PC Tactics for dealing with Digging Zombies??

[Scyris]

I guess it depends how well the zombies are programmed. If they are attracted directly above our main heat and dig straight down, that's going to be a problem. If they are programmed to search for the entrance better, it gives us better opportunities to set up traps or detours.
I'm personally going to build above ground and spend more time actively defending my goods. But they are also improving the normal Zed AI above ground so it might be more difficult too.

Pretty sure they only dig if they see you, as they are set to not destroy blocks when just wandering around, so a wandering horde will pass right over your underground base most likely even in a17 with the exception of horde night, as your hunted the entire time, so they will then dig for you.

 

[Syncrinity]

Pretty sure they only dig if they see you, as they are set to not destroy blocks when just wandering around, so a wandering horde will pass right over your underground base most likely even in a17 with the exception of horde night, as your hunted the entire time, so they will then dig for you.

That leaves me wondering how well the zeds will be programmed to detect heat signatures. If you're underground and are causing alot of heat, will the zeds above just start digging down or stay above and spin in circles?

This discussion also allows for some other fun aspects to underground base design. As mentioned in response to my earlier comment, perhaps zeds digging straight down will be beneficial. We can have intermission spots between the base underneath and the ground level to have traps. The entrance can be off to the side and lead back to the spot underneath the trap area.

All things considered, I'm pretty excited to see how much of a threat the new AI will be.

 

[LuckyStar]

Are you asking me why shouldn't there be a way to automatically grind zombies and level up passively, when you can already control how approximately many zombies can attack you (via heat, screamers), which would be by far the easiest (trap maintenance is no big deal), less risky way to level up as soon as possible while being semi-afk?

Sounds like you think you're going to poof a magic wand and the zombies will grind.

Any trap takes resources.

Every block the damages zeds take damage itself thus requires upkeep.

I'm not sure I see your point here.

Why is passive experience such a sin in your eyes?

It's already been stated that the exp shouldn't be as much but why nothing at all?

[i've underlined that because you've ignored it so far]

You haven't made a case here, in my eyes, just a sort of knee-jerk reaction.

Sorry but I can't agree with you when you give no reasons to understand your point.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I just want to understand your perspective.

I think it's a good topic to [respectfully] debate.

 

[RestInPieces]

Sounds like you think you're going to poof a magic wand and the zombies will grind.
Any trap takes resources.

Every block the damages zeds take damage itself thus requires upkeep.

I'm not sure I see your point here.

Why is passive experience such a sin in your eyes?

It's already been stated that the exp shouldn't be as much but why nothing at all?

[i've underlined that because you've ignored it so far]

You haven't made a case here, in my eyes, just a sort of knee-jerk reaction.

Sorry but I can't agree with you when you give no reasons to understand your point.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I just want to understand your perspective.

I think it's a good topic to [respectfully] debate.

It's definitely not without some resource loss and maintenance as you said. But you can't compare them with the risk and resources you would spend by killing them yourself. Am I wrong?

I wouldn't call it a sin, just an extravagant way to gain experience. I am sorry I seemed to ignore it, it's just that I believe that even minimal xp from traps (say 1/10) would accumulate easily to be by far the best way to earn xp in parallel with whatever else the player is doing. People will start avoiding killing screamers and attracting as many zombies as they can via the heat system into their meatgrinder farm with a constant zombie influx 24/7. As a result any other form of gaining exp will lose any substantial meaning and in the end, since people will look for a good way to get xp, players will be encouraged to do it over other options.

 

[LuckyStar]

It's definitely not without some resource loss and maintenance as you said. But you can't compare them with the risk and resources you would spend by killing them yourself. Am I wrong?
I wouldn't call it a sin, just an extravagant way to gain experience. I am sorry I seemed to ignore it, it's just that I believe that even minimal xp from traps (say 1/10) would accumulate easily to be by far the best way to earn xp in parallel with whatever else the player is doing. People will start avoiding killing screamers and attracting as many zombies as they can via the heat system into their meatgrinder farm with a constant zombie influx 24/7. As a result any other form of gaining exp will lose any substantial meaning and in the end, since people will look for a good way to get xp, players will be encouraged to do it over other options.

Okay let me see if I've understood what you're saying.

You feel that if players aren't killing them by hand, they aren't doing it right and should be "encouraged" to play correctly?

Let's see what we agree on.

- We agree that it does take some resources to upkeep traps.

- We agree that it's considerably less than killing up close and personal.

