PC Well ... that escalated quickly!

[Liesel Weppen]

Me

Level: 54

Game Stage: 159

Friend

Level: 48

Game Stage: 153

Just these two players?

So it was overall gamestage of

159 + 153 * 0.8 = 282

?

I think the (horde <--> game stage) progression curve is too steep.

I don't know what you are doing or what overal settings you use.

I just played a BM minutes ago with 4 players and a calculated gamestage of ~500. There have been ~20 Demolitioners among many radiates, not even mentioned the "normal" Zs.

We don't use any exploits like ramp tricks, we don't even have turrets or other traps like electric fence placed yet. Just metal spikes, barbed wire, one scrap turret per player and our guns and pipe bombs, base built of course reinforced concrete. And yes, we "wasted" about 5000 7.62 amunition + scrap metal for the scrap turrets, ~80 pipe bombs and some shotgun muni.

The horde damaged a lot and destroyed some blocks, but we could repair and even upgrade the base within one day. I don't understand what settings you have, if only one demolitioner blows up 5 blocks around them even if they explode. Some blew up here, and took some blocks out, yes, but not half the base in a radius of 5.

Every player is skilled to the weapon type he uses (but not necessarily even maxed) and it was not such a big deal.

Last BM we played with only 3 players and there was no demolitioner at all (so gamestage was about 150 lower than with 4 players)... that should absolutely show how the gamestage affects the Bloodmoon.

What the hell are you doing? Either you are completely unable (no insult) or the base is completely crap or you have some insane settings (like Zs do 300% blockdamage) you won't tell us.

 

[Orclover]

We are getting >20 demolishers a night with just 2 players, not 4 active. Usually ~2 demos at a time every wave or so. If we had 4 guys pumping 7.62 into the horde constantly then yea, this would be a frickin cake walk lol. My god what did you think it would be like with a fully armed squad? 2 of us vs the same horde however not so much.

Man I wish we had 4 full decked out players on at once for blood moon. Probably just do Blood Moon in the frickin street at that point. Frickin Blood Moon in the town laundromat, No F**** given. Hell add a couple more players and make it 7 or 8 and it would just be Blood Moon Melee Night at the strip club.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

We are getting >20 demolishers a night with just 2 players, not 4 active. Usually ~2 demos at a time every wave or so. If we had 4 guys pumping 7.62 into the horde constantly then yea, this would be a frickin cake walk lol.

No it would be not, because with 4 players your gamestage would be much higher and you would not "only" get 20 demolisher but 40.

That is exactly what the gamestage is used for... nevertheless in the current version it might be to heavy scaled for multiplayer.

It's a completely different question if double the amount of player might handle double the amount of Zs (especially demos) easier. And in my opinion they do not, it still gets more difficult.

 

[Laz Man]

Question about the MP multiplier for horde night. Is it in the XML or hard coded? If in xml, cant someone just change it from 0.8 to 0.5 or something?

 

[Ghostlight]

Question about the MP multiplier for horde night. Is it in the XML or hard coded? If in xml, cant someone just change it from 0.8 to 0.5 or something?

Yes it's in the XML and can be changed.

 

[Laz Man]

Yes it's in the XML and can be changed.

Wow, okay. So all the people struggling with horde nights thinking of modding things like demos out could easily just lower the number to what feels right for them can do so? That's probably what I would do...

 

[Ghostlight]

But as has been mentioned elsewhere, that would mean you nerf everything, not just the appearance of Demolishers. This would kill the game for a lot of people. It would be just like lowering Zombie Block Damage to 20% - possibly the simplest solution of all to Demolishers?? Problem now is your Demolishers are (arguably) balanced nicely, but every other zombie type in the game is pathetic and harmless (to bases).

