

View attachment 2375

(Obviously that's not completely finished, btw.)

My biggest problem with the AI now is that it's almost impossible not to break it (in the killing corridor sense) unless you just build a boring on the ground, no kill zone type of base (which is hugely inefficient, and nothing to do with tower defense.)   I'd like to have to work for my easy kill base again, or go back to those chaotic nights when I'd have to shoot at zombies coming from multiple directions while standing on top of my base (I'd make a game of trying to shoot them all before they got to my walls, but I wasn't always successful...vultures have kind of killed this in the current iteration as it's not longer safe to hang out on top of a base and the zombies seem to spawn closer to the player than they used to.) 

 

[John Black]

First, sorry, I edited the question as the OP is about horde night.

3 might sound cool at first but it invalidates the tower defense aspect too much and is not scalable.

As stated by others, with #3, horde bases just revert back to building solid steel I win platforms with no need to build anything else. 

Might satisfy some immersion senses based on Romero zombie lore but at the cost of more enjoyable scalable gameplay.

I would personally bump up block damage during horde nights and you'll be forced to do a 360 defensive structure, i.e. back to castles with thick walls which allows you to scale out much more than the status quo.

So what do you guys want (EDIT) for horde night zombies? (POI should have smart zombies as per OP)

1. Leave it as is
   
2. Make the zombies smarter to avoid them ending up in death corridor
   
3. Make them dumber and allow for more randomness and scalability options
   

I want no 3.

 

[kidmo31]

First, sorry, I edited the question as the OP is about horde night.

I would personally bump up block damage during horde nights and you'll be forced to do a 360 defensive structure, i.e. back to castles with thick walls which allows you to scale out much more than the status quo.

Problem is nothing is solved changing just the rules of Horde Night. All things are defeated with time for preparation. There is literally nothing the Devs can change about that event to make it harder that cannot be undone with player preparation. The balance is about time management.  We are given 6 3/4 days in game of pretty much free reign. There is only one wandering horde I actually fear early game and those are the animal related ones. Those are limited to once per 24 hours so can be planned around. The place to fix is that 6 and 3/4 days we have to prep. 

 

[John Black]

Problem is nothing is solved changing just the rules of Horde Night. All things are defeated with time for preparation. There is literally nothing the Devs can change about that event to make it harder that cannot be undone with player preparation. The balance is about time management.  We are given 6 3/4 days in game of pretty much free reign. There is only one wandering horde I actually fear early game and those are the animal related ones. Those are limited to once per 24 hours so can be planned around. The place to fix is that 6 and 3/4 days we have to prep. 

I understand where you’re coming from and your previous points. I personally will not touch a public server with a low respawn until some of your points are addressed. But unpredictability will always makes something harder so I can't agree with you on that one.

But to get back to horde nights, you have to start somewhere else you’re not going to get anywhere.

I do believe my original suggestion to limit the path finding would be a small change that could have a huge impact on horde nights...that is if it were to play out as I’ve imagined it in my head.

 

[Laz Man]

I understand where you’re coming from and your previous points. I personally will not touch a public server with a low respawn until some of your points are addressed. But unpredictability will always makes something harder so I can't agree with you on that one.

But to get back to horde nights, you have to start somewhere else you’re not going to get anywhere.

I do believe my original suggestion to limit the path finding would be a small change that could have a huge impact on horde nights...that is if it were to play out as I’ve imagined it in my head.

You can always roll back to an older alpha version in steam to test whatever theories you come up with.

Regarding raising block HP on horde nights, then what?  I'm curious what new base defense gameplay you had in mind that would be more enjoyable then what we have now.

My memory is alittle dusty but I believe prior to the "smarter" AI, the strategies players used were to surround their base with spikes and remove any stairs so the zeds could reach you easily.  

 

[John Black]

You can always roll back to an older alpha version in steam to test whatever theories you come up with.

Regarding raising block HP on horde nights, then what?  I'm curious what new base defense gameplay you had in mind that would be more enjoyable then what we have now.

My memory is alittle dusty but I believe prior to the "smarter" AI, the strategies players used were to surround their base with spikes and remove any stairs so the zeds could reach you easily.  

The AI changed so rolling back to whatever ain't going to prove/disprove anything.

So you like what we have now? Good for you.

 

[Laz Man]

The AI changed so rolling back to whatever ain't going to prove/disprove anything.

So you like what we have now? Good for you.

Just trying to help and also understand you better.

