Horde Night is DEAD

[AtomicUs5000]

To be honest, I doubt it. I mean, it's not like I've got the source code sitting here, but your checks sound like a lot of work for the server to process

It's not. I write networked applications all the time where a single server maintains its own computations while synchronizing several systems, clients, databases, and connecting to external APIs simultaneously while keeping what I call the heartbeat under 300ms. This is child's play in comparison. Just logic and maybe one thread.

 

Not understanding the relocating. So what if they relocate? Are they not playing with a team? The whole team relocated? They picked up all their LCBs, beds, and chests, and everything inside them to avoid the horde night? Well, they certainly earned their win. That would be just as much work for a team.

[Vic]

I've been playing lately for the quest POI's. Just now deciding whether or not to build a horde defense base, or sit out the horde. I do that by bedrock-mining on horde nights or advancing the time. I'm really liking the challenge of POI quests. Lot of work went into making them.

Hope they have a lot more in 18. But I'm a "play it how you want" guy. It cracks me up to see some of the comments suggesting the game should force you into fighting hordes. That's not why I play 7DTD.

BTW, there's a streamer on Twitch who kills all the hordes on open fields with molotovs and a bow. Sometimes, when he's at game stage 500 or so and he's facing maybe 100 radiated on horde night, he'll set up some blade traps to help.

I watched him clear the Shotgun Messiah factory with only the bow and a few molotovs at about game stage 400.

He only plays on nightmare mode. So what if I said you had to play like him? No thanks!

As long as they have mining, I have a choice. If I want to fight hordes, I fight hordes. And if I don't, I don't.

[OzHawkeye]

It's not. I write networked applications all the time where a single server maintains its own computations while synchronizing several systems, clients, databases, and connecting to external APIs simultaneously while keeping what I call the heartbeat under 300ms. This is child's play in comparison. Just logic and maybe one thread.

 

Not understanding the relocating. So what if they relocate? Are they not playing with a team? The whole team relocated? They picked up all their LCBs, beds, and chests, and everything inside them to avoid the horde night? Well, they certainly earned their win. That would be just as much work for a team.

 

Why would they need to relocate their LCB's, beds, chests and the like?

 

Keep in mind, the Horde is targeted (at least in their first instance of spawning) on a player not, repeat, not, a location. Therefore if 5 minutes before the BM starts, the player zips across town, or hell, across the street even, and signs out, even with your "player blocks left behind" strategy, the BM horde will go to where the player logged out, and not to their base.....

 

Now, if you want to change that, then you'd have to change the whole mechanic of what the BM is targetting, and get the game to understand it needs to target LCB's which also have other player blocks nearby, because if they just target LCB's, then the player moves across the street, places a single, cheap, LCB and logs out, waits out the Horde and signs back in straight after it and replaces their real LCB.

 

If you want to get the game to start examining the terrain to work out what is, and is not a real player base, then I am absolutely 100% certain that's going to be a big challenge - and again, all for the sake of stopping a player using a Logout button as an "I Win" button against the Horde.

[AtomicUs5000]

I've been playing lately for the quest POI's. Just now deciding whether or not to build a horde defense base, or sit out the horde. I do that by bedrock-mining on horde nights or advancing the time. I'm really liking the challenge of POI quests. Lot of work went into making them.

Hope they have a lot more in 18. But I'm a "play it how you want" guy. It cracks me up to see some of the comments suggesting the game should force you into fighting hordes. That's not why I play 7DTD.

BTW, there's a streamer on Twitch who kills all the hordes on open fields with molotovs and a bow. Sometimes, when he's at game stage 500 or so and he's facing maybe 100 radiated on horde night, he'll set up some blade traps to help.

I watched him clear the Shotgun Messiah factory with only the bow and a few molotovs at about game stage 400.

He only plays on nightmare mode. So what if I said you had to play like him? No thanks!

As long as they have mining, I have a choice. If I want to fight hordes, I fight hordes. And if I don't, I don't.

 

Simply said by "Horde Night is optional"

 

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Why would they need to relocate their LCB's, beds, chests and the like?

 

Keep in mind, the Horde is targeted (at least in their first instance of spawning) on a player not, repeat, not, a location. Therefore if 5 minutes before the BM starts, the player zips across town, or hell, across the street even, and signs out, even with your "player blocks left behind" strategy, the BM horde will go to where the player logged out, and not to their base.....

 

Now, if you want to change that, then you'd have to change the whole mechanic of what the BM is targetting, and get the game to understand it needs to target LCB's which also have other player blocks nearby, because if they just target LCB's, then the player moves across the street, places a single, cheap, LCB and logs out, waits out the Horde and signs back in straight after it and replaces their real LCB.

