PC My A18 feedback

In A16 there were infinite loops. Build a stairs with a one block gap and because zombies couldn't leap they would climb the stairs and fall and climb the stairs and fall forever.

 
Sorry but once again....never saw that happen.

Also tried to replicate in A16 and I can't. You will have to be more specific.

 
Sorry but once again....never saw that happen.
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I figured that would be what you say, I will not bother wasting my time then in writing up a bunch of facts in order to prove you wrong as I said I would in my previous post. No offense. :) Maybe someone else will.

 
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Link me a video showing it. I searched through capp00's videos (I was big fan of his back then - all the tests he did) and the only one I can find where he illustrates an infinite loop ramp is from A17.

I built two A17 infinite loot ramps in my A16 install, using both of the classic A17 exploit strats for infinite ramps (1 space gap with opposing block on landing block, and 2 space gap) and the A16 zombies went nowhere the ramp, even when I was on top of the nearby platform that the ramp led to, except by chance some would come up it, depending wholly on the angle they were approaching from, but they never repeated it in a loop after they fell. They just fell and started random attacking blocks on the ground, eventually destroying the ramp. Not once did a zombie move AWAY from me, which would be necessary for an infinite ramp.

I figured that would be what you say, I will not bother wasting my time then in writing up a bunch of facts in order to prove you wrong as I said I would in my previous post. No offense. :) Maybe someone else will.
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Fair enough, that's up to you. After all that howling in this thread for a reasoned argument as to why 16 was better, I expected more from you.

I made 3 other points, you know, as to why A16 was much better, only one of my 4 points was the easy to exploit infinite ramp. How about answering those?

 
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Fair enough, that's up to you. After all that howling in this thread for a reasoned argument as to why 16 was better, I expected more from you.

I made 3 other points, you know, only one of my 4 points was the easy to exploit infinite ramp.
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+1 rep for you for not getting offended. :)

 
Sorry but once again....never saw that happen.
Also tried to replicate in A16 and I can't. You will have to be more specific.
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This often manifests itself only when zombies are running. There were no problems with walkers.

maybe cuz people liked the Dumb zombies instead of smart ones.
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and that too.




No doubt there are still improvements to be made but overall the general state of zombie pathing and destructive behavior when they can’t reach the player is superior in my view.
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....well.... in my opinion it is so bad that it would be better not to have it.

I can't call it good in any way (even for a dynamic world), but there is no doubt - that it exists.

Yes, indeed - circling it was a bug for A16.

But a if we consider A1, A2...there I didn't see any problems with intelligence at all? A13-A18 just pales against their background...

I liked it when zombies raised their heads and looked at me...when running in the shadows...

:D and when they didn't run away to return again....

this was scary:

- is ridiculous.
 
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AI can be easily herded into attacking a single side at a single point, again making it trivial to defend. They will do this even when the player did not intend to exploit them into doing it!!! Not quite as exploitative as an infinite ramp, but still....stupid.
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Except it's not. A defensible weak point is basic military tactics for a reason: it works. The dumbest and the smartest predators will try to find an easy way in because every other way is worse. The not-so-dumb ones will try to *make* an unanticipated easy way in, the A18 zeds don't plan that but they do attack at random some, you can't be sure nobody's getting in the back door or punching through a side wall, making it more of a surprise when they do.

The smartest enemies will try to wrong-foot you, try to create their own bad matchups, they'll feint and distract and flank, against fortifications they'll sap/burrow and what not. I hope all of that shows up when the bandits hit. If zeds were more likely to not attack the weak point, if they instead either picked a straight-charge route or joined any zed they could see, that could be interesting too, but it's not clear it'd be harder.

A pure all-the-walls attack … oh. I think I get it: in a high-max-alive attack that can work, it can bring enough zeds in contact that you have to desperately run around counterattacking and repairing, right? High drama, the zeds' aggregate block DPS can be high enough that you have to sequence your repairs right (and squeeze in enough counterattacks) or lose? But there's defenses against that, too. I have to suspect you found a base design that was fun to defend given the A16 zombie behavior, and they don't behave that any more, so that fun is gone, but you were, intentionally or un-, ignoring ways to cheese that, too. If the zeds aren't supposed to be structural engineers, then they won't know how to undermine your supports. Hence, "stilt bases", you're basically your own air support and they've got no cover, their choices are die or leave. I'd bet a two-story suspension base in any release would be impregnable, give the zeds an easy route to the ground floor where they can't drop you from where you're killing them.

