Gamestage balancing may need to be looked at

[Cirion]

I would think protecting your hard-built base would be incentive.

 

If horde night is unavoidable (which it should be and increasingly is), then I'm not sure why you need incentive. Furthermore, people currently complain about gaining too much xp from horde night (causing them to level), and other people complain about not getting any because their traps get the kills. What's the middle ground?

 

Horde night is and should be the game's punishment. It should be balanced, but it should be punishing.

 

Well, seeing that its currently optional, yeah, there is no incentive. Don't get me wrong, I fight the horde purely for my own enjoyment/amusement usually though. But it would be nice to have some rewards for say - how many you killed at horde night, did you survive the whole night etc...

 

I have mixed feelings about being "forced" to participate. I can understand the desire of that, but I think that will make a lot of people unhappy. In fact I am pretty sure either Roland or Gazz (or both) said that they have no plans to "force" players to participate in horde night but they can chime in and correct me if wrong.

[Jackelmyer]

I would think protecting your hard-built base would be incentive.

 

If horde night is unavoidable (which it should be and increasingly is), then I'm not sure why you need incentive. Furthermore, people currently complain about gaining too much xp from horde night (causing them to level), and other people complain about not getting any because their traps get the kills. What's the middle ground?

 

Horde night is and should be the game's punishment. It should be balanced, but it should be punishing.

 

For YOU, sure. But there's a bunch of people who just wanted to skip one horde night because they weren't ready. Or don't care about a horde night, but still love the scavenging risk and general world risks. Or because because they just play different than you.

 

I never understood this one. What were people losing out on by others skipping horde nights? Like... Just don't skip it in your game.

 

I don't skip them myself generally. I probably have skipped 3ish in 1400+ hours. But why people get bent out of shape by how others played... Totally beyond me.

[HungryZombie]

Not on board with this. THis is an example of nerf everything. This is why we cannot have nice things as they say. If this happens probably even more people will skip horde night than they already do. We already need more incentive to participate in horde night than there is currently.

 

I'm not sure why horde night needs to be incentivized. Horde night just is. It's something that happens and is unavoidable (unless you turn it off! which is coming)

 

So I'm not advocating either way on XP for zombies or not. I just want to clarify:

 

The game devs obviously do not feel you need any incentive for horde night since they are adding the option to turn it off.

 

There are plenty of people who feel horde night gives you too much XP thereby forcing your level and gamestage up. Clearly not everyone is in agreement with that but I think enough people voice this concern for it to be at least considered.

 

It can be argued that survival is the main incentive of the game. The rest is just details.

[Cirion]

I'm not sure why horde night needs to be incentivized. Horde night just is. It's something that happens and is unavoidable (unless you turn it off! which is coming)

 

So I'm not advocating either way on XP for zombies or not. I just want to clarify:

 

The game devs obviously do not feel you need any incentive for horde night since they are adding the option to turn it off.

 

There are plenty of people who feel horde night gives you too much XP thereby forcing your level and gamestage up. Clearly not everyone is in agreement with that but I think enough people voice this concern for it to be at least considered.

 

It can be argued that survival is the main incentive of the game. The rest is just details.

 

Yes but again, if horde night is and always will be 100% optional, I stand by what I say, it should be incentivized, in my opinion. You are just extrapolating as to what the dev's think, that may or may not be true...

 

If horde night ever is "not" optional, then your argument would have more merit. And by not optional, I don't mean turning it off via a slider. I mean, being able to avoid the horde come night #7, like driving around or just running around outside.

[Jedo]

I don't prefer horde night, and have skipped them from time-to-time because I preferred to work on other things. (So, Jackelmeyer, I'm not sure who is getting "bent out of shape" here.) Still, it is the main threat of the game (now), and really synthesizes the survival aspect.

 

There has been talk of being able to turn off horde night for those who want that: great. I would think that is even more reason to remove zombie xp because here is yet another group who isn't getting said xp from the single biggest source.