 

[ZombieSurvivor]

But as has been mentioned elsewhere, that would mean you nerf everything, not just the appearance of Demolishers. This would kill the game for a lot of people. It would be just like lowering Zombie Block Damage to 20% - possibly the simplest solution of all to Demolishers?? Problem now is your Demolishers are (arguably) balanced nicely, but every other zombie type in the game is pathetic and harmless (to bases).

I play with 30 zombies for blood moon some times. they are not harmless then lol.

 

[Orclover]

So we have a problem then. We can remove Demo's completely (replacing them), or we can cover all the zeds in nerf. But we can't just nerf the demos down to something a bit more reasonable like a glowing cop zed on steroids. It's rare when this game suffers from a lack of mod-ability, but it happens.

Just need a tick mark in the xml to say "replace C4 on Demo's with TNT? y/n"

 

[Laz Man]

But as has been mentioned elsewhere, that would mean you nerf everything, not just the appearance of Demolishers. This would kill the game for a lot of people. It would be just like lowering Zombie Block Damage to 20% - possibly the simplest solution of all to Demolishers?? Problem now is your Demolishers are (arguably) balanced nicely, but every other zombie type in the game is pathetic and harmless (to bases).

That number doesnt nerf the zombie block damage if I understand it correctly. The # just reflects the scale up of gamestage which is a huge determining factor when and how many demos you experience. Lowering the number would basically make it more in line with SP scaling which in my opinion feels right to me with mostly default settings.

For example, I just had my day 49 horde (SP) and no demos yet (plenty radiated, cops, soldiers and wights). My GS is somewhere around 110 to 115. (16 max alive and horde lasted me all the way to 4am)

So I guess what I'm suggesting is try lowering the number to what feels right to people before removing demos completely.

 

[meganoth]

So we have a problem then. We can remove Demo's completely (replacing them), or we can cover all the zeds in nerf. But we can't just nerf the demos down to something a bit more reasonable like a glowing cop zed on steroids. It's rare when this game suffers from a lack of mod-ability, but it happens.
Just need a tick mark in the xml to say "replace C4 on Demo's with TNT? y/n"

What? Where did you get that from?

Look for "zombieDemolition" in entityclasses.xml. There is a line with "Explosion.BlockDamage", currently set to 5000.

And if you look for "meleeHandZombieDemolition" in items.xml, you can set the damage he does to blocks or players (currently 500 and 20).

 

[Orclover]

What? Where did you get that from?
Look for "zombieDemolition" in entityclasses.xml. There is a line with "Explosion.BlockDamage", currently set to 5000.

And if you look for "meleeHandZombieDemolition" in items.xml, you can set the damage he does to blocks or players (currently 500 and 20).

I may try that if our server has anybody interested in playing still and knock the explosion damage down to 2,000 or so, the damage to players is meaningless since they never get close enough to do anything. All demo's do is create concrete repair work and turn it into a huge time sink. Which probably all they were designed to do. Create busy work.

 

[RipClaw]

I may try that if our server has anybody interested in playing still and knock the explosion damage down to 2,000 or so, the damage to players is meaningless since they never get close enough to do anything.

The radioactive cop has an explosion damage of 750. If you want a cop on steroids, 1,500 might be a good value.

 

[Roland]

Which probably all they were designed to do. Create busy work.

No. That is not all they were designed to do. It is what will happen if you insist on letting passive defenses handle everything but that is your choice and not TFP's intention. Their intention was to add a new enemy with a powerful block destroying ability and for players to come up with creative and new ways to overcome them. They don't necessarily want players spending days doing repair busy work. They want you to deal with them in a new new way that minimizes damage to your fort if you can figure a way out.

I can tell you this, the Devs value active participation by players during horde night.

And now someone will mention hiding at the top of a massive POI, driving around all night, and/or treading water. To that all I can say is one thing at a time....

 

[AtomicUs5000]

And now someone will mention hiding at the top of a massive POI, driving around all night, and/or treading water. To that all I can say is one thing at a time....

