PC I just realised base defense is quite flawed in A17.

[Feycat]

That's why I said that in A17 shooting from an elevated position is no longer cheesing.Due to the improved pathfinding and the destruction mode these are no longer the same zombies.

Shooting from an elevated position was never "cheesing" to anyone but you. I can't imagine what moral superiority you think there is in not giving yourself at least a semi-privileged position against a foe.

And 6000 spikes would never have saved you even in A16. It's not like every zombie makes sure to thread its own individual path to you and hit every spike. They take their path and then most of them miss the spikes. Even in A16 you had to run back and forth to make sure that you were spreading the horde evenly among your defenses and not letting them sit on one bit for too long.

 

[RipClaw]

Shooting from an elevated position was never "cheesing" to anyone but you. I can't imagine what moral superiority you think there is in not giving yourself at least a semi-privileged position against a foe.

I think you're misjudging me here. I have tried to argue against those who think that shooting from an elevated position would be cheesing.

Personally I don't care if a tactic is called cheesing by someone or not. I myself used a platform base in A16 because it was simply efficient and even a max gamestage horde didn't do much harm, even though a lot of cops exploded in the base. On the bottom of the base were about 1000 spikes. And with the target flight AI you could pull the zombies like a magnet through the spikes. If you ask some players like Zorlox or Onarr then it was pure cheesing. But it never bothered me.

My current tactics would also be called cheesing by some. I use a kill corridor to which a staircase leads up.

 

[Onarr]

I think you're misjudging me here. I have tried to argue against those who think that shooting from an elevated position would be cheesing.
Personally I don't care if a tactic is called cheesing by someone or not. I myself used a platform base in A16 because it was simply efficient and even a max gamestage horde didn't do much harm, even though a lot of cops exploded in the base. On the bottom of the base were about 1000 spikes. And with the target flight AI you could pull the zombies like a magnet through the spikes. If you ask some players like Zorlox or Onarr then it was pure cheesing. But it never bothered me.

My current tactics would also be called cheesing by some. I use a kill corridor to which a staircase leads up.

Hey, its really up to you how you want to play. If you like to play like this and you have fun, then by all means, go for it. But myself personally, I like challenge, and being able to completely bypass it by so many ways, really kills the challenge for me. For crying out loud, this game is called 7 days to DIE. Being able to easily cope with this challenge is totally killing it for me. And JaWoodles killing corridor... that is definition of PURE cheese. There is no way in hell you can die there. The zombies will just run, fall, run, fall endlessly

 

[Reth]

I agree it shouldn't be that easy, but I suspect I'm a little more pessimistic than you, on the likely outcome of the battle of "TFP AI" versus "Player BI" (Biological intelligence).
My suspicion is that no matter what reasonable efforts TFP put into the Zombie/Bandit AI, some clever player will quickly find a way to fairly effortlessly defeat it, and that information will quickly spread through the community.

In the end, I think the Horde will always be what players choose to make of it, from disabling it completely at end of the spectrum, to deliberately forgoing tactics that trivialise it at the other end.

This isn't meant to obviate the need for TFP to make the AI as robust (and competitive) as possible, only just to predict that whatever the final system is, will have at least one well known strategy that counters it with minimal effort involved.

Zombies aren't scary because they are fast or smart. They are scary because they are slow and stupid. They are a force of nature. We are having all these issues because TFP is trying to make them smart. Smart creatures can and will be outsmarted. Force of nature requires an equal force to stop it.

If a zombie can't reach you, it shouldn't go on a pathfinding mission like a professional ranger. It should just start randomly hitting anything that smells of you or has a high heat index or is simply nearby. Ignore a bunch of those and your base will become aforementioned cheese in no time.

 

[OzHawkeye]

Zombies aren't scary because they are fast or smart. They are scary because they are slow and stupid. They are a force of nature. We are having all these issues because TFP is trying to make them smart. Smart creatures can and will be outsmarted. Force of nature requires an equal force to stop it.
If a zombie can't reach you, it shouldn't go on a pathfinding mission like a professional ranger. It should just start randomly hitting anything that smells of you or has a high heat index or is simply nearby. Ignore a bunch of those and your base will become aforementioned cheese in no time.

I have no issue with that in principle. Unfortunately, as things stand, the game can't (reasonably) generate thousands of pretty dumb zombies, whose main challenge is their sheer number. So, the Devs have gone down the route of making each individual zombie more of a threat, in order to present the player with challenge.

In an ideal world, the threat from zombies would only be their sheer, endless, numbers. It would be Bandits that would be capable of outrunning, outgunning and potentially even outsmarting you, but the entity controller just can't deliver that as it stands.