 

I also have heard talk of a boss zombie at the end of horde night who would drop great loot. Let that one zed be the incentive, I say (if one is needed at all). Personally, I picked up three different zombie loot bags my last horde night, each with some valuable ammo and a high-level gun.

[Royal Deluxe]

In fact I am pretty sure either Roland or Gazz (or both) said that they have no plans to "force" players to participate in horde night but they can chime in and correct me if wrong.

 

The bloodmooon horde will be possible to disable, i guess you have your answer ?

 

Besides that i hope for a "Challenge modus" somewhere in the future.

Means if

* EAC was allways active

* No Console commands have been used

* No mods

* Vanilla default options

 

You can make screenshots of your game with a colored frame (something hard to edit) (Gold = insane) and a small list of your stats (Deaths, XP, Day,... )

For all the people that like to measure things and post how talented they are ^^

[Cirion]

The bloodmooon horde will be possible to disable, i guess you have your answer ?

 

Besides that i hope for a "Challenge modus" somewhere in the future.

Means if

* EAC was allways active

* No Console commands have been used

* No mods

* Vanilla default options

 

You can make screenshots of your game with a colored frame (something hard to edit) (Gold = insane) and a small list of your stats (Deaths, XP, Day,... )

For all the people that like to measure things and post how talented they are ^^

 

 

Possibly. But until they fundamentally change AI of blood moon to target land claim blocks / bed rolls instead of the player, it will always be possible to opt out even when BM is enabled.

 

I actually really like the idea of a challenge mode. This mode should have options like let you load up any prefab you want, infinite build materials and possibly even pick any guns you want etc, but then the horde will be basically infinite or very tough etc.

 

Or, in the challenge mode, to put everyone on equal footing maybe you spawn in a given prefab building with a given loadout.

 

There are many possibilities with it

[RestInPieces]

Not on board with this. THis is an example of nerf everything. This is why we cannot have nice things as they say. If this happens probably even more people will skip horde night than they already do. We already need more incentive to participate in horde night than there is currently.

 

Well, seeing that its currently optional, yeah, there is no incentive. Don't get me wrong, I fight the horde purely for my own enjoyment/amusement usually though. But it would be nice to have some rewards for say - how many you killed at horde night, did you survive the whole night etc...

 

I have mixed feelings about being "forced" to participate. I can understand the desire of that, but I think that will make a lot of people unhappy. In fact I am pretty sure either Roland or Gazz (or both) said that they have no plans to "force" players to participate in horde night but they can chime in and correct me if wrong.

 

There is no need for an incentive when it comes to zombies - the incentive should be survival and base defense as Jedo said. TD is in the game's description after all. Zombies should be perceived as obstacles, not as loot pinatas. That's the obvious dev intention anyway.

 

Unfortunately you are not wrong that it is "optional" in the base game. There are ways to skip it with negligible cost. Any way to skip the horde, must be a way that will be equally appealing cost-wise to confronting it, so that people who do want to skip it can have a means to do so and so that making that choice has actually some meaning. Incentivising people to kill zombies in order to "farm" them, is the worst thing this game can do. MMO-style rewards, even worse. And a majority of complaints about player progression and some about gameplay stem from this silly arcade-y philosophy. And it would really be unfortunate if someone thinks something along the lines of "it works with fallout, it's a great game, so why not".

 

 

For YOU, sure. But there's a bunch of people who just wanted to skip one horde night because they weren't ready. Or don't care about a horde night, but still love the scavenging risk and general world risks. Or because because they just play different than you.

 

I never understood this one. What were people losing out on by others skipping horde nights? Like... Just don't skip it in your game.

 

I don't skip them myself generally. I probably have skipped 3ish in 1400+ hours. But why people get bent out of shape by how others played... Totally beyond me.

 

As said above, any way to skip it must be equally or at least approximately as appealing cost-wise to fighting it. People who don't care about the horde night at all will still be able to mod it out and they definitely should do that. They do know what they bought though, read its description and can't expect their preferences to be applied to the base game.

 

If you can't understand why people care about horde nights being optional in the base game, that people don't actually care what other people do, or why a X genre game shouldn't have rules you can follow whenever you "feel like", why do you even participate in the discussion?

