PC Open Letter to TFP's...

[AtomicUs5000]

I'm always going to be for the devs filling in exploits when it comes to the tower defense aspects of the game. Unfortunately, as they mend these holes in the gameplay, the end result is as what many people describe. You get closer and closer to a situation where only one kind of base is going to be effective in the long run. This, in turn, gives the impression that the devs want everybody to build the same base, and to play the same way. As a result, players will attack these changes and place full blame on the added feature/exploit fix. 
 
When we discussed exploit fixes years ago (not with the dev, this was among the community), we actually predicted that this would happen. I've suggested back then, and to this day, that more types of defense are necessary to keep creativity alive and to maintain the sense of doing something strategical. They've added cops, digging zombies, spitting vultures, demolishers, swimming zombies, and then vultures that spit and can attack blocks and swarm vehicles... all for the sake of making the Blood Moon Horde a feature-complete challenge of the game. All this is great, but in doing so, they have failed to maintain the fun factor and mental challenge of arranging defenses in strategic ways. They have added junk turrets and junk sledges, but these are very limited. Junk turrets aren't quite a new concept as we've had turrets. The sledge is interesting, but it's not like you can arrange many of them in any spectacular way. 
 
A good tower defense game is set up so that the enemies have certain attributes that when learned, you can defeat them with some combination of defenses, picked from a large variety. For instance, we have cops that act as the "ranged" enemy. We do not have long range sniper turrets that can target them (and only them if you choose). This would be fair and fun. As more and more cops show up through the stages, you craft and place more and more sniper turrets to combat this. This also means building up your electrical system to handle more and more load. There are no targeting options with turrets. You cannot choose to prioritize nearest zombie, furthest zombie, strongest zombie, weakest zombie, etc. You cannot choose a specific zombie type to target. We have good, strong blocks that can take a pretty good beating, but it would be nice to have some kind of material that is especially good at blocking explosion damage. Perhaps this material is weak against spit to make up for that... so you have to build layers in creative ways to handle all the different possibilities coming at you. Wood, although quite cheap, is perhaps the best at withstanding spit, but bad at explosions and melee. There is no finesse when it comes to this part of the game design. The demolisher is great, but they threw too many concepts into one zombie. Instead, we could have a zombie that takes out spikes, is hard to kill, but is very big and slow, another zombie that is fast and explodes, but very weak. No zombies are particularly weak against fire... so add that in, and to go with it, some automatic flamethrower trap that requires both gas and electricity.

There are so many possibilities and so much potential for greatness.  So, when I see changes and additions like this one, I do get excited. They are baby steps toward what I personally envision, and although I highly doubt the game will ever get to a level like this, in terms of the BM, I still can't help but have hope.

 

[Outlaw_187]

There are spitting vultures.....? Like spit as in what the fat cops spit?

 

[AtomicUs5000]

There are spitting vultures.....? Like spit as in what the fat cops spit?

I’m pretty sure. I haven’t really paid attention to them in A19, but definitely were in A18, possibly even introduced at the end of A17.

 

[RipClaw]

There are spitting vultures.....? Like spit as in what the fat cops spit?

Yeah. These are the radioactive vultures. They exist in the game since Alpha 17.
 

 

[Outlaw_187]

I’m pretty sure. I haven’t really paid attention to them in A19, but definitely were in A18, possibly even introduced at the end of A17.

Great! Can't wait to run into these mofo's!

Of all the bit*hing on here about vultures, that's the 1st I've heard of spitting vultures. 

They're a pain in the azz as it is, lol.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Great! Can't wait to run into these mofo's!

Of all the bit*hing on here about vultures, that's the 1st I've heard of spitting vultures. 

They're a pain in the azz as it is, lol.

If they still exist, they are probably still just on BM... and now that they are mostly busy attacking roof blocks, going into their range attack might be a rarer thing.

 

[RipClaw]

Great! Can't wait to run into these mofo's!

Of all the bit*hing on here about vultures, that's the 1st I've heard of spitting vultures. 

They're a pain in the azz as it is, lol.

If you want to see them outside the horde then visit the wasteland at night. They spawn there as well.
 

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Yeah. These are the radioactive vultures. They exist in the game since Alpha 17.
 

Thanks for confirming.

They really aren’t as bad as they sound though. Cops and vultures never really had that great of aim with that stuff.

 

[RipClaw]

They really aren’t as bad as they sound though. Cops and vultures never really had that great of aim with that stuff.

Nevertheless, you should still try to prevent the cops from spitting because the spit causes blockdamage. With the normal cops it is 120 block damage and with the radioactive cops / vultures it is 240 block damage.
 