I think activities like these by the player are what should eventually trigger crazy zombies like the Demolisher. For instance, you built a ramp to loop the AI for your early BM's. OK Fine. Let people do that, but if they do it too many BMs (detected by some loop detection code in the AI), Demolishers will start coming on your blood moons. Drive around to escape... fine. Do it all time, here come the enraged zombie bears that can ram your vehicle. For treading water, I have no idea... they are too far behind on water to even have thoughtful ideas about it (no wait... here's one... maybe a mass of vultures, like 12 of them and couple that with making it difficult to use weapons while treading water. Not impossible, just difficult)... but still, same concept.

 

[Orclover]

No. That is not all they were designed to do. It is what will happen if you insist on letting passive defenses handle everything but that is your choice and not TFP's intention. Their intention was to add a new enemy with a powerful block destroying ability and for players to come up with creative and new ways to overcome them. They don't necessarily want players spending days doing repair busy work. They want you to deal with them in a new new way that minimizes damage to your fort if you can figure a way out.
I can tell you this, the Devs value active participation by players during horde night.

And now someone will mention hiding at the top of a massive POI, driving around all night, and/or treading water. To that all I can say is one thing at a time....

Ok I guess it just feels like we are being given busywork by the demos then. Not sure anybody has come up with a decent solution for them that hasn't been patched out yet though, at least not one that anybody is willing to share out of fear of it getting fixed. Sadly not all of us can land constant never ending head-shots with a sniper rifle, I sure as hell can't.

As for your last line. Man, that sounds pretty damn ominous. But I have long advocated for the implementation of zombie gators to eat the people treading water in the lakes. And as I have suggested before you could always strap C4 to the vultures....they gotta stop that bike eventually.

I think activities like these by the player are what should eventually trigger crazy zombies like the Demolisher. For instance, you built a ramp to loop the AI for your early BM's. OK Fine. Let people do that, but if they do it too many BMs (detected by some loop detection code in the AI), Demolishers will start coming on your blood moons. Drive around to escape... fine. Do it all time, here come the enraged zombie bears that can ram your vehicle. For treading water, I have no idea... they are too far behind on water to even have thoughtful ideas about it (no wait... here's one... maybe a mass of vultures, like 12 of them and couple that with making it difficult to use weapons while treading water. Not impossible, just difficult)... but still, same concept.

Honestly I would love for it to be a punishment for "not fighting". We fight and it feels like we are being punished for that. We use "big refreshing POI's" now because the repair bill just got too expensive to bother with concrete horde bases although knocking the explosion damage down a bit might make it tolerable if it takes a few demo's to demolish instead of just 1 or 2 taking out an entire section. Thx for the heads up on the damage values @RipClaw.

For punishment it would be awesome if the demos did exactly that then, just ignored the players and started wailing on whatever the players built. So if you refuse to engage the horde (say 0 zed kills every hour during horde night) they made you suffer by taking out your vehicles left around outside or blew up your walls. Practically screaming "WAARRRRIORS...COME OUT AND PLAY-EE-AY" while they do it. But the spawning range of the base vs wherever the players happen to be hiding probably would not allow it.

Punishing players for riding around all night would be too hard to implement probably. They would have to add something to the game that could catch vehicles and the closest thing is the vulture. I would be nice if there were a dozen vultures chasing after you like they do when you go through the desert and spitting acid as they do sometimes. Damn things are like the birds from morrowind already so it's not much of a stretch, and just add C4 to them.

 

[Niil945]

Just a note, Grumbul streams at level ... I forget. Game stage was up around 450ish iirc. The stream I saw, he had 28 unspent perk points and took out a blood moon horde with no traps, no turrets, just him and a tiny path-cheeser base, and made it look almost easy. There was definite skill involved in the headshotting (pretty much pure headshots, try to imagine how little ammo he used) and weapon selection, but getting the zeds to sit up pretty for a photo shoot sure helps.

