PC Returning old hand looking for advice I thought I'd never ask for

[PoppaSmirk]

Hmmm,  what an interesting topic.  I have to say that I have never had a Horde night when I didn't try to dismember, disembowel, decapitate or otherwise defenestrate every undead that came at me.  Sitting in the base letting them amble freely just never crossed My mind.   I find horde nights such a great time to pump up the adrenaline rush and gain several or more Player levels as well,  and usually some semi-decent loot. So, I suppose that as a simple suggestion,  I recommend,  if simply looking to "hop into" a POI to use on Day 7 or 14, find one of the smallish construction trailers.  The walls are metal and by placing a few wooden spike traps around the corners of the building,  the zombies seem to weaken themselves,   then place a double ring of spike traps around the single entrance to the construction trailer.   Normally by Day 7 I have scouted to find a location with a good roof,  and simply take on the zombies of Horde night with arrows (in the first Alpha 20 experience, I didn't think ahead enough and only had the "pipe shotgun"  which didn't have enough kill power at range,  so I went to the old classic,  bow and arrow.)  

But this topic is intriguing to me, as I have never used "infinite ramps?"  or any method beyond a good "seige survival strategy"  on a Horde night.  Normally our strategy consists of,  A; have lots of ammo  B:  have some wood, or cobblestone to reinforce doors as zombies try to break in on places,  that you don't want them breaking into  (by the 3rd or 4th horde night we carry a hammer,  some cement mix, and forged iron to do the quick repairs)  C' carry a few spike traps on your toolbelt to drop down if the zombies manage to start coming at you in a large cluster and you need some delaying tactic to slow them down  D;  Wipe out every groaning Mona, snarly Moe, decayed Delores, and in short,  every zombie you see,  and curse the "rot-weilers' and ankle-biters for being such a royal pain.   E: highfive your friend after 4 am.  or if playing alone,  have a beer.

Of course things do change as We start to move into mid-game.  Walls built to a minimum of 5 blocks are fairly standard, Overwatch Positions with turrets placed down,  and auto turrets guarding the open spaces at the back of the base to handle any zombie that manages to get through,  or over the wall.  An auto turret positioned on the roof,  with firing arc covering our backs,  to POP POP POP any vulture that swoops toward the Living Defenders.   Blade traps triggered to run for 6 seconds when anything walks over the trigger plate catch many of the zombies trying to assault the front entrance.  We always "choose"  the location that we provide for the zombies to come at us.  barb wire placements narrow the wandering path of the zombies, for best cluster for a sweeping  blast of machine gun fire.   These are a few of my favorite things.

 

[bloodmoth13]

Wait, so just plain defenses are cheese to you? Good heavens.

to a degree yes. any point where you can kill them but they cant hurt you is cheesy, of course that isnt vs players its vs zombie ai so cheesing zombies doesnt hurt anyones fee fees.

for example, you run through a corridor, a wight turns up, you box him in with building blocks and melee him while hes trying to get through. he cant hurt you and you can kill him. its cheesy. Or you hang low on a ladder with zombies clamoring at your feet, they cant reach you but you can melee them. cheesy. most things are acceptable since the design of the game isnt making things fair between the player and zombie. building forts that keep you safe for a long time so that you can kill many zombies without them being able to hurt you is essentially the design of the game. some people dont like certain designs because it exploits the ai, but everything you do is exploiting the ai. thats how you get an advantage against hordes of dumb zombies.

Thats why i said you have to choose what kinds of cheese you are willing to live with. if you think being able to melee enemies without them retaliating to kill hordes for 'free' is cheesy then dont do that. if trap corridors are cheesy then dont do that.

OP draws the line at slits and infinite ramps, thats fine. Me personally, i avoid using the pipe machine gun because i think its OP and generally play very conservatively only using ammo when i am surrounded or desperate even when i have an abundance of ammo.

There is a fine line between playing optimally and cheesing the game. Another one is skipping to the end of a POI, its cheesy but its optimal. why screw with wasting ammo on zeds when you can just get straight to that sweet sweet loot.

At least that is how i think of the game. One cheese i do is opening doors that zombies are attacking, hitting them with a power attack and closing the door before they can retaliate. You can time opening the door right after they hit it and strike them during the recover animation. If im honest thats cheesy but screw fighting zombies fairly when i have HP to maintain.

