PC Rick has Opinions on certain playstyles.

[FramFramson]

Yeah, like, I actually AGREE with Rich's assertion that gimmick bases shouldn't be a thing, not because I want to deny players agency, but because one-trick bases and horde nights are just incredibly boring.

I miss the chaos of pre-A17 horde nights. They would dig, rage, beeline, come from all directions, and so on.

 

[Arez]

From a zombie-purist's perspective, I think it would be cool if there was variety in zombie behavior. Much like in the George Romero series, most zombies are dumb but some zombies are smart. And MAYBE, just maybe, overall zombie intelligence could increase over time throughout a playthrough, adding a little bit more depth to the increasing difficulty, which would in turn feel more engaging. 

 

[Riamus]

Exactly, each time players find something fun to use in vanilla tfp straight up removes or nerfs it into the ground so its no longer viable or fun. Its happened multiple times with many different things. Random gen is garbage in a22/1.0 because its essentally a static map now as most of the randomness has been removed from it. Making every map made boring and bland since it has trader limits and town size limits. Kinda explains how it generates the map so fast, it doesn't take long when it just has to make the same map over and over with slight variations on biome sizes. Even what poi's can spawn in these towns are pretty static as well, so they often even have the exact same poi's in them, across diff maps.

TFP is sucking all the fun out of the game, and its getting to the point that no one plays vanilla anymore after they try mods out, because vanilla is such a crap experience compared. Its honestly sad how some of these mods are made by a single person including models, textures, coding etc and has way more vision than TFP does with a entire dev team at their disposal, like what do they do there? sit and twiddle there thumbs most of the time? as thats sure as hell what it looks like with how the game hasn't gone anywhere since like... a14 or so. Don't get me wrong, the Art team does good work, the game looks way better than it needs to graphically, the problem is the gameplay is where it needs to be polished not the graphics. But almost every update is going on about new looks for this and that, but basically 0 new features or buffs and nothing but nerfing or removal of things. Latest victim in a21 was jars, water still is a non-issue even with how it is now, so there was no real point to the change in the first damn place.

A mod I play called Afterlife is amazing, the entire skill system is learn by doing INCLUDING stats, wanna up str? use skills that gain exp for str, and the base stats themselves also increase things like entity damage, carry weight, stamina etc, agility for example increases movement speed, crouch movement speed, and jump height. It also has jars return with a twist, you cannot craft them, but you can dump liquid into storage containers to reuse the jars, this is a much better way of doing it compared to removing them entirely. You also get jars back when you craft stuff like glue, or cook with it, drink whats in it etc. All this stuff in Afterlife was mostly done by 1 person. It makes tfp look kinda sad tbh. As the vanilla game could have been like this if they kept going with the a16.4 skill system. Afterlife also uses the magazine system, stats do not effect what you find, however, you can make a research desk where you can scrap magazines, perk books, schematics you don't need into literature fragments which you can then use the research desk to craft into perk books and magazines you want, its a far better system than vanilla.

Uh... what does RWG have to do with the topic being discussed?  I can't see any reason to think that changes to RWG have anything to do with being a reaction to how players play the game.  It doesn't even fix exploits or anything like that.  RWG changes are horrible, I agree.  However, that has nothing to do with the current topic.

Do you have actual stats on how many people play vanilla?  It sounds like you're making stuff up to suit your view.  Yes, many people use mods, but I find it very unlikely that this game isn't like almost any other game out there, where most players never use mods.  And I'm not even including console players who can't use mods.  You might play with people who use mods and prefer them, but that doesn't mean that's the way everyone else plays the game.  And it doesn't mean that most players agree with you that the mods are better than vanilla.  I can tell you that based on descriptions in most (probably all) of the main overhaul mods, I would not consider them to be overall improvements over vanilla.  Yes, there are things in them that I like, but there are just as many things in them that I don't like.  They are just a different way to play the game.  And, just like with any game, some players like a certain type of game and some players like a different type of game.  You're going to have people who prefer how TFP made this game in vanilla and you'll have players who like a different kind of game that a specific overhaul mod creates and so will like that better.  Although this is my own belief as I don't have any data on it, I am pretty sure that if TFP made the game like any specific overhaul mod, you would have just has many players complaining about it as you do now because you'll have a lot of players who don't like that kind of gameplay.

