Roland
Community Moderator
Every time TFP has tuned the game in the past to make survival elements matter more we get a big negative reaction and they end up softening things up again.
Maybe that's the reason...
PC Is "Horde Night" a bad mechanic?
- Thread starter geengaween
- Start date
Every time TFP has tuned the game in the past to make survival elements matter more we get a big negative reaction and they end up softening things up again.
Maybe that's the reason...
I wouldnt have played this game as much as i have if it wouldnt been for the bloodmoon horde! As others have stated, in many other survivalgames, you build a shelter and then a reliable food supply, then youre set! There is no big background threat thats gonna wreck your base...
This is why i enjoy 7 days so much, it gives that threat that makes you go out to get more stuff to help your survival!
But if one does not like BM, you can turn it off, or have it farther apart and smaller hordes, there is plenty of customization for that.
This is why i enjoy 7 days so much, it gives that threat that makes you go out to get more stuff to help your survival!
But if one does not like BM, you can turn it off, or have it farther apart and smaller hordes, there is plenty of customization for that.
Before the next one ends his post with "you can turn off horde night", the OP did NOT suggest to remove horde night, but make it more dynamic, give the player more influence, especially for nomadic playstyle.
This isn't necessarily a bad idea. But from idea to implementation there are many problems to solve, holes to fix, balances to be rebalanced and compromises to be made. And ultimately many of those ideas then do not work as hoped or are simply too much work.
This isn't necessarily a bad idea. But from idea to implementation there are many problems to solve, holes to fix, balances to be rebalanced and compromises to be made. And ultimately many of those ideas then do not work as hoped or are simply too much work.
Last edited by a moderator:
When i mentioned that i sometimes turn off hordes, i was not implying that the op was trying to remove horde nights.
I just mentioned it as one of a list of many ways that the horde night can be customized on a per game basis to make each playthrough feel different and unique. I feel that while we don't have direct in-game influence over the blood moon horde, we have many options to customize it before the game starts.
The options you choose can make the horde feel like a rare but catastrophic event, like a nightly but ever increasingly dangerous attack, like an unpredictable but rare or unpredictable but common threat, or something that doesn't even exist.
Sure, more choices are nice, but we already have a lot of choices. I personally would prefer more development time went to things we are still missing than to giving even more choices and options to a feature that is already rich with choices and options.
I just mentioned it as one of a list of many ways that the horde night can be customized on a per game basis to make each playthrough feel different and unique. I feel that while we don't have direct in-game influence over the blood moon horde, we have many options to customize it before the game starts.
The options you choose can make the horde feel like a rare but catastrophic event, like a nightly but ever increasingly dangerous attack, like an unpredictable but rare or unpredictable but common threat, or something that doesn't even exist.
Sure, more choices are nice, but we already have a lot of choices. I personally would prefer more development time went to things we are still missing than to giving even more choices and options to a feature that is already rich with choices and options.
Roland
Community Moderator
I see that I misunderstood the
OP as I focused on the “less tower defense” phrase. I still think that a solution could be to have horde nights be more rare if you feel it overwhelms gameplay in its current form.
As to the OP’s specific ideas, I’m not for giving the player control over whether the eventhappens or not or is less or more. This is a survival game and things beyond our control should happen and then we strive to survive. I like that the player is not the center of the universe and responsible for everything that happens.
The horde is a result of the blood moon phase and not due to anything the player does or does not do. Personally, I like that just fine. Additionally, I get enough sleeper gameplay via POI exploration. I don’t feel like I need more of that for the bloodmoon horde.
I think if you are a nomadic player and don’t want to build a dedicated defense base then using an existing building is perfectly valid. If you want horde night to have less of an impact then ride the night out at the top of a massive building and then mop up in the morning. If you want to be more involved, use a smaller structure.
I respect that the ideas the OP presented would be improvements in their view but in my view the general form of it is already fantastic. My improvements would be:
1) Random pause lengths between waves and continual waves until morning.
2) More dominant weaknesses vs certain traps. So one zombie type is very susceptible to fall damage, another to spikes, another to barb wire,another to fire, etc.