Here, I hunted up

, he gets into stuff that doesn't exist in 7dtd but listen to him define the term, look at that checklist: identify avenues of attack, determine avenues of attack, determine where to kill the enemy, plan/integrate obstacles, and so on.
 
I tried an experiment with this A16 running in circles thing, because I've never seen it. Taking the info from the other thread about AI, I used "pole blocks". Basically, centred pole pillars that look like lamp-posts. A block type I've never used in a base which might explain why I have never seen this circling effect. I built a standard 10x10 box fort-style base with iron spikes all round, me on top. I then built 8 pole block pillars (each 3 blocks high) at the 8 main compass points round the outside of the base about 5 blocks out from the spikes. I then ran a day 7 horde.

Sure enough some zombies began to run in circles around the poles. I've genuinely never seen that. However in their defence, I would add that it was only tiny number of the horde that did this (5 zombies that I definitely saw but not all at the same time) and they stopped circling after a while and joined the main attack against the walls.

Being curious I arranged the exact same setup in A18, and the results were far more interesting. A significant number of zombies....perhaps 20, actually attacked the poles instead of the base!! And they did not stop until all the poles on two sides were destroyed. Which took a while as they were steel. Since maxAlive was 24 on the server this is actually very significant, as it left my base being attacked by 4 zombies at a time till all the poles went down. Those poles trivialised the entire horde, as it was basically unable to fully spawn.

Remind me again why A18 AI is better?

 
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A pure all-the-walls attack … oh. I think I get it: in a high-max-alive attack that can work, it can bring enough zeds in contact that you have to desperately run around counterattacking and repairing, right? High drama, the zeds' aggregate block DPS can be high enough that you have to sequence your repairs right (and squeeze in enough counterattacks) or lose?
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Yup you nailed it. An almost perfect description of our A16 horde nights. A16 horde nights were high drama and a white knuckle ride to cover all the breaches that started to occur. A18 hordes are dull as all hell in comparison because they are 100% predictable. We hardly ever need to even move in A18 hordes, which is heart-breaking and says it all imo.

 
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Okay. I'm guessing you could force an easy-win horde night against the A16 AI with a "legitimate" build, if wedge-tip skirts aren't enough a dry-moat-and-bridge defense, just leave the bridge down, give the zeds a way out of the moat, that'd make those also work in A18. And i'm'a try that suspension-base idea for sure. I like boring just fine if it keeps me breathing, I like having to think, not having to fight. It's one of the reasons I hanker after buffing the crafting and survival games, make success require more territory than you can easily defend. If you want to advocate for zeds getting (more?) quickly frustrated when they're blocked by other zeds and switching to either random-destruction or wreck-the-nearest-non-terrain-block I'll help, I agree that zeds "should" be able to find that, and my weak-point bunkers maybe "should" need more than their wedge-tip skirts, having to dig a moat so the zeds physically can't reach anything but the killzoned entrance would feel right to me. How about also having the zeds focus on any player-placed blocks on the map if they can't reach the player, so if you build your horde base so they just plain can't get to you, when they go random-destructo they just might head off to your farm and family home 1km down the road?

 
To each their own but A18 is leaps and bounds better than A16.

Learn to improvise, adapt and fail. Its part of what makes this game fun.

Its still possible to have underground forts and bases- you just have to be smarter when building them...

Also, zombies being able to eventually tear down your PoI is healthy and good for the game.

PoI enemy spawning is bypassable.

Its clear you just want the game to be a familliar way and fail to cope with change.

For you, the devs have included a nice feature that lets you play 7d2d as A16 so you can continue to live in the past and disregard the reality of change and progression. :D

 
In A16 there were infinite loops. Build a stairs with a one block gap and because zombies couldn't leap they would climb the stairs and fall and climb the stairs and fall forever.
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Used to be?

Some delusions of grandeur mate. :D

This is still very much used today. Granted, its a little bit harder than just 1 block now tho... xD

 
Used to be?Some delusions of grandeur mate. :D

This is still very much used today. Granted, its a little bit harder than just 1 block now tho... xD
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Did you start reading the thread from that post? There was nothing “used to be” even implied. I was responding to someone who said there are infinite loops in A18. My post was saying they also existed in A16.

Also existed not used to exist— Obviously.

Don’t start reading a thread mid-conversation and expect to understand what is going on especially if English isn’t your native tongue. You should start at the beginning and read everything. Perhaps you thinking you didn’t need to do that is the true delusion....

