PC Horde Night is DEAD

[AtomicUs5000]

Starting discussion about horde nights here.

I fear that my posts about this will be dismissed in the A18 dev thread, and I would hate for that to happen because this is a game-breaking issue.

You make a base and defend it on horde night. This is an amazing concept for this game. Speaking for myself, I feel that it is the most important concept of this game. Horde nights are the pinnacle moments, the climax of all events. However, this activity is pointless and I see that as a real problem. The problem can be viewed from several different perspectives, but each perspective brings me to the same conclusion.

You don't need to defend a base. You can safely ride around on a vehicle for the duration of horde night. You might say, so what? After all, shouldn't a person decide what they want to do in the game? Of course, they should. However, if you do this for every horde night, where is the challenge in the game? Why have horde night at all then? Wouldn't this get boring rather quickly?

If you do make a base, and you make it so that it doesn't cheese the AI, you find yourself making expensive repairs afterward. As the game progresses, you quickly realize the massive amounts of ammunition you have gone through. The zombies don't drop enough loot to make up for this. That is, if you were lucky enough to grab the very few loot bags that do drop before they despawn. What you probably have gained from this is a good amount of XP. But guess what, you've also increased your gamestage, so get ready to waste even more resources the next round. So, isn't it better to simply avoid horde night? Probably.

If you make a base that does cheese the AI, you are likely doing this to gain XP. In this sense, it doesn't even have to be your base. You could set up the same thing at any POI, or build somewhere outside of your base. Setting that aside for now, you are actually accomplishing at least something here. You are getting XP which essentially equates to skill points... skill points to improve your character in preparation for harder difficulty that is to come due to the gamestage increase for having gained XP. But what are you preparing for? Your skills won't make the AI-cheesing experience any better in future horde nights. Wouldn't this get boring rather quickly?

Assuming A18 fixes most AI exploits, at least in regards to horde night, and let's say they found some way to ensure that you can't simply drive around anymore, we have the option of defending a base that can't cheese the AI. That's good, but we are still left with the same problem of expensive repairs and little reward.

It has been argued that you set a base and defend a base just for the sake of doing so... because it is fun. Is this good enough? I think it is... for a little while. I don't think this has enough to justify the lack of reward and consequence.

A no-XP mod solves some of the problem. Without XP, defending your base for the sake of XP becomes unimportant. You defend your base just for pure survival. However, again, why bother defending at your base. With no XP, you are better off riding around in/on your vehicle all night.

There are many reports of people in multi-player who simply log off the server when horde night comes. Can you blame them? This is by far the easiest way to avoid a non-rewarding experience. I have to wonder why they play at all though. I am questioning why I play at all. There is only so much fun to be had in exploration and POI looting. There are a lot of juicy features coming in A18, but I fear it's all moot because none of it changes this issue. I will be able to improve my character even more than I can now. Amazing! But is it? Is it when there really is no reason to? I really don't want to be done playing this game. I really need to see it heading in a direction that solves this in order to keep my interest.

Hopefully this topic will produce some ideas, draw dev attention to the issue, or in the very least provide posts that help convince me there is more fun to be had.

 

[HungryZombie]

After playing this game for a couple years I've come to the conclusion that the horde night is kinda my least favorite part of the game. Like you said you either cheese the AI or have to deal with time consuming repairs. The horde really doesn't add much to me. On multiplayer servers I'd just log out and in single player I'd either cheese it or use the console to advance time past the horde night.

You can choose to do something sure, but that's not really how good games work in my opinion. They have a set of parameters that you have to work within and the fun, at least for me, is discovering my own path through them. If I could ignore things at will most of the time I'll choose the easier road but then I get bored of the game kind of quick and move on.

What is the game without the horde night? It gets kind of dull too. I find myself playing a few weeks and just restarting to get that early game rush of being vulnerable and scrambling to survive. For me that's the core of what excites me about this game. What can be done then to avoid late game tedium and extend the early game excitement?

Moar Zombies!

Gimmie lots of zombies and lots of ammo please.

I've been playing with an A16 Mod called "Scavengers of the Living Dead" and a A17 mod called "Borderlandz." What do these mods do? They add lots of zombies. You don't have much time to scavenge, rest or build and you have to fight lots of zombies everywhere. Your never quite at peace until you spend some time and clear the area around you really well.