Also, don't forget that it is far easier to mod a game than to create one.  Even for an overhaul mod.  If TFP didn't make this game or didn't make it so easy to mod, none of those mod authors would have had any opportunity to give you their mods.  So you can't really compare them with TFP.  Besides, as I said above, what you think is good or bad is subjective and other players will have a different opinion.  If someone hates jars, do you think they'll consider that mod to be an improvement in relation to jars?  If someone doesn't like LBD, do you think they'll think that mod is an improvement over vanilla?  It's fine to not like what TFP does.  There are a number of things I don't like, but at least be honest about how you talk about it and not try to make it sound like they can't make a game that people enjoy or try to pass off imaginary numbers as fact.

You say that but tfp has many times removed or nerfed something specifically to counter players, for example the sleeper trigger system was put in in a17 to specifically screw over stealth build players. Players that run and gun aren't effected by this system at all, it was targeted specifically to screw over stealth builds, then you have a22.1 aka 1.1, where they messed with stealth again as they realized the tier 6 assassin set bonus was way to strong. That set in 1.0 basically makes stealth somewhat viable, where as its basically not viable without it. Yeah yeah supposedly if your stealth is high enough you can avoid triggering the trigger blocks, but from experience i've never seen it work like that even with stealth skills maxxed. Haven't played 1.1 vanilla though yet, this is based on 1.0 stealth. Dunno if I'll bother with it in 1.1, vanilla just puts me to sleep to play it as its so damn boring compared to mods.

People used to like making underground bases and bunkers, oh look, tfp now has zombies that dig, removing that option from the players as well.

Next you have the screamer change in 1.0, they now spawn at 25% heat, instead of 100% heat, so now Run n Gun builds have a hard counter since you'll get a screamer after about 20 shots fired. Before you could clear a poi at least without them, but now? clearing a t3 poi is prob going to cause at least 2-3 screamer spawns during it. Again, this was done specifically to screw over/counter a certain playstyle

Need I go on? there is 2-3 concrete examples you cannot really argue against. Both being directly to counter a certain playstyle cuz tfp don't like it and had a hissy fit over players using it.

Thats bs though, as they could just add say making glue return the jar as well as give the glue, many mods do this, so that excuse tfp has doesn't fly one bit. They just didn't want to put it in was all it was. Its not that they couldn't its they did not want to, again if a modder can do it, there is no reason the devs themselves that made the game cannot. In Afterlife anything you make that uses a jar gives the jar back after, including stuff in the campfire like boiled meat and glue. Honestly that mod like most other overhual mod makes the devs of the vanilla game look like idiots, just because of all the new features they introduce to the game, and I do mean new features, some mods have completly new things that do not exist in vanilla at all, game mechanics wise, not just item wise.

Stealth was basically a way to be invincible before the 1.1 changes.  The changes aren't an attack against stealth players.  It's a fix of what is essentially a bug.  Stealth should not be a way to be invincible.  Also, triggers are a way to offer a varied experience in POI so you don't have the exact same setup everywhere.  Sure, it can affect stealth (and other types of players), but it's also just another way to handle POI so they have some more variety in how zombies are set up.  I doubt it's any reaction to try and kill stealth players.  It could be a way to make stealth more challenging so it's not too easy, but that's an entirely different thing.

Underground bases work just fine.  But you can't hide.  There isn't anything wrong with that.  You should not be able to avoid being attacked just because you build underground.

From a zombie-purist's perspective, I think it would be cool if there was variety in zombie behavior. Much like in the George Romero series, most zombies are dumb but some zombies are smart. And MAYBE, just maybe, overall zombie intelligence could increase over time throughout a playthrough, adding a little bit more depth to the increasing difficulty, which would in turn feel more engaging. 

Increasing zombie intelligence as the game progresses could be interesting.  I'd like to see how that could work.

