And I would share your doubt if, for example, something like feral sense hadn't been added. I wasn't one of the players who asked for it, and never had a reason to want something like it ever. But yet its a selectable option in the game. I have no idea how many people actually use it, but I'm sure the developers definitely sat down with it and tested it thoroughly before they just put it out there.
One thing to keep in mind is that feral sense was added as an option in the first place. It was not added first as a standard feature of the game and then provided an on/off switch later. Digging was added as part of the pathing code. A better example in your favor would be the Blood Moon horde. That was added as a standard feature of the game and then later on an option was added to turn off blood moon hordes. The difference between blood moon horde on/off and digging on/off is the amount of work necessary to make it happen. For blood moon it was a very simple job. Since digging is integrated completely in the pathing coding it is going to be a lot trickier.
I understand developers not liking too many options, but that is one of the things that sets this game apart from the others in its genre. The player is given a good amount of freedom to create their own play experience and that should never be taken away.
These developers are not averse to lots of options. There are two things going on here. FIrst, the game is in active development and the developers want features to be played with and tested. They aren't keen on adding something new just to have everyone turn it off without even giving it a try. Certainly, things often get modded out immediately by those who have that skill (and that does irritate the developers btw) but it is really a small subset of the whole base who do that. Most players will have to play with the new feature the devs want playtested since there is no option to turn it off.
Second, the developers come from a modding background and so from their perspective they have given us the ultimate options menu by exposing the xml files and allowing us to edit them. Set the amount of options available through xml editing next to the options of any game's options screen and you won't think that TFP hates too many options.
There is a time and season to everything and I am certain 7 Days to Die will eventually have an option menu that will rival any game out there once development is finished. Once workshop integration is complete and modlets can be selected like options right from the steam menu, the list of options available for the game that the non-mod-savvy person could choose will be beyond countable.
And as far as effort goes...we are talking about the same developers who have put an obscene amount of effort into trying to circumvent certain ways that players play the game.
No. Conspiracy theories all. Circumstantial evidence does not reveal some causal relationship that some people in the community invent in their minds. There is no TFP campaign to stop players from using their strategies. There is a desire to fix bugs and improve pathing and if those fixes and pathing improvements cause a particular strategy to become obsolete then it was simply collateral damage and not the intent or the goal of the developers. Also, the lion share of the effort in doing those fixes was performed by the player base in discovery. The amount of time needed to
discover undesirable exploits
would be obscene and TFP largely refrains from doing any of that. The effort to fix most of the bugs that some were using as the basis for their "strategies" really has been minimal. The most recent bug with the arrow slits was fixed in a matter of hours if not minutes.
That's how zombies being able to crawl through gaps got introduced
Absolutely not. That change was purely for improving their pathing through POI's -- in particular attic spaces as well as some of the irregular holes in walls. You can take me as an official source on that rather than gulping in the speculations of certain internet personalities looking for likes and subscribes...
how zombies being able to swim better than the player got introduced
Partially true. It is true that TFP wanted to eliminate the surface of deep lakes and rivers as a 100% safe zone as part of their philosophy that nowhere in the game should be 100% safe. I don't think they have completely achieved that goal but swimming zombies was definitely part of it. But it was also part of the general pathing overhaul to help them traverse the terrain better and not get stuck. As far as being able to swim better than us, it is simply because the development of player interaction with water hasn't happened yet. Should be happening soon-- either this upcoming alpha or the next. Then we can better judge player vs zombie swimming abilities. For now it is WIP.
and recently why zombies can walk across dart slit blocks placed on the ground, as well as other previously troublesome terrain, without issue.
Had nothing to do with base defense strategies even though it was discovered by players doing base defense strategies. It is all about zombie pathing and making sure they are able to move about the world as intended. The arrow slit blocks were never intended to be impassable. There is nothing about them that appears to be something zombies couldn't walk over. As I already mentioned, most of the work on this fix was done by the community in discovering it. Actually fixing it was a snap. No cool future potential feature was displaced by a programmer spending a portion of his morning fixing that bug.
And finally...who is complaining that zombies are pathing over previously troublesome terrain without issue now? Sounds to me like TFP is doing its job since zombies that get stuck in terrain and never get to you make for boring gameplay. Most of the chatter I read is a desire for more zombies in the world but I suppose there may be some out there wishing that more zombies would get stuck in the world terrain more often so that the overall impression would be even
fewer zombies. There really can't be very many of those voices but yours is definitely one of them I guess...
I'd believe that the developers are already aware of what a digging/no digging option will bring to the game since it was part of the game before the change, so they wouldn't even have to sit down and test anything. But who or what does it hurt to put this in as a selectable option for zombie behavior?
They are aware since they had digging zombies first and then they removed it and then they returned it. Seems like they intentionally chose the state they wanted the game to have after fully exploring both states. It wouldn't hurt anyone to put an option in but it would be a lengthy and involved process since it would also involve redoing the pathing. Perhaps it would have been better if they had made "digging" be a simple AI zombie task separate from the pathing but they did not. It is part of the pathing and it will take a lot of work for them to separate it out and create an on/off switch for it. So it goes to whether they want to put that much effort into it. Maybe they will <shrug>
Like I said before, I didn't ask for feral sense and yet it's there. And it hurts me or the game in no way when I toggle that option off.
Except you don't have to toggle that option off. It is already off by default. You would have to toggle it on and then toggle it off to make your point which I suppose you could do with a shouted "Take that!" at the same time.
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