A solution to the "Run away from hordes" problem.

[Roland]

Many players would have to vote for such an option in order for it to be implemented.

 

No.

 

You’ve not been paying attention if you think they develop like that...

 

If Joel decides its fun and worth it, it will go in regardless of what the majority of players want. I see posts all the time saying “Nobody asked for or wanted change A B or C and yet TFP did it”.

 

Yep. That sums it up.

 

TFP has no problem with crowd funding but they absolutely reject crowd developing.

[AtomicUs5000]

I'm going to have to agree.

Never have I heard an online gaming community whine so hard, about something so silly as " Breaks the immersion ". It's just silly. Does not the Giant Compass on your forehead, or that constantly updating satellite map your have, does that not break your immersion? If you want better " immersion " you better mod those out.

 

I wouldn't call this whining. This is a pretty good discussion with some well-thought posts where people are presenting their opinions, criticisms of ideas and rebuttals. You don't get this in many gaming forums. What you do get in other forums are heated arguments, nonsensical or illogical commentary, and the only rebuttals are "stop whining." It doesn't belong here.

This is the General Discussion area. We are generally discussing. Those discussions could be either what we like or what we do not like. Most of the time, threads include a combination of these. There is no purpose of a forum where every post is game praising and nobody expresses ideas, feedback, dislikes, or calls out when someone tries to dismiss such as whining.

[Wigbert]

I wouldn't call this whining. This is a pretty good discussion with some well-thought posts where people are presenting their opinions, criticisms of ideas and rebuttals. You don't get this in many gaming forums. What you do get in other forums are heated arguments, nonsensical or illogical commentary, and the only rebuttals are "stop whining." It doesn't belong here.

This is the General Discussion area. We are generally discussing. Those discussions could be either what we like or what we do not like. Most of the time, threads include a combination of these. There is no purpose of a forum where every post is game praising and nobody expresses ideas, feedback, dislikes, or calls out when someone tries to dismiss such as whining.

 

No I get it.

everybody likes to play differently and that is OK

That is a great thing about 7DTD you can make it easy on yourself or hard on yourself. None of this predefined Rookie/normal/nightmare stuff.

And if people want to discuss optimizing their game playing experience in its immersive qualities. Thats good. Maybe somebody should make an immersion mod. No maps. No compass. No watch. HUD is just the belt. Who knows maybe there is one.

[Scyris]

Its their game, let them avoid the horde if they choose to. Personally I find horde night nothing but a waste of resources as you rarely if ever get any loot worthwhile. You could argue its good exp but so is clearing poi's. Blood Moon horde night the zombies should drop loot more often and have special loot you can only get on a blood moon horde, maybe higher ammo drops and chance of ammo drop.

 

I mean does it hurt you that they wanna avoid the horde any? I'd say no it doesn't.

[AtomicUs5000]

Its their game, let them avoid the horde if they choose to. Personally I find horde night nothing but a waste of resources as you rarely if ever get any loot worthwhile. You could argue its good exp but so is clearing poi's. Blood Moon horde night the zombies should drop loot more often and have special loot you can only get on a blood moon horde, maybe higher ammo drops and chance of ammo drop.

 

I mean does it hurt you that they wanna avoid the horde any? I'd say no it doesn't.

 

Of course it doesn't. Which is why they can turn it off.

I want it on, and when I turn it on, I expect it to be something that impacts my survival and/or my base as it was designed to be. If I pretend that it can't be cheesed, and pretend that it is a valid tower defense mechanic, it just becomes a waste of resources like you said. Therefore, you want to just take the fight elsewhere so that you don't spend resources repairing and replacing your ammo.

 

The XP reward for killing them off is not a good reward. Sure, you get closer to getting perk points, but it skyrockets your gamestage, resulting in the next horde doing more damage and requiring more ammo. A never-ending cycle, that I would enjoy more if it was something that could not be avoided when I have it turned on because then it is seen as a necessary threat that you must face in order to survive. Avoiding it defeats the purpose of why I want it on and it defeats the purpose for which the system was created for.

 

To say this is forcing people to play a certain way is silly. If they want to avoid the horde, they already added the option to turn it off. Because some people want to turn it on, but still avoid it is not a good reason to stop improving the horde nights for the people who want to actually play that kind of game... you know, the one they envisioned when they made BM

[meganoth]

Ah yes, the endless cycle of "why do you want to change how I play?" -> "I don't, this change would be for me".

