To TFP. This video says it all.

Roland said:
Some people are always going to accuse others of cheesing horde night. “Cheese” has become simply a trash talk way of saying that you handle horde night in a way that I think is easier and takes less effort than how I handle horde night. 
 

The devs aren’t designing a la trash talk.  They want the zombies to be able to reliably path through the world and navigate the often complex terrain and they really don’t care how players develop strategies to survive. If they see behavior by zombies they did not intend they fix that. If that fix ends a particular strategy, it was just collateral damage.
 

There have only been a very few enemy behaviors they have changed because of player strategies and in those cases they were up front about the fact that they didn’t want players to be able to do something they were doing. Zombies digging, zombies swimming, and vulture hordes attacking vehicles during blood moon are the only actual dev design vs player strats situations I can think of that were put in because of how players were playing. 
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as @Roland said in another thread. They don't make changes to intentionally screw over players or cater to whiners. They aren't out to intentionally ruin everyone's fun.

min/maxers and players will always find ways to do things in the most efficient manner possible. There changes were done for good reasons, and I think the game would be alot more boring if they didn't make these changes.

I am backing TFP here and disagree with this video.

 
Saven: TFP CHANGED ZOMJERK PATHING SO THEY WOULD CROUCH AND CRAWL UNDER LOW SPACES THAT THEY SAW A FEW PEOPLE EXPLOITING ON HORDE NIGHT AND TFP GOTTA STOP!!!!!

Truth: TFP changed zombie pathing so that zombies would no longer get stuck in attics and other low overhangs. TFP's goal was to improve zombie navigation particularly in POI's which are often complex areas.

Saven: TFP CHANGED ZOMJERK PATHING SO THEY COULD WALK ON STEEP WEDGE SLOPES WHEN THEY SAW A FEW PEOPLE EXPLOITING IT ON HORDE NIGHT AND TFP GOTTA STOP

Truth: TFP fixed a bug whereby zombies could not walk on nor damage blocks presenting the steep slope wedge side. This was never an intended behavior and once it was noticed it was fixed. It wasn't even the corridor setup that Saven showed that clued them in. It was all the pyramid bases and walls that were being built and videos showing that zombies could neither path up those slopes nor could they even connect to damage blocks when that facing was in front of them. It wasn't a vs player reaction at all even though it was a bug that was spotted thanks to early access play.

Saven: TFP CHANGED ZOMBIE PATHING TO MAKE THEM DIG TO STOP PEOPLE BEING SAFE ON HORDE NIGHT WHEN UNDERGROUND AND TFP GOTTA STOP!!!

Truth: Yes they did. But, the digging part of the pathing was not only about horde night. It was also to make their pathing options much more varied at all times. Saven failed to mention that TFP also changed zombie pathing to have them hit upward as well. So hatches over ladders are now at risk when they never were before. Zombie pathing as a whole is so much more improved than the past and zombies are able to path and destroy in true 3d space now whereas before A17 they were only able to destroy on a single plane. Critics of digging only target the digging instead of looking at all the changes as a whole. Critics like Saven only target the digging changes because it makes good click bait...

Saven: TFP CHANGED THE HP OF POLES TO MAKE PLAYERS STOP USING THEM FOR HORDE BASES AND THEN THEY REVERSED THEIR DECISION WASTING SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH DEVELOPMENT TIME AND ALL JUST TO STOP A SMALL PORTION OF PLAYERS EXPLOITING POLES AND IT WAS WASTE OF TIME SO STOP!!!

Truth: TFP has been talking internally about variable HP for blocks based on their size for a loooong time. This was not a sudden decision based on watching exploits. With the new shape menu they finally felt it was time to try it but were not happy with their inability to be able to communicate to the player easily which shapes had less HP and which had more. They also want HP and upgrade costs and building costs to be tied together which they weren't quite ready to do. There are some UI changes planned that may help them communicate better the costs and hp of blocks and then these changes will most likely be back again. I would not characterise the removal as "reversal". They certainly have NOT changed their mind that poles should be more easily smashed than full blocks. They just need to figure out the best way to implement it and based on the poor public reaction to testing it openly they will most likely go through some test iterations privately and roll it out in a later alpha more fully developed. Saven is wrong about why it was implemented, how much time it took to implement, how much time it took to remove, and that the feature has officially been reversed. Now Saven might exclaim, "WHAT?!?! But why do something nobody asked for?!?!?" The answer to that is somebody DID ask for it: two brothers by the name of Rick and Joel Huenink.

Saven: STOP FOCUSING ON A SMALL ITTY BITTY MINISCULE MICROSCOPIC INFINITESIMAL PORTION OF THE PLAYER BASE AND START DEVELOPING THE GAME!!!!!