 

[Gamida]

Well, if our main purpose in life, on a species level, is to overcome our limitations then the goal is to become more like a Vulcan; to shed most of our automatic response systems that seemingly get in the way of truer autonomy. 

A lot of people would think that's crazy. But that's only because of what we're used to. And throughout history we used to be used to a lot of things.

Don't disagree with it. Things some people do today are Spocking......um shocking.

 

[meganoth]

I suppose in this case it's less a reaction to player behavior and moreso the addition of artificial difficulty in an attempt to add challenge.

I can accept that. I would even agree, because I think all difficulty in games falls under the term artificial difficulty

(Maybe that's only me, but artificial difficulty doesn't conjure in my mind what it should mean. I would call it trivial difficulty, if for example giving enemies more HP is meant by it).

 

[meganoth]

The AI rewrite in A17 was specifically the example being made. Watering it down since then hasn't really changed the basic model.

Again, the problem isn't a specific AI model, it's that there is only one model. You know how many blocks they will rage at, you know what they'll path to, and so on. And those were changes made in response to zombies being too "dumb" earlier on, but the thing was that the supposedly-dumb zombies were actually less predictable.

You said "For a real example, look at the AI changes over the years to address various supposed base exploits.". But afaik before A17 the zombie AI was left alone without any changes because the guy who wrote the AI left a long time ago and nobody wanted to touch it. So from A? to A16 it was the same AI all along until they hired Fataal. Then this whole rewrite for A17 and after that only watering down as you say. Where were the "AI changes **over the years**" done to fix exploits? Only in A17? Then why "over the years"?

I simply don't see where your words fit with the history. And especially the AI rewrite of A17 was not to fix some simple exploits and it was not introduced by small changes over the years, it was a total rewrite. And what it especially fixed was zombies running in circles, surely not what everyone wanted to stay in the game

Anyway. not that important. I was just hung up on that formulation of yours.

 

[meganoth]

I miss the chaos of pre-A17 horde nights. They would dig, ...

slip of the tongue I suppose?

 

[meganoth]

I'm really hopeful when bandits come in, zombies get stupid again, at least some of them do, but I'm not holding my breath. You're quite right when you say if there's only one model you know what they're going to do. Even if it was one AI model per zombie type, Moes just break nearest, Arlenes aim for weak spots, Spiders attempt to gain elevation and jump etc. it would add a hell of a lot of factors to consider to base design.

I disagree (if you meant something like the A16 AI), because I like the tower defense aspect. Like in typical tower defense games where the enemy is lead down a path and you add the right combination of traps to kill them before they reach the target. In 7d2d you are even designing the path itself, most tower defense games provide the path and only the position of the traps is your task.

But that would all be useless if the zombies just were attacking blindly from all sides, irrespective of any paths. Then the horde nights would just be a normal shooter game.

 

[FramFramson]

slip of the tongue I suppose?

No.

There was digging years ago under certain circumstances, mainly if the zombies fell into a hole or a block was blown up, they would still attack the soil blocks in front of them to push in your direction. Additionally if you were on a riverbank, sometimes they'd try attacking in a straight line from the river edge. Basically any ground irregularity near your base was still an invitation to dig, because dirt blocks had low HP.

They just didn't dig DOWN on untouched dirt ground if you had an underground base. But they would attack dirt blocks and the ground if they did calculate that as the shortest path; it's not like dirt walls were ever an invulnerable force field.

I never built underground bases but I DID build on hills and irregular ground, and zombies absolutely would attack that.

I disagree (if you meant something like the A16 AI), because I like the tower defense aspect. Like in typical tower defense games where the enemy is lead down a path and you add the right combination of traps to kill them before they reach the target. In 7d2d you are even designing the path itself, most tower defense games provide the path and only the position of the traps is your task.

But that would all be useless if the zombies just were attacking blindly from all sides, irrespective of any paths. Then the horde nights would just be a normal shooter game.

The problem here is that your design can be mind-numbingly simple right now. Yeah, there's a lot of ways to build a base, but they all end up doing the same thing to react to the same zombie AI. You never really have to think about the position of your "towers" once you've played a couple games, because the mobs always path the exact same way. 