 

[Demandred1957]

There are spitting vultures.....? Like spit as in what the fat cops spit?

I started on 18.2 and am fairly certain they were a thing then, hard to tell when you're dealing with 32-64 zoms with cops spitting at you almost constantly. But in 18.4 for sure.

 

[Nfg]

Yeah but they couldnt do that so they started to add impossible mobs what pass throught walls and other madness what resulted in a game where the only acceptable way to defend your base is a long @%$*#! pathway what is on both sides reinforced with towers while you muster a literal golem army at the bottom point so the whole thing is cheesed down by brute force approach. Strategy is no longer relevant because the devs ruined that.

I thought they fixed the passing through stuff bug, I haven't seen that in awhile. And yes it is a bug not a design choice. Also how is default of 8 max alive an impossible mob? And there are still a lot of valid strategies for base building, I'm generally just lazy with a base during new alphas because I'd rather check out the new POIs.

Yup, that's the exact "solid base with a ring of bars around the top" that has literally always worked in every single alpha. Fill in the bottom to be one solid block and it's undefeatable. I would have added a 1-deep 2-wide moat of spikes to yours, but basically I have a version of that base at the beginning of every alpha because it's tried, true and always works. By the end of the alpha I've usually figured out something more interesting, depending on the AI, but this one always works. And it's easy to expand with an outer wall, spike pits, electric fences, turrets, etc if you want to.  There's honestly no need for cheese AI-taunting bases, because this one works. The other bases are just for fun and interest. 

I generally do add a spike pit and some turrets in a real game, I was just testing the spike roof idea.

 

[Boidster]

Being changed all the time to try and curb exploits isn't unstable. So live bold, and try some permadeath (sorry DiD doesn't have the same final ring to it) for a while. Then you will look at things quite a bit different.

How about "in flux" instead of "unstable" if we want to argue semantics; obviously we both know what I was talking about. I agree that if I was playing permaDiD I would look at things quite differently. However since the game is...in flux...I don't think my perceptions would have much value because whatever killed me today and therefore I hate it might be gone tomorrow and some new thing to hate will pop up in its place. I'm happy exploring the new mechanics and new POIs for now without necessarily expecting the game to give me a fair chance to survive in all situations. And I don't need the frustration of some experimental place-holder feature killing me over and over. I can kill myself over and over just fine, thanksverymuch.

 

[meganoth]

This attack is weird. For starters, not only did I never say that the game should be easy, an escape vehicle means one thing: the danger level has gone up too high and the player can't take it anymore.

1. This does not invalidate the entire danger. There's a limit to danger that people can withstand, and it's different for every person, especially considering their playstyle. 
   
2. This whole argument seems to rest on the idea that people will use vehicle to bypass bloodmoon entirely every time. If they would do that, they'd have turned off blood moon from the start
   
3. This discards the effort the player make before they get overwhelmed by the horde and decided they need to bail
   

Attack? I was just making sure we are on the same page about a basic rule of game design. I made sure because you brought up pyramid bases as "victims" while they are obviously violating that rule. As you say in this post now, they were exploits and that's fine. This rule is also not about easy or difficult games, it is about god mode devices versus no such things. Our disagreement is whether a 4x4 that the zombies can't reach as long as it is driving is akin to god mode or not.

You want to make the 4x4 being a safety valve. Nice idea. Could work in some games, especially in games for children if fights are involved (this is not to disparage your idea, I'm serious. Children should not get nightmares from games).

In games for adults the concept could work as well, not every game is a horror game after all. But 7D2D **is** a horror game! I could even imagine horror games with safety valves, but then the horror would have to be much more graphic to need such a thing. "Oh wow, I'm dead and lost some XP" Do we really need a safety valve for that?

The fact that the player himself decides when to use the god-mode device is the reason it does only matter a little whether he uses it for the whole night or just when matters become dangerous.  A get-out-of-danger-button immediately destroys the sense of danger. As a player I might want that in the same way I want an OP gun with endless ammo.  A game developer is advised to not give the player everything he wants.

Let's talk about base design for a moment

The pyramid is an exploit. Sure, I can see that. I talked at length about non-pyramid base design, one with staircases and a single block wide walkway whereby zombies walk single file, letting themselves be shot at. This does not seem to violate the rule, I remember seeing variations of this base design since before A19, and they are for what it's worth almost as easy as cheesy base designs like the pyramids.

And as I see it, exploitative base design is simply a hazard of granting players freedom of building. They are allowed to do things that you do not expect. But really, this is not the point. Player should face the horde, I've never said they shouldn't

Single block wide walkways are quite powerful. I have tried one when playing my last co-op game in A18. One horde night we underestimated how fast they could run on that and they actually entered our base and there was a big fight where half of us died until we could sever the bridge. Sure, next time we added lots more traps and were warned.