 

 

 

The whole "forced" thing is beyond ridiculous. Games always "forced" people to do certain things - they wouldn't be games otherwise. The only exception may only be pure sandbox games. Player freedom does not mean the player not having to follow the game's rules, it means the player being allowed to make choices. And choices that are obvious, with meaningless, unequally weighted options, are not really choices.

[Royal Deluxe]

I test and prepare for

X64 Horde all 7+20 Days

 

I hope it will be so much fun as i imagine

[Jackelmyer]

If you can't understand why people care about horde nights being optional in the base game, that people don't actually care what other people do, or why a X genre game shouldn't have rules you can follow whenever you "feel like", why do you even participate in the discussion?

 

You're missing the point. If avoidance is a decision a player makes, which absolutely falls in line way more than combat to survival, why are people who can just decide not to avoid complaining? Just doesn't make sense.

[Aldranon]

The BM Hordes are no longer a big deal if you don't want to fight them. Waste of ammo IMO, so I don't fight them.

 

I die exclusively in POI's. They are much too fun to not engage IMO, even with "Dead is Dead". The Water Works is one of the two best POI's for excitement (The Shotgun Messiah HQ is the other).

 

 

The problem is you need to set getting mods as a priority and that mostly means doing the so-so quests.

[RestInPieces]

You're missing the point. If avoidance is a decision a player makes, which absolutely falls in line way more than combat to survival, why are people who can just decide not to avoid complaining? Just doesn't make sense.

 

Not missing anything. Re-read my post along with my reply to Cirion.

[Ghostlight]

People actually want to skip horde night? Isn't it the whole point? Genuinely curious.

[apostrophe]

People actually want to skip horde night? Isn't it the whole point? Genuinely curious.

 

I can see their side. Scavenge during the day, regroup at night, rinse and repeat. There's much to see and grab in the world as it is. Turn off the blood moon, you scale down some of the intermittent tension, yes, but the night will still be dangerous outside.

[HungryZombie]

People actually want to skip horde night? Isn't it the whole point? Genuinely curious.

 

This game is incredible even without the Tower defense elements. It's like a survival, RPG, simulation type game.

 

I play a lot of different ways. Sometimes in A16 I totally enjoyed having and underground base avoiding horde night. In general I'd rather have more challenge looting, scavenging and just surviving than defending a tower. I really liked the mods that have lots of weaker zombies. Really gives a more horror vibe than an action adventure type game.

 

But I do love me some horde night sometimes. Just giving a perspective as to why anyone would enjoy the game and avoid the hordes.

[Ghostlight]

Interesting. No Days to Die.

 

2 of my favourite survival games are this and Don't Starve, precisely because they have that "arms race" feeling against the enemies (the hounds in the case of DS). You know an attack is coming, and it is getting bigger each time, so you are always being driven to prepare for it.

[Aldranon]

Interesting. No Days to Die.

 

2 of my favourite survival games are this and Don't Starve, precisely because they have that "arms race" feeling against the enemies (the hounds in the case of DS). You know an attack is coming, and it is getting bigger each time, so you are always being driven to prepare for it.

 

For me Don't Starve is a quest game where the first part is only used to motivate you to find the gateway. The real game starts then.

 

With 7 Days to Die, the title is the number of days the virus takes to kill you. BM horde is just an artificial aspect of the game, A17 made it even more so, IMO.

[Cirion]

Just kinda ruminating here but they could make it soo much more interesting with something like this

 

- Once you become part of or start your own colony, you then have to start protecting it from the hordes. if any of your colonists die they permanently die, gives you incentive to not fail to defend it.

 

IDK, just thinking out loud lol

 

- one other guy suggested a "defend the trader" from a blood moon horde idea too

[HungryZombie]

Just kinda ruminating here but they could make it soo much more interesting with something like this

 

- Once you become part of or start your own colony, you then have to start protecting it from the hordes. if any of your colonists die they permanently die, gives you incentive to not fail to defend it.