 

[Riamus]

The problem here is that your design can be mind-numbingly simple right now. Yeah, there's a lot of ways to build a base, but they all end up doing the same thing to react to the same zombie AI. You never really have to think about the position of your "towers" once you've played a couple games, because the mobs always path the exact same way. 

If you want to control their pathing, sure.  And, yes, that's going to be more efficient.  But you don't have to control their pathing.  You can make a bunker or make multiple paths from multiple directions or any number of other bases that would give you the same kind (at least similar) of horde night effect as previously.  Your base probably wouldn't look like it did in the past if you're trying to accomplish that, but you can certainly do so.  I've done bases that had no path to me or that had no single path and had zombies attacking from all directions (really, it's only the direction they come from at a given time, but throughout horde night, they come from different directions) and had them attacking all around my base.  Is it efficient?  No.  Can it be a fun change?  Absolutely.  And it's easy to do.  But you have to want to do it.

Also, the point of tower defense isn't about positioning your "towers" because tower defense IS about the enemy pathing a certain way.  It's about setting up your "towers" or defenses in a way that will defeat the enemies that are coming along that path.  That's what tower defense is.  I'm not saying this game has to be a tower defense game, but if it is being compared to that, it's doing what it should be doing.

I'd rather enemies that can find weaknesses in my defense to come get me, even if I can create those weaknesses to get them to go a certain way, than to have them just randomly attack anywhere every single time.  At least the way it is now, you can build a base that gives you that style horde night but can also build a base that allows you to control pathing.  The other way, you would always have that style horde night and couldn't have the current style horde night (at least without using mods).  So you can have both worlds in the current iteration.  That said, the zombie AI could be improved.

 

[Mister Forgash]

TFP is sucking all the fun out of the game, and its getting to the point that no one plays vanilla anymore after they try mods out, because vanilla is such a crap experience compared.

This seems like a very disingenuous line. People in the forums have all been playing the game a long time, and it's perfectly natural that, after playing a game for hundreds of hours, you feel diminishing returns and need something more to freshen up the experience. Mods are great, and there are many changes that I hope make it into the end product- but the base game might be aimed slightly more casual than we'd like it, and it's okay for modders to fill that role.

Todays modders may be developers on that big thing coming out 10 years from now.

The problem here is that your design can be mind-numbingly simple right now. Yeah, there's a lot of ways to build a base, but they all end up doing the same thing to react to the same zombie AI. You never really have to think about the position of your "towers" once you've played a couple games, because the mobs always path the exact same way. 

I agree with this. I'm holding out hope for the return of stupid zombies. Maybe just like half, or 40% of them that way you still have plenty of well-behaved hungry bois trying to eat you from where you want them.. but you still have a bunch of stupid rotting corpses that are just too dumb and angry for you to trust 'em to run a straight line and attack the blocks they're 'supposed' to.

 

[FramFramson]

If you want to control their pathing, sure.  And, yes, that's going to be more efficient.  But you don't have to control their pathing.  You can make a bunker or make multiple paths from multiple directions or any number of other bases that would give you the same kind (at least similar) of horde night effect as previously.  Your base probably wouldn't look like it did in the past if you're trying to accomplish that, but you can certainly do so.  I've done bases that had no path to me or that had no single path and had zombies attacking from all directions (really, it's only the direction they come from at a given time, but throughout horde night, they come from different directions) and had them attacking all around my base.  Is it efficient?  No.  Can it be a fun change?  Absolutely.  And it's easy to do.  But you have to want to do it.

Also, the point of tower defense isn't about positioning your "towers" because tower defense IS about the enemy pathing a certain way.  It's about setting up your "towers" or defenses in a way that will defeat the enemies that are coming along that path.  That's what tower defense is.  I'm not saying this game has to be a tower defense game, but if it is being compared to that, it's doing what it should be doing.

I'd rather enemies that can find weaknesses in my defense to come get me, even if I can create those weaknesses to get them to go a certain way, than to have them just randomly attack anywhere every single time.  At least the way it is now, you can build a base that gives you that style horde night but can also build a base that allows you to control pathing.  The other way, you would always have that style horde night and couldn't have the current style horde night (at least without using mods).  So you can have both worlds in the current iteration.  That said, the zombie AI could be improved.