You still have to build and loot and do all the things you do in vanilla but the takes the impetus of having to have a base to defend away and make day to day survival a little more brutal. Vanilla A17 games survival is pretty easy in my opinion because you have too much time to get too much of everything. There is no urgency. Urgency can equal challenge and challenge can equal fun. (for me! not trying to preach)

So yes, for now Horde night is dead for me. We will see what happens in A18. I would love if the game move more in my direction but if not it's no big deal because of those awesome people who put together cool mods. Modding is the true strength of 7dtd in my opinion.

If you share my opinion you are an awesome person and let's discuss. If you don't...go away ( I kid!!!)

 

[AtomicUs5000]

...

Yeah, pushing horde night aside as just an annoyance and focusing on everything else would be boring without bringing in ton of zombies. I'm definitely all for more zombies, but I can't see things going that way with how much they've reduced the numbers recently. We might get some back, certainly not in a World War Z kind of way. I'm not sure it will be enough.

I too love the start of the game. The longer and more detailed the growth is out of primitive survival, the better for me.

I'd hate to pull LBD into this thread, but this is yet another reason why I enjoy LBD elements. While it could be boring to do all those little things to improve yourself, you at least have a large set of things of to do. Each can be seen as a little mini-game.

 

[FA_Q2]

Horde night should be impossible to avoid. End of story. Why? Because if you do not want horde night then you should be able to disable it in the options at the start of the game. If you can simply run away then there is no threat. In order to accomplish that I think that zeds need to be far faster on horde night and I don't think that vehicles should work.

As far as repairing, I am not sure what to do about that to be honest. There should be a cost to the horde - that is the reason that you build and prep in the first place. I have never experienced it as overwhelming though - horde night really does not take a significant amount of resources unless you planned your base out rather poorly or are shooting every zed. I don't think you can really stop people from logging off to avoid the horde but even if you could what would the reason be? If they want to avoid it then so be it. I really only think the risk factor is missing - you should not be able to outrun the zeds on horde night.

 

[OzHawkeye]

Horde night should be impossible to avoid. End of story. Why? Because if you do not want horde night then you should be able to disable it in the options at the start of the game. If you can simply run away then there is no threat. In order to accomplish that I think that zeds need to be far faster on horde night and I don't think that vehicles should work.
As far as repairing, I am not sure what to do about that to be honest. There should be a cost to the horde - that is the reason that you build and prep in the first place. I have never experienced it as overwhelming though - horde night really does not take a significant amount of resources unless you planned your base out rather poorly or are shooting every zed. I don't think you can really stop people from logging off to avoid the horde but even if you could what would the reason be? If they want to avoid it then so be it. I really only think the risk factor is missing - you should not be able to outrun the zeds on horde night.

For me personally, I would hate if some magical invisible forcefield stopped my vehicle working because it was Horde night.

I don't see any solution to this problem really. If people want to skip the Horde night, they will and no amount of TFP game code is going to prevent that (indeed, the Horde night can now be turned off altogether).

While that statement might have implications for PVP servers, I also don't see what the impact of people doing that is outside of that. I mean, if someone chooses to log off, or turn off the horde night, either in single player or on a PVE server, how really is anyone else impacted by that, to such an extent that TFP should intervene to try and prevent it?

 

[AtomicUs5000]

This was my proposed solution:

A solution might be to award skill points only after horde nights, and only if you remain within some radius of your main landclaim block for the duration of the blood moon. The landclaim block must not be destroyed either. This would give some real purpose to having and protecting your landclaim block in single player, not to mention a reason for defending a base. The zombie AI could also be extended to target the landclaim block sometimes.
This might actually be good as a mod and I would much prefer posting this as an idea in the mods section, or even in Roland's thread... but I don't think the right hooks exist to put it together this way. As far as I know, there are no practical ways to adjust the AI and LCBs like this.

and continuing on later...

Because of vehicles (not going to include player speed vs zombie speed because it's bugged), and because of multiplayer coop, horde nights are avoidable. Because of the removal of most zombie loot, not avoiding horde night becomes an optional and expensive hobby.
There really needs to be something in the game that makes defending some kind of base necessary on horde night. A possible solution that I suggested before was that everybody has a single main land claim block. You receive a skill point if you and your placed main land claim block survive the entire duration of a horde night. I also said that the player would have to be within a certain radius of their LCB for the duration and that zombie AI could be extended to also attack LCBs.