 

[Boidster]

any point where you can kill them but they cant hurt you is cheesy

I applaud your internally-consistent view of "cheese". You are the first person I've encountered who held this viewpoint. In my experience until now, the word "cheese" in the context of gaming was always an insult. Used to denigrate another player's playstyle just short of calling them a "cheater". In your view it seems the very core of any game where the player has an adversary - from 7D2D to CoD to PvZ - is "cheese". Take cover, cheese. Place a passive defense, cheese. Erect an active defense, cheese. Sniper rifle, cheese. The only non-cheese way to play any game is to stand face to face with your attacker or, if you both have ranged weapons, possibly facing each other across a distance with no obstacles.

It is a consistent, coherent viewpoint, but it sure applies the "cheese" denigration to a very wide spectrum of players across many games.

In you I think I have found the right end of the "what is cheese" bell curve. I think I am at or very near the left end, since my view - at least in a game like 7D2D - is that there is no cheese except for leveraging game bugs to gain information the virtual survivor wouldn't have. Infinite ramps? Not cheese at all - the player can observe the zombie behavior and take advantage of it. Just like I would if I were the actual survivor of an actual zombie apocalypse. Glitching through the terrain for x-ray vision? Cheese, since there's no way the survivor could actually do that. By that time "cheese" is synonymous with "cheat" I suppose. But other than that, if you survive the apocalypse by whatever means using information available to your toon, it cannot be cheese.

There's a vast hump of the bell curve between us, which was part of the point you were making I think.

 

[doughphunghus]

tldr: the games mechanics are already built in “cheesy” to an extent, and it’s almost too easy to hide (though a non cheese real world tactic), so using a “play as real life As you can” is a good self imposed “cheese throttle” but it will never be enough (even modded). Try not to plan/build impenetrable bases from day 1, try to build out only what you think you need based on previous zed/horde attacks because “in real life” you likely wouldn’t build a super bunker from scratch and also not as preparation because in early hordes your “experience” of a horde intensity is low. 

anyway….. after reading all this my logic is not super solid but I’m done trying to write it all…

I so far normally hike up in a poi and hide on the roof or first few floors, access like stairs or ladders destroyed. Generally I make a base out of any poi that’s not made out of wood. I’m not a person to make a super base or mega reinforcements. However, as I’ve gotten better at the game I’ve been thinking of a new “super no cheese” play style as hiding “up” or “down” is not really “unrealistic cheese” or it does take away the danger enough to go “I feel as if I’m not playing a game with dangerous zombies”.  Anyways, that’s what I have been doing mostly for a19.  Earlier than that I made bases from scratch and moats/stop pits/ fortifications…

my thoughts: I have been thinking of trying to force myself to play as much “cheeseless” as I can, and I define that by “play as realistic as I would in real life”.  This means things such as placing chests only at home and on the floor counters (not nailed to the ceiling 4 blocks up, safe from zeds).  It means trying to hook up lights and power in a normal way (meaning: nicely).  It means not upgrading blocks, only destroy a degraded one and put down new blocks (can choose new material then).  No picking up vehicles once placed. You get the idea.  Well…. In a real zed apocalypse, I probably would hide on top of a roof with no access. The dilemma is the game doesn’t have non cheesy looking ways of building this (like, with ropes or things zeds could likely not climb) but then again, it’s essentially the same as making a big jump to get to a roof. To make it “real” I would have to build a ramp out of wood, cross it, then destroy it (if not using the drawbridge). So “where I live” will likely always be unreachable, forcing zeds to destroy to get up to me or collapse the building. Which leads to another “built in cheese” of the game… but for zeds: they can break brick with their hands? Ok , fine it’s just how it works, but realistically I should be safe forever if I am in a brick building 2 floor up.  So… I have to “anti cheese” this built in game mechanic…

1. crank up the zed block damage. Just enough to make it easy for early game zeds to do a lot of damage if left alone to damage things. Maybe turn this back to normal after many hordes.

2 “always leave a path to you, even if on a roof”.  Go no further than 2 floors up any building unless chased. 
3. Home and horde base are the same. Likely I would not separate these.

