PC Bloodmoon becoming way to easy

[bobrpggamer]

I am at day 177 and am level 219 and I am experiencing a strange thing with bloodmoons for a while now. It seems that bloodmoons are sending me 70-80% all basic zombies without very many high tier zombies at all the more I play.

I admit my base is very well built, but I swear I did not see one wight or one demolisher the last bloodmoon (day 175) and only had 3 dire wolves and a lot of cops. I get way more high tier zombies when I run into a couple of screamers. This has been going on now since about bloodmoon 18 or so and only getting worse every next bloodmoon I play. Not part of the problem, but when I get a high tier zombie like the dire wolf, I swear it is within the first few minutes in and I end up with almost all yellow drop bags because by the time I get to collecting bags after bloodmoon the red or blue bags are long gone, kind of irritating really.

Does anyone have an idea why this is going on?

 

[Suxar]

Spending the night in the forest? Try spending the night in the wasteland.

 

[8_Hussars]

IIRC, days alive is part of the game stage calculation. If a player has died recently (or at all) they will see regressions on the game stage and hence regressions on the horde make up for the bloodmoons.

 

[theFlu]

If a player has died recently (or at all) they will see regressions on the game stage and hence regressions on the horde make up for the bloodmoons.

Crossed my mind too, but it's just 2 days per death; you need Lots to make a difference. And it would also scale down the world, not just the hordes.

 

[Umbionis]

Check your gamestage. That is what determines the groups of zeds you get for bloodmoon.

Also note that there is a hard cap at 30 zeds alive at once thanks to the underpowered console hardware.

 

[theFlu]

I took a glance at entitygroups.xml ; I don't know your GS, but looking at around the 500 mark, demos are actually quite rare. Only about 1 in 5 groups can spawn them at all. Each horde consists of max 3 groups/waves and if you're not clearing the waves, less. So there's a good chance you just won't see any. Dire wolves are equally rare.

You could check it yourself, game folder \ data \ config \ entitygroups.xml
Look for a number just under your gamestage, generally the game spawns three waves, the last being the one just below your current gamestage. The groups are set up in gamestages.xml , feralHordeStage NNN.

I don't expect you to remember what exactly you got, but just reading those names after a horde usually gives me flashbacks ...

 

[8_Hussars]

I took a glance at entitygroups.xml ; I don't know your GS, but looking at around the 500 mark, demos are actually quite rare. Only about 1 in 5 groups can spawn them at all. Each horde consists of max 3 groups/waves and if you're not clearing the waves, less. So there's a good chance you just won't see any. Dire wolves are equally rare.

Just to relate an anecdotal experience. After a death in SP, I "felt" the same thing as the OP, in that the bloodmoon hordes seemed to back off in difficulty. I was at a much lower game stage than OP. I conflated "days alive" with "Days since last death", so I made a connection that does not exist.

Digging a little deeper (for my own understanding), agreed the death penalty is not that severe (-2 days per death).

I calculated the OPs GS at 475 in Forest Biome. Maybe they are just in a GS band that's "easy" or GS is maxed in that biome.

 

[bachgaman]

This feels like a core game design issue.

Blood Moons are simply not a challenge for experienced players, especially with cheesy base designs. At the same time the game feels intentionally kept easy because the devs are afraid of ruining the experience for casual players.

Difficulty settings are very basic, and there is no real way to make the game harder in a meaningful way without self-imposed restrictions. Right now you either trivialize Blood Moons or deliberately sabotage your own gameplay.

It would be great to see optional risk/reward mechanics inspired by games like Path of Exile. Something that lets players consciously make Blood Moons harder in exchange for rewards. For example sirens or horns that temporarily increase game stage during Blood Moon, or special lures that make zombies attack more aggressively or intelligently, not by numbers but by quality.

At the moment Blood Moons feel either trivial or broken, with no real gameplay in between.

P.S. moving from biome to biome and rebuilding new bases in different biomes is not for everyone

 

[8_Hussars]

At the moment Blood Moons feel either trivial or broken, with no real gameplay in between.

I suspect this is why many players call (and hope) for changes. Bandits, bosses, and even other modes of play can fill in those gaps.

