PC Zombie AI and Base Building

I have seen a live stream of an A17 insane / always run / permadeath game... on day 38 and they were definitely defending a base.
Why would the same thing be impossible on default settings?

Channeling the enemies into kill zones is an important aspect of tower defense games so that should not come as a surprise.
Click to expand...
wow, after reading and writing since a17 about this issue, this is the first time I read a more or less confirmation that building mazes is the intended way. So dissappointing. I love tower defense games, and building mazes there. But this isnt the same. In those games, the maze IS the gameplay. I build a maze from point a to point b, an thats it.

Here Im trying to build a base where I live and defend, and I want it to be attacked, like a castle. Im not building a maze, but a cool defendible base.

 
Against lower tier materials it shouldn't be any stronger now and against higher tiers (reinforced concrete/steel) zombie damage has always been ridiculously low.
Click to expand...
I could be wrong. But I could have swore I read a dev, or long time forum person, saying there was a new group damage bonus for zombies. Basicly inticing you to thin out the heard. Was that totally bs or?

 
Against lower tier materials it shouldn't be any stronger now and against higher tiers (reinforced concrete/steel) zombie damage has always been ridiculously low.
Click to expand...
You should take a look at this video and decide if ridiculously low is the right term to describe the zombie damage:

 
I wrote about it here https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?96766-Alpha-17-Experimental-B208-bug-reporting-thread&p=898210&viewfull=1#post898210

But it seems possible for another couple of years to forget about correcting mistakes of the algorithm for finding the path.

Now zombies are counting the way in one plane, and then move on to the next until you reach the height at which the player stands. You can just build a tower of Babel and they will walk in a circle.

Developers will have to solve a very big problem of recalculation of values of walls, height and blocks on the way of zombies.

Now you just need to understand how this algorithm works and you can very easily deceive zombies.

 
I could be wrong. But I could have swore I read a dev, or long time forum person, saying there was a new group damage bonus for zombies. Basicly inticing you to thin out the heard. Was that totally bs or?
Click to expand...
Vedui made a video about this. The group bonus is a about 10% per additional zombie:

 
wow, after reading and writing since a17 about this issue, this is the first time I read a more or less confirmation that building mazes is the intended way. So dissappointing. I love tower defense games, and building mazes there. But this isnt the same. In those games, the maze IS the gameplay. I build a maze from point a to point b, an thats it. Here Im trying to build a base where I live and defend, and I want it to be attacked, like a castle. Im not building a maze, but a cool defendible base.
Click to expand...
You don't have to build a maze. I haven't.

 
I could be wrong. But I could have swore I read a dev, or long time forum person, saying there was a new group damage bonus for zombies. Basicly inticing you to thin out the heard. Was that totally bs or?
Click to expand...
No, there is such a bonus but I also lowered general block damage against lower tier materials (and incidentally traps) so this is no black and white picture.

 
No, there is such a bonus but I also lowered general block damage against lower tier materials (and incidentally traps) so this is no black and white picture.
Click to expand...
Ahhh ic. Lots of changes. I love the lowered damage to traps. Blade traps are kinda a waste of time. Break way to easy and hella expensive to keep working. Xp and resources suckers lol.

 
You don't have to build a maze. I haven't.
Click to expand...
I know, I watch all your 7d2d videos. I have copied your 2 towers build (except the good looks) and it worked. I'm just saying that it is more efficient to build a maze and cheese the AI.

Anyway, if they do add some randomness to their behaviour like I think joel said, it will be much better.

 
And I'm really glad he did too! :-)
I mean, the new AI was one of the big selling points for me in A17, and in many many ways, it still is. It's quite impressive to see how well they do it, because it means Bandits will be able to do it when we get them. I just hope when we do, the zombies go back to being more a threat of sheer numbers, and not an ability to "somehow" see their best way to me.

I'd categorize my threat wish-list like this:

1. Dumb zombies who may just well overwhelm me through sheet numbers, but otherwise are generally taken care of through (more or less) reasonably static defenses.

2. Smart bandits who may well find one tiny flaw in my base, and use it to ambush from inside my own base. What I like so much about Fataal's AI, is that I knew this one is a goer, since the Zombies are already doing it... hehe.
Click to expand...
I'm with you on this. I've said over and over the zombies should stay as they were, and the smart threats should have been reserved for the bandits.

Actually, I would wish for different kinds of zombies.We've seen cautious steps towards varied behaviors but this should get more pronounced as we get into more gameplay polish.

It may turn out different zombies are "good" at different things whereas now you really only have a difference of low/high damage or hit points. Not very interesting.
Click to expand...
Personally I think randomizing Zombie behavior will be the wrong way to go. Zombie lore has almost always had their behavior as predictable, and easily overcome. Zombies should not be the thinking threat. They should be the mindless horde. Randomized non-predictable behavior should be the exclusive domain of thinking entities.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I know, I watch all your 7d2d videos. I have copied your 2 towers build (except the good looks) and it worked. I'm just saying that it is more efficient to build a maze and cheese the AI. Anyway, if they do add some randomness to their behaviour like I think joel said, it will be much better.
Click to expand...
Only issue is when they add randomness a lot of strategy is going to go out the window. Then we are just back to walls. Now i dont love the idea of mazes. But chokepoints are awesome. And if we lose them in going to be bummed.

 
Only issue is when they add randomness a lot of strategy is going to go out the window. Then we are just back to walls. Now i dont love the idea of mazes. But chokepoints are awesome. And if we lose them in going to be bummed.
Click to expand...
Well, as I understood it, adding some randomness would be so that not all the zombies followed the conga train. I like them to be more intelligent than on a16 and before, but I miss the base beeing surrounded by zombies attacking all my walls, instead of all focusing on 1 point. It was a cool feeling.