Truth: Fixing pathing issues and bugged features that are not working as intended is part of development. You and people like you truly don't understand early access updates. You just want DLC expansions for an already finished game and when features go through multiple iterations you get upset thinking that it is because of some small other faction of the player base that somehow got influence over the developers. There is such an easier explanation that is the real truth. Rick and Joel are making the game they want and because this is the alpha phase of development, features are developed over time through iteration. The developers choose what they want and need to work on. Some features get punted because there are other priorities. If those other priorities aren't as exciting to you as water and bandits, too bad. Go back to console until the PC version is done.

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It really does show the wrong mentality playing an early access game when you have a former console gamer who played a finished version of 7 Days to Die and experienced DLC updates to that game on the Playstation. He has obviously crossed over to PC with the same mentality he had when on console-- that the game is really basically done and not really actually in development. For a console player whose entire platform gets a restart every 5-6 years its gotta be tough to enter the realm of 9-10 year development cycles.

Honestly, guys-- his whole video is based on assumptions and guess about developer motivations and he is just flat out wrong. I'm sure he will get lots of views and clicks from people simultaneously adjusting the tinfoil hats on their heads...

 
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I agree. Even if the video was done "in good faith", he's basically stepping on TFP's toes and projecting his own narrative on them.

 
Gotta agree seems like they are looking at how people are getting around horde night and trying to stop it (wood spikes, barbed wire and other things went unmentioned). Which actually is viable, you want challenge, but I think it is the LAST thing that should be done as balance passes after all content is added. Fixes for zombies may differ from bandits or things might change when all the content is added.

 
Jost Amman said:
I agree. Even if the video was done "in good faith", he's basically stepping on TFP's toes and projecting his own narrative on them.
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It is always hilarious to me that people will come here or go on video and comment and postulate the motives of TFP and why things are happening the way they are as if TFP is some ancient civilization that completely died out 1000s of years ago and they are the archeologist using obscure clues to suss out what happened and report it all for the rest of us.  I get why an influencer wants to set himself up as the go to oracle and expert on TFP doings-- the motive is absolutely clear. But we also get Joe Randos who come here and opine about this stuff like it is some unknowable mystery.

It's not and anyone can come and ask questions and get the answers from TFP simply be being honestly inquisitive about the development process. It is simple to ask but the personalities that would rather set themselves up as THE ANSWER don't really want or care about the truth. They want subs and likes.

 
Shockwave1 said:
Gotta agree seems like they are looking at how people are getting around horde night and trying to stop it (wood spikes, barbed wire and other things went unmentioned). Which actually is viable, you want challenge, but I think it is the LAST thing that should be done as balance passes after all content is added. Fixes for zombies may differ from bandits or things might change when all the content is added.
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Bug fixing and optimization is always ongoing and never the last thing done.  What alot of people are not aware (or in denial about) is that these bug fixes are actually only a small fraction of the developer's time.

They almost always overlook all of the other features/bugs/optimzations that were worked on and choose to hyper focus on the ones they dont like.

What makes things worse are videos like this one that get out there with assumptions which starts a whole mob of misinformed people.

 
Roland said:
It is always hilarious to me that people will come here or go on video and comment and postulate the motives of TFP and why things are happening the way they are as if TFP is some ancient civilization that completely died out 1000s of years ago and they are the archeologist using obscure clues to suss out what happened and report it all for the rest of us.  I get why an influencer wants to set himself up as the go to oracle and expert on TFP doings-- the motive is absolutely clear. But we also get Joe Randos who come here and opine about this stuff like it is some unknowable mystery.

It's not and anyone can come and ask questions and get the answers from TFP simply be being honestly inquisitive about the development process. It is simple to ask but the personalities that would rather set themselves up as THE ANSWER don't really want or care about the truth. They want subs and likes.
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I think it's time I ask them, why were the wood spikes and iron spikes nerfed very heavily? One wood spike could kill 3-5 zombies, now it's lucky if 2-3 wood spikes kill a single one.

 
Roland said:
Truth: TFP changed zombie pathing so that zombies would no longer get stuck in attics and other low overhangs. TFP's goal was to improve zombie navigation particularly in POI's which are often complex areas.
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That's not really working well at the moment. In A20, I had several zombies stuck in shelves or other objects that they tried to crawl under, for example.

I see the problem a lot in the warehouse areas of POIs such as the Working Stiff or Savage Country stores.

 
RipClaw said:
That's not really working well at the moment. In A20, I had several zombies stuck in shelves or other objects that they tried to crawl under, for example.

I see the problem a lot in the warehouse areas of POIs such as the Working Stiff or Savage Country stores.
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Zombie pathing has been wonky in A20 compared to A19 from my experience. and given enough time I beleive TFP will solve or atleast improve the current zombie AI/pathing. I am sure they have people trying to solve it.