3) More traps and defensive options. Now that there are no gore blocks and z bodies disappear, bring back log spikes, allow us to make honey pots with animal meat so we have planned spots to throw area effect explosives and there will be a group congregated there, let us add broken glass to walls so they give damage as they take damage, flame thrower traps, gasoline soaked terrain blocks that can be ignited and spread to other gasoline soaked blocks, etc.
Make it even more tower defense like instead of less and that would be the path to improvement, imo
OP as I focused on the “less tower defense” phrase. I still think that a solution could be to have horde nights be more rare if you feel it overwhelms gameplay in its current form.
As to the OP’s specific ideas, I’m not for giving the player control over whether the eventhappens or not or is less or more. This is a survival game and things beyond our control should happen and then we strive to survive. I like that the player is not the center of the universe and responsible for everything that happens.
The horde is a result of the blood moon phase and not due to anything the player does or does not do. Personally, I like that just fine. Additionally, I get enough sleeper gameplay via POI exploration. I don’t feel like I need more of that for the bloodmoon horde.
I think if you are a nomadic player and don’t want to build a dedicated defense base then using an existing building is perfectly valid. If you want horde night to have less of an impact then ride the night out at the top of a massive building and then mop up in the morning. If you want to be more involved, use a smaller structure.
I respect that the ideas the OP presented would be improvements in their view but in my view the general form of it is already fantastic. My improvements would be:
1) Random pause lengths between waves and continual waves until morning.
2) More dominant weaknesses vs certain traps. So one zombie type is very susceptible to fall damage, another to spikes, another to barb wire,another to fire, etc.
3) More traps and defensive options. Now that there are no gore blocks and z bodies disappear, bring back log spikes, allow us to make honey pots with animal meat so we have planned spots to throw area effect explosives and there will be a group congregated there, let us add broken glass to walls so they give damage as they take damage, flame thrower traps, gasoline soaked terrain blocks that can be ignited and spread to other gasoline soaked blocks, etc.
Make it even more tower defense like instead of less and that would be the path to improvement, imo
Last edited by a moderator:
pApA^LeGBa
Well-known member
I only wish for a setting to turn off the short bloodmoons at start. Once they go on all night, our chars are pretty much already OP. Especially in MP.
Other than that it´s fine with the bloodmoons. Apart from the AI, but that is WIP, so i am not going to consider that a fault right now.
Other than that it´s fine with the bloodmoons. Apart from the AI, but that is WIP, so i am not going to consider that a fault right now.
Last edited by a moderator:
Boidster
New member
Aside from the good arguments on all sides about how "good" or "bad" it is, IMO calling it a "mechanic" kind of undersells its importance. It is literally the central idea of the game(1). It's right there in the name!
If they removed the 7-day (adjustable) horde, they'd really need to call it something else. It'd be like removing goats from Goat Simulator.
(1) At least it is now; see replies below for How It Used To Be
Last edited by a moderator:
JCrook1028
New member
When the game launched the 7 days was how long it took for the infection to kill you and there was no horde night at all...
unholyjoe
QA
100%
things have and may still change but that was the origin.
when i joined in a4 you died within 7 game days if you did not find or make an antibiotic and it had a couple stages that were a PIA couldnt walk fast and couldnt run, health was minimal.. all the joys of what it used to be. glad i am not the only one who remembers and how long it took to find the ingredients and to make 1 pill.
Last edited by a moderator:
Boidster
New member
Fair enough. It is currently the central premise of the game. I will edit accordingly.
geengaween
New member
It's not that it overwhelms the gameplay. I'd be OK with more zombies and more defense. Personally the vanilla zombie spawns are never enough for me in random gen, I always edit the .xml to make them at least 4x as numerous. Difficulty is not what this topic is about, I'd be very OK with a new and more complicated horde mechanic making the game even more difficult. But with a difference of it being directly influenced by your decisions, in some way or form. Instead of just an arbitrary "Day 7" event that always happens on a scheduled day no matter what.
I always thought the game needed some kind of "infestation nodes" which you have to clear or face consequences for ignoring. The zombie spawns shouldn't be random in explored areas. Maybe if you don't clear them, the zombie presence in the chunks around the "nest" becomes more and more numerous until it's too difficult to move around and you have to gear way up and go full on assault mode to clear it.