Yeah, don't get me wrong, I don't mind there being some "smart" zombies in the mix, I just want greater variety of AI.

I HAVE built bases which are all-round but eventually some blocks get damaged and all the zombies swarm to that one spot, so you end up right back at the point where everything becomes easy as you just bomb them or sit there and hold down fire, or whatever your preferred method is.

That's why I like fortifying POIs instead of building from scratch. It's exciting to find weaknesses you didn't know about while still legitimately trying your best to fortify the place. Makes the first month or two more interesting on horde night. Sadly, the players on my server like to build "clean" dedicated bases and get annoyed at using POIs for that very reason, lol.

 

[meganoth]

No.

There was digging years ago under certain circumstances, mainly if the zombies fell into a hole or a block was blown up, they would still attack the soil blocks in front of them to push in your direction. Additionally if you were on a riverbank, sometimes they'd try attacking in a straight line from the river edge. Basically any ground irregularity near your base was still an invitation to dig, because dirt blocks had low HP.

They just didn't dig DOWN on untouched dirt ground if you had an underground base. But they would attack dirt blocks and the ground if they did calculate that as the shortest path; it's not like dirt walls were ever an invulnerable force field.

I never built underground bases but I DID build on hills and irregular ground, and zombies absolutely would attack that.

The problem here is that your design can be mind-numbingly simple right now. Yeah, there's a lot of ways to build a base, but they all end up doing the same thing to react to the same zombie AI. You never really have to think about the position of your "towers" once you've played a couple games, because the mobs always path the exact same way. 

Well, I would say the design WAS always mind-numbingly simple in A16, because there was no use for elaborate designs as they were ignored by the zombies anyway.

No matter the AI one thing is clear, the players will find optimal designs, streamers will distribute that knowledge and every veteran will think those designs are obvious and self-evident. But when I really started building hordebases without that knowledge in A17 I actually built dozens of very different designs. And new players, if they don't make the mistake of spoiling themselves by checking out streamers will do the same.

You can do that as well in a limited fashion. Just give yourself a rule like: Build a horde base optimized for a specific trap, or build a horde base that follows the room layout of a random POI you find. And don't build a base that purely depends on you shooting sustained fire along a wire-thin funnel with an M60.

In my last playthrough i could build a base design I never had built before. It is possible if you don't go for the optimimum that is always there, A16 AI or 1.1 AI

 

[Mister Forgash]

Well, I would say the design WAS always mind-numbingly simple in A16, because there was no use for elaborate designs as they were ignored by the zombies anyway.

To the contrary, I think there was something kinda great about having to design a shelter where you would have to cover multiple areas because you couldn't trust -every last one of them- to do the same exact thing. .. I trust the unpredictability of dumb zombies unincorporated into the hivemind would spice up horde night significantly.

 

[Suxar]

Only in A17? Then why "over the years"?

Besides A17 there was another AI change. In the same version in which the vertical support at the doors was removed. I think it was A19.

 

[Roland]

Digging zombies. As per this thread.

Digging zombies is a pathing system that TFP developed. Systems contribute to more emergent gameplay. They don't kill emergent gameplay. TFP did not make underground bases impossible. They simply changed the game state which required players to adapt and be creative AKA increasing emergent gameplay. What did digging zombies actually kill? A 100% zombie-free zone in a zombie apocalypse game. The only thing digging zombies introduced was zombies entering into a part of the world they were blocked from ever entering. Learning how to deal with their introduction into the underworld of 7 Days to Die was all dependent upon the creativity of the players. Some proclaimed it impossible and immediately whined that TFP was anti-player and have never changed their story for the last 5 years while others have enjoyed the new challenges and emergent gameplay inherent whenever a new system is brought into the game. Digging zombies can't be deemed "anti-player" since many players enjoy the fact that zombies can move in all dimensions now whereas before they were stuck to 2 dimensions.

Force fields; you can call it fixing a buggy block, but the block (arrow slit) is mechanically worse now than it was. And the issue persists in other blocks.

