PC I need someone to reliably explain Horde Night, and how it works VS how it should work

Worrun

Worrun

New member
Hey all,

I first played this game in 2014, don't remember much from back then. I since then haven't played the game, and picked it up only 6 weeks ago, having logged almost 400 hours in to the game in those past 6 weeks I have done a lot, and pretty much know my way around the entire game and how things work by now.

I've gotten to gamestage 500, day 112 (on 120 minute days) and fully built 3 bases on Navezgane, as well a few test bases on an RNG Nitrogen map.

Anyhow, to my understanding Horde Night currently works like this:

2200 comes, zombies begin spawning based on a bunch of factors (not really important right now), then as they are killed they are replaced and respawned at a rate (that also isn't important) and this process repeats itself until 4am, so this basically means "infinite zombies from 11 to 4" 

So, right now, scenario 1: I could wait until 2200, the zombies will spawn (let's say 50 zombies is my max zombie count) and if I hide in my base, those same 50 zombies will scurry about all night, then once the chime plays I can kill them off and all is well in the world again.

Scenario 2: It's 2200, the 50 zombies spawn, I kill them as fast as I can, but they just keep respawning, not stopping, until 4am, I get a bunch of EXP and a few nice loot bags but I did not "beat" the horde, I just endured it.

This entire time, I have thought to myself "Why doesn't the system work like.. Spawn X amount of zombies over the night, if you kill them all you 'beat' Blood Moon" this would be both challenging and rewarding, and would give you a proper reason to blow through a ton of ammo.

Last night, someone (a veteran of the game) told me that there used to be X amount of waves of zombies and you could in-fact kill them fast enough to beat the horde night, and the current infinite number of zombies is a bug, and that it is fixed in one of the overhaul mods (can't remember if it was warz or darkness falls, or another)

I would like to know, is this the case? 

 
Right, the number of Zs is finite. You can easily see that in early bloodmoons on lower gamestages. They do not respawn endless until 4am.

We also beat the horde multiple times in 18.4, so afaik there is no bug that causes infinite spawns.

In higher gamestages (and even maybe in multiplayer) it becomes more and more impossible to beat the blood moon in time. So it might look like they spawn infinite, but they don't.

 
You can turn them off. I am tired of them. I'll probably turn it back on with a19. I get most of my fun out of building and exploring, character development, and questing

 
How would you hide in scenario 1? On horde night zombies can sense you whereever you are.

In other words, horde night is not about getting a medal, it is about surviving the night. If you find an easy way, good for you.

 
They are definitely finite in beginning stages. We had to work extra hard tweaking our settings to get enough zombies to last all night from out of the gate. We cap the max amount of zombies on map at any time, but allow for more zombies that it feels like infinite zombies. We enjoy the feeling of survival so barely scraping by on the first few horde nights is a blast. Now that we are at a much higher game stage (day 300+) and have a fortified base that can take some hits, it's a bit more exciting but still manageable. 

 
Liesel Weppen said:
In higher gamestages (and even maybe in multiplayer) it becomes more and more impossible to beat the blood moon in time. So it might look like they spawn infinite, but they don't.
Click to expand...
Yep. OP ought to read the comments at the top of gamestages.xml. Explains it pretty well.

 
I'll go one step further than Boidster and bring you the relevant text for an unassailably reliable answer to your question.

Game stage spawning: All game stage spawning starts with a "Spawner" which is a named object referenced in the code
or other data (like POIs). The spawner itself contains all of the gamestage information for that particular spawner.
Examples: BloodMoonHorde spawner, or a large POI spawn, or a POI spawn that contains football players.


Each spawner defines a set of game stages. An individual game stage defines the actual spawning and spawning progression
for that specific stage. The game stage number is an estimate of "difficulty", higher game stages should be harder than
lower game stages.


<spawner name="BloodMoonHorde">
    <gamestage stage="1">


        // Starting spawn stage is in this first entry.
        // It will spawn up to 300 zombies, but only 8 can be alive at any one time due to performance reasons.
        // Zombies will be spawned from the ZombiesNight spawn group defined in entitygroups.xml
        // (Optional) The duration of this stage is 1 game hour, after that game hour the next spawn will start OR the spawning will complete
        // if there are no more spawns.
        // (Optional) Interval is a delay in seconds between the end of a spawn group and the next one
        // If we have a use for it this could also trigger a stinger sound.


        <spawn group="ZombiesNight" num="300" maxAlive ="8" duration="1" interval="60"/>


        // After 300 zombies have been killed this defines a kind of "station keeping" mode
        // where there will be one zombie sent to harass the players until sunrise.


        <spawn group="ZombiesNight" num="9999999" maxAlive="1"/>
            maxAlive is now per player, not per party
    </gamestage>
</spawner>
Click to expand...