 

@Scyris, what is the difference between turning off bloodmoon and driving around through bloodmoon for you? Why do you need those 6 hours of driving around instead of just ticking an option (or on MP servers logging off for that time) ?

[Roland]

What’s funny is that when the same debate was happening about digging zombies the people against it said that if there was just an option to turn digging zombies on/off then that would end the debate for them.

 

Guess we can see that ain’t true at all. Even with an on/off switch they still want to fight against changes to things they will just turn off anyway...

[OzHawkeye]

What’s funny is that when the same debate was happening about digging zombies the people against it said that if there was just an option to turn digging zombies on/off then that would end the debate for them.

 

Guess we can see that ain’t true at all. Even with an on/off switch they still want to fight against changes to things they will just turn off anyway...

 

I still think the best way out of it, if indeed the Pimps see it as a problem in need of a solution at all, is, rather than trying to make the Horde unavoidable (outside of turning it off), which will be nigh on impossible, is to incentivise participation in it - through a high quality drop potential from a "Horde boss zombie" of some sort (which really needn't even be a whole new zombie).

 

You are right when you point out that, with an in-game option to simply turn off the Horde, it should be more or less unavoidable if it is configured to spawn, but making it more or less unavoidable, could tie the Pimps in knots given all the outs the player has.

 

One would hope though, that if the whole "Digging zombies" debate is confronted with a similar in-game menu option for disabling it, then the debate ought to stop. I think (at least in part) this debate continues because some of the methods suggested for making the Horde unavoidable, would have secondary effects that might not be to everyone's liking.

[RestInPieces]

I still think the best way out of it, if indeed the Pimps see it as a problem in need of a solution at all, is, rather than trying to make the Horde unavoidable (outside of turning it off), which will be nigh on impossible, is to incentivise participation in it - through a high quality drop potential from a "Horde boss zombie" of some sort (which really needn't even be a whole new zombie).

 

Don't know mate... doesn't seem rational to me at all. First of all any sense of urgency will be about getting that loot/reward instead of actually being threatened to lose something. Players will actually look forward to "farming" it.

 

And I think it's safe to say that the horde is the most "threatening/dangerous" event in the game, so if that event rewards you ---> and the point of rewards is "survival" (what else could it be) ---> then all the most threatening event in the game will ultimately do is make it easier to survive.

[meganoth]

I still think the best way out of it, if indeed the Pimps see it as a problem in need of a solution at all, is, rather than trying to make the Horde unavoidable (outside of turning it off), which will be nigh on impossible, is to incentivise participation in it - through a high quality drop potential from a "Horde boss zombie" of some sort (which really needn't even be a whole new zombie).

 

A rational player will make this calculation:

 

Horde night costs: Horde base to build, upgrade and repair 1 day a week + 8 hours horde night with preparation, material 2000 concrete, 2000 iron (just blind guesses). Ammunition: 500 bullets 9mm equivalent (per person).

 

POI scavenge costs: 150 bullets 9mm equivalent (?)

 

Now the high quality drop at the end has to be that much more valuable to compete against the 2-3 high quality drops you get inside a typical POI with a fraction of the costs. Nothing less than a GUARANTEED legendary weapon would even come close. The problem is that having a fast and early path to legendary weapons would immediately devalue normal weapons of any quality.

[RestInPieces]

would immediately devalue

 

Definitely, but no matter the reward, anything will automatically be devalued, since the player will catch on he is being rewarded only for the sake of being rewarded - towards no end. That's why I think that a rewarding BM is a terrible idea. Might be even worse than zip-lines.

 

And as you say, even if that wasn't the case, you would have to reward the player with something that surpasses the costs of BM zombie wave farming (because that's how we will start calling it) and something that will last and neither become obsolete after a few blood moons, nor make other items obsolete.

[RipClaw]

What’s funny is that when the same debate was happening about digging zombies the people against it said that if there was just an option to turn digging zombies on/off then that would end the debate for them.

 

Guess we can see that ain’t true at all. Even with an on/off switch they still want to fight against changes to things they will just turn off anyway...

 

Things are a little different here than with the digging zombies. With digging zombies, it's about being completely safe in an underground base or mine at all times when digging zombies are disabled. This is independent of the horde night.