 
I've come to a conclusion as to why very few players claim AI is not better in A18, granted I could be entirely wrong.

These players look at it like this. Since the AI can be exploited in A18 that makes the AI bad. Which.....come on....thats not the way you judge, the question is why is AI better prior A18. there were ways to exploit it in A16 as well as in A18. IMO from all the exploits I know of, there are less and or harder to do exploits in A18. I still would not say oh A18 is better becauce of that alone.

No, one must look at all of the AI capabilities and AI performance when comparing between Alpha. I think the few just do not understand how to judge the AI correctly when looking at it from a technical stnd point. I dunno....maybe I'm wrong for viewing it like this. I mean no offense to anyone that thinks prior A18 is better. :)

 
Okay. I'm guessing you could force an easy-win horde night against the A16 AI with a "legitimate" build, if wedge-tip skirts aren't enough a dry-moat-and-bridge defense, just leave the bridge down, give the zeds a way out of the moat, that'd make those also work in A18. And i'm'a try that suspension-base idea for sure. I like boring just fine if it keeps me breathing, I like having to think, not having to fight. It's one of the reasons I hanker after buffing the crafting and survival games, make success require more territory than you can easily defend. If you want to advocate for zeds getting (more?) quickly frustrated when they're blocked by other zeds and switching to either random-destruction or wreck-the-nearest-non-terrain-block I'll help, I agree that zeds "should" be able to find that, and my weak-point bunkers maybe "should" need more than their wedge-tip skirts, having to dig a moat so the zeds physically can't reach anything but the killzoned entrance would feel right to me. How about also having the zeds focus on any player-placed blocks on the map if they can't reach the player, so if you build your horde base so they just plain can't get to you, when they go random-destructo they just might head off to your farm and family home 1km down the road?
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Yep, you could. I built kill cages, stilt bases, took over POIs, and built full on castles and more in A16. The threat was rarely high in SP - if we're measuring by zombies managing to breach a wall - and we got our walls (one block only) breached once in MP. No repairs needed once you hit reinforced concrete and steel. Not to say I didn't enjoy A16 horde nights. I did. But once they got close enough to your base, they rarely *rarely* assaulted from multiple areas. Instead, they congregated to where the player was, spreading out to whatever degree was necessary for the number of zombies on screen.

I've come to a conclusion as to why very few players claim AI is not better in A18, granted I could be entirely wrong.
These players look at it like this. Since the AI can be exploited in A18 that makes the AI bad. Which.....come on....thats not the way you judge, the question is why is AI better prior A18. there were ways to exploit it in A16 as well as in A18. IMO from all the exploits I know of, there are less and or harder to do exploits in A18. I still would not say oh A18 is better becauce of that alone.

No, one must look at all of the AI capabilities and AI performance when comparing between Alpha. I think the few just do not understand how to judge the AI correctly when looking at it from a technical stnd point. I dunno....maybe I'm wrong for viewing it like this. I mean no offense to anyone that thinks prior A18 is better. :)
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Personally, I don't have much of a 'better' or worse in this case. I like A18's AI more and it fixed some of the truly broken aspects of A16. Things like chairs and other objects were way to easy to use to make A16 zombies useless and their inability to track a path to the player often meant they spun or stood uselessly below the player, making for easy targets.

With the upcoming bandits, AI changes were even more desperately needed. I see A18's AI as the beginning. They've already added more randomization to zombie behavior and are looking at some of the 'probably not intended' aspects. This will not only make zombie AI better, but likely the bandits as well.

 
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I tried an experiment with this A16 running in circles thing, because I've never seen it. Taking the info from the other thread about AI, I used "pole blocks". Basically, centred pole pillars that look like lamp-posts. A block type I've never used in a base which might explain why I have never seen this circling effect.
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Except that the running in circles happened everywhere without a pole block in sight, again: See

Incidentally because you can't use arbitrary bases on insane anymore. In A16 a simple one-block deep steel pole wall could hold off a horde on standard difficulty for the whole night, on insane you had to do some repairs. Effectively only player playing insane had interesting horde nights, for normal players base building was trivial.

Now zombies are better at breaching walls (for various reasons) and you need 2 block wide pole walls and repair them from time to time even on standard difficulty. And since it is worse on insane you have to optimize much more resulting in many simple base designs not being good enough for the insane horde anymore.

My group actually built a basic rectangle ground base melee cage in A18 and it worked on warrior difficulty. In A16 that base would have worked even on insane. THAT is the main difference and the reason why I think AI got better.

 
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