The purge mode from Rebirth needs to be implemented in vanilla, full stop. Establishing survivor colonies, escorting survivors to safe zones, and/or escaping to a safe zone mode could be implemented.

Players are patiently and not patiently waiting for TFPs to flesh out their 60% prototype solutions...

 

[Noxom]

This feels like a core game design issue.

Blood Moons are simply not a challenge for experienced players, especially with cheesy base designs. At the same time the game feels intentionally kept easy because the devs are afraid of ruining the experience for casual players.

Difficulty settings are very basic, and there is no real way to make the game harder in a meaningful way without self-imposed restrictions. Right now you either trivialize Blood Moons or deliberately sabotage your own gameplay.

It would be great to see optional risk/reward mechanics inspired by games like Path of Exile. Something that lets players consciously make Blood Moons harder in exchange for rewards. For example sirens or horns that temporarily increase game stage during Blood Moon, or special lures that make zombies attack more aggressively or intelligently, not by numbers but by quality.

At the moment Blood Moons feel either trivial or broken, with no real gameplay in between.

P.S. moving from biome to biome and rebuilding new bases in different biomes is not for everyone

What does challenge/difficulty mean to you?

Currently we can adjust zombie block damage, movement speed, sensitivity, damage done/taken, and number spawned. The only way i could think to make them harder to by allowing them to climb/jump/teleport, attack faster, having massive health pools/resistance, exploding, ranged attacks or being able to 1-shot blocks. If it gets crazier it'd be difficult to call them zombies.

I get that yall want things to be harder, but i don't know what more you really expect. Do you count adjusting settings as sabotage? Or do you mean refraining from using certain weapons/tactics? An experienced player with lots of levels, gear, ammo and a fortified trap base is a pretty insane challenge to overcome. If that player is also using cheese then i doubt they care about difficulty. Is not using a cheese base a self imposed restriction?

If you're already at a high gamestage, raising it temporarily likely won't be discernible. How do you expect more aggressive or intelligent zombie buffs to apply? Does aggressive make them jump now or start throwing other zombies? Or does it do something you can already adjust? Do intelligent zombies punch nearby trees and start crafting ladders? Make a lasso out of t-shirts and try to pull you down? It makes me laugh but i don't know if it would be good to add.

I suspect this is why many players call (and hope) for changes. Bandits, bosses, and even other modes of play can fill in those gaps.

The purge mode from Rebirth needs to be implemented in vanilla, full stop. Establishing survivor colonies, escorting survivors to safe zones, and/or escaping to a safe zone mode could be implemented.

Players are patiently and not patiently waiting for TFPs to flesh out their 60% prototype solutions...

Do you think bandits will be a part of the blood moons? I think it would be strange. A boss would be cool, if not a bit redundant, unless it has a lot of different abilities. A basic big HP/damage zombie would be just as effective as a handful of ferals/rads/demos.

The kind of smoke that 7DTD zombies pack is crazy. Traders are lucky enough for not getting mangled every night, let alone some simple colony. A fully armed colony of bandits stands a reasonable chance at least.

Honestly, dealing with survivors doesn't sound appealing at all. Maybe if they made quests around defending an evacuation or something, that'd be neat. I've always been under the impression that normal survivors don't exist, unless they're like our god-potential player characters. Escaping to a safe zone would be game over, wouldn't it? Maybe 60% flesh is just right for a zombie game.

 

[Riamus]

Hopefully the upcoming new game options will provide additional options for changing the difficulty for players. However, in the end, if you're experienced and you know what base design works, it will always be easy. No matter what changes they make, there will be a base design that works really well and makes it easy if you use that design. Be willing to try different designs instead of following some meta. It will make the horde nights more interesting, and possibly more challenging, depending on how well the new design works. Avoid looking up base designs online. That can at least help somewhat.

Do you think bandits will be a part of the blood moons?