Wasn't sure if you were aware you could or not.  The reason I mentioned it so you can test out whatever ideas you worked out in your head if you wanted to.  If not, no big deal.

Have a good day sir.

 

[Roland]

My memory is alittle dusty but I believe prior to the "smarter" AI, the strategies players used were to surround their base with spikes and remove any stairs so the zeds could reach you easily. 

Don't forget the pillars that had a gap between them through which we could melee and shoot the zombies but they couldn't touch us....

 

[Roland]

Problem is nothing is solved changing just the rules of Horde Night. All things are defeated with time for preparation. There is literally nothing the Devs can change about that event to make it harder that cannot be undone with player preparation. The balance is about time management.  We are given 6 3/4 days in game of pretty much free reign. There is only one wandering horde I actually fear early game and those are the animal related ones. Those are limited to once per 24 hours so can be planned around. The place to fix is that 6 and 3/4 days we have to prep. 

There is some truth to that and also that it is much too easy to skip wood and even cobblestone and already be at cement by even the first 7 day horde with all that prep time. In addition, another huge reason that the rules of Horde Night don't really matter when all is said and done is because of the very nature of zombies. Their motivation is to get to the player and ignore injury and just keep moving to the player any way they can. This means we have foreknowledge of where they are headed and the assurance that they will not sabotage or even acknowledge traps that we set up. It is too great of an advantage but it is also their nature and can't be abandoned. Once bandits are in we will have enemies that will (hopefully) retreat, take cover, target traps rather than just walk into them, jump to ladders rungs just like we do, and coordinate with each other at least to a degree. Maybe we will eventually have an occasional bandit base assault event against us when our reputation gets too poor with one particular faction and the kill corridors won't work against them like they do with the zombies.

 

[meganoth]

I think a principal difference for novice players between A16 and A19 horde night building is that in A16 bases could be built "independant" of the threat. I.e. the first idea coming into the game will invariably be to have thick walls between himself and the zombies, like a bunker or a castle.

This has advantages: Novice players will not be walzed over at the start of the game. It is also more immersive that historical knowledge works as expected. And building for style instead of function can happen much easier even for the horde base.

BUT on the other hand it practically prevents any evolution of the player from novice to expert because he already knows too much. Expect for finding exploits and some knowledge on what block arrangements make for good melee caches. There is simply no development here and that is usually a big part of what makes a new game so much fun. Sure, there are still other parts of the game with much to learn, but the tower defense part would just be a static element where basically the player has mastered the game from the start.

For me horde night base building really began in A17, before that the farming of the materials and finding a cement mixer was more important than thinking about a design. So I would vote 1 or 2

Oh, forgot that in A16 all bases were built to just put lots of block HP between you and the zombies. Consequently zombies were only dangerous when they could destroy A LOT of those block HP through the night. Consequently it meant 2 days just of horde base repair (without counting the farming of materials). I never want to go back to this extreme grind.

 

[John Black]

Just trying to help and also understand you better.

Wasn't sure if you were aware you could or not.  The reason I mentioned it so you can test out whatever ideas you worked out in your head if you wanted to.  If not, no big deal.

Have a good day sir.

I’ve mentioned thick walls and castles in multiple posts in this very thread including the use of traps and alarms so I felt it was pretty clear what I wanted regarding base defense. For that reason, when you asked, I interpreted your question as being sarcastic and replied accordingly. I’ll not jump to conclusions so quick next time .

Oh, forgot that in A16 all bases were built to just put lots of block HP between you and the zombies. Consequently zombies were only dangerous when they could destroy A LOT of those block HP through the night. Consequently it meant 2 days just of horde base repair (without counting the farming of materials). I never want to go back to this extreme grind.

I was hoping that with all the new turrets, triggers, traps and mines, a good design could keep them off the wall if done right. And if they were to break through, having some more pain installed until they get to the second wall.

 

[kidmo31]

I understand where you’re coming from and your previous points. I personally will not touch a public server with a low respawn until some of your points are addressed. But unpredictability will always makes something harder so I can't agree with you on that one.

But to get back to horde nights, you have to start somewhere else you’re not going to get anywhere.

I do believe my original suggestion to limit the path finding would be a small change that could have a huge impact on horde nights...that is if it were to play out as I’ve imagined it in my head.