The arrow slit bug that was fixed was the fact that zombies could not path over them and many players were placing them flat on the ground to create a force field. I agree that this constitutes a killing of emergent gameplay in the sense that it was a very creative use of the block. On the other hand all exploits and cheats are creative ways to play the game but can ruin the balance and challenge. I agree that care must be taken by developers to pick and choose what exploits to close. As the arrow slit block completely negated a major aspect of the game I think they were correct to fix that bug.

As far as being able to reach through an arrow slit block and grab loot or activate switches vs being blocked from those activities, I don't think that was fixing a bug. I agree that the devs probably didn't want the blocks used in that fashion and so that would be an example of TFP acting to block players. I will say that there are other blocks that prevent zombies from moving through a space but do allow the player to attack through them and interact with objects through them so it isn't like that sort of functionality was completely removed by the devs. For whatever reason it was just that particular block.

Dropper bases - destroyArea -mode, which doesn't really even solve the issue.

I don't know what you mean by a dropper base. I do know that the destroy area mode was added in order to randomize the behavior of zombies so that some would drop out of their player hunting along their pathway. From discussions of the developers it was not intended to stop a particular type of base from being able to be constructed. But the destroy area mode for zombie AI is another example of a system being introduced and as such it has provided opportunities for emergent gameplay by creative players. I do know for a fact that no developer added destroy area mode to the zombie AI in order to stop one particular gameplay choice of players that the devs didn't like.

There's a record, ask JaWoodle .. And don't get me wrong, I don't hate most of the changed mechanics myself, but acting like an arms race isn't going on isn't really calming anyone.

And claiming there is an arms race is supposed to calm people? That's pretty rich. JaWoodle loves to find weird properties of blocks and exploit them and that has led to the fixing of block behavior in some of those cases. Other cases TFP has ignored. They enjoy watching JaWoodle. Some might think they hate JaWoodle but that is furthest from the truth. The reality is that they decide how gamebreaking exploiting a block might be or how gamebreaking the AI pathing might be and they make adjustments.

Most people did not like the AI pathing of A17 because the zombies were so predictable they  could be manipulated simply by stepping from one block to another causing them all to turn around and seek a new path. You could seesaw them back and forth all night long. Since A17 the devs have been making adjustments to make the AI be more random, less predictable, and have a greater variety of behaviors. One interpretation of this is that they are refining the pathing and AI to make the game more fun. Another interpretation is that they are engaging in an arms race against the players. What if some players loved the gameplay of juggling the zombies back and forth like it was possible to do in A17 and TFP had listened to them and never made changes so as to not be "anti-player"?

Zombies with auger hands, Screamers showing up on Day 1 in PAIRS and summoning other pairs right away are another couple. You really don't need to simp so hard for the Fun Pimps, my guy. You're allowed to be critical.

Asking for you to give specific examples of your claims isn't simping and it isn't disallowing you to be critical. Zombies have had powerful hands to destroy stone and wood and concrete and steel since Alpha 1. Zombies have been able to dig since early alphas as well. Digging and destructive force by zombies is not a good example of TFP coming in later and changing things because they somehow hate the players. I've never had screamers show up in pairs on day 1 so I can't comment on that. But as a system it does promote emergent gameplay whether you personally like it or not. There will be creative players that do creative things with that system.

Would you agree that Roland was mostly strawmanning Old Crow, to pretend like it's news to him that TFP are reacting to player tactics in the design?

No. I wasn't pretending it was news to me. I asked for specific examples. So far you provided one case of TFP removing the ability to reach through arrow slits to interact with objects on the other side. What else is there that you know for sure is dev vs player arms racing and not just you assuming things supposedly with the goal of calming people down....?

 

[8_Hussars]

To the contrary, I think there was something kinda great about having to design a shelter where you would have to cover multiple areas because you couldn't trust -every last one of them- to do the same exact thing. .. I trust the unpredictability of dumb zombies unincorporated into the hivemind would spice up horde night significantly.