How this would play out in multi-player is if you log out your LCB becomes your replacement. The zombies simply go for that instead of you until it is destroyed. If you don't have one placed, well then no skill point reward anyway. If you have a team in MP, and for some reason they are playing and you cannot, your team just has to defend your LCB as well as their own. So, in team play, it will be good for everybody to position their LCBs in the base carefully so that all of them can be defended equally.

How this plays out with vehicles is the same as it would play out when players scatter in the map on horde night... and again the main LCBs kinda become player entities themselves. You drive away from your base far enough, zombies will be on you, but the LCBs are going to get attacked as well.

Now, this idea is using skill points as a reward and using LCBs. These things are just ideas, I'm just presenting the concept as a solution. I chose LCBs because they really don't have a purpose in Single Player. I refer to "main" LCB because only the first one placed by a player should be the special one. I chose skill points as rewards because right now, they are the driving force to do anything in the game. Later, when maxed on skill, the reward could change to something else... perhaps dukes, or perhaps it causes a special air drop the next day with things you actually need because of horde night, such as ammo.

EDIT: More opportunity for fun...

In MP, let's say you die or you lost your LCB to the horde. You won't be getting your skill point, but you could take this as the opportune moment to strike against an enemy base. While they are fighting the horde, perhaps you could get in, find their LCBs and ruin their day.

Not sure if it will ever be moddable. Will try if it does.

Either way, I would like to hear possible problems with this proposed solution, so I can begin to think of solutions for them.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

For me personally, I would hate if some magical invisible forcefield stopped my vehicle working because it was Horde night.

I would not like that either. Not to mention, it is probably the most half-assed solution possible.

I suggested that when the blood moon is out, dogs outrun bikes, bears outrun jeeps. Dogs can tackle the player off the bike and bears can knock over jeeps.

Surely, this would anger a ton of people... but c'mon... it's horde night.

 

[SylenThunder]

Solution is already partially implemented in the current server settings.

 <property name="BlockDamageAIBM"	value="%%" />

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Solution is already partially implemented in the current server settings.

 <property name="BlockDamageAIBM"	value="%%" />

So, lower block damage by AI during blood moon to reduce the resources required to repair.

I suppose it alleviates one of the sources of the problem, but I still need to kill the zombies. I suppose then the solution presented would be to lower zombie hp so I use less ammo. This is just making things even less fun. It's not going in the right direction. I would be better off turning off horde night or simply cheesing the AI so there isn't much damage to repair.

I want to repair massive destruction. I want to expend tons of ammo. I just want something to make it worth doing so.

 

[Gazz]

The OP seems based on the premise that levels / skill points (and thereby increased GS) is a goal.

When I play I try to avoid gaining XP in order to keep the GS low as I scavenge and improve my gear.

During horde night I also rely on traps as much as possible for the same reason.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

The OP seems based on the premise that levels / skill points (and thereby increased GS) is a goal.
When I play I try to avoid gaining XP in order to keep the GS low as I scavenge and improve my gear.

During horde night I also rely on traps as much as possible for the same reason.

No, I do this as much as possible as well. My goal in the beginning is to avoid XP at all costs until I establish myself.

I also use a lot of traps. Those traps need replacement and repair just as much as blocks would need replacement or repair. This also is not worth the reward.

 

[Gazz]

I had also proposed a craftable mod that the player could install to reduce XP gain.

Technically that's a one-liner.

Sometimes I just want to play the game, not the XP treadmill.

 

[mr.natural]

It's the mindset, some like the roleplaying (like me) and even 'forget' the XP progress and let it just happen. Or on the other side there are those speedrun players that 'must' finish a game as quickly as possible.

It is where do you get your kicks from, the immersioin into the role or the immersion to achieve.

And off course there is the spectrum between these sides.

Removing the XP showing up everytime would be a nice start for players like me.

 

[Weazelsun]

Other than for the XP, I usually stay on for horde nights. Since if I'm the only one on the multiplayer server it helps keep the time going. I also do horde nights to test different layouts of traps and such. Since a normal screamer horde doesn't exactly do the pathfinding thing as correctly as a bloodmoon horde.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

It's the mindset, some like the roleplaying (like me) and even 'forget' the XP progress and let it just happen. Or on the other side there are those speedrun players that 'must' finish a game as quickly as possible.
It is where do you get your kicks from, the immersioin into the role or the immersion to achieve.