Ok so we limit path finding. Then we are right back to horde cubes. Unpredictability is nearly impossible to make a effective threat with the current Zed skills. Concrete can survive any solo zombie minus the Demo. Now a demo that random blows up would add some fear. But is that fair gameplay?  Splitting the group of Zombies by adding idiot zeds just makes the death corridor more effective.  Honestly we need some Zombies with skills to manage around. Like if the cop spit actually could penetrate bars and spread. Have the burner have a napalm type move in later GS,  A zombie that could rip you from a open space. ( I know very L4D2 ). The party girl shooting Pool Balls ala Zombie Strippers lol.  but that is honestly the only way I could see adding challenge without removing traps and such.

 

[John Black]

Ok so we limit path finding. Then we are right back to horde cubes. Unpredictability is nearly impossible to make a effective threat with the current Zed skills. Concrete can survive any solo zombie minus the Demo. Now a demo that random blows up would add some fear. But is that fair gameplay?  Splitting the group of Zombies by adding idiot zeds just makes the death corridor more effective.  Honestly we need some Zombies with skills to manage around. Like if the cop spit actually could penetrate bars and spread. Have the burner have a napalm type move in later GS,  A zombie that could rip you from a open space. ( I know very L4D2 ). The party girl shooting Pool Balls ala Zombie Strippers lol.  but that is honestly the only way I could see adding challenge without removing traps and such.

First, I’m not expecting this to be the default option, I asked for a setting to experiment with.

And you are right, and I am aware of the limited zombie skills. Was thinking about demo getting frustrated beating on walls and blowing up after X seconds. I try not to bring too much to the discussion else it ends up as a debate about secondary issues rather than the primary. Again, you have to start somewhere, then use the tools, xml, mods to build towards a vision.

We can debate cubes, their pros, cons and repairs, anti-cube zombie skills but that’s a secondary issue.

 

[Vaeliorin]

Oh, forgot that in A16 all bases were built to just put lots of block HP between you and the zombies. Consequently zombies were only dangerous when they could destroy A LOT of those block HP through the night. Consequently it meant 2 days just of horde base repair (without counting the farming of materials). I never want to go back to this extreme grind.

That base I posted on the last page was from A16.  It had a single shotgun turret on each lane and spikes in the lanes, and could take on horde nights with full rad zombies without needing more than minimal repair (some of the poles on the inside end sometimes took some damage, and obviously the spikes.)  So no, it didn't require all that farming of materials and days to repair.

It did, admittedly, take about 3 in game weeks to dig out and build (with an augur), but that shouldn't be unheard of for having an essentially unassailable base.

 

[bachgaman]

I remember that when that slider was removed, that it was said that it´s only due to balancing reasons and that it will come back. I really should start screenshooting such posts from the team. @Roland

We really shouldn´t have to fiddle around with xml files just because we don´t play on a potatoe. I don´t even have a high end PC (CPU was 180€), but i can up the spawn at least 3 times with no performance issues. What is wrong with bringing back that slider? Won´t stop the game from running on old computers.

Are they really talking about balancing a game that has Treasure Hunter and trader's rewards? Lol I thought they just didn't care about balancing

So I’ve been playing a good bit the last couple of months and just want to give some feedback regarding Horde Night AI.

With the current AI it’s pretty much gauntlet style horde night with little variation. What I don’t like about this type of gameplay it the predictability and lack of scalability. The predictability makes it boring and due to the AI limits you can’t really scale out too much.

I want horde night zombies to be dumb and start bashing on my stuff from any direction and only revert to ‘smart’ AI when they can’t reach the player. A bit of smarts would be okay, I mean I don’t want them to try break steal when there is a wooden door around the corner.

From what I’ve observed, I’m assuming the following about zombie horde AI.

1) Zombies will try to path X blocks to player probably adjusted based on HP of blocks in between.

2a) If they’re unable to find a path within adjusted X, they’ll start bashing towards the player. (or maybe start closest to player in failed path)

2b) If they can’t reach the player, they’ll start breaking down supports or start digging.

So without changing things too much, I would guess that if we can get access to X, the variable that determines when the zombies will give up pathing, we can dramatically change how horde nights play out. X will of course have to be tied to Horde Night zombies only as we don’t want feral sense zombies(A20) turning stupid in POIs.

I have noticed AIPathCostScale & utilityai.xml but from my limited knowledge I don’t think there is enough to change things on horde night.

To make the zombies less predictable, they should with some probability use suboptimal paths, and also have a script to purposefully collapse the building if there is no path. Unfortunately, this will never change. As they say, fix the xml file or try to limit yourself by playing without a base and without a weapon