Now I did not copy a proven-to-be-safe design from a youtuber with blocks that are guaranteed to make the zombies fall, I built one myself. And I can tell you, it wasn't 100% safe. 

And that is the difference to the pyramid design of A18 where I fail to see how the zombies ever could get through because they don't do ANY damage.

Now it is the developers task to make a determination whether some design is just powerful or overpowered or a total exploit. Some cases are in grey areas and could be seen both ways. But if the zombies have no chance to get to you in a million years even if you go AFK that is a clear case (the pyramid design). If you just need to do a specific task to do it (like driving is up to A19) then you look at the task and if it is very easy and safe and without effort, weeell, still a relatively clear case.

and I do not agree with this.

I cannot speak for everyone, yet even a cheater that I play with -- one who spawns in dev items in basically every game he could -- does not do it for the sake of doing it. There's a reason to his madness: the difficulty has risen far above his limits. I can say for certain his limit of difficulty is very, very low yet I do think that based on the playstyle I've seen across my own sessions and YouTube, that is the only difference between his playstyle and others. He still experienced the fear, apprehension, tension, and pressure that everyone else experienced.

Knowing that you have an escape vehicle for when the excrement hits the rotating aerial impeller means preparation. A motorbike or car is not something you build early game, you need effort to get them, at least in normal gameplay. I don't see people neglecting the base defenses by exclaiming "eh there's a car anyway". Even this cheater still fights, he still builds defenses like a normal person would.

The tools he use to do it may very well be overkill, but I'd say his fear of dying is probably even bigger than mine, who is confident a pistol will do just fine. That's why he resorts to overkill tools.

Let him spawn in the items. As long as everyone who plays with him is fine by that, then that is ok. Every dev you speak to, every helpful user on the forum, even if he is unsatisfied with the game, will tell you to use the config menue, use creative mode, use mods, to change the game if the default vanilla game isn't to your liking. Arachnophobia is a common fear. If the game had any spiders they would not get patched out because a user suddenly came out with it but he would get the advise to mod the spiders out. I'm pretty sure that TFP assumes that their core audience in general has no "heightened" fear of dying in a game. And unless telemetry data shows that that is wrong, they will not see a reason to make the game have a safety net. Not in default vanilla.

 

[KingSlayerGM]

Here is a picture of my current A19 base on Day 9, I know I'm slow. The first two layers and corners are already reinforced concrete, only a few...

Impressive design, thank you for sharing. This is the proper full on, no cheese, horde base. It looks effective, but also time consuming and expensive to build.

Also, I have never used explosives, so my problem is usually that I use too many bullets each horde night. But this is completely my fault. Do you have any tips on how to get started with explosives? Do explosives damage your own structures?

 

[Demandred1957]

You want to make the 4x4 being a safety valve. Nice idea. Could work in some games, especially in games for children if fights are involved (this is not to disparage your idea, I'm serious. Children should not get nightmares from games).

In games for adults the concept could work as well, not every game is a horror game after all. But 7D2D **is** a horror game! I could even imagine horror games with safety valves, but then the horror would have to be much more graphic to need such a thing. "Oh wow, I'm dead and lost some XP" Do we really need a safety valve for that?

The fact that the player himself decides when to use the god-mode device is the reason it does only matter a little whether he uses it for the whole night or just when matters become dangerous.  A get-out-of-danger-button immediately destroys the sense of danger. As a player I might want that in the same way I want an OP gun with endless ammo.  A game developer is advised to not give the player everything he wants.

"oh wow, i'm dead and lost some xp"...SMH.. like I said, some of us are playing on permadeath, so there is no "oh wow" It's "holy crap...40 hrs worth of work gone" which is plenty of horror imo. Until you try playing it that way, you shouldn't be so disparaging of other peoples "safety valves"..

In fact, Permadeath could be another notch on the difficulty slider, where you just wake up at the start fresh again, instead of having the additional pain of having to erase your save file yourself.

But with that setting, no cheesy anti cheese things like the vulture mob. I can deal with Demo's and tons off cops etc, because I stand a chance against them if I play well, but a god mode punishment when my in game life is "truly" on the line is just too much for me to swallow.

 

[Demandred1957]

Impressive design, thank you for sharing. This is the proper full on, no cheese, horde base. It looks effective, but also time consuming and expensive to build.

Also, I have never used explosives, so my problem is usually that I use too many bullets each horde night. But this is completely my fault. Do you have any tips on how to get started with explosives? Do explosives damage your own structures?