He could literally kill nothing and the cheesed ai would run circles while he afks. There's literally no skill there beyond exploiting bad ai. They should not be trying to path to him since they can't actually get to him that way. They should just be knocking blocks out on the ground level until everything collapses. Instead they're trying to jump onto a wedge tip oriented vertically and falling down only to run back up to the start and slow hopping up. At which point the GS is entirely irrelevant because it could be 5000 and it wouldn't matter because of how he's abusing AI. As such, I'm not sure how you can point at that to argue that the hode <--> gamestage progression curve isn't too steep as that's not an example of how to deal with a BM with no traps, no turrets, just him. Because it's not the 'just him' part that makes any difference at all. It's the cheese infinite drop he's using that's doing all the work there. Everything else is superfluous.

That said, however, in my multiplayer game we don't really have a problem with demos. They're threatening to the base and at times do serious damage, but they're the only thing that's giving us any trouble at all and that's a good thing that we have a challenge fighting them without cheesing AI. We make an effort to let our automated defenses get the bulk of the horde and we focus down the demolishers together. Even if triggered as long as they're killed they don't go off. In single player, however, I have a problem killing demolishers fast enough and they're often extremely destructive. I'm not sure of a way to balance the disparity though, making them easier to handle in single player would make them trivial in multiplayer.

 

[meganoth]

I may try that if our server has anybody interested in playing still and knock the explosion damage down to 2,000 or so, the damage to players is meaningless since they never get close enough to do anything. All demo's do is create concrete repair work and turn it into a huge time sink. Which probably all they were designed to do. Create busy work.

I'm sure they would listen to you if you have a great idea how to create real danger on horde night, for players who can easily build a huge castle made out of concrete and steel in a few weeks. How do you do that without allowing the zombies to be good at breaching walls?

In A16 I proposed ghost zombies who can slowly glitch through solid walls, as a danger that could get at the player without destroying the walls. But they didn't want to go full fantasy :crushed:

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Honestly I would love for it to be a punishment for "not fighting". We fight and it feels like we are being punished for that. We use "big refreshing POI's" now because the repair bill just got too expensive to bother with concrete horde bases although knocking the explosion damage down a bit might make it tolerable if it takes a few demo's to demolish instead of just 1 or 2 taking out an entire section. Thx for the heads up on the damage values @RipClaw.
For punishment it would be awesome if the demos did exactly that then, just ignored the players and started wailing on whatever the players built. So if you refuse to engage the horde (say 0 zed kills every hour during horde night) they made you suffer by taking out your vehicles left around outside or blew up your walls. Practically screaming "WAARRRRIORS...COME OUT AND PLAY-EE-AY" while they do it. But the spawning range of the base vs wherever the players happen to be hiding probably would not allow it.

Punishing players for riding around all night would be too hard to implement probably. They would have to add something to the game that could catch vehicles and the closest thing is the vulture. I would be nice if there were a dozen vultures chasing after you like they do when you go through the desert and spitting acid as they do sometimes. Damn things are like the birds from morrowind already so it's not much of a stretch, and just add C4 to them.

I went off on that very subject about 7 months ago: https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?116886

Had a bunch of people reciprocating with attempts to derail the thread. The overall attitude around here now seems to be different. Perhaps the problem is now finally so blatant that more people see it.

 

[Laz Man]

Tbh, until bandits are added demos are the pinnacle of horde night. Once your past that your pretty much ready to roll the credits unless you want to play pokemon with books, play barbie dream house mode (build or decorate for fun) , or try alternate horde base designs. It's a shame, some people want to mod demos out as it will just quicken the end game for imo...

The way skills are balanced in A18, your actually encouraged to start over and play the game differently which is not necessarily a bad thing as the early game is arguably the most exciting part for many.

However, the game doesnt force you to start over. You could technically use the forgetting elixir and have a completely different experience within the same game save.

Players have more options then ever in A18.