PC Exploits Using Trader Quest Activation

[Chicxulub]

Activating any trader quest currently has the side effect of restoring that quest’s POI back to its original state. In other words, if the POI has already been explored, partially destroyed, or even completely demolished, it will be fully reset to its untouched version as soon as the quest is started. Unfortunately, this opens up two major exploits:

1. Repairing a blood moon base for free: Use a quest POI as your blood moon base, and once the horde night is over, simply activate the quest tied to that POI. The entire base will be instantly repaired without spending a single resource.
2. Double-looting a POI: Explore the POI before activating the quest. Once you’ve located the most valuable loot crates, activate the quest and head straight back to them to loot everything again.

Additionally, if you’re in single-player and exit to the main menu while a quest is active, when you return the quest won’t be lost or failed—it will reset. This means you can trigger it again without having to go back to the trader. In other words, this exploit can be repeated indefinitely, with one trader essentially serving as a permanent quest reset machine.

For example, I once survived over 80 days in a solo campaign on the highest difficulty without spending any resources on blood moon bases. Early in the game, you can use tier 1 quest POIs that are surprisingly durable and easy to prep for horde nights, like Del’s Cafe or Bob’s Coffee. By breaking just two staircases, zombies can’t reach the roof anymore and are forced to tear down the entire building, which is made of concrete and steel. For later stages, the Navesgane High School (tier 4) easily withstands waves of radiated zombies. I didn’t continue that campaign beyond that point because it got boring lol.

Question: Is there any way to tweak the XML files to exclude active quests or prevent them from resetting when you exit the game? Or maybe blacklist certain POIs from being used as trader quests?

Merry Christmas.

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

Well i mean the horde base exploit isn´t really of use. Everything you did to that POI will be undone when you start a quest there and every POI needs at least a few minor modifications to work as a hordebase. This is really just for one horde if you manage to a quest in that POI. I rather repair before i rely on luck that i exactly get that POI as a quest at the time i need it.

Unless that changed with V2.5 but i highly doubt that.

 

[theFlu]

Anything you changed in that POI will be gone if you start a quest there. The POI will go back to it´s original state. Every block you removed will be back and every block you placed will be gone, including any upgrades and repairs your did to the original blocks of the POI.

Hmm, yes. Covered in the first sentence of OP, and conflicts with nothing in it...?

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

The point is that you need to be lucky and even then you can only use it once because there is now way that you get that quest everytime you need it.

 

[theFlu]

The point is that you need to be lucky and even then you can only use it once because there is now way that you get that quest everytime you need it.

Not that lucky, tbh. You have 2 traders and 2 tiers of quests for days 6-7. Something will work. And you can start a quest to reset the POI, and then logout to reset the quest, keeping it forever; only swapping if you get a better offer. It does prevent you from questing on one of your traders, but that's rather minor, there's plenty of those.

It's hacky and weird, but it doesn't really matter, as there's no competition to gain an advantage over. If one want to mess up their own experience, they can turn off hordes, use cm, or on servers logout for the horde night ... this is relatively minor

 

[8_Hussars]

Question: Is there any way to tweak the XML files to exclude active quests or prevent them from resetting when you exit the game? Or maybe blacklist certain POIs from being used as trader quests?

Merry Christmas.

Just use a LCB on the POI(s) you want to exclude.

If you don't do the trader quest treadmill, you don't get free POI resets, just saying

 

[ALEXZANDER]

Question: Is there any way to tweak the XML files to exclude active quests or prevent them from resetting when you exit the game? Or maybe blacklist certain POIs from being used as trader quests?

Yes, u can disable quest reset after quiting game!
Go in to game files > find quest folder and open with Notepad++ > copy "login_rally_reset" and seek for <property name="login_rally_reset" value="true"/> - then change all login rally resets "true to false"! After finishing job - dont forget to CTRL+S to save and voila!
Still wonder why devs didnt add option to enable/disable this feature!

 

[Kyoji]

The first isn't an exploit and doubt it would be practical past the first few horde nights. The second isn't really fixable with the current quest system. The only real exploit is double dipping loot rooms otherwise you are simply spending time looting a POI maybe shaving a few minutes off versus another random POI with distance and knowledge as a consideration.

 

[Riamus]

Yeah, this gets mentioned now any then, but it really isn't a big deal, imo. I certainly wouldn't all either a "major" exploit. Cheesy, definitely. Minor, sure. But not major.

