Originally posted by SylenThunder: The developer intends that the player will never feel "safe".
I would like to expand on this.
First up, One VERY important thing to note is that the game is very much intended to be, at least in part, a Tower Defense game. 'Exploiting' the pathfinding of the enemy is pretty much the way the genre works.
In a traditional TD game, You dont get to make the path- You just place defenses on a pre-made path. In 7DTD, you get to make the path too.
Here's the clincher- The difference between 'Making use of the tools available' and 'Exploiting the game' pretty much come down to whether or not the zombies are intended to behave a certain way in regards to a certain block or setup.
Building a staircase that the zombies climb up and then jump down after you isn't exploitative. Building a long hallway that you expertly funnel the zombies into with intelligent design so you can just spray and pray to mow them down isn't exploitative. Zombies are meant to jump up steps- They're meant to find that path of least resistance that happens to put them right in your line of fire.
However, there have been actual exploits in the past- Force fields, specific block layouts on the floor that resulted in zombies just failing to navigate over them and accomplishing nothing even though they should be able to walk across it.
A specific shape of ramp that the player could walk up but zombies couldn't
Putting two ultra thin shapes on top of eachother to make a floating base the zombies couldnt damage
Putting two ultra thin shapes side by side so the zombies considered there to be floor there but when they walk onto it they just fall through.
These were actual exploits resulting from a failure somewhere in the zombie AI. They should've been able to walk across those 'force field' blocks, Or up a ramp that players can walk up, or to recognize that those thin shapes side by side from a hole, not a floor. So they were fixed.
And now is where I circle back to the main thing I quoted from Sylen- The developer's goal is "for the player to never feel Safe", As such, Any method of combating the horde that makes the player absolutely untouchable; Any method that provides infinite protection for minimal finite effort is an 'exploit'.
But a killing corridor, That's just human ingenuity and efficiency shining through. If you were to make a killing corridor base and just stand there not shooting the zombies, they would eventually break through and kill you. If you ran out of ammo, they would eventually reach and kill you, If you underestimated how much damage they do or misjudged how fast they move down that hallway, they will reach and kill you. You've created an Efficient base design- But it's not infinite protection for minimal finite effort, so no exploit.
A bunker with a billion turrets stocked chock full of ammo isn't exploitative either. Yes it doesn't really require active play from the player during the horde night if it's designed especially well, But it requires a LOT of effort to stock that many turrets, to repair the base afterwards, to build it in the first place; The player has at that point earned that peace of mind to just let their base handle the enemy. But the same applies as the killing corridor- If the player stopped providing ammo to their turrets, or if they forgot to repair some essential parts, if they just stopped involving themselves in the process at all, the zombies would break through and kill them. It's excellent protection- But it's not infinite, and not for minimal finite effort, so no exploit.
Neither of these is really 'cheesing' the game. It's pretty much just the way you would play a tower defense game smartly.
Oh and since I just reread the OP, I'll cover it... Riding away on Vehicles used to be an exploit- For about 30 seconds of mining an oil shale vein or 5 minutes dismantling cars, you could just drive a minibike in circles or in a straight line or what have you for 8 hours and never be in danger for the next like 10 horde nights... Essentially Infinite protection for minimal finite effort. Heck, you could do it with a basic bicycle, don't even need fuel.
The developers actually considered a lot of different solutions for the issue, But most of them either felt too gamey or were just felt wrong- As an example, They considered that some kind of EMP would happen during horde night and disable your vehicles entirely. But it just felt wrong- It was a very hard handed approach that accomplished the goal and totally removed vehicles from the equation- But what about people who werent abusing vehicles and just used them as a backup escape route so the player could fall back to a different position? It punished everyone. And wasn't good.
So, 'Magic' vultures is the solution they finally settled on... And honestly, They're not as unrealistic as people think.
Fun fact, People like to mock the magic vultures, But, In case you forgot- You're facing a hive mind that is at the peak of it's strength during the blood moon. A hive mind whose singular goal in the whole wide world is to kill you. So of course when you jump in a vehicle and try to ride off into the sunset that hive mind will react and do something to stop you- Since it's zombies cant keep up anymore, it makes use of the only tool on its side that can catch up to you- Vultures.
So, IMO, The 'magic' vultures were a beautiful solution to the issue, Making use of an underused enemy type and resolving the problem in a lore-friendly/lore-accurate way. Players be salty though and trump it up and mock it a whole lot more than it ever deserved, because in their eyes the devs 'attacked' them and took out an easy solution to the puzzle.
TL;DR: The 'intended' way to combat the horde is to combat them in a way in which you are never 'Safe'; If you're fighting them in a way that, were you to stop killing them, they would reach you and kill you, you're doing it the intended way. If your tactic involves making the zombies loop endlessly in a way that even if you just ignored them all night and day they would never reach or harm you, You're exploiting them in a cheesy/cheaty way that would ultimately be fixed if discovered by the devs- aka, an unintended method.
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