PC Vultures need to be removed from horde night

I liked the bees more.
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Wow. Blast from the past. :)

... I'd like to have both. I'd prefer if vultures dive bombed down then acted like dogs for their attack. That way walls can be easily defeated.

 
On one of my recent HN, testing the underground tunnel with an escape ladder up a little above the surface (concrete box with a hatch above) i heard from above A LOT of vultures, but i had never came out to check them out (too much of a hassle underground to bother with them). To my surprise, after the night i came out to find only 1 flying around... It's not like i had a dribble of Zs at the end, so can't confirm or deny...
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If I understand you correctly, you did not engage the horde at all? Doing that, or indeed not killing the horde quickly enough will likely mean you are not seeing the problem I have described. The horde composition on blood moon night is all based on probability. So for example, you cannot lookup the gamestage 200 horde and see what is in it. You can only see the CHANCE of each enemy type being spawned in it. So perhaps it will say Vultures 3%. Meaning every time a horde member is killed there is a 3% that the replacement spawned will be a vulture.

So basically you have to be killing the horde at a decent rate for the vultures to start accumulating as I described (unless you get rather unlucky and get a ton of vultures in the initial spawn ofc).

Players not engaging the horde, or not killing it off quickly enough will not see the trickle effect as the night goes on. You basically get a big rush of enemies at the start of the blood moon, they come in 3 to 4 waves with each wave being much less fierce than the previous wave, until by the final wave it gradually drops off to a trickle, until only one or two enemies are coming in at a time, around morning - - and the sky is full of vultures.

If anyone has a better explanation for this effect than the vultures, I'd love to hear it. It really hurts horde gameplay - which is after all, the highlight of the game for many players.

 
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I think the problem is overstated.
I did some digging in the XML files and the vultures are less common in the horde than demolisher zombies. The vultures are specified with a probability of 0.3 and the demolishers with 0.4.

Personally I like it when I get some breathing room during the horde. But if someone wants to have a horde without vultures then I can make a modlet that replaces the vultures with other zombies.
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Do you have a better explanation? I'm not sure how those numbers work, but 0.3 is that a percentage? So 0.3%. This would mean in an average GS 300 horde of 400 zombies, I'd see 1.2 vultures in total. However the phenomenon remains....our current base is a tunnel with one end open. At the start of the horde, and with maxAlive set to 24 (2 player co-op = 48), we get what feels like 48 zombies at a time piling into the tunnel initially. By 4am, it's 2 or 3 new zombies at a time and a sky full of vultures.

I am not overstating, this happens every single horde night.

 
Vote removal . What do they really add. The need for a roof , thats it.
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Removing hurts the game more than it helps. An air threat gives more depth to the game. Some tweaking is what is needed.

 
Vultures are currently ignorant and add nothing to the game but annoyance. Until, try not to laugh, TFP can come up with a way to make them an actual thing they should just go the way of the zip line.
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They dont necessarily have to be super smart or powerful. The way they stalk the players, especially in the desert, adds depth and realism to then game. Vultures are scavengers by nature. Might be annoying to you but awesome to me. 😎👍

 
Do you have a better explanation? I'm not sure how those numbers work, but 0.3 is that a percentage? So 0.3%. This would mean in an average GS 300 horde of 400 zombies, I'd see 1.2 vultures in total. However the phenomenon remains....our current base is a tunnel with one end open. At the start of the horde, and with maxAlive set to 24 (2 player co-op = 48), we get what feels like 48 zombies at a time piling into the tunnel initially. By 4am, it's 2 or 3 new zombies at a time and a sky full of vultures.
I am not overstating, this happens every single horde night.
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The probability value does not seem to be a percentage. It seems to be more of a weighting. The smaller the value the less likely it is that the corresponding entry will be selected.

I already had a sky full of vultures but that had hardly any effect on the horde. That most likely happens when you have many zombies at the same time. Currently I only play with 8 zombies at the same time and still I did not run out of zombies. At most I have 3 vultures alive but the remaining 5 zombies keep me busy enough.

Maybe you should just set up 2 shotgun turrets and point them upwards. They will take care of the vultures.