After that I think we diverge.

If it's just a matter of balancing effort/resources, then make the passive exp equivalent. Maybe 1/100th per kill.

Then it's time management that determines how players will deal with zeds.

Sure you can passively grind them but it takes way longer to level than smacking a dozen zeds on the head.

I'm not sure limiting players to one style of play [or "encouraging" as you put it,] is necessarily good for the game.

 

[OzHawkeye]

LuckyStar,

The (perhaps) fatal flaw I see in your desire for passive experience from trap kills is: to whom does it assign the XP?

Probably not an issue in SP, but in MP, is the XP assigned to the person who placed the trap? To the person who built it? To the person closest to it when the Zed died on it?

I could see this being exploited in MP for "free and easy" XP grinding.

Just one (of many) examples I could think of, would be a player surreptitiously replacing the traps deployed by another player with their own identical traps and thus reaping the XP gain from the zombie kills, while the other player unknowningly spends (wastes) resources continuously repairing the traps, not realising they're not longer theirs.

 

[LuckyStar]

LuckyStar,
The (perhaps) fatal flaw I see in your desire for passive experience from trap kills is: to whom does it assign the XP?

Probably not an issue in SP, but in MP, is the XP assigned to the person who placed the trap? To the person who built it? To the person closest to it when the Zed died on it?

I could see this being exploited in MP for "free and easy" XP grinding.

Just one (of many) examples I could think of, would be a player surreptitiously replacing the traps deployed by another player with their own identical traps and thus reaping the XP gain from the zombie kills, while the other player unknowningly spends (wastes) resources continuously repairing the traps, not realising they're not longer theirs.

See?

Now THERE is a good argument.

You're right. Who do you assign exp to on MP?

SP game it's easy, just one person.

In multiplayer you've then got to have another bit attached to each block to remember who placed it.

That could eat up a lot of resources.

Yup agreed. That is one problem with passive exp.

Although... could overcome that by splitting the exp and giving it to anyone in the chunk.

Right?

 

[OzHawkeye]

See?
Now THERE is a good argument.

You're right. Who do you assign exp to on MP?

SP game it's easy, just one person.

In multiplayer you've then got to have another bit attached to each block to remember who placed it.

That could eat up a lot of resources.

Yup agreed. That is one problem with passive exp.

Although... could overcome that by splitting the exp and giving it to anyone in the chunk.

Right?

That could still leave someone benefiting from the trap who neither made, placed or maintained it, not to mention the requirement for the server to check for every player in the chunk, and parcel out the experience evenly between them. Admittedly, on the OFFICIALLY supported maximum of 8 players, that probably wouldn't be a deal breaker, but it would be added processing load for the server.

Any way it's done actually would be explotable I reckon.

For example, assign the XP to the nearest person? I hide out at another players base (perhaps under 2 dirt blocks for example). My bases chunks are inactive due to lack of players, and the other players base cops all the heat, and having hid directly underneath their traps I reap the rewards (indeed, you could actively place torches to ENCOURAGE the use of the traps).

Assign XP to the builder? I go to someone elses base and replace all the traps in the stockpile with ones I've made myself.

Assign XP to the placer? As above, I simply replace all the traps they built with identical ones.

At a minimum, it would seem to require another meta-tag added to each trap, of "XP assignee" for most of these methods to even be possible I would expect.

 

[RestInPieces]

You feel that if players aren't killing them by hand, they aren't doing it right and should be "encouraged" to play correctly? .............. I'm not sure limiting players to one style of play [or "encouraging" as you put it,] is necessarily good for the game.

Where did the "limiting players to one style of play" even come from? And you did understand that I was talking about trap exp encouraging players to act in a specific way, right?

If it's just a matter of balancing effort/resources, then make the passive exp equivalent. Maybe 1/100th per kill. Then it's time management that determines how players will deal with zeds. Sure you can passively grind them but it takes way longer to level than smacking a dozen zeds on the head.

The thing is that exp will be gained in parallel with other activities - players will be gaining exp from all the other actions they do while at the same time getting a passive exp stream from zombies 24h per day.

In essence, what I feel is that trap exp:

-Won't offer anything else other than a passive, parallel stream of experience that will help players cap sooner, since players are already encouraged by the game to build a base and defend it for various other reasons.

-Will only encourage players to actively farm zombies, stop killing screamers and do anything they can to attract more of them by spamming heat sources.

