PC A solution to the "Run away from hordes" problem.

I do want challenging zombies. I do not want a jump and run challenge. And i do not want to fight the horde every 7th day. I usually do, but sometimes i simply cba and starting a new game because of that is a bit of a overkill...
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Most people choose whether they want to have BM on or off when creating their game or server.

Sounds like you should have two games started. One where you play with BM on, one where you play it off.

If you feel like playing a BM game, choose the BM save.

If you don't feel like playing BM on some particular day, choose the other save.

You should be doing this anyway if going to the menu to turn it on or off on a whim is so immersion-breaking for you.

Here are the options for you, assuming they made running away harder:

You do not want to run and jump away.

Options available to you = turn down settings, face the fight, make a better base so that you won't have the need to do so, turn off BM or play your BM-less save.

You do not want to face the BM horde.

Options available to you = run and jump away or turn off BM or play your BM-less save.

You do not want to run and jump away, you do not want to face the BM horde.

Options available to you = = turn off BM or play your BM-less save.

For those of use who want a BM that is actually a challenge, we have zero options except for waiting for enhancements in each alpha. Harder settings do nothing because BM is not feature-complete.

If they make BM harder, which they will... so let me rephrase... when they make BM harder, it will be even more of a reason to utilize the options available to you.

It may also be another reason for you to turn your difficulty down.

We have the Demolisher coming and we have repaired zombie speed coming. These are two things that should make BM harder in A18. There may be more. I'm sure at least some adjustments to AI have been made. Since BM was created, has there even been an alpha that doesn't include something to enhance it's challenge? I think not.

If you think BM is overkill now, it will be more so in A18 and beyond.

For you this would mean more settings adjustments and more quitting and restarting. You should do yourself a favor, spare your headaches, and maintain multiple saves with different settings that you play according to how you feel like playing on some particular day.

 
Nobody in this thread has asked for the blood moon to be unavoidable

If anyone actually does think that, speak up now.

 
Nobody in this thread has asked for the blood moon to be unavoidableIf anyone actually does think that, speak up now.
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I don’t think that but all my friends do and people they say they play with on servers so prolly the majority.... ;-)

 
Obviously I'm a little late to the discussion. ;)
I really just prefer to make any activity as interesting as possible.

If your going to run away, go for it, maybe you might need a torch, or a decoy, or a planned escape route. Maybe you need to craft some noise makers or firecrackers that you throw to distract the zombies while you make your escape. Heck, maybe we could even have cool ninja smoke bomb things that cover your tracks.

The moral of the story is, make things interesting, make everything that a person has to do have variety and challenges and things to consider.

- P
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This.

er....ding ding ding

 
If you buff zombie HP, DMG and speed, then you need to buff player base constructions as well. Cause these topics about hurr durr game too easy, sound like people playing with mods, or on modded servers, who get gyrocopters on day two, or just watch random YT videos of someone exploiting the game, thinking "damn their base is indestructible. we need the devs to change the zombies so they can destroy an undestructible base!".
Little wake up call: noone plays the same way. If they choose to, then there is little room to cry. If you copy someones idea for a indestructible base, and then cry that the zombies can be outran, etc., well, your problem.

The horde night is already a scourge for mankind, there is no need to make each and every zombie in a horde into a immortal berserker. Cause they pretty much already are. Zombies do ridiculous amounts of damage to blocks, because people were crying about their bases being untouched. Now bases crumble like sand castles.
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I mean, making it easier to build a zombie-proof base or debuffing the health/damage of the zombies is actually a great way to encourage people to not run away from the hordes. Why waste time running in circles if you can stay in your base crafting or mining?

If I want to make the game harder in general, there are difficulty settings. What I'm trying to do is figure out a way to change the ratio of difficulty between staying in a base and running away.

 
I'm all for having the hordes be an obstacle every time they show up. At the moment you can essentially escape them ON FOOT, so I'd say that's not an optimal implementation.. I do fight them all, and die while messing around, but knowing they're never an actual issue is slightly dis-immersifying, or whatnot. There's never an actual panic about getting the base ready.