So there is a finite number of zombies per spawn but there can be multiple spawns set up to fire one after the other. So to answer your question difinitively there are waves of zombies and each wave is finite except for the final wave which is infinite until morning but it only allows 1 zombie to be alive at a time. The waves are also timed so if you don't kill all the zombies in the wave then you won't notice the first wave ending and the second wave starting. If you do kill all the zombies in the wave before the time limit is reached then there will be a 60 second delay before the next wave starts.

 
Great that explains 99% of it, thanks a bunch.

It says each wave is 300, and lasts for 1 hour (in-game hour I'm guessing) but then you say once you "complete" a wave (300 kills) there will be a 60 second delay until the next wave, what would be the point of having this 1 hour time frame if the next wave just came anyway?

Thanks

 
For groups that beat the timer and kill all their zombies there is no difference. They will never be affected by the timer. For groups that are slower and don't kill all the zombies in those waves, the timers prevent the event from extending the whole night long into the morning. It is intended that the horde night event ends during the night. TFP believes that having the zombies attack all night long in continuous waves is too fatiguing and causes too much damage and is too costly for the average player. Some people (like @Guppycur) disagree and have created a mod that turns that third wave into its own full wave with enough zombies to last the rest of the night so you are fighting until morning.

You could easily use his modlet for your group if you want your horde night event to last the entire night.

 
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Roland said:
For groups that beat the timer and kill all their zombies there is no difference. They will never be affected by the timer. For groups that are slower and don't kill all the zombies in those waves, the timers prevent the event from extending the whole night long into the morning. It is intended that the horde night event ends during the night. TFP believes that having the zombies attack all night long in continuous waves is too fatiguing and causes too much damage and is too costly for the average player. Some people (like @Guppycur) disagree and have created a mod that turns that third wave into its own full wave with enough zombies to last the rest of the night so you are fighting until morning.

You could easily use his modlet for your group if you want your horde night event to last the entire night.
Click to expand...


Do you know if they have any plans to change how it works? As right now, it is apparent that the Horde Night can be 'beaten' to end early, can only be achieved during very low gamestage. I have 2 characters, one is gamestage 523 and we're playing DUO with a friend, we cannot beat the horde with any amount of turrets, traps and guns.

The second is gamestage 101 and there are 6 of us, and last night we still didn't defeat the horde, I don't think I've seen anyone do it on an A18 video either

 
Worrun said:
Do you know if they have any plans to change how it works? As right now, it is apparent that the Horde Night can be 'beaten' to end early, can only be achieved during very low gamestage. I have 2 characters, one is gamestage 523 and we're playing DUO with a friend, we cannot beat the horde with any amount of turrets, traps and guns.

The second is gamestage 101 and there are 6 of us, and last night we still didn't defeat the horde, I don't think I've seen anyone do it on an A18 video either
Click to expand...
You're aware that additional zombies are added, in a certain proportion, according to the number of players in game, from a single player to 6-7-8 and so on? Even playing in duo with a friend, which im also doing, the numbers is surprisingly higher, even for our first horde, i was stupified. So for sure, if you're a group of 6 players, the size of the swarm will be dramatically bigger. I once played with a group of 5 and i thought it was the end of the world. We did beat the horde once, few minutes before reaching 4am, with tremendous firepower and optimal positioning. It is doable, but most of the time, you'll be overwhelmed and will have to stretch the fight until 4am and beyond.

 
Do you know if they have any plans to change how it works? As right now, it is apparent that the Horde Night can be 'beaten' to end early, can only be achieved during very low gamestage. I have 2 characters, one is gamestage 523 and we're playing DUO with a friend, we cannot beat the horde with any amount of turrets, traps and guns.

The second is gamestage 101 and there are 6 of us, and last night we still didn't defeat the horde, I don't think I've seen anyone do it on an A18 video either
Click to expand...


Doubtful. In their eyes having a horde night event last all night long is a hardcore setting and is the perfect kind of thing to be handled by modding.

If you aren't against editing the xml file, go into gamestages.xml and find all the lines that look like this:

<spawn group="ZombiesNight" num="300" maxAlive ="8" duration="1" interval="60"/>

You could change the duration from a 1 to a 2 or 3. That would give you extra time to try and kill all the zombies in a wave.

You could change the number from 300 to 200. That would make achieving your goal of killing everything in a wave more achievable. 

Play around with all three and find what works best for your group to make it a challenge but doable with good teamwork.

 
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I don't understand the maxAlive thing.  

I see many many many zeds running around - seemingly "alive" - during horde night.  Certainly more than 8.

Also I get much more than just 3 x 300 zeds.  I think I got 1500 kills in each of the last couple of hordes, currently at GS 450.  So that is about 5 x 300.

All of this is in Single player.

 
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Kyonshi said:
I once played with a group of 5 and i thought it was the end of the world.
Click to expand...
Meanwhile, back at TFP HQ: <Achievement Unlocked sound>

Tahaan said:
I don't understand the maxAlive thing. 
I see many many many zeds running around - seemingly "alive" - during horde night.  Certainly more than 8.