And off course there is the spectrum between these sides.

Removing the XP showing up everytime would be a nice start for players like me.

True. I play dead is dead because I get my kicks both from immersion and achievement. Unfortunately, I get the most kicks from defending a base on horde night... which has become far less exciting than it used to be.

However, even in A16, I stopped playing eventually because of the lack of digging zombies. Just knowing I could avoid blood moon so easily killed it for me. I was really happy when they came back for A17, but I got ahead of myself with that excitement because other changes only made this part of the game worse.

 

[RipClaw]

For me, the blood moon horde was never really important. It was a reason for me to build a big base to fight it off and in the early game the horde brought me a lot of what I needed to progress. I always enjoyed planning and building the base and collecting resources the most. The bloodmoon horde itself was just a test of whether the base worked the way I imagined it would or not.

Since the zombies now hardly give any loot and the corpses disappear so fast it is no longer necessary to build the base very large. That's why I don't have to collect so many resources anymore and the building doesn't take so much time which leads to me getting bored. Some describe fighting the horde as exciting but I never had such an emotional connection to it.

I still do the horde night instead of switching it off or riding around on the bike, but it's more a duty for me than fun.

 

[beHypE]

Well at some point you gotta decide for yourself what you want to get out of this game while you play it. I mean stating that you can either ride a bike OR even advance in time with the console just proves that you lack the discipline or the mental ability to play the game the way your brain likes it.

I don't know, it just never crossed my mind to dodge a bloodmoon horde ever because I feel it's kinda the purpose of the game, the one thing that sets a pace I need to keep on track with. You're basically asking for the game to force the horde on you because you can't be disciplined enough to fight it by yourself if you have a choice not to ? That's like asking your mom to only fill the fridge with vegetables because if there's anything else you won't eat any...

Also, everything doesn't need to pack an awesome reward. A horde night is both a time and a ressource sink, it's designed that way. You have 7 days (or whatever setting you choose) to get prepared.

That being said I like the idea of "defending your LCB" and getting rewarded for it, I think it would add some depth and purpose to deal with the horde.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

I don't know, it just never crossed my mind to dodge a bloodmoon horde ever because I feel it's kinda the purpose of the game, the one thing that sets a pace I need to keep on track with. You're basically asking for the game to force the horde on you because you can't be disciplined enough to fight it by yourself if you have a choice not to ? That's like asking your mom to only fill the fridge with vegetables because if there's anything else you won't eat any...

Are you referring to me? I play the game as intended, just for the record.

 

[Gazz]

That being said I like the idea of "defending your LCB" and getting rewarded for it, I think it would add some depth and purpose to deal with the horde.

An obvious reward would be a buff to the claim block, like an item to upgrade it.

That's a serious can of worms, though.

If it increases the claim area then the dead zone has to be large enough so that it does not start encroaching other people's claims.

In multiplayer, who gets the reward and how if multiple players defend the same base?

If it's easy to dodge early hordes, will you face an unwinnable situation against late hordes because your claim block isn't up to it?

If it's based on the player, not the claim block, this doesn't become much simpler.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

An obvious reward would be a buff to the claim block, like an item to upgrade it.That's a serious can of worms, though.

If it increases the claim area then the dead zone has to be large enough so that it does not start encroaching other people's claims.

In multiplayer, who gets the reward and how if multiple players defend the same base?

If it's easy to dodge early hordes, will you face an unwinnable situation against late hordes because your claim block isn't up to it?

If it's based on the player, not the claim block, this doesn't become much simpler.

My reward idea was a skill point for surviving plus the player's LCB surviving the entire duration of the blood moon.

Player dies during blood moon = no point.

LCB breaks during blood moon = no point.

Players dies and LCB is destroyed = no point.

Or is increasing the radius of the claim your spin on the reward?

That's an interesting reward, but it doesn't do a single player any good.

But in general, yes... as the game progresses and the horde gets harder, it becomes harder to stay alive and defend your LCB. So, you constantly have a reason to build up your defenses.

In MP, everybody on the team should place their LCB in the base. Or don't... but then no reward for anybody who didn't.

Unwinnable situation? Do you mean a scenario where at some point your LCB gets destroyed by the horde? Then you make another one and build up your base better for next time.