Make blood moons worth it, please

[HungryZombie]

With over 500 hours I can understand the perspective of wanting something to make blood moons more exciting. However this perspective might be its own problem. After 100s of hours anything will become boring.

[myrkana]

I find it fun to test new base designs during horde night. Also at lower levels its a great source of a few quick levels and some random loot, I've gotten some pretty lucky finds from the horde night loot bags

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

With over 500 hours I can understand the perspective of wanting something to make blood moons more exciting. However this perspective might be its own problem. After 100s of hours anything will become boring.

 

I agree with this we're having to changer our settings a little bit to keep it fresh because we've gotten good at playing this game after playing ti for 3(4?) alphas now xD

[SickPuppy]

Currently Blood Moons serve no purpose other than ammo sinks. Sure, you gain a bunch of exp doing them, but this is more than offset by the fact that you spend a ton of ammo doing them, and end up having to repair your base afterwards as well. This is especially true once you start getting Demolishers.

 

One idea would be to make blood moon zombies drop "blood tokens" or some such BM-exclusive item, which you could then use as currency at traders for various benefits (temporary or permanent). For example, a trader might provide a temporary stacking general discount for each blood token, or give you a special quest ("looks like you killed a ton of zombies during the last blood moon, you clearly have what it takes for this advanced quest i have in mind..."), or sell you certain rare and powerful items (Tier 7, anyone?) that can only be purchased using tokens.

 

Essentially, there needs to be something that strongly encourages players to want to focus on killing as many zombies as possible during blood moons, as opposed to cheesing them (e.g. riding a vehicle around in circles) or skipping them altogether (sitting on a rooftop, or logging out in MP games).

 

Being an open ended game, like others have said it's upto u to design challenges for yourself, atm I'm rewarded by thinking of different base designs or using least resources fixing pois, etc. I don't really understand the log off server on BM mentality, it's basically missing the whole point of the game but each their own.

 

When you reach that level of the game with Q6's filling chests, more loot and rewards doesn't seem that interesting. Collecting Blood tokens for higher tier quests might stop ppl logging off. But T5 pois are already massive, maybe linked quests within a time frame? Trader "Wow all these blood tokens and no deaths - I have a job for u", wants 10 items from 3 different buildings within a time frame.

 

Statistics is interesting for me, I guess for MP having a leaderboard might give longevity to taking on BM, longest BMs survived + most BM kills. Maybe have tables for different weapons used. It might give a long term goal for ppl to better their own scores or try get up the board. Ppl already play on low loot %, more loot / rewards won't really get my juices going.

[Marinxar]

Sounds like you got the server set way too easy, and now you are bored.

[SenpaiThatIngnoresYou]

I have been playing with the settings, and the most recent one is 30 day blood moon. while it does match the proper moon cycle of 29.5 days, it also sucks a LOT of the joy from the game. I had a catastrophic base collapse on my horde base, and instead of being screwed i had plenty of time to rebuild it.

 

You NEED the suspense of blood moon. It adds that horror element to the game.

 

What would help blood moon, and mess with the AI exploiters and force base designs, is random weather effects:

 

MOTHS: Moths will make all lights worthless during blood moon. Any light will be surrounded by a cloud of insects.

 

Cold rain: it's gonna be extra cold. If in snow biome make it a blizzard.

 

Acid rain: better hope you parked your car, extra vehicle degradation if out in the rain. Armor degrades faster.

 

Sparks: why the hell is it raining sparks? why? WHY!!!!? chance to catch fire in the rain.

 

Blood rain: grosss, and everything is sticky: reload speed is slower in rain.

 

things like this.

[Aldranon]

Just another another day of Zombie Apocalypse Survival!

 

The BM hordes, for me, are just another survival challenge. Can I make enough ammo each week to fight off the horde? Or do I let my fortress take the damage and hope she hold up so I then have enough ammo to hit a few extra POI's for loot?

 

Most of my forts/fortresses are now "Brute Strength" as every gimmicky design breaks the immersion for me.

 

 

Edit:

As the BM night wears on and my fortress is taking a beating, I'm like this before I have to engage them.

[leaderdog]

I loved blood moons before a17 and a18. The anticipation was amazing, the thrill to see if your base design was going to work, and when I got better in a16 it was a melee contest with catwalks to protect myself if I got in to much trouble. It was awesome!

 

Then a17, melee was GARBAGE, so melee fighting on blood moon was out. The very first blood moon when I was fleeing for my life, I realized the zombies would go to the path of least resistance. Well, that changed things. Then after building a base to combat them, it became apparent they ALL attack the same block to get into the base.

 

Well there you lost me. Where's the fun in that? Now what is base building, how can I:

a) exploit the behaviour,

b) create some lame maze to run them through to survive the night

 

Well I chose exploit because the lame mazes got boring after a few of them. I'd make Massive grand scale concrete forts that span down to bedrock so that I could go back to blood moon melee (course needed khaine's mod to do that because melee and stamina in a17 vanilla was well.. garbage) But that takes sooo long and in a18 takes even longer in vanilla.