The reason I didn't present a good, for your standards, argument, like a specific flaw, is that I believe that the whole concept is flawed.

 

[LuckyStar]

That could still leave someone benefiting from the trap who neither made, placed or maintained it, not to mention the requirement for the server to check for every player in the chunk, and parcel out the experience evenly between them. Admittedly, on the OFFICIALLY supported maximum of 8 players, that probably wouldn't be a deal breaker, but it would be added processing load for the server.
Any way it's done actually would be explotable I reckon.

For example, assign the XP to the nearest person? I hide out at another players base (perhaps under 2 dirt blocks for example). My bases chunks are inactive due to lack of players, and the other players base cops all the heat, and having hid directly underneath their traps I reap the rewards (indeed, you could actively place torches to ENCOURAGE the use of the traps).

Assign XP to the builder? I go to someone elses base and replace all the traps in the stockpile with ones I've made myself.

Assign XP to the placer? As above, I simply replace all the traps they built with identical ones.

At a minimum, it would seem to require another meta-tag added to each trap, of "XP assignee" for most of these methods to even be possible I would expect.

Hahaha jeez Oz, you have a devious mind.

Hahahaha.

You're right, of course, those are definitely exploits.

 

[LuckyStar]

Where did the "limiting players to one style of play" even come from? And you did understand that I was talking about trap exp encouraging players to act in a specific way, right?


The thing is that exp will be gained in parallel with other activities - players will be gaining exp from all the other actions they do while at the same time getting a passive exp stream from zombies 24h per day.

In essence, what I feel is that trap exp:

-Won't offer anything else other than a passive, parallel stream of experience that will help players cap sooner, since players are already encouraged by the game to build a base and defend it for various other reasons.

-Will only encourage players to actively farm zombies, stop killing screamers and do anything they can to attract more of them by spamming heat sources.

The reason I didn't present a good, for your standards, argument, like a specific flaw, is that I believe that the whole concept is flawed.

Alright so you make some good points.

What you haven't addressed, however, is the problem now created by having no loot on zombies.

Now we have little to no incentive to kill them.

People are encouraged to use exploits that make zombies run around in circles instead of actually fighting them right?

They might attack support structures but they'll still fall for staircase traps.

Truthfully I just don't see the point of giving zombies less loot but that's probably another discussion.

 

[RestInPieces]

Alright so you make some good points.
What you haven't addressed, however, is the problem now created by having no loot on zombies.

Now we have little to no incentive to kill them.

People are encouraged to use exploits that make zombies run around in circles instead of actually fighting them right?

They might attack support structures but they'll still fall for staircase traps.

Truthfully I just don't see the point of giving zombies less loot but that's probably another discussion.

But they will have both loot and exp. Yes, not every zombie will have loot like before, but if I remember correctly - take this with a grain of salt - MM had said their loot now will even be more significant than random minor loot they used to have. They mostly did this because looting a whole horde was somewhat of a chore.

If you want my opinion, we were discussing this in another thread:https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?92299-No-more-exploding-loot-in-A17&p=861471#post861471

Also think about this - that a strong zombie incentive will not change the result of people using exploits to circumvent zombie AI, because players will still use them to farm zombies instead of fighting them. In either case they will use the exploit either to avoid them or to kill them for their loot. The only thing that will prevent these exploits are AI improvements.

In short, the zombie (xp + loot) incentive must be in line with other activity incentives.

Like with the example you presented in the other thread if someone's playstyle involves stealth to avoid zombies and get to the loot, you have to weight all factors and make it worthwhile VS the option of fighting them head-on.

 

[OzHawkeye]

Hahaha jeez Oz, you have a devious mind.

Hahahaha.

You're right, of course, those are definitely exploits.

Thank you LuckyStar Always nice to be complemented on my deviousness... hehe.

I do believe though, if I harken back to the depths of my foggy memory, that many of the points I raised here were discussed by the Pimps themselves if I remember rightly, about the dangers of XP from traps etc. I would be surprised if they did ever introduce it, given the potential issues it raises for exploitation.

 

[Guppycur]

So... We all agree now. Cool.

 

[LuckyStar]

So... We all agree now. Cool.

Well that's one point.

We're still not sure about what's going to stop zeds with the new AI

I am still going to try my same old Kill Box.

I think it's still going to work.

Though.. the blade traps will be move to horizontal and I'll make the spikes area dip down and back up so the zeds actually run into the blades instead of just punching them.

Otherwise... not really seeing how the now AI is going to make a difference here.