The last time I reapaired my base after a bloodmoon, I had missing blocks, while the surrounding blocks had received 0 damage. That's an awesome aiming skill for some zombies :p

 
Well, as I understood it, adding some randomness would be so that not all the zombies followed the conga train. I like them to be more intelligent than on a16 and before, but I miss the base beeing surrounded by zombies attacking all my walls, instead of all focusing on 1 point. It was a cool feeling.
The last time I reapaired my base after a bloodmoon, I had missing blocks, while the surrounding blocks had received 0 damage. That's an awesome aiming skill for some zombies :p
Click to expand...
I think the problem is it breaks everything likely.

If 4 go pathing winding through the maze, 2 bash randomly, and 2 bash the closest path... as soon as the 2 bash a hole, the 4 who went thru the maze now will go through the hole in the wall, and you have 6 doing that. Any opening becomes the closest path, and then building to handle zombies through a maze is a waste of valuable resources :)

Best right now is make a maze, or make it easier, make a pillar and lead zombies up and down a ramp and you're good to go -->

I'd rather:

1) POI sleepers have the new pathing. They lived/worked there, they would know how the layout is.

2) wandering hordes/blood moon hordes go back to attacking the base, as they wouldn't know the internal layout. No fancy pathing maybe beyond 5 blocks or something if it's open.Makes more sense. And of course bashing supports if they can't get to the player is fine.

 
I think the problem is it breaks everything likely.
If 4 go pathing winding through the maze, 2 bash randomly, and 2 bash the closest path... as soon as the 2 bash a hole, the 4 who went thru the maze now will go through the hole in the wall, and you have 6 doing that. Any opening becomes the closest path, and then building to handle zombies through a maze is a waste of valuable resources :)
Click to expand...
That's.... exactly my point. I dont want to build mazes for cheesing the AI. I want to build castles/fortresses

 
And I'm really glad he did too! :-)
I mean, the new AI was one of the big selling points for me in A17, and in many many ways, it still is. It's quite impressive to see how well they do it, because it means Bandits will be able to do it when we get them. I just hope when we do, the zombies go back to being more a threat of sheer numbers, and not an ability to "somehow" see their best way to me.

I'd categorize my threat wish-list like this:

1. Dumb zombies who may just well overwhelm me through sheet numbers, but otherwise are generally taken care of through (more or less) reasonably static defenses.

2. Smart bandits who may well find one tiny flaw in my base, and use it to ambush from inside my own base. What I like so much about Fataal's AI, is that I knew this one is a goer, since the Zombies are already doing it... hehe.
Click to expand...
Wish list:

1) Make normal zeds, during the day, use the dumb(ish) path finding, that don't care about traps or whatnot. At night use the current path finding.

2) Make the Feral/runner zeds use the path finding, like it is now (day or night).

3) Have Screamers runners and use a version of the Vulture abilities. Where they keep a distance away from the player, but call in groups every so often. If the player gets/are hurt? then they go in and take potshots.

 
So I built a kill zone on my dedicated server. It was actually OP and enemies couldn't get to us on horde night. I'll post a twitch highlight soon if you're interested in seeing it. Essentially, it was a 12x12 square in the middle, each side had a 15 block long 3 block wide hallway with 5 blade traps in each and an auto turret to shoot down the hallway. The outside of the base was a 6 block tall fence with 1 row of spike traps. The whole base was concrete. The blood moon zombies pathed to the hallways, blade traps killed them when they entered, us players and the auto turrets fired down the hall ways at them. It basically turned the game into easy mode. We were around level 130 and used it for the Night 49 and 56 horde nights. Turned the game into easy mode so we ended up wiping the server because the only thing left to do was farm for bullet materials every day. Playing on Nomad with 16 zombie setting for horde nights.

 
That's.... exactly my point. I dont want to build mazes for cheesing the AI. I want to build castles/fortresses
Click to expand...
You think of mazes as cheese? I dont. Dont get me wrong, I don't like them. They dont fit into the base building part of the game right. Like could you imagine an episode of TWD where they are building wood wall mazes around there homes? Lol

But cheese? Nah.

 
That's.... exactly my point. I dont want to build mazes for cheesing the AI. I want to build castles/fortresses
Click to expand...
Lots of castles HAVE winding entry paths with chocking points for defenders to rain arrows down at the attackers, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_of_Cardona#/media/File:Parador_de_Cardona_2.jpg

If 4 go pathing winding through the maze, 2 bash randomly, and 2 bash the closest path... as soon as the 2 bash a hole, the 4 who went thru the maze now will go through the hole in the wall, and you have 6 doing that. Any opening becomes the closest path, and then building to handle zombies through a maze is a waste of valuable resources :)
Click to expand...
This would mean defenders would need to not just shoot randomly into the horde but attack those zombies that present the biggest danger to your defense. With the proper balancing that would be just great.

I remember lots of A16.4 games with my co-op group where I was for example standing behind some bars and mindlessly attacking any zombie standing in front of me. No tactic, just do as much damage as you possible. Whack whack whack for in-game hours.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
You think of mazes as cheese? I dont. Dont get me wrong, I don't like them. They dont fit into the base building part of the game right. Like could you imagine an episode of TWD where they are building wood wall mazes around there homes? Lol
But cheese? Nah.
Click to expand...
Well, Im saying cheese exactly because its not as bad as exploiting the AI. It is a small thing, but it's still something that only works because the AI is dumb enough to not just break a hole in the maze, even if made of wood. And not zombie like dumb, since a zombie would break a wall if he hears noises behind, instead of taking a long path to them.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top