 

If you want to get the game to start examining the terrain to work out what is, and is not a real player base, then I am absolutely 100% certain that's going to be a big challenge - and again, all for the sake of stopping a player using a Logout button as an "I Win" button against the Horde.

 

You're forgetting the first part of the algorithm. This LCB, or bed, etc, takes on the role of a player entity. It inherits the player class, but is static. You really don't need to change any mechanic. There are several ways to accomplish this in most programming languages.

 

Not to mention, there is no real horde. There doesn't need to be. There's nothing there to see it.

[OzHawkeye]

Simply said by "Horde Night is optional"

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

 

 

You're forgetting the first part of the algorithm. This LCB, or bed, etc, takes on the role of a player entity. It inherits the player class, but is static. You really don't need to change any mechanic. There are several ways to accomplish this in most programming languages.

 

Not to mention, there is no real horde. There doesn't need to be. There's nothing there to see it.

 

Ok, so let's game it out. You want the Horde targeted on the LCB, and presumably the currently active one at that.

 

So,

 

i) What if the player doesn't have an LCB?

 

ii) What if the player makes a new LCB across the street? How is the code supposed to differentiate between whether that new LCB was an attempt to "fake out" the Horde (in which case target the Horde at the location of the prior LCB), or is a genuine move (in which case the Horde should go to the new LCB).

 

I get the idea of inheritance, no problem (I make my own games in C# and other languages and am making one in Unity right now), but the more complicated you make the system, the easier it'll be for a smart player (or a dumb one who can read what a smart one posts about) to get around the Horde.

 

Your summation of Vics post is absolutely spot on, Horde night is optional, especially for players on servers.

 

Change the target to the bed, the workbench, whatever you like, it will still be a simple matter for a player so wishing to just pick it all up, carry it across the street and log out there.

[RipClaw]

With blood moon comes radioactive rain. There isn't a full story on the radiation, so let's just pretend this is a thing now. It does thunder on BM, so let's just say that this is the reason why. You can survive in it if you really have to, but not for long. This will tend to push you indoors one way or another. You wouldn't want to get stuck in some crappy POI, especially after the 3rd or 4th blood moon. The best survivable solution would be to have a sheltered, heavily defended base.

 

I could get into this. It seems simple enough. The reward here is just surviving, and I could accept that as good enough for me. The rain would have to be more of a drizzle though, otherwise too annoying.

 

Riding on vehicle all night... solved. (even gyrocopter)

No reason to be at base... solved.

MP logoff... unsolved.

 

Players who fight the zombies on foot with a club and beer ... unsolved

 

There is always some way of playing that would be killed by a change. The question is always if the change is necessary and if the game will be better.

[Tete1805]

I've been playing lately for the quest POI's. Just now deciding whether or not to build a horde defense base, or sit out the horde. I do that by bedrock-mining on horde nights or advancing the time. I'm really liking the challenge of POI quests. Lot of work went into making them.

Hope they have a lot more in 18. But I'm a "play it how you want" guy. It cracks me up to see some of the comments suggesting the game should force you into fighting hordes. That's not why I play 7DTD.

BTW, there's a streamer on Twitch who kills all the hordes on open fields with molotovs and a bow. Sometimes, when he's at game stage 500 or so and he's facing maybe 100 radiated on horde night, he'll set up some blade traps to help.

I watched him clear the Shotgun Messiah factory with only the bow and a few molotovs at about game stage 400.

He only plays on nightmare mode. So what if I said you had to play like him? No thanks!

As long as they have mining, I have a choice. If I want to fight hordes, I fight hordes. And if I don't, I don't.

 

Absolutely. I believe the main strength of 7DTD is to offer very different ways of playing the game.

I don't know why but I find MM confusing lately in regards to this, like he'd want to streamline gameplay a bit more.

[ryandotdee]

Apologies if this has been brought up somewhere in the thread, I did not have time to read it all the way through. A thought that I had a while back is switching the dynamic on horde night in terms of what the zombies are attacking. As it stands, throughout the whole game the zombies are attracted by the player as they traverse the world, which makes sense. You get too close to a zombie, and it spots you etc.

 

One thing that has always bugged me a bit about horde night ( reality boundaries aside here ) is that the horde just magically knows where you are and hits you. How about potentially switching this up a bit, from what I understand there is/was/going to be a heat system involved, why not make the horde attack the "hottest" point on the map, regardless of whether a player is there or not?