That is not the current plan according to TFP. Bandits will attack zombies and zombies will attack bandits, so they won't even share the same POI in most cases from what they've said. However, that doesn't mean they may not consider having a special bandit horde night. That could actually be a good way to make base design more challenging. The bandits could attack differently from zombies, avoiding "obvious" paths, even if they are intelligent in how they attack. They might target defenses, for example. By having two different styles of horde nights, it could make base design more challenging. That doesn't mean you won't find a design that just works really well and makes both horde nights easy, and you could also just have 2 different horde bases, each designed for a specific horde, but it would offer some more challenge.

 

[Noxom]

Hopefully the upcoming new game options will provide additional options for changing the difficulty for players. However, in the end, if you're experienced and you know what base design works, it will always be easy. No matter what changes they make, there will be a base design that works really well and makes it easy if you use that design. Be willing to try different designs instead of following some meta. It will make the horde nights more interesting, and possibly more challenging, depending on how well the new design works. Avoid looking up base designs online. That can at least help somewhat.


That is not the current plan according to TFP. Bandits will attack zombies and zombies will attack bandits, so they won't even share the same POI in most cases from what they've said. However, that doesn't mean they may not consider having a special bandit horde night. That could actually be a good way to make base design more challenging. The bandits could attack differently from zombies, avoiding "obvious" paths, even if they are intelligent in how they attack. They might target defenses, for example. By having two different styles of horde nights, it could make base design more challenging. That doesn't mean you won't find a design that just works really well and makes both horde nights easy, and you could also just have 2 different horde bases, each designed for a specific horde, but it would offer some more challenge.

Getting your base jumped by saboteur bandits would be pretty cool. Assaulting the walls with pickaxes, rockets or bombs. Throwing up rope hooks to climb up areas. Smoke grenades to obscure player LOS.

I don't expect that level of nuance for bandits however, it may end up being too much to operate, balance or make fun. Bandits have a lot of potential, but i do try to be realistic in what may actually get implemented.


To OP: What is your gamestage, and what biome are you doing BM in? It seems unusual for zombies to be getting easier instead of harder, i don't think i've ever experienced that. What version are you playing and is it modded? I don't think the bags have different timers based on color, all of them should last long enough, so that's also unusual.

 

[8_Hussars]

Do you think bandits will be a part of the blood moons? I think it would be strange. A boss would be cool, if not a bit redundant, unless it has a lot of different abilities. A basic big HP/damage zombie would be just as effective as a handful of ferals/rads/demos.

Honestly, dealing with survivors doesn't sound appealing at all. Maybe if they made quests around defending an evacuation or something, that'd be neat. I've always been under the impression that normal survivors don't exist, unless they're like our god-potential player characters. Escaping to a safe zone would be game over, wouldn't it? Maybe 60% flesh is just right for a zombie game.

Sorry, I was not clear. I was responding to "At the moment Blood Moons feel either trivial or broken, with no real gameplay in between."

Not every version of the game needs to focus on bloodmoon defense as the primary motivation although they can enhance many other versions.

My comments were not instructions to fix bloodmoons, they were suggestions on how to enhance the breadth and depth of "the gameplay in between".

There are already several "escape" to a safe zone mods. The Dishong Challenges, the Carrier challenge etc. Even though it ends on escape it has replayability. Many completionists like "purge mode", where you have to clear a %age of each town in each biome to advance.

 

[bobrpggamer]

I am too lazy right now to read all replies. So here is a few things I should have included in the post.

Longest Life - 137h 29m
Current Life - 137h 29m
Game Stage - 470
Loot Stage - 275
Current level 220
Deaths 3 - all before day 50

The thing is that I had way more high level enemies at around day 70 (bloodmoom 10). After that it seems high level enemies started to appear less. I think I had around 8 demolishers in a bloodmoon before day 70. I cannot remember all of the bloodmoons exactly but it seems that it is sending way to many level 1 zeds and few and far between high level zeds.

One more thing I should have said: I am playing gave version 1.4. Also my base is in the Biome Forest. I choose that biome not because it is easier to have my base, It is just a more beautiful environment surrounding my base. If you think about it, would you rather live in the desert, snow, burnt forest or the wasteland if you were really in the game.

Blood Moons are simply not a challenge for experienced players, especially with cheesy base designs. At the same time the game feels intentionally kept easy because the devs are afraid of ruining the experience for casual players.