 

This discussion is about making it difficult or even impossible to survive outside the base for a specific period of time. This affects not only the possibility of avoiding the horde but also other possibilities.

 

For example, you could retreat to a replacement base or a fallback position if the first line of defense is overrun by zombies.

 

Another scenario is open constructions without a roof. Some of the measures discussed to prevent a player from fleeing from the horde suggest creating a hostile environment outside the base. But if I'm standing on the roof of my base and fighting the horde from there, then I'm outside my base. This is also often the case on day 7 and day 14 when using a POI as a horde base. Hardly any player invests time and resources to build a roof to protect himself from vultures in these first two weeks.

 

Another, and probably rare, scenario is that a player is fighting the Horde on the street on foot. I know of at least 2 players who basically do this because everything else is too boring for them. So they don't have a base to defend. That might be the exception, but I wanted to mention it.

 

Some measures that have been proposed also change the behavior of the zombies and it also affects those who fight the horde in the base, e.g. increasing the speed of the zombies. Players who fight the zombies by hand with weapons and don't use traps would be as affected as players who want to avoid the Horde.

 

Some of the measures that have been suggested, however, also would change the behaviour of the zombies and it would also affect those who fight the horde in the base. In this thread it was suggested to increase the speed of the zombies. Players who fight the zombies by hand with weapons and don't use traps would be affected as well as players who want to avoid the horde. But certain traps would also be affected. The turrets, for example, might not be able to hit such fast zombies anymore or would only fire 1-2 rounds before the zombie has crossed the target area.

[Dimpy]

Things are a little different here than with the digging zombies. With digging zombies, it's about being completely safe in an underground base or mine at all times when digging zombies are disabled. This is independent of the horde night.

 

This discussion is about making it difficult or even impossible to survive outside the base for a specific period of time. This affects not only the possibility of avoiding the horde but also other possibilities.

 

For example, you could retreat to a replacement base or a fallback position if the first line of defense is overrun by zombies.

 

Another scenario is open constructions without a roof. Some of the measures discussed to prevent a player from fleeing from the horde suggest creating a hostile environment outside the base. But if I'm standing on the roof of my base and fighting the horde from there, then I'm outside my base. This is also often the case on day 7 and day 14 when using a POI as a horde base. Hardly any player invests time and resources to build a roof to protect himself from vultures in these first two weeks.

 

Another, and probably rare, scenario is that a player is fighting the Horde on the street on foot. I know of at least 2 players who basically do this because everything else is too boring for them. So they don't have a base to defend. That might be the exception, but I wanted to mention it.

 

Some measures that have been proposed also change the behavior of the zombies and it also affects those who fight the horde in the base, e.g. increasing the speed of the zombies. Players who fight the zombies by hand with weapons and don't use traps would be as affected as players who want to avoid the Horde.

 

Some of the measures that have been suggested, however, also would change the behaviour of the zombies and it would also affect those who fight the horde in the base. In this thread it was suggested to increase the speed of the zombies. Players who fight the zombies by hand with weapons and don't use traps would be affected as well as players who want to avoid the horde. But certain traps would also be affected. The turrets, for example, might not be able to hit such fast zombies anymore or would only fire 1-2 rounds before the zombie has crossed the target area.

 

This is why I feel like it's best to increase zombie speed only in the darkness. If a player wants to fight zombies in the street, they can plunk a few torches down and do so. Will it be more challenging fighting in a semi-confined space? Sure, but I don't think that kind of person minds a little extra challenge. Want to have a fallback base? Light up a path to it. Zombies too fast for the turrets? Cover the surrounding area with spotlights .

 

Anyway just because other players would be affected doesn't mean it's going to be a bad effect. Whether or not it's bad has to be analyzed on a case by case basis.

[RestInPieces]

My playstyle is running around in the BMs butt-naked and poking zombies with a toothpick. What? Why don't I use the tools the game gives me? That's total nonsense, are you trying to enforce your playstyle on to me?! The game should cater to my playstyle and make combat toothpick-naked-friendly by removing those pesky weather conditions and making zombies slow enough so that I can poke them and run with ease!

 

That's why aliens don't visit us...