For the argument "I can't turn them off temporarily, it messes the game" .. that's not a feature, that's a bug. If the settings are changeable, they shouldn't mess up a game. If they do, report it.

 
Nobody in this thread has asked for the blood moon to be unavoidableIf anyone actually does think that, speak up now.
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If you read the first proposal, you might think so.

The suggestion was that zombies run 10x as fast as a human player in absolute darkness.

To express it in absolute numbers. The highest ever measured running speed for humans was about 45 km/h or 28 mp/h. Let's say the average is about 20 km/h or 12 mp/h. Then a zombie running 10x as fast as a human would be 200 km/h or 120 mp/h fast. My car doesn't even go that fast. I don't think that was clear to you at all how fast it is when you wrote that. That's why I wrote sarcastically that the zombies should get a red suit.

As a countermeasure it was suggested that the player holds a torch in his hand and slows down the zombies. With such fast zombies you should never change to another slot to drink coffee, water or beer to regenerate your stamina. This would make the horde unavoidable.

If you had said from the beginning that you wanted to make the Horde Night a bit more exciting or challenging and suggested that the zombies run about 10% faster than the player, that would have been a different story. Then you could have said that you had to run zigzag or that you had to guide the zombies through obstacles like the front gardens in Diersville.

Furthermore the headline of the thread suggests that the player should not be able to avoid the Horde:

A solution to the "Run away from hordes" problem.

For me, this headline already implies two things. On the one hand, running away from the Horde is seen as a problem and on the other hand, some players want that players obviously can't run away from the Horde.

I fight the Horde in my base and don't think about anything else. That's the way to have the most fun. If you're just thinking about "what if" then you're spoiling your own fun.

Of course you can also turn off the Horde completely if you play as a single player or run the multiplayer server. But there have also been constellations where you can't turn off the Horde, or you don't want to turn off the Horde because it leads to problems when you reactivate it.

It is also possible that some people don't even know that you can turn off the Horde. For the longest time this game has existed, you couldn't turn off the Horde and not everyone reads the release notes.

So just give it a little more time and start small with "how could you make the Horde more interesting". And please remember to always mention that you want this for the higher difficulty levels like Insane or Warrior and not for the default setting. You can mean things very differently than what others read. That's why it's important to write these things down and explain exactly what your intentions are.

 
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@Atomic i think BM hordes are overkill? What? Where? Hordes are easy right now, still doesn´t mean i wanna fight every horde. Mostly because i forgot to repair my horde base, or made a mistake doing so. (Yeah i could repair it right the after BM, but meh, repairing those spikes with the not so fine working hitbox is a pain right now...)

I said starting a new game because i want to avoid one, again only one, BM horde then starting a new game for that would be overkill. And waaay to timeconsuming.

I want one game where i have the freedom to do what ever i want. Not 2 game saves. Same as above: ain´t nobody got time for that.

We have way too much food and water, guns and ammo, traders make it so easy to get everything you need. Quests are abusable to a level that it is riddiculous. Zombie numbers are way too low. Forge comes way too early.

All this beeing so easy made TFP make stupid things like aiming needing a lot more stamina than mining with a heavy steel axe or the deathpenalty.

But we need a horde that you can´t just avoid? Once every 7 days? No, we don´t.

Also, as long as you can´t come up with a solution for players just leaving in MP, leave SP alone also. I mean people will just start to play MP and will not even have to do anything but clicking escape and exit to avoid the horde.

Also Bandits?

Gotta love how you ignore MP and Bandits...

 
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@Atomic i think BM hordes are overkill? What? Where? Hordes are easy right now, still doesn´t mean i wanna fight every horde. Mostly because i forgot to repair my horde base, or made a mistake doing so. (Yeah i could repair it right the after BM, but meh, repairing those spikes with the not so fine working hitbox is a pain right now...)
I said starting a new game because i want to avoid one, again only one, BM horde then starting a new game for that would be overkill. And waaay to timeconsuming.

I want one game where i have the freedom to do what ever i want. Not 2 game saves. Same as above: ain´t nobody got time for that.