 

IDK, just thinking out loud lol

 

- one other guy suggested a "defend the trader" from a blood moon horde idea too

 

State of Decay is a lot like that. You find survivors and bring them to your base. They all have different traits and skills and they help you defend the base and they man the watchtowers or med lab or whatever. One of my favorite games.

[FileMachete]

People actually want to skip horde night? Isn't it the whole point? Genuinely curious.

 

Want? No. But what's the point of participating in horde nights now? Some XP, period dot. There's no "challenge", it's either super easy or takes way to much effort to attempt to get that magic mix of, "I think it will hold, I hope it will will hold... Will it hold?!?". Neither of which I find 'fun'.

So I'm basically 'avoiding horde night' in this playthrough: using a pathing base & iron spikes then a fall-through so they loop. Maybe pop the cops. All to slow down leveling so I can hit a few more POIs before they become just stupid with rads.

 

I may be the minority but I'll take A16.4 horde nights over A17 any day. I could build a base that allowed for melee, all the way through. Could easily manage risk so horde night was actually a threat; didn't overbuild, toggelled traps, had a fallback, etc. If the base was never in danger, then it didn't get upgraded for the next horde night. The perfect base, to me, was one where they'd breach the outer defenses & force me to fall back.

I did manage to do that in A17, for a few horde nights, then it just became traps doing 75% of the killing so said why bother.

(pics of that base are here for another week or so: https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?104853-A17-0-my-attempt-at-a-pure-melee-base-w-fall-back-Had-to-use-guns-though )

[RipClaw]

The perfect base, to me, was one where they'd breach the outer defenses & force me to fall back.

 

Interesting. My view is the exact opposite. If I build a base then I make the defense stronger than necessary. I also test the design in test worlds against much stronger hordes than I would usually get at the time to make sure it holds.

 

The ideal base for me is that I can also go AFK and the Horde still can't harm me. I have no need for thrills or excitement. I get my fun while I'm building the base and getting the raw materials. The best moment in my current game was when I discovered a Q6 auger at the trader. Never before had 38000 coins been spent so fast and I had a smile on my face.

 

What I like so much about this game is that both of our ways of playing are possible here. And I wouldn't want you to have to give up your way of playing but of course I also don't want to give up my way of playing.

[Ghostlight]

Want? No. But what's the point of participating in horde nights now?

 

Fun? To test your base? It's the highlight of the game for me. Without it the game would be no challenge because there would be no real need to do....anything. Make a farm, build a 10x10 concrete box base surrounded by a few layers of spikes and basically survive....forever.

[Jugginator]

Yeah the difficulty of zeds VS bases is spot on with 17. Although, in my last horde night, they did FINALLY make it through my stacked iron spikes, they beat on my concrete walls (the outermost section) for a good 3-hours in game and only knocked out a couple blocks. Weren't even close to breaching. I'll be upping block damage once those settings come out for sure. I like defending bases, A16 was more of "build... anything and survive everything" lol. I just hate rad armies before the third week starts in POIs..

[Ranzera]

I used to like fighting the horde. Between the AI change (not saying we didn't need one, just that this isn't a fun AI for horde defense), the removal of zed loot and the removal of harvestable resources from zeds, I just don't want to bother with horde anymore. It's not worth it and fighting it just jacks up your gamestage which punished you in other areas of the game.

 

If go as far as calling fighting the horde to be a noob trap early in the game. It might be useful later when everything is radiated anyway and you're just trying to grind out level 300.

[Jugginator]

I mean the horde night wasn't the point in the thread, but I still question that logic. The point of the game is to survive the hordes, isn't surviving it the point in the game? Can't that be rewarding? I solo play Survivalist with increased spawning and my base is straight walls, spikes, and iron bars on top of the walls to combat them. I use up quite a bit of resources, have fun, and the horde nights don't dent my resources bad enough for me to have to go farm more to be able to play. Hell, I got 9k concrete, 3k steel all ready to go with more to smelt/craft with after my day 49 horde. Just think of it as a goal in the game, and the reward is surviving it.