SnowDog1942
Navezgane's Perv
Roland
Community Moderator
I didn't mean that the horde night overwhelms YOU as in it is too difficult for you. I meant that if the horde night overwhelms the GAMEPLAY in that you spend a lot of time prepping and repairing and then prepping for the next one each and every week and you want to lessen that dominance, then you can use the settings to make it happen less often. From your description and desire to be able to control how intense and how often they occur through player actions I figured that you were feeling that the horde night was taking over the whole game and not leaving room for other things.
I like it as an arbitrary occurrance beyond anything I can do to stop it. It's a force of nature-- or at least the blood moon is which triggers the zombies to go feral and heightens their senses and hunger. It would be like you saying that you'd like to be able to affect when Haley's Comet returns next because once every 75 years is just not enough. Well too bad. It's not something that can be controlled by you or me. You'll just have to wait until 2039 no matter what actions you try to take here on earth.
Frankly, there is not enough events in the world that happen completely out of the player's control that the player has to adapt to and respond to and survive. I hope they are still committed to the random encounter system they talked about. Haven't heard anything about that in a long while....
BFT2020
Well-known member
OP was asking to change the mechanic on how it is done, not that it is there.
Don't forget that we now have the option of randomizing when the Bloodmoon occurs so it is not always on a set schedule, though I have not personally done it yet in one of my games - I think when I get bored of my current playthrough, I might try this setting
I can recommend it, but it doesn't change game play enough to scratch any itch geengaween seems to be having
BFT2020
Well-known member
Correct. Though at this point, I think the best thing to do to get that feeling is a mod. I don't see TFP changing the horde night mechanics at this time, and haven't really seen any interest from Madmole to go in a different direction than what they have today.
warmer
Well-known member
This is a good tactic. Place several campfires in a valley and get random hordes for XP grinding. My first big base had roughly 30 torches on the outside and I was killing Witch/screamers ALL DAY because of it. Every 5 min.
Decoys will draw hordes to the source of the "heat"
KhaineGB
Well-known member
I'm getting kinda bored with it, cos it's like...
Get base built, wait for horde night, deal with it, repair base.
Everything in-between feels kinda like just grinding to make sure you're ready for the next one (which can be pre-defined, or random).
Unfortunately, there's no easy way to fix that.
Get base built, wait for horde night, deal with it, repair base.
Everything in-between feels kinda like just grinding to make sure you're ready for the next one (which can be pre-defined, or random).
Unfortunately, there's no easy way to fix that.
Morloc
Arch Necromancer
Bah....just do this:
Someone's gotta' tug on one of the devs' sleeves for this.
-Arch Necromancer Morloc
D
doughphunghus
Guest
This got me thinking….sooo…
1. Telric has “thumper” mod which is like a alien crash landing and zeds come out. It’s fun and can really mess you up if you’re not ready to fight them if they land nearby your base/location. Additionally, you can get parts from thumpers to make your own thumper and then it acts like a zed beacon and you defend it for a bit…
2. There’s gnamod horde mode, which is a “defend the beacon forever” thing, where the zeds really really hate the beacon and attack it, and eventually it will blow up and make a big hole once you fail to defend it enough.
for both mods, the “zombie beacon” is essentially “player placed” or “purposefully placed”…
taking these “existing things” and smooshing them together may create a mini in game “event” that might shake things up….I present the half baked idea of: make a beacon (of unknown type/duration/health) randomly drop. When the beacon is damaged enough, it leaves a masive crater in the ground, massively damaging all entities and blocks like a bomber zed x10.
”randomly drop”: I imagine the supply plane could drop it, but then it wouldn’t always be “close enough to make you deal with it”, so maybe “randomly drop” could be like a screamer spawn (except beacon spawn) where it crashes down when the heat level is too high (and near your base/location) or maybe a zombie randomly drops a beacon like a loot bag drops. Maybe a bomber zed drops them more often if you kill them before they explode
. If you’re “out and about” and one drops: run away if you want to. If it’s near your base: you choose to defend/defuse or deal with the damage.it would be kind of like a “oh crap!” Game moment, even during horde night, and you almost would have to defend the beacon or it wrecks havoc to your base or the land around it until it auto defuses (or you defuse it or maybe just pick it up?), and it would also kinda add a “secret mini boss” to the game.