[RipClaw]

This is why I feel like it's best to increase zombie speed only in the darkness. If a player wants to fight zombies in the street, they can plunk a few torches down and do so. Will it be more challenging fighting in a semi-confined space? Sure, but I don't think that kind of person minds a little extra challenge. Want to have a fallback base? Light up a path to it. Zombies too fast for the turrets? Cover the surrounding area with spotlights.

 

These are all interesting suggestions for countermeasures with your idea.

 

There was a time when zombies were generally faster in the dark than in the light in this game. This was later replaced by changing the speed based on the time of day.

 

The question that comes to my mind is what was the reason for this at that time. Maybe Roland could shed some light on that. Was there a technical reason why they changed it ?

 

Anyway just because other players would be affected doesn't mean it's going to be a bad effect. Whether or not it's bad has to be analyzed on a case by case basis.

 

I simply see a problem in the aspect under which this discussion started. If you had suggested that changes in zombie behavior should be made to make the horde night more interesting, varied, or challenging, the discussion would have taken a different course. Instead, the discussion was started with the goal of preventing the player from running away. And all suggestions are only aimed at this one goal.

 

If everyone would focus on improving the horde night, maybe suggestions would come that have as a side effect that players can no longer avoid the horde so easily. But that wouldn't be seen critically to the same extent because you want to achieve something good for the game instead of something bad for some players.

[Dimpy]

I don't think I've read anybody saying that preventing players from running away is their number one priority. Make it more challenging and interesting, sure. Make it less overpowered compared to other methods of survival, yeah.

[OzHawkeye]

A rational player will make this calculation:

 

Horde night costs: Horde base to build, upgrade and repair 1 day a week + 8 hours horde night with preparation, material 2000 concrete, 2000 iron (just blind guesses). Ammunition: 500 bullets 9mm equivalent (per person).

 

POI scavenge costs: 150 bullets 9mm equivalent (?)

 

Now the high quality drop at the end has to be that much more valuable to compete against the 2-3 high quality drops you get inside a typical POI with a fraction of the costs. Nothing less than a GUARANTEED legendary weapon would even come close. The problem is that having a fast and early path to legendary weapons would immediately devalue normal weapons of any quality.

 

Your argument, and to a lesser extent RestInPieces, is highlighting a flaw in the current game, namely the copious availability of loot, as I see it anyway. In my mind, it's not so much an issue with the BM Horde, as with loot availability. I still don't think I should be able to get a sniper rifle say (of any quality) early on in the game, and the fact that I currently can (let's see how A18 plays though), is an issue. It's just one that also happens to make incentivising BM horde participation harder to do.

 

I definitely don't think that the BM horde should have a chance at dropping exclusive loot (since that would make the BM horde more or less mandatory again), but I think if high value loot weren't so easily obtained, then offering a chance of it up in the BM horde would work.

[AtomicUs5000]

Trying to get back on topic with running, and particularly on running during horde night...

I think they made a mistake with this in the settings.

 

Setting aside that nightmare speed is broken, the horde night speed should always be a step up from your speed settings. By toggling horde night on, you opt into this.

 

If I turn the hordes on, and my zombies normally walk at night, then horde night should make them run. Settings to have them walk on horde night are only reasonable if this was the kind of game that can generate a thousand slow zombies that can overcome you simply by their numbers and coming at you from all directions. On higher difficulty, if I have horde night on, then that horde should be the fastest possible.

 

The same should apply to zombie block damage. If I give them a low damage, but I turn horde nights on, then on horde night it should automatically be a step up.

 

In general, the normal default difficulty should equate to zombies can catch up to you. By default, if I have horde night on, zombies should catch up to you even faster. That should be the base game. If it's too hard, then people can turn down the difficulty. For the crazies, we can boost it even higher.

[meganoth]

If everyone would focus on improving the horde night, maybe suggestions would come that have as a side effect that players can no longer avoid the horde so easily. But that wouldn't be seen critically to the same extent because you want to achieve something good for the game instead of something bad for some players.

 

I don't get this logic: Assume there was an overpowered gun in the game. Would I have to make positive suggestions which as a side effect nerf the gun instead of simply suggesting to nerf the gun?

 

Driving around on a bike on horde night IS overpowered, it completely removes risk, has nearly zero costs, without any skill or effort needed and no downside. Balancing the game means nerfing bikes on horde night, in other words changing any of those parameters.

 

It could happen that a better horde night also makes the bike problem disappear, or the solution would be completely independent: I can give an example for both:

 

1) Add zombie moles to the game that break out of the ground in front of bikes and cars and are able to topple any bike or car.