I don't disagree with more a more variable and wider range of zombie AI; but I find block mass and spike fields are just a different form of pathing exploit.  Maybe its nostalgia or the sunk cost fallacy of previous version game knowledge, that makes players look fondly on it.  YMMV

Skippy0330 just used a very simple four sided no upgraded block fully exposed base well into the Day 60s (with traps).  Its performance certainly exceeded my expectations and is reminiscent of the older style zombie AI approach to "dumb" zombies.

Creative and emergent game play still exists; the players just have to look harder... 

 

 

[Gamida]

I made (and still do make) underground bases sometimes. I didn't mind it. I couldn't fight zombies on horde night from my underground lair so I did need a base up top too. It is just the same as when someone builds a base above they still (usually) don't fight in them. They make a horde base so all their crap doesn't get destroyed.

Now there are also those that like to fight where they live and some undergrounders do make it so they have a drop pit so zombies fall and they can take care of them at bedrock. To each his own...or her own...this is a popular game after all.

 

[theFlu]

Systems contribute to more emergent gameplay. They don't kill emergent gameplay.

You're using "emergent gameplay" like it's a goal. If zombies don't dig, the emergent is hiding under a layer of mud like Arnie in Predator. If they do dig, the emergent is hiding "deeper" in ground, or providing routes. Both options produce emergent possibilities; and thus it's not a counterargument for digging having been a mechanic against a player tactic (of covering themselves in mud).

TFP did not make underground bases impossible.

I live in one. There's no screamers, no stragglers, no spawns whatsoever. The digging fails to threaten me to this day. And the perception of it being implemented against players digging remains.

As the arrow slit block completely negated a major aspect of the game I think they were correct to fix that bug.

A force field provides zero actual benefit over a moat, which still works fine. If I'm lazy, I cover my base entrance with a two-deep ditch, you can drive over it just as well as you could the force field, and it blocks zombie pathing just the same. But it was "important enough" to mess up the actual arrow slit function of the arrow slit block.

I do know for a fact that no developer added destroy area mode to the zombie AI in order to stop one particular gameplay choice of players that the devs didn't like.

So the check to do it just happens to happen after being dropped, only when landing within ~10 meters of the target player. Absolutely by coincidink, I'm sure. The results show it's designed against droppers. The way it's implemented also breaks parkour, you can just jump a couple times to get most of the zeds start eating walls... emergent gameplay at its finest.

Now there seems to be a further path-length rule to destroy area, something like "close enough to player horizontally, start breaking stuff if no short path available"; but that's a later addition.

And claiming there is an arms race is supposed to calm people? That's pretty rich.

Lucky I'm not being paid to calm people down then As in, "it's not my goal, never said it was". If you're hiring, I can make it my goal; but I'd try to do it by sticking to the obvious truths. Such that of course the arms race is happening; if players, QA or devs come up with stupid glitches, the devs want to fix those. Claiming otherwise is just going to frustrate people. They can see it with their very own eyes.

The reality is that they decide how gamebreaking exploiting a block might be or how gamebreaking the AI pathing might be and they make adjustments.

Naturally. The track record of achieving that is a little spotty, as evidenced by the points we're discussing; but I'm sure that's the goal.

One interpretation of this is that they are refining the pathing and AI to make the game more fun. Another interpretation is that they are engaging in an arms race against the players.

A third one, it's both..? You can still juggle zeds just fine, and where you can't, there's usually a failure mode that works worse.. like drawbridges, sometimes zeds just think they're accessible always and run off of them themselves...

What if some players loved the gameplay of juggling the zombies back and forth like it was possible to do in A17 and TFP had listened to them and never made changes so as to not be "anti-player"?

Then no-one would be claiming that TFP has reacted to that particular player design, some players would be happy, and some might complain the game is too easy? Did something change?

What else is there that you know for sure is dev vs player arms racing

I don't know for sure that "I exist", and since your interpretation is the only true one, none. Unless you can see from the above that the difference might be more in the realms of interpretation..

 

[Gamida]

 And the perception of it being implemented against players digging remains.

I, myself, do think it was added because of underground bases. As one who makes them I just don't think it is that much of a deal (now). Was sort of not into it at first but after it just didn't seem to affect me that much.