 

I read a series of books recently called "Arisen" which was pretty good, but one of the concepts in that book was that the masses of zombies were attracted to big things happening, like large structures collapsing for example. Which ties somewhat into the whole Horde attacking base vs horde attacking a player who may or may not be in their base.

 

It could still be gamed, sure, but would introduce a scenario where by if you are playing with the horde enabled, you have to defend your base. You could still scoot off on your bike if you wanted, but when you get back your base would be toast.

[Viktoriusiii]

Idea:

if you die without a bed, you can't respawn.

And you can only place your bed somewhere where zombies can reach it (not burried and stuff)

zombies not only target the player but the bed as well.

[mr.natural]

What about players that can't play 24/24, 7/7 on a server

What about bugs that inactivate beds, LCB's and what have you.

[akram22]

+1

i like the idea of the behemoth end horde reward , but this type of zombies would be super hard for late game ppl , what does control him to show up? . will he show up 1st horde?

 

its a must question too ....... and this is why i dislike the game.. will he have some sort of strategy to fight? some different builds to fight with? some creativity maybe ? or the usual hit and run way for the past 2 years??

 

also i see representing the behemoth needs some work , they will not throw it right in game without other special types of zombies , we need like 10 more special zombies that do special stuff other than puking .

[zombie4hire]

I wonder if a mod that gae xp based on time only would work. Choose how many points you want per day so killing zombies and such is completely xp guilt free, or problem free.

[RipClaw]

I wonder if a mod that gae xp based on time only would work. Choose how many points you want per day so killing zombies and such is completely xp guilt free, or problem free.

 

Roland developed a mod like this. You can find it here:

 

http://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?114413-0XP-RolMod&

[SilverWolf]

I think I'm maybe alone with this thought, but I would rather ditch BM completely and instead have stronger, gruesomer zombies, as well as special types, with increased zombie spawn rate everywhere, with maybe higher detection(not homing ones).

Concept of BM never made sense to me: you encounter zombies everywhere for 6 days and on 7th they decide to pay you a visit as you stole their candy? Dunno..

 

If you're looting on day 7-you would be scared to hell to encounter those gruesomer/stronger/new zombies in closed area, if you're on bike-just seeing bloodthirstier dog running next to you would pump up the adrenaline, and if you're in the base.. Better ditch machinery and lights or they'll knock on your doors..Would be bad if fog falls down and you notice some big silhouette not far from your doorsteps..

 

I know there are limitations in Unity for this scenario, and that whole tower defense is in the description, but one can only hope..

[RestInPieces]

Ok, so let's game it out.......................

........................but the more complicated you make the system

........................

 

You are definitely right about one thing - it must be as simple as possible. A bunch of rules for each situation can only make it way too unintuitive for players to understand and go along with it right away and the more complex it is the more loopholes it may have.

 

But it's no use fretting over the details - the concept is what matters and it's not like we are developing the game. As a programmer you will know the saying "everything is possible in software", so the way to implement something is usually a way none has thought about yet, because pretty much anything (with technical limitations aside) can be done. Even Unity's devs are discovering new ways they can build their framework around, like the somewhat recent ECS & jobs. So the concept is having to defend something - if that something is a block that the player can move around or place anywhere, that alone complicates things too much.

 

As for the logging out, as Vik said it isn't part of the game. None accounts for it in co-op games, not because they are stupid, but because it's meaningless.

 

But I'm a "play it how you want" guy. It cracks me up to see some of the comments suggesting the game should force you into fighting hordes. That's not why I play 7DTD.

 

It cracks me up how there are more than enough options to "play how you want" but some people still like to throw it around as a reason to defend the lack of consequence and synergy.

 

With blood moon comes radioactive rain. There isn't a full story on the radiation, so let's just pretend this is a thing now. It does thunder on BM, so let's just say that this is the reason why. You can survive in it if you really have to, but not for long. This will tend to push you indoors one way or another. You wouldn't want to get stuck in some crappy POI, especially after the 3rd or 4th blood moon. The best survivable solution would be to have a sheltered, heavily defended base.

 

I could get into this. It seems simple enough. The reward here is just surviving, and I could accept that as good enough for me. The rain would have to be more of a drizzle though, otherwise too annoying.

 

Riding on vehicle all night... solved. (even gyrocopter)

No reason to be at base... solved.

MP logoff... unsolved.

Mp logoff is what I care the least about, but it's good to try to complete the package.

So, you work in OzHawkEye's idea of bosses at the end. If nobody is at a base during horde night, just expect to come back to a wrecked base because those bosses had free reign over your structure.

 

So there ya go... pure survival reward.

 

Consider me a fan of this idea.