 

[vicflo]

i dont see how breaking stairs or ladders is cheesing now. or even towers with spikes. you have to actively kill zombies now or die in a swarm of them. it isnt like previous versions where you can make a pillar 50 room and surround it with steel spikes and go make/eat a sandwich during horde night and just come back to collect loot and repair the 3 spikes that got damaged. god forbid you closed a door or broke stairs to cheese the system then.

 

[Reth]

I have no issue with that in principle. Unfortunately, as things stand, the game can't (reasonably) generate thousands of pretty dumb zombies, whose main challenge is their sheer number. So, the Devs have gone down the route of making each individual zombie more of a threat, in order to present the player with challenge.
In an ideal world, the threat from zombies would only be their sheer, endless, numbers. It would be Bandits that would be capable of outrunning, outgunning and potentially even outsmarting you, but the entity controller just can't deliver that as it stands.

And yet again, not a single time have I asked for more zombies than the game can currently handle. It's not a question of numbers, it's a question where their destructive force should be applied. Five irradiated zombies can tear your base apart just fine if they just stop chasing you for second if you are nowhere to be found and concentrate on high heat or recent smell areas. It only takes one cop to start spitting bile in random directions to create headaches for *any* base design. If doesn't need to get complicated.

 

[RipClaw]

Hey, its really up to you how you want to play. If you like to play like this and you have fun, then by all means, go for it. But myself personally, I like challenge, and being able to completely bypass it by so many ways, really kills the challenge for me. For crying out loud, this game is called 7 days to DIE. Being able to easily cope with this challenge is totally killing it for me.

In my job I have more than enough challenges every day. Playing is all about relaxing and having fun. A little challenge doesn't bother me but it's not my main reason to play.

I enjoy designing bases and building. The Horde nights are then always the test for the Horde base.

My goal is to build bases that are as efficient as possible, consume as few resources as possible, and take as little damage as possible.

But sometimes I just want to build a huge base and then I spend the next few weeks with nothing else.

And JaWoodles killing corridor... that is definition of PURE cheese. There is no way in hell you can die there. The zombies will just run, fall, run, fall endlessly

My killing corridor's a little different.

JaWoodle's Killing Corridor is just designed to get as much XP as possible by killing all the zombies yourself. In my corridor I used dart traps, electric fences and blade traps. I also don't have a gap in the ground. If a zombie manages to survive the traps and break through the iron bars of my shark cage before I kill him then he can kill me.

 

[OzHawkeye]

And yet again, not a single time have I asked for more zombies than the game can currently handle. It's not a question of numbers, it's a question where their destructive force should be applied. Five irradiated zombies can tear your base apart just fine if they just stop chasing you for second if you are nowhere to be found and concentrate on high heat or recent smell areas. It only takes one cop to start spitting bile in random directions to create headaches for *any* base design. If doesn't need to get complicated.

Well, then in A18, you should see more of that, since there will be some degree of randomness to zombies, such that even if they can "see" a clear path to you, some will decide to switch to "block rampage mode" anyway.

 

[Feycat]

And yet again, not a single time have I asked for more zombies than the game can currently handle. It's not a question of numbers, it's a question where their destructive force should be applied. Five irradiated zombies can tear your base apart just fine if they just stop chasing you for second if you are nowhere to be found and concentrate on high heat or recent smell areas. It only takes one cop to start spitting bile in random directions to create headaches for *any* base design. If doesn't need to get complicated.

No? My base has no problem with cops and it's the simplest thing out there.

 

[KucheKlizma]

My main problem with nights in 7dtd is and always have been that it's boring and we can't skip them. Vehicles were great and solved the walking simulation issues of the game. Now with a better working exploration system as well as vehicles and POI dungeons to supplement it, I don't understand why there's a need to pivot players away from exploration and try to force them to afk every 7th night (it's better than every single night like before, but 1/7th bad isn't good). The base defense mechanics are lackluster, as is the level of interaction with hordes. I would appreciate more emphasis on base defense, if that were not the case. I don't appreciate the increased emphasis on essentially idling for 6 ingame hours.

Furthermore I don't see the situation with the lackluster base defense mechanics improving anytime soon, the way the game is now. The barebones grindy XP system pretty much means there's never going to be a reliable curve of player progression (while it's the way it is) and therefore hordes won't be able to proportionally scale up in a way that ensures continued player engagement. And while the solution to base defense remains to be overkill quantities and/or cheesing it one way or another it will continue being boring.

If the devs want base defense to be a tower defense minigame, they should perhaps implement the tower defense aspect and progression as well, not just force us to participate in a missing feature.

P.S. Still, overall like the changes though, the game has gone a long way, it's more of a balancing issue of the current state, the way I see it.