We have way too much food and water, guns and ammo, traders make it so easy to get everything you need. Quests are abusable to a level that it is riddiculous. Zombie numbers are way too low. Forge comes way too early.

All this beeing so easy made TFP make stupid things like aiming needing a lot more stamina than mining with a heavy steel axe or the deathpenalty.

But we need a horde that you can´t just avoid? Once every 7 days? No, we don´t.

Also, as long as you can´t come up with a solution for players just leaving in MP, leave SP alone also. I mean people will just start to play MP and will not even have to do anything but clicking escape and exit to avoid the horde.

Also Bandits?

Gotta love how you ignore MP and Bandits...
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If you set hordes to 14 days then it’s like you are only doing every other one. No need to change the settings mid game.

Food and water scarcity is a different topic. Let’s stick to this one. Whether TFP does something about those other issues or not has no bearing on this one.

We are talking about interesting enhancements to horde night for those who like to play horde nights. Why would we care about people who log off? We keep telling you that this discussion doesn’t concern people who turn it off or log out so they don’t have to play it at all but you keep ignoring that. People can log out AND there can be better and more interesting mechanics in place for those who choose to actually play horde nights.

 
What about a one time random event that may OR may not happen on any given horde night?

For example, a random trigger for an EMP explosion that disables electricity for an in game hour (meaning from 2am to 3am not real time) or perhaps a chance for a generator to randomly fail? You would have to repair it before any major damage comes to your traps?

May seem too hectic though, but it could keep people on their toes.

 
We are talking about interesting enhancements to horde night for those who like to play horde nights. Why would we care about people who log off? We keep telling you that this discussion doesn’t concern people who turn it off or log out so they don’t have to play it at all but you keep ignoring that. People can log out AND there can be better and more interesting mechanics in place for those who choose to actually play horde nights.
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Logging out is not necessarily a reliable way to avoid the horde. If all players are logged out from a server then time will stop. If no other player logs in in the meantime, the time remains stopped. When you log in again then it is the same day and the same time you logged out.

 
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What about a one time random event that may OR may not happen on any given horde night?
For example, a random trigger for an EMP explosion that disables electricity for an in game hour (meaning from 2am to 3am not real time) or perhaps a chance for a generator to randomly fail? You would have to repair it before any major damage comes to your traps?

May seem too hectic though, but it could keep people on their toes.
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This would definitely lead to you having to adapt the base design.

For example, I never actually have the generators in same spot in my base where I am during the horde because that is not necessary. I'd have to change the wiring so that the generators are within range when something like this happens.

Also you have to install passive traps that slow down the zombies as long as the active traps are not active.

 
There is reasons to avoid a horde sometimes and be it just for immersion, beeing tired or some other trivial reason. Again, switching bloodmoon on and off messes with the game. Wich is a very low priority bug ofc, so i see high chances it doesn´t get fixed.
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I already told you about a bug-free method to turn off horde night zombies, just a week ago: https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?119801-A-solution-to-the-quot-Run-away-from-hordes-quot-problem&p=988843&viewfull=1#post988843 . The bug you speak of is a weak excuse now even if it really were low-priority.

Also what about MP again? How you gonna stop people from just leaving the server?
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There are more important things, i.e. real life, that make it necessary that you can log off any time. There are a lot of other META (i.e. outside of actual game play) methods to influence balance, for example some of the options, debug modes and mods. Some of those methods have to simply exist (like the log-off option) or are explicit features that you can choose to activate. But there is a bigger psychological hurdle to use them and you know you are now outside of the balanced game. It is still necessary for the developer to provide a balanced default game.

If for example you play a rogue-like game (lets say "Faster Than Light" for example), with permanent death..., you can still look for the save-game, make a backup of it before playing and in the case of death reset to the backup position and continue. Even though this exists, the game still enforces permanent death and is also balanced around permanent death. The choice to circumvent the game by such a meta-option is entirely on the user.

So, going back to your question: If a server owner doesn't like it, he can punish or kick players who do this, but this is something outside of developer control. They (and we) should only care for the in-game balance of their default game.