Not much of a fan of "bosses" or the behemoth though (TFP did consider it but scrapped it, probably wasn't worth the effort).

 

Players who fight the zombies on foot with a club and beer ... unsolved

 

There is always some way of playing that would be killed by a change. The question is always if the change is necessary and if the game will be better.

 

You must have confused the post with an imaginary post saying that "beer and club use is disabled during that event". Seriously the "this playstyle will be killed" trope, used by some people baptizing everything as a playstyle, is one of the reasons gameplay is so abstract right now. I've seen worse things named as unique playstyles though so ok. If you mean "melee", melee will be perfectly viable in a little more confined space - not to mention it will be even more interesting.

 

Absolutely. I believe the main strength of 7DTD is to offer very different ways of playing the game.

I don't know why but I find MM confusing lately in regards to this, like he'd want to streamline gameplay a bit more.

 

Do you know what really confuses people? Let me tell you.

The player being able to play the game in different ways (which is legitimate "playstyle freedom") VS the player being able to skip "parts" of a fragmented game and not play it organically (which is plain bad design and already has damaged the game, as it is evident by many of the complaints).

[meganoth]

How about potentially switching this up a bit, from what I understand there is/was/going to be a heat system involved, why not make the horde attack the "hottest" point on the map, regardless of whether a player is there or not?

 

Two words: Potemkin village

 

Still, not a bad idea. It would just open up a can of new avoidance strategy worms

 

Also, there is the technical problem in 7D2D that places where no player is are not simulated/loaded, which helps keep up performance. If you change that rule either performance could be impacted greatly by many heat sources on the map or players will only get a a few single zombies because all other zombies are where no player is.

 

I think I'm maybe alone with this thought, but I would rather ditch BM completely and instead have stronger, gruesomer zombies, as well as special types, ...

 

Tower defense and horde base building is part of the game and there are probably many players who like that part. Options to turn it off are absolutely ok, but throwing it out? Naah.

 

I proposed special type zombies a few times a year ago and neither TFP nor many "realism++" players were all too keen on this idea. So, you have my support for that part of your idea but it is only slightly more likely than TFP throwing out the horde night.

[RestInPieces]

I proposed special type zombies a few times a year ago and neither TFP nor many "realism++" players were all too keen on this idea. So, you have my support for that part of your idea but it is only slightly more likely than TFP throwing out the horde night.

 

Again, speaking as an immersion/realism crusader, what I wouldn't give for fewer bullet sponges and more impactful/threatening but thematic zombie abilities. >.<

[OzHawkeye]

"realism++"

 

... is a word that almost shouldn't be allowed to be spoken in a game, especially one about Zombies... ;-)

 

My top 1000 list of game priorities reads something like this:

 

1.. Friendly, intuitive UI.

2.. Game play.

3.. Game play.

4.. Game play.

5.. Player freedom.

.....

1000. Realism.

[RestInPieces]

... is a word that almost shouldn't be allowed to be spoken in a game, especially one about Zombies... ;-)

 

How many Gamasutra articles do you want me to link you with devs saying the word realism for their games?

Sorry for being annoying, but we have made this discussion countless times before and realism when used for video games is used to describe the consistency of the game's own universe, not compare the game with our real life world. And thematic consistency is a pretty important thing.

[AtomicUs5000]

Apologies if this has been brought up somewhere in the thread, I did not have time to read it all the way through. A thought that I had a while back is switching the dynamic on horde night in terms of what the zombies are attacking. As it stands, throughout the whole game the zombies are attracted by the player as they traverse the world, which makes sense. You get too close to a zombie, and it spots you etc.

 

One thing that has always bugged me a bit about horde night ( reality boundaries aside here ) is that the horde just magically knows where you are and hits you. How about potentially switching this up a bit, from what I understand there is/was/going to be a heat system involved, why not make the horde attack the "hottest" point on the map, regardless of whether a player is there or not?

 

I read a series of books recently called "Arisen" which was pretty good, but one of the concepts in that book was that the masses of zombies were attracted to big things happening, like large structures collapsing for example. Which ties somewhat into the whole Horde attacking base vs horde attacking a player who may or may not be in their base.

 

It could still be gamed, sure, but would introduce a scenario where by if you are playing with the horde enabled, you have to defend your base. You could still scoot off on your bike if you wanted, but when you get back your base would be toast.

 

This is exactly what I was thinking when I thought about using a landclaim block or some other block. Of course the block could be anything. Perhaps it some kind of communications device that drives the zombies nuts, but that same device calls in an airdrop in the morning after it and you survive the horde.