 
One shotgun turret aimed decently and vultures are mute anyway. If its early game and you cant do that yes you just need a few wood bars and they are mute. All they do is take away from the actual horde. They are nothing but annoying and need to be removed.
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I use wood/iron bars for my horde base roof so they can see me and swoop down at me so the shotgun turret does it's thing. I use a regular shotgun early game and just shot through the bars as needed.

 
They dont necessarily have to be super smart or powerful. The way they stalk the players, especially in the desert, adds depth and realism to then game. Vultures are scavengers by nature. Might be annoying to you but awesome to me. 😎👍
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I will gladly concede that there are people out there that like vultures. I only speak for me on this. That being said I stand firm on my side of the fence that vultures can go suck a D.

 
I will gladly concede that there are people out there that like vultures. I only speak for me on this. That being said I stand firm on my side of the fence that vultures can go suck a D.
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Fair enough! How about giant bees instead? 😂

 
I do miss the old bees but I do think the vultures on bloodmoon should stay. They add an interesting addition as would adding back the bees. Agree that they could be refined a bit but a they make you pay attention to your surroundings and add that extra dimension. I like the fact when clearing a rooftop on poi’s you can be attack by a flock of them. Again, giving more dimension.

 
Having vultures on the roofs is sometimes a nuisance, especially when you go in and out (like in Shotgun Messiah factory) and you can't move stealthily enough. Had at least 2 situations, where i got suddenly hit when i couldn't see any Vs around me (and i did check) or i spent time stealthily clearing the rooftop (the last one) moving all over the place to suddenly get hit with a new V...

As much as i understand their role and how they should surprise the players, i think there are a few situations when they simply cheese the player.

Not to mention the POIs sometimes still feel like a circus clown car... With too many Zs in some spots...

 
Fair enough! How about giant bees instead? 😂
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Hey honestly way back in the day I can say I hated the damn bees as well but I would take them over the vultures anytime. But just to be brutally honest, they all need to die in a fire. JMO

 
If you want to "fix" vultures, I would suggest adding a buff on spawn to them in entityclasses,

condition of "IsBloodMoon" so that during blood moons they suicide after like 40s.

The buff could go poof before that time onprimary/secondary attack if they CAN attack the player.

That said, it's a known issue...

 
If you want to "fix" vultures, I would suggest adding a buff on spawn to them in entityclasses,condition of "IsBloodMoon" so that during blood moons they suicide after like 40s.

The buff could go poof before that time onprimary/secondary attack if they CAN attack the player.

That said, it's a known issue...
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Gazz you are telling people to mod your own game because "it's a known issue". I am just going to quote my momma here. "♥♥♥♥ or get off the pot".

 
Gazz you are telling people to mod your own game because "it's a known issue". I am just going to quote my momma here. "♥♥♥♥ or get off the pot".
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The issue is mostly lack of awareness that they exist, we kill them and move on, I even make really great fun with them on roofs with melee build.

#adapt

 
Having vultures on the roofs is sometimes a nuisance, especially when you go in and out (like in Shotgun Messiah factory) and you can't move stealthily enough. Had at least 2 situations, where i got suddenly hit when i couldn't see any Vs around me (and i did check) or i spent time stealthily clearing the rooftop (the last one) moving all over the place to suddenly get hit with a new V...
As much as i understand their role and how they should surprise the players, i think there are a few situations when they simply cheese the player.

Not to mention the POIs sometimes still feel like a circus clown car... With too many Zs in some spots...
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I do agree in some ways. I’ve fallen off more than one roof in the process of trying to escape a horde only to be swarmed by a flock of vultures... :bi_polo: Turn to back away while shooting and fall right off. Frustrating but funny at the same time.

 
I will gladly concede that there are people out there that like vultures. I only speak for me on this. That being said I stand firm on my side of the fence that vultures can go suck a D.
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Oh I don't dislike vultures, but I do dislike the thinning out of the horde as the night goes on - and they seem to be the cause. Takes a lot of the fun out of horde night when you spend the first couple of hours lobbing explosives into a crowd of 40+ zombies and laughing at the rag-dolls, then the last couple of hours bored stupid sniping one or two zombies every 10 seconds. I can't be the only person seeing this effect. Right???

p.s. I've mounted 4 vertically aimed 9mm turrets on the base roof and will report in next horde night to see if that cured the problem.

 
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