I want one game where i have the freedom to do what ever i want.

.
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You can. Your options:

1) Turn on god-mode, ANY TIME (and turn it off again, any time)

2) Turn on god-mode and fly, ANY TIME (and turn it off again, any time)

3) Turn off zombies, ANY TIME (and turn them on again, any time)

4) Log off in MP, ANY TIME

5) Use a myriad of options in SP, some only take effect at the start of game

None of those will ever be taken away from you (afaik)

 
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What about a one time random event that may OR may not happen on any given horde night?
For example, a random trigger for an EMP explosion that disables electricity for an in game hour (meaning from 2am to 3am not real time) or perhaps a chance for a generator to randomly fail? You would have to repair it before any major damage comes to your traps?
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Yep, Darkwood-style.

 
Should just make an option that BM nights instantly destroy all player built structures and /kill the player and spawn some zombies on top of his corpse to crouch spam.

 
Should just make an option that BM nights instantly destroy all player built structures and /kill the player and spawn some zombies on top of his corpse to crouch spam.
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You are sure you posted this comment in the right thread or even the right forum?

 
Nobody in this thread has asked for the blood moon to be unavoidableIf anyone actually does think that, speak up now.
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Was not in this thread but I have advocated for that. If you want to avoid the BM then turn it off. Avoided. It really is that simple. For those that want to play with BM on, it should mean something. It needs to be an obstacle to overcome rather than avoided.

 
I want to express my thoughts on “unavoidable” as well.

I do think that the BM horde should be avoidable in a sense. If you choose to run for it, running for it should not be an insta-win. Perhaps via skillful maneuvering and perhaps planned and somewhat defended safe routes, you should be able to get away temporarily. Perhaps enough to fallback into another POI or structure that you built.

Broken speed in A17 ruins this... we’ll see how much fixed speed in A18 improves the BM challenge. Right now, all you need to do is to run in one direction and you will still have time to stop and build stamina, without any drugs/drinks.

Vehicles absolutely ruin this. The idea of zombie kamikaze mode to damage and slow down vehicles might make using a vehicle on BM dangerous enough to where you may or may not get away for the whole night... depending on how good of a vehicle you have and how well you can drive it.

Supposedly default zombie block damage is getting nerfed in A18, which could make random POIs too sturdy. This might not be so bad because unless you repair and/or upgrade those POIs, you will likely run out of safe places to run to within a reasonable radius of your base. The Demolisher might balance this anyway, but who knows. The respawning quest POIs break this.

The idea is that in “avoiding” the horde, you never really avoid it. Instead, you get a series of close calls because you’re good, not because the game doesn’t do a good job. You might just get some temporary relief and extra minutes of life before having to come up with some new plan... or die.

I just want it where if I made poor decisions in base design, or managed my time poorly before BM, or failed to develop contingency plans, the result is I have a really hard time staying alive.

Without this, BM is nothing but a novelty... which is a huge shame being that this is currently the basis behind the game’s title, and in my opinion, the single most important feature. It gives you purpose. It brings cohesion to a game that would otherwise be just another discovery game with some elements of trade, building, and little danger.

 
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Avoidable or not, the most important thing is the existence of an actual reason to use a huge part of the game, which is "tower defense" and everything it includes (fortifications, traps, base building etc). It is criminally neglectful to leave the game like this. If it's avoidable, the choice has to be properly balanced in a way that it creates a "gameplay dilemma" for the player, which means it has to include similar cost/risk.

As a countermeasure it was suggested that the player holds a torch in his hand and slows down the zombies. With such fast zombies you should never change to another slot to drink coffee, water or beer to regenerate your stamina. This would make the horde unavoidable.
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It wouldn't. You could still avoid them if you have been prepared a little, parked your car next to your well-lit base and drive your car trying to get hit as little as possible so that they won't destroy it. It would be perfectly avoidable, just with a lot of risk and some difficulty.

But it seems most of you arguing in favor of the current situation want the horde to be ignorable, not just avoidable.

 
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