For a horde base (#1), if you reset the base, it will remove everything you've done to make it ready for horde night. You might be able to use a POI without making more than a few changes to it for the first couple of horde nights (maybe just breaking a ladder), but as it gets more challenging, you'll need to do more to a POI to make it usable as a horde base. Resetting that will undo all of your changes. I'd much rather repair it by hand than to have to redo all of my changes to it. Of course, if you're using a custom POI that is already designed to be a horde base, then this can be a problem. But it's also your own problem if you choose to use a prebuilt horde base custom POI and reset it over and over instead of repairing it. But if that's what you enjoy doing, then go for it. It doesn't matter to me if you cheese the game like that. I'll stick to repairing my horde bases by hand rather than do something so cheesy.

And for double dipping (#2), yeah... you can do that. But so what? If you really want to get some stuff and then start a quest and get more stuff, that isn't really much different from doing two different quests at two different POI. In the end, why does it matter? If you don't want to do it, don't. If someone else does it, how does that impact you? You don't want people doing something cheesy like that, but this game is designed as a co-op game. If someone gets some extra loot, it doesn't matter. There isn't a leader board. There aren't rankings for how fast you progress. And in the end, the person is looting a POI if they double dip and they are looting a POI if they go to the neighbor POI. They can get loot both ways. Other than something like a book store, which people might want to do that for extra magazines, you basically can get a similar set of loot from a neighboring POI as you can if you double dip. It's not exact, of course. But it's close enough to not really matter.

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

Or maybe blacklist certain POIs from being used as trader quests?

A way you can exclude specific pois from quests, or even change the types
of quests.

Use grepwin64
point is to the POIs folder
copy <property name="QuestTags" from one of the POIs
paste it in the search bar
hit search it will show you all pois and the quests associated
just replace the quest string with a blank

If you have specific POIs in mind,
Make a folder copy the xml file for that or those pois into the folder
do the same as above using wingrep
change those specific pois in one command
copy those xmls back to your POIs folder overwriting the original
and they will not appear in quest text.

 

[WarMongerian]

Activating any trader quest currently has the side effect of restoring that quest’s POI back to its original state. In other words, if the POI has already been explored, partially destroyed, or even completely demolished, it will be fully reset to its untouched version as soon as the quest is started. Unfortunately, this opens up two major exploits:

Ok, this is working as designed, right?

1. Repairing a blood moon base for free: Use a quest POI as your blood moon base, and once the horde night is over, simply activate the quest tied to that POI. The entire base will be instantly repaired without spending a single resource.

This is a great idea, so long as we don't get a repair all feature for our own, custom built bases. Much better to be able to build your own base, and after Horde Night is done, input all the needed materials, for any and all repairs, click the button, and presto, a completely repaired base, that cost just as many resources to repair as doing it one block at a time, but just one click, so the primary resource in this game, the time a person can actually spend playing this great game, isn't wasted repairing damaged blocks, one at a time.

1. Double-looting a POI: Explore the POI before activating the quest. Once you’ve located the most valuable loot crates, activate the quest and head straight back to them to loot everything again.

I know from personal experience, you get less overall loot by repeatedly doing the same POI, over and over again. Try it yourself and see. I often do quests over and over again, but last week, I did something different, I just power ran the quests. Got 5 out of 10 tier one quests done on day one. I had much better drops, and got to Jenn and back Day 2.

OTOH, if you want to memorise a given POI, I have found that playing it over and over again works.

Del's Cafe, the Creepy Old Church, Moe's Market. The list goes on and on, but remember, the diminishing returns. You'll end up with less total loot, less diverse loot, but you will get more experience with that one particular POI.

Additionally, if you’re in single-player and exit to the main menu while a quest is active, when you return the quest won’t be lost or failed—it will reset. This means you can trigger it again without having to go back to the trader. In other words, this exploit can be repeated indefinitely, with one trader essentially serving as a permanent quest reset machine.

Did they change this? When I blundered into this thing, I was on a server, getting very frustrated, as the (Pause) button doesn't work in multiplayer, and when I needed to take my medicine (for congestive heart failure), I would need to run to the restroom every few minutes, so only way to do that and not risk death, is to log out.

I kept trying and trying to clear that POI, built a forest of storage boxes, but each time I came back, I had to restart. Never ending loot, but sheesh was that frustrating, until my teammates helped me to clear it, all in one go.