 
POCKET951 said:
Zombie pathing has been wonky in A20 compared to A19 from my experience. and given enough time I beleive TFP will solve or atleast improve the current zombie AI/pathing. I am sure they have people trying to solve it.
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The crawling change certainly helps but its not perfect.  Considering over 1300 shapes were added, there were bound to be more bugs which will be addressed as time permits.

 
POCKET951 said:
Zombie pathing has been wonky in A20 compared to A19 from my experience. and given enough time I beleive TFP will solve or atleast improve the current zombie AI/pathing. I am sure they have people trying to solve it.
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Whatever improving the pathing means for the Fun Pimps. For example, I'm not a fan of the Area Destruction mode. It kicks in way too often at the moment and causes problems with certain playstyles like using electric traps or in melee bases.

Laz Man said:
The crawling change certainly helps but its not perfect.  Considering over 1300 shapes were added, there were bound to be more bugs which will be addressed as time permits.
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I would accept that as an explanation if it only affected player-built bases, but this is about prefabs that haven't changed since A19.

 
RipClaw said:
That's not really working well at the moment. In A20, I had several zombies stuck in shelves or other objects that they tried to crawl under, for example.

I see the problem a lot in the warehouse areas of POIs such as the Working Stiff or Savage Country stores.
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Well I didn't mean to imply it was all done. I meant to state for the record that the REASON zombies were given the ability to crouch was to improve their pathing and help them not get stuck in places they typically would get stuck. That the process isn't finished yet doesn't mean that TFP did to thwart certain strategies that they deemed "wrong". And nobody, least of all me, is trying to claim that the work is considered finished.

One area where it is working much better is in attics where the sloped ceiling comes down to meet the floor. In A19, the zombies couldn't path in those areas and (at least in my games) they scuttle around in attics under those low sloped ceilings beautifully now. They also had problems with some of the irregular holes in walls and some of the broken windows which they now crab walk through (in my experience) without much problem.

But they do get stuck still in some circumstances and sometimes choose to duck when they shouldn't because even ducked they wouldn't be able to get under the obstacle they are trying to.

RipClaw said:
Whatever improving the pathing means for the Fun Pimps. For example, I'm not a fan of the Area Destruction mode. It kicks in way too often at the moment and causes problems with certain playstyles like using electric traps or in melee bases.
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Area destruction is actively undergoing tuning according to faatal. There was a bug that prevented most zombies from going into destruction mode and now that bug is fixed and it is truly working for the first time. Faatal admitted that they will probably have to adjust the values on it and agrees it is happening way too often at the moment. 

"Improvement" in pathing as defined by the developers is making the pathing more versatile and able to help them traverse the complex landscape and interact with more of the world. So having a destruction mode option that turns them from their normal path to something else is an improvement over not having the option. Having an option where the zombies can interact with blocks above them and below them instead of simply whatever is straight in front of them on their horizontal plane is an improvement because it increases their interactivity with the world. Having both long paths and short paths available to zombies is an improvement over having only long paths because it adds a variety of behaviors and abilities randomly among zombies and their sense of exactly how to get to the player.

"Improvement" in pathing is not defined by whether a given player likes the current pathing or not. You may not see the changes as improvements for your playstyle but that is subjective to your own experience. Objectively, all of these changes have been improvements and now the programmers simply need to adjust, debug, and tune things to get the behavior results THEY want which may or may not align with what we want.

 
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RipClaw said:
I would accept that as an explanation if it only affected player-built bases, but this is about prefabs that haven't changed since A19.
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Can you clarify?  The new shapes are used in A20 POIs and player built bases so not sure what you mean by that.

 
I know what he means. Sometimes in kitchen dining rooms I’ve seen a zombie that was lying on the floor try to crouch under the kitchen table between us instead of walk normally around it. It can’t get under the table but it keeps trying and the table isn’t one of the new shapes. 
 

 
Laz Man said:
Can you clarify?  The new shapes are used in A20 POIs and player built bases so not sure what you mean by that.
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I noticed the problems with the pathing in a prefab that was not changed since A19. In A19 the zombies navigated just fine through that same POI.

When I change something in a software I run tests to make sure I didn't accidentally break something else. I just assumed that the Fun Pimps were testing the pathing in existing POIs to make sure they didn't create new problems while trying to fix other problems.

If the problems would only occur when a player intentionally tries to break the AI with the new blocks then I would understand your argument.

 
RipClaw said:
If the problems would only occur when a player intentionally tries to break the AI with the new blocks then I would understand your argument.
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Yeah, but the problem is the one dev working on pathing is faatal, and as workaholic as he may be, my guess is he can't test 300 POIs by himself after each change.

I think this is the case where they first go through QA, but if that fails, the EA community is exactly what they need to find out these occurrences.

 
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