I have a massive base that is easy to protect but you would think that the easier you survive bloodmoons, the harder the game would make bloodmoons in the future and not hold back high level zeds and have 70% to 80% low level zeds.

All I found in entitygroup was hard to understand and horde night section alone was about 10,000 lines in Notepad ++.

 

[bobrpggamer]

Thank you guys for the replies and pardon my terrible English.

I did not want to alter my game difficulty settings to keep the game default settings just out of pride by keeping the game the same as day 1, but I think I am going to go ahead and up the amount of zeds per wave to the highest setting - I think it's 24 instead of 8 - and hope my intel i7 14700k can keep up with it.

The issue is not the difficulty per say it is the idea that my bloodmoons at day 175 (25) should not have less high tier zeds than that of 100 days before.

Thank you again for the replies.

 

[bachgaman]

What does challenge/difficulty mean to you?

Currently we can adjust zombie block damage, movement speed, sensitivity, damage done/taken, and number spawned. The only way i could think to make them harder to by allowing them to climb/jump/teleport, attack faster, having massive health pools/resistance, exploding, ranged attacks or being able to 1-shot blocks. If it gets crazier it'd be difficult to call them zombies.

I get that yall want things to be harder, but i don't know what more you really expect. Do you count adjusting settings as sabotage? Or do you mean refraining from using certain weapons/tactics? An experienced player with lots of levels, gear, ammo and a fortified trap base is a pretty insane challenge to overcome. If that player is also using cheese then i doubt they care about difficulty. Is not using a cheese base a self imposed restriction?

If you're already at a high gamestage, raising it temporarily likely won't be discernible. How do you expect more aggressive or intelligent zombie buffs to apply? Does aggressive make them jump now or start throwing other zombies? Or does it do something you can already adjust? Do intelligent zombies punch nearby trees and start crafting ladders? Make a lasso out of t-shirts and try to pull you down? It makes me laugh but i don't know if it would be good to add.

Sliders are a blunt tool, not a gameplay risk/reward system, and the current difficulty sliders are far from well-designed anyway. I’m not proposing absurd or “circus” mechanics that’s a strawman. The point is not to “break” the player, but to give players a legitimate, in-world option to consciously raise Blood Moon difficulty instead of relying on global knobs. The exaggerated and humorous examples don’t address the original argument at all and miss the point entirely.

The original takeaway from the thread is that even at very high game stages, Blood Moons still contain too many low-tier zombies, and my idea directly targets that issue. If difficulty is designed around weaker players, stronger players should have an option to keep the game engaging instead of getting bored.

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 11:03 PM

I suspect this is why many players call (and hope) for changes. Bandits, bosses, and even other modes of play can fill in those gaps.

The purge mode from Rebirth needs to be implemented in vanilla, full stop. Establishing survivor colonies, escorting survivors to safe zones, and/or escaping to a safe zone mode could be implemented.

Players are patiently and not patiently waiting for TFPs to flesh out their 60% prototype solutions...

Everything you listed are large, complex systems that take years to design, implement, balance, and maintain. There are much lower-hanging fruits available. Instead of spending five years chasing bandits, drones, or other half-baked systems, the devs could spend a few weeks building a proper difficulty and risk/reward framework that actually improves core gameplay. The issue isn’t lack of ideas, it’s priorities.

 

[Adam the Waster]

Check your gamestage. That is what determines the groups of zeds you get for bloodmoon.

Also note that there is a hard cap at 30 zeds alive at once thanks to the underpowered console hardware.

I understand that but couldn't they push it around bit more? Go up to 31 or 2?

The Series X and ps5 should run it fine. If they can run ark and other games with mimnuim hickups 7dtd shouldn't be anything different

The series s tho....

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 11:35 PM

Plus to me 30 zombies is more then enough while solo

 

[theFlu]

Game Stage - 470

Hmm, in the current version (2.5(b23) if memory serves) :
GS 470 would pick the groups for GS 463, which are 463, 453, and 444. Those groups I pasted in the spoiler. There are no entries for Demos, so no chance to spawn one. You can eyeball the lists to get an idea.