They all do to some degree. Regular grenades do the least amount as of 18.4 and dynamite does the most. You can do much more damage to your base than the horde does with dynamite, where a regular grenade is really mild on your blocks.

I tend to avoid everything except reg grenades, because I am always on the verge of blowing myself up with anything else..lol

 

[Ralathar44]

"oh wow, i'm dead and lost some xp"...SMH.. like I said, some of us are playing on permadeath, so there is no "oh wow" It's "holy crap...40 hrs worth of work gone" which is plenty of horror imo. Until you try playing it that way, you shouldn't be so disparaging of other peoples "safety valves"..

In fact, Permadeath could be another notch on the difficulty slider, where you just wake up at the start fresh again, instead of having the additional pain of having to erase your save file yourself.

But with that setting, no cheesy anti cheese things like the vulture mob. I can deal with Demo's and tons off cops etc, because I stand a chance against them if I play well, but a god mode punishment when my in game life is "truly" on the line is just too much for me to swallow.

TBH I have more of a problem with someone running away on a vehicle all the time with permadeath active than I do normally.  Why even choose permadeath if you're just going to cheese anyways?  Kinda removes all meaning from permadeath if you can start doing stuff like that.  Might as well spawn in items, turn off the AI when you need to, use godmode, etc while you're at it.  If gas was limited and so you had to sacrifice alot of a vital resource to drive the night safely it'd be different, but gas is essentially infinite so those escapes in vehicle are effectively free and infinite as well.

IMO the only reason to cheese or console when using permadeath is if you run into a glitch that would cause a death or significant loss that isn't your fault.  Now time for me to get back to running my XCOM ironman run with cheat trainer active!

 

[Nfg]

Impressive design, thank you for sharing. This is the proper full on, no cheese, horde base. It looks effective, but also time consuming and expensive to build.

Also, I have never used explosives, so my problem is usually that I use too many bullets each horde night. But this is completely my fault. Do you have any tips on how to get started with explosives? Do explosives damage your own structures?

The funny part, it actually uses less blocks then a lot of the popular base designs from A18. I think it's the only base you can build with less then 350 blocks that will last to GS300+ I generally have the walls built 4 high and 2 thick of reinforced wood by the end of day one. And that includes the supplies quest run I also normally do on day one too. Then I spend week gathering as much cobble and cement mix as I can find between quests. The nights are spent upgrading or digging a single block hole down to bed rock. A normal 8 max horde should only take out one or two blocks. And I'm sure my base as it was on day nine could survive a day 14 horde maybe even a day 21 too. The 7x7x4 can last until your game stage gets close to demos, then you want the extra height to be out of range of them. 

I think grenades do a little damage to blocks, molotovs do none. I try to save my grenades for demos, drop two down and then prime the third and no more demo. The springs can be hard to find, but it's no worse then brass is. I think a stack of shale is good for around 100 molotovs with no extra perks, but it's been awhile since I last counted. Spend maybe one day mining shale and you'll have an unlimited supply of gas/oil and molotovs. Then just keep a stack or two of water close for the misses.

 

[Nfg]

TBH I have more of a problem with someone running away on a vehicle all the time with permadeath active than I do normally.  Why even choose permadeath if you're just going to cheese anyways?  Kinda removes all meaning from permadeath if you can start doing stuff like that.  Might as well spawn in items, turn off the AI when you need to, use godmode, etc while you're at it.  If gas was limited and so you had to sacrifice alot of a vital resource to drive the night safely it'd be different, but gas is essentially infinite so those escapes in vehicle are effectively free and infinite as well.

IMO the only reason to cheese or console when using permadeath is if you run into a glitch that would cause a death or significant loss that isn't your fault.  Now time for me to get back to running my XCOM ironman run with cheat trainer active!

That's why I play with no ladders and no vehicles out. Permadeath is for youtubers that care about viewers or unstable alphas. You want to really feel the pain try what I said, if you lose your base, you lose your base and everything in it. Starting over like it's day one when your GS is at 150 will make you a better player. Not dumping your save every time you die. 

 

[Feycat]

I generally do add a spike pit and some turrets in a real game, I was just testing the spike roof idea.

I love that the roof spikes work, lol

We combat the new vultures by putting an enclosed "cage" at the top of the base, 4 cement pillars and metal bars, and a ladder with no trap door leading down to the base which makes the cage irrisistible. All we have to do is pop our heads up there when we hear vultures and shoot them, then go back, like prairie dogs with shotguns. We put a couple turrets up there later, but it's good to know I can cover the roof with spikes