[AtomicUs5000]

Players who fight the zombies on foot with a club and beer ... unsolved

 

There is always some way of playing that would be killed by a change. The question is always if the change is necessary and if the game will be better.

 

True. I suppose it would have to be a blood rain option. Same thing with trying to be truly nomadic. Better off not opting in such a thing. Or otherwise build yourself a roofed arena off of a base.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

What about players that can't play 24/24, 7/7 on a server

What about bugs that inactivate beds, LCB's and what have you.

 

They should choose a server with less frequent blood moons, or play a team where at least someone will be present. How can anybody plan a game for the people who aren't playing?

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

+1

i like the idea of the behemoth end horde reward , but this type of zombies would be super hard for late game ppl , what does control him to show up? . will he show up 1st horde?

 

its a must question too ....... and this is why i dislike the game.. will he have some sort of strategy to fight? some different builds to fight with? some creativity maybe ? or the usual hit and run way for the past 2 years??

 

also i see representing the behemoth needs some work , they will not throw it right in game without other special types of zombies , we need like 10 more special zombies that do special stuff other than puking .

 

I agree, it's problematic. You need a little more to work worth than just a single behemoth.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

I think I'm maybe alone with this thought, but I would rather ditch BM completely and instead have stronger, gruesomer zombies, as well as special types, with increased zombie spawn rate everywhere, with maybe higher detection(not homing ones).

Concept of BM never made sense to me: you encounter zombies everywhere for 6 days and on 7th they decide to pay you a visit as you stole their candy? Dunno..

 

If you're looting on day 7-you would be scared to hell to encounter those gruesomer/stronger/new zombies in closed area, if you're on bike-just seeing bloodthirstier dog running next to you would pump up the adrenaline, and if you're in the base.. Better ditch machinery and lights or they'll knock on your doors..Would be bad if fog falls down and you notice some big silhouette not far from your doorsteps..

 

I know there are limitations in Unity for this scenario, and that whole tower defense is in the description, but one can only hope..

 

I believe we have this option now.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Consider me a fan of this idea.

Not much of a fan of "bosses" or the behemoth though (TFP did consider it but scrapped it, probably wasn't worth the effort).

The blood rain on its own seems like something reasonable to mod right now. There's not enough for XML-pure mod right now though.

[RipClaw]

True. I suppose it would have to be a blood rain option. Same thing with trying to be truly nomadic. Better off not opting in such a thing. Or otherwise build yourself a roofed arena off of a base.

 

I'm more of a base builder who designs his bases so that the traps kill most zombies.

 

I only gave this example because I know at least one player who plays that way. Everything else is too boring for him. Building a roofed area would certainly not be a bad idea. In A16 he built a large concrete running surface to avoid unevenness.

 

Generally I think that much more should be adjustable in the game to cover as much as possible. Some players I know are already using the new options added in 17.1 and 17.2.

[AtomicUs5000]

I'm more of a base builder who designs his bases so that the traps kill most zombies.

 

I only gave this example because I know at least one player who plays that way. Everything else is too boring for him. Building a roofed area would certainly not be a bad idea. In A16 he built a large concrete running surface to avoid unevenness.

 

Generally I think that much more should be adjustable in the game to cover as much as possible. Some players I know are already using the new options added in 17.1 and 17.2.

 

Yeah, I like to play like that too sometimes. Sometimes you just want to take matters into your own hands. I would probably just make a spot to do it. Then again, this could be expanded into other things... perhaps some special clothes or buff that gives you more time in the blood rain.

[OzHawkeye]

How many Gamasutra articles do you want me to link you with devs saying the word realism for their games?

Sorry for being annoying, but we have made this discussion countless times before and realism when used for video games is used to describe the consistency of the game's own universe, not compare the game with our real life world. And thematic consistency is a pretty important thing.

 

Well, now we're just differing in our terminology then.

 

Thematic consistency as you've defined it, absolutely! I'm all for it. It's why I didn't like the earlier idea of an EMP knocking out vehicles (even the bicycle...lol), but I can get behind the later idea of "radiated rain" (or blood rain now?) making vehicle travel hazardous, if not downright lethal during the BM Horde.

 

I meant realism, literally. I've seen lots of games go awry on some quest for realism, sacrificing game play in the process.

 

So, yes, the game staying consistent within its own established law, would definitely be on my list, and pretty high up that list to. It's just I trigger a little when I hear someone talk about "realism" in a game about a Zombie apocalypse, so if it's not what meganoth meant (in its literal meaning anyway, then we're all golden.

[PurgatoryWolf]

Would be nice if zombie loot bags lasted like 20-30 min, this would help imo