4. No crazy “make the zeds jump block after block to slow them down to get to you”. 1-2 blocks is probably ok. 
5. obviously no floating blocks, little “floating patches” zeds jump on and cannot balance and fall. They need to be able to get up and come at you.

6. “Small path of a thin blocks to get to you”: likely not cheese (valid real world idea) but try to avoid as a master plan. Maybe use a little with a junk sledge once things get crazy.

this means that during any horde/day zeds can path to you…. So you must fight or barricade yourself.  Well…..here it gets weird…

the game *mostly* seems to have brass for “you to shoot zeds with” and iron/clay/etc as ammo and materials for traps. Sure, there are gun turrets that use up “ammo normally you would use” so it’s not a hard line for what materials are used for what (a good thing). Taken generally: mining most materials is for base and trap defenses, but looting brass is for personal defenses. So I’m going to say that using many traps is “ok” and not cheese, and using bullets is “only for me” and not in traps as gun turrets would seem like a “waste” of brass ammo since I use it to defend myself . 
 

making doors seems ok to do, but making “a door corridor” seems like cheese.  Using hatches to block zeds is cheese (for me)…. So maybe the rule should be “as long as you and the zeds can see each other, you are allowed to attack… musically no “open and close a door real fast over and over as a “defense position” but maybe ok as a temp measure. and you can use a hatch as defense as long as you don’t repair it. Maybe you get to use 2 doors for every “room” of like 10 blocks long. Vs door after door or hatch after hatch.
 

the result seems to be: over time, you will be building a longer and higher corridor/maze of traps, with mini “defense positions” where you could stand and fight through bars. When you fall back, you turn on the traps for that area. Repairs only occur when zeds are gone.

im not sure how long a base like this will last but I kinda want to try it, especially working around an existing multistory tower poi like dishong. I feel at some point it will fail, likely exploding guys or too many ferals will just wipe it out.   Once that starts being apparent I feel that some cheese rules could be broken just to survive (like use the gun turrets)
 

also: in theory building a concrete wall 10x thick would eventually be “real” but I find it less fun than the trap corridors/rooms. You would only attempt this once the intensity of the horde is apparent (mass destruction of walls/traps) not after like day 21.  When it’s would be allowed is not clear…. It’s almost if you would have to self impose rules for “what is allowed” and base it off of gamestage + day/horde attack.

or maybe turn it into DND where every morning you roll for your allowed tactics/stats.  Like “I rolled a 2 for construction, so I get 2 hours to work on building/upgrades”

 

[bloodmoth13]

I applaud your internally-consistent view of "cheese". You are the first person I've encountered who held this viewpoint. In my experience until now, the word "cheese" in the context of gaming was always an insult. Used to denigrate another player's playstyle just short of calling them a "cheater". In your view it seems the very core of any game where the player has an adversary - from 7D2D to CoD to PvZ - is "cheese". Take cover, cheese. Place a passive defense, cheese. Erect an active defense, cheese. Sniper rifle, cheese. The only non-cheese way to play any game is to stand face to face with your attacker or, if you both have ranged weapons, possibly facing each other across a distance with no obstacles.

It is a consistent, coherent viewpoint, but it sure applies the "cheese" denigration to a very wide spectrum of players across many games.

In you I think I have found the right end of the "what is cheese" bell curve. I think I am at or very near the left end, since my view - at least in a game like 7D2D - is that there is no cheese except for leveraging game bugs to gain information the virtual survivor wouldn't have. Infinite ramps? Not cheese at all - the player can observe the zombie behavior and take advantage of it. Just like I would if I were the actual survivor of an actual zombie apocalypse. Glitching through the terrain for x-ray vision? Cheese, since there's no way the survivor could actually do that. By that time "cheese" is synonymous with "cheat" I suppose. But other than that, if you survive the apocalypse by whatever means using information available to your toon, it cannot be cheese.

There's a vast hump of the bell curve between us, which was part of the point you were making I think.

Well we are so different we are practically the same.

I think for me, cheese is everywhere, unavoidable and you just have to decide how much you are willing to accept. To you, chees is unacceptable but very restricted, solely to what i would just call cheating.

Its really just a matter of choosing what you believe is optimizing vs cheating.

If everything is cheese, nothing is cheese.