 

2) Add EMP zombies to the game who will stop any electric device, including blade traps in the horde base and any of the motorized vehicles. The bicycle needs to be slower than the fastest zombies in this case.

[AtomicUs5000]

Driving around on a bike on horde night IS overpowered, it completely removes risk, has nearly zero costs, without any skill or effort needed and no downside.

 

This right here. This is a big problem.

 

Saying "if you don't like it, don't ride a bike" is so weak and lazy. It takes the game out of the game. It's like playing rock, paper, scissors, but you add a new item "cheese" and if you use "cheese" you win no matter what. Who would play that game? And if you did, you would be pretty stupid not to use "cheese".

 

Saying "don't force us to stop riding bikes" is weak as well. You have no desire to play an actual horde night, so turn them off and leave us who want to play the horde night as intended alone.

[Dimpy]

Trying to get back on topic with running, and particularly on running during horde night...

I think they made a mistake with this in the settings.

 

Setting aside that nightmare speed is broken, the horde night speed should always be a step up from your speed settings. By toggling horde night on, you opt into this.

 

If I turn the hordes on, and my zombies normally walk at night, then horde night should make them run. Settings to have them walk on horde night are only reasonable if this was the kind of game that can generate a thousand slow zombies that can overcome you simply by their numbers and coming at you from all directions. On higher difficulty, if I have horde night on, then that horde should be the fastest possible.

 

The same should apply to zombie block damage. If I give them a low damage, but I turn horde nights on, then on horde night it should automatically be a step up.

 

In general, the normal default difficulty should equate to zombies can catch up to you. By default, if I have horde night on, zombies should catch up to you even faster. That should be the base game. If it's too hard, then people can turn down the difficulty. For the crazies, we can boost it even higher.

 

I have trouble seeing how restricting choices here actually helps anything.

[AtomicUs5000]

I have trouble seeing how restricting choices here actually helps anything.

 

It really wouldn't do much. The only purpose in my eyes is making it obvious that the horde night is a feature that should be adding difficulty to the game. This was lost the moment they provided the off switch. It should just be on or off without messing with the speeds. The speed would be determined from your other settings plus some. I'm all for freedom in the settings, but I think they lost something here and took it too far. Now, we can't even make suggestions that would make horde nights a challenge because everyone has it in their minds that they should be this easy.

[OzHawkeye]

This right here. This is a big problem.

 

Saying "if you don't like it, don't ride a bike" is so weak and lazy. It takes the game out of the game. It's like playing rock, paper, scissors, but you add a new item "cheese" and if you use "cheese" you win no matter what. Who would play that game? And if you did, you would be pretty stupid not to use "cheese".

 

Saying "don't force us to stop riding bikes" is weak as well. You have no desire to play an actual horde night, so turn them off and leave us who want to play the horde night as intended alone.

 

I don't have a problem with the idea that now that Hordes can be turned off in the in-game menu options, that when on, they ought to be pretty darned hard to avoid. The issue is how you do that without crimping other game mechanics.

 

So yes, in a perfect world, if the BM Horde is enabled, it should be nearly impossible to avoid - but how to do it, without putting in some other equally contrived mechanic - and how to do it for both single player and multi player servers?

[AtomicUs5000]

but how to do it, without putting in some other equally contrived mechanic - and how to do it for both single player and multi player servers?

 

if (is_bm_active) {

// insert bm mechanics here

} else {

// insert regular mechanics here

}

 

Lol, I know that's not as literal as you meant.

Ideas. Ideas without people busting in with the two lame excuses I presented would be a good start.

[OzHawkeye]

if (is_bm_active) {

// insert bm mechanics here

} else {

// insert regular mechanics here

}

 

Lol, I know that's not as literal as you meant.

Ideas. Ideas without people busting in with the two lame excuses I presented would be a good start.

 

And I wish I had a good idea to submit here and indeed to the Pimps. The issue is especially bedeviled for MP, since the player can just logout to avoid the Horde, so even "somehow!" disabling vehicles wouldn't stop this for MP.

 

I suspect the least bad way, and that's the best I can refer to it as, would be to disable vehicles during BM nights, but it's a very poor "fix" indeed, given its limitations. Perhaps that's all the Pimps can do.