 

A18, same thing just crappier melee combat. so what do you want from the game? The fun was removed how am I suppose to enjoy it?

1) fix melee

2) give each zombie their own ai so they don't do exactly the same thing.

3) no more hitting one damn block to flood into the base. That's no fun.

4) agree with hotpoon #makezombiesgreatagain

 

I used to love blood moon night. now it's just a boring night of pick them off. Or as some say, make it a challenge and let them beat down one or two blocks to stream into your base. How fun!

[Laz Man]

Could it be that it is fun to try out a base design and see if you survive?

 

It's also one of the driving forces to prepare for. The sense of urgency that it instills is a huge part of what the game is about...however....I can see how adding an incentive would be nice, especially for MP servers.

 

Maybe when factions come in, rep. Could be awarded for successful defense. However that is defined, (e.g. no deaths, # of zeds killed).

 

Related quest lines would be nice too.

[Jarod_Silverstar]

I think the main two things that can be done to improve the bloodmoons are with loot drops and zombie AI.

 

The loot drops for BM ought to be increased some, maybe with a better chance for rare loot. If you spend the night killing a couple hundred zombies and only end up with a half a dozen bags on the ground mostly containing junk, you feel a little put out. Having a better chance to get schematics or higher quality tools or weapons from BM zombies I think would help make it feel a little more worth the effort.

 

I also agree with others that the zombie AI needs further improvements. Right now, pretty much the default for all zombies is to find a path to the player and follow it, or if no path exists, go into area destruct mode. More of the zombies need to start off with the area destroy mode to make the player have to deal with them to keep the base intact longer. Also, I would like to see things like the cops and spitting vultures spend more time at a distance, throwing spit and causing random damage.

 

I also think that the zombies like the wights, cops and demolishers need to have have a extra low level version that shows up in BM hordes much earlier on so players have more variety to deal with in early game.

[mr.natural]

Not many players can actually roleplay properly and play the game as a game to finish as soon as possible with the highest 'score'.

[RipClaw]

I also agree with others that the zombie AI needs further improvements. Right now, pretty much the default for all zombies is to find a path to the player and follow it, or if no path exists, go into area destruct mode. More of the zombies need to start off with the area destroy mode to make the player have to deal with them to keep the base intact longer. Also, I would like to see things like the cops and spitting vultures spend more time at a distance, throwing spit and causing random damage.

 

The zombie's job is to kill the player. Not tearing down the base.

 

In addition, zombies that just hit walls without any purpose would make most traps useless. Traps are stationary. They can't move. So the zombies have to come to them.

 

All in all this would only promote the bases where the player just runs around all the time, shoots at zombies and throws grenades or molotow cocktails. You don't need a base anymore but just stand on the roof of a POI.

[AtomicUs5000]

Idea for game or mod. Kinda like a gamble. Helps with people logging out on servers when horde night comes around.

 

You purchase a special block from the trader used for a special quest. You choose the tier. The higher the tier, the more the cost, the more it will require (explained below), and the better the reward.

 

You place the block wherever you want. During blood moons, if you stay within a certain radius of the placed block, all BM zombie kills within the radius fills the block with BM xp. If you die, it resets. Doesn’t matter if if has been placed or not, if it is BM or not. Player death always resets this block.

 

The block can be picked up and moved. It will retain its xp but will only gain xp if placed.

 

The block can be brought back to the trader for quest reward if it is full to 100% BM xp. If not 100%, trader will not accept it.

 

The block can be destroyed. If it is, then you will need to purchase another one.

 

Now if you want this to be less abstract, the block could for example be some kind of scientific device used to collect data about the zombies during the blood moon.

[Batnar]

Its pretty clear to me that you find way too much ammo in the game right now for your daily needs but at the same time the bloodmoon hordes are huge bullet sink. The problem is that you actually dont find enough bullets in 7 days do deal with the horde when it does comes but all the other days you are flooded. very simple solution: lower ammo drops everywhere and just make bloodmoon zombies drop more loot bags with ammo.

 

Having to go mine/scavenge for ammo just feels more like a job than a video game when you know the horde is coming. Also the game tries to make you think that you want to save your ammo for the horde night and to be careful about ammo usage while scavenging POIs, but the reality is that you clear POI faster with guns and you also loot alot of ammo in POIs. The 40 bullet you would have saved if you used a bow or melee instead will be meaningless when the bloodmoon require a thousand bullet and you could have gotten more bullets if you used your guns and looted two POI instead. If the bloodmoon horde spawned ammo, then at least youd have an incentive to be efficient with ammo on horde night, because right now you cant really be ammo efficient in POIs anyways (better to use 30 bullets to get 60 bullet twice instead of using your bow/melee and getting 60 bullet and only clearing one POI during that time).

 

the ammo and bloodmoon system looks really broken and illogical to me right now

[RipClaw]

the ammo and bloodmoon system looks really broken and illogical to me right now

 

That's because you think that