Those decimal numbers after each line are their "additional" rarity: if a line has .5 on it, it has a 50% probability to be skipped in the spawn, so you should get about 2 "normals" per each .5.

Spoiler: XMLs

gamestages.xml (4811) :
        <gamestage stage="463">
            <spawn group="feralHordeStageGS444" num="500" maxAlive="141" duration="2" interval="24"/>
            <spawn group="feralHordeStageGS453" num="500" maxAlive="141" duration="2" interval="29"/>
            <spawn group="feralHordeStageGS463" num="999" maxAlive="141"/>
        </gamestage>


entitygroups.xml (16862) :
    <entitygroup name="feralHordeStageGS444">
        zombieBoeRadiated
        zombieBoeCharged, .5
        zombieBoeInfernal, .5
        zombieBoeFeral
        zombieYoFeral
        zombieArlene
        zombieLabFeral
        zombieMoe
        zombieMarleneFeral
        zombieJanitor
        zombieFatCop
        zombieBusinessManFeral
        animalZombieDog
        animalDireWolf, .1
        animalZombieVultureRadiated, .3
        zombieLumberjackFeral
        zombieFatCopRadiated
        zombieFatCopInfernal, .5
        animalZombieVulture, .3
    </entitygroup>
    <entitygroup name="feralHordeStageGS453">
        zombieSteveFeral
        zombieBikerFeral
        zombieSkateboarderFeral
        zombieMarleneRadiated
        zombieMarleneCharged, .5
        zombieYoFeral
        zombieArleneRadiated
        zombieArleneCharged, .5
        zombieBoe
        zombieDarlene
        zombieSkateboarderRadiated
        zombieSkateboarderCharged, .5
        zombieSkateboarderInfernal, .5
        zombieJoe
        zombieFatHawaiianRadiated
        zombieFatHawaiianInfernal, .5
        zombieBowlerRadiated, .1
        zombieBowlerInfernal, .5
        zombieMoeFeral
        zombieYo
        animalZombieVulture, .3
        animalZombieDog
        zombieBusinessManRadiated
        zombieBusinessManCharged, .5
        zombieBusinessManInfernal, .5
    </entitygroup>
    <entitygroup name="feralHordeStageGS463">
        zombieArleneRadiated
        zombieArleneCharged, .5
        zombieLumberjackRadiated
        zombieLumberjackInfernal, .5
        zombieMaleHazmat
        zombiePartyGirlFeral
        zombiePartyGirlRadiated
        zombiePartyGirlCharged, .5
        zombieSkateboarder
        zombieDarlene
        zombieBoeFeral
        zombiePartyGirl
        zombieJoe
        zombieMarleneRadiated
        zombieMarleneCharged, .5
        zombieBusinessManFeral
        zombieArleneFeral
        zombieFatHawaiian
        zombieBowler, .1
        zombieLumberjack
        animalZombieVulture, .3
        zombieChuckRadiated, .05
        zombieChuckCharged, .5
        zombieChuckInfernal, .5
    </entitygroup>

 

[bobrpggamer]

Hmm, in the current version (2.5(b23) if memory serves) :
GS 470 would pick the groups for GS 463, which are 463, 453, and 444. Those groups I pasted in the spoiler. There are no entries for Demos, so no chance to spawn one. You can eyeball the lists to get an idea.

Those decimal numbers after each line are their "additional" rarity: if a line has .5 on it, it has a 50% probability to be skipped in the spawn, so you should get about 2 "normals" per each .5.

Thank you for checking this, but I am unfortunately playing version 1.4 not a current 2.0 or up.

I did not know the amount of zombies can be 30. I think I will go all out 30 next bloodmoon. My base will be completely safe with no chance of falling but at least It will be more fun.

 

[Suxar]

If you think about it, would you rather live in the desert, snow, burnt forest or the wasteland if you were really in the game.

How does life at the base relate to the Blood Moon?
I have two bases. The first is in the forest, where I have a warehouse, workbenches, a garden, and other things. The second base is in the wasteland, and it only has an ammo crate, anti-aircraft turrets, and a stun gun. It's at the second base that I encounter the Blood Moon.