Also I get much more than just 3 x 300 zeds.  I think I got 1500 kills in each of the last couple of hordes, currently at GS 450.  So that is about 5 x 300.

All of this is in Single player.
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I guess since we're posting XML to be all helpful and stuff...ugh, such a high bar Roland sets! 😄

You see and kill so many zombies precisely because of your GS 450. Here is the gamestages.xml line that will apply to you:

<gamestage stage="444">
<spawn group="feralHordeStageGS426" num="500" maxAlive="136" duration="2" interval="28"/>
<spawn group="feralHordeStageGS435" num="500" maxAlive="136" duration="2" interval="29"/>
<spawn group="feralHordeStageGS444" num="500" maxAlive="136" duration="7"/>
</gamestage>


1500 total zombies and 136 at any one time. Does that look like what you experienced?

 
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Boidster said:
Meanwhile, back at TFP HQ: <Achievement Unlocked sound>

I guess since we're posting XML to be all helpful and stuff...ugh, such a high bar Roland sets! 😄

You see and kill so many zombies precisely because of your GS 450. Here is the gamestages.xml line that will apply to you:

<gamestage stage="444">
<spawn group="feralHordeStageGS426" num="500" maxAlive="136" duration="2" interval="28"/>
<spawn group="feralHordeStageGS435" num="500" maxAlive="136" duration="2" interval="29"/>
<spawn group="feralHordeStageGS444" num="500" maxAlive="136" duration="7"/>
</gamestage>


1500 total zombies and 136 at any one time. Does that look like what you experienced?
Click to expand...
That looks about right.... but what was that about maxAlive = 8 because of performance reasons?  Does those performance reasons disappear at higher GameStage?

 
I actually thing that comment in the XML is likely incorrect. Obviously "for performance reasons" doesn't really make sense if the number just keeps going up. It does cap at 256 starting at GS 847. Maybe it's a holdover from previous alphas. My guess is that the actual maximum # of zombies is the lesser of:

MaxSpawnedZombies (serverconfig.xml)

or

BloodMoonEnemyCount (game advanced setup or serverconfig.xml)

or

maxAlive x #OfPlayers

But if you have Blood Moon Enemy Count set to 8 (the default) then that's what you ought to see. I could be wrong about this. I'm going to go do some testing.

 
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GS



BM Enemy Count


GS maxAlive


Actual


44


8


16


8


61


12


20


12


69


64


23


23


232


64


72


60



So I did some tests and at least between Blood Moon Enemy Count and MaxSpawnedZombies my logic seems to hold. Not sure about multiplayer I didn't mess with my dedicated server. That last row there was likely limited by MaxSpawnedZombies which is at the default of 64 (single-player game). Probably 4 other zombies spawned in around me as natural spawns, leaving only 60 for the blood moon.

 
It is 8 per player up to a maximum of 64 alive at once. 8 Players would get 8 each. 10 players would only get 6 each. 4 players would get 8 each unless it was changed in the options menu. But no matter how high the number was changed the max that 4 players would get would be 16 each because 64 is the hardcoded max.

It should be noted that there is max alive and then there is max alive. The maxAlive in the xml line for the spawn wave defines how many zombies will be in that wave. Then there is the Max Alive hardcoded maximum of how many entities can be alive at once in the rendered portion of the world and that is always 64.  So maxAlive = "136" means you will get 136 zombies for that wave but you would only see 8 at a time for a default settings one-player game. You'd see 64 at a time for an 8+ player game no matter if you changed the option setting to 12 zombies per person because 64 is the max max.

You could also see 64 at a time in single player if you changed the settings to 64 zombies but...would you really see them for who they are during the ensuing chaos?

See below....

 
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Roland said:
It is 8 per player up to a maximum of 64 alive at once. 8 Players would get 8 each. 10 players would only get 6 each. 4 players would get 8 each unless it was changed in the options menu. But no matter how high the number was changed the max that 4 players would get would be 16 each because 64 is the hardcoded max.

It should be noted that there is max alive and then there is max alive. The maxAlive in the xml line for the spawn wave defines how many zombies will be in that wave. Then there is the Max Alive hardcoded maximum of how many entities can be alive at once in the rendered portion of the world and that is always 64.  So maxAlive = "136" means you will get 136 zombies for that wave but you would only see 8 at a time for a default settings one-player game. You'd see 64 at a time for an 8+ player game no matter if you changed the option setting to 12 zombies per person because 64 is the max max.

You could also see 64 at a time in single player if you changed the settings to 64 zombies but...would you really see them for who they are during the ensuing chaos?
Click to expand...
Are you sure there? I would have said the "num=..." in the spawn xml is the number of zombies in a wave. maxAlive of 136 is simply superceded by the 64 absolute limit and the (personal maxAlive in the personal settings * players).

Because in the other places where maxAlive is used it is about a maximum at a specific time. In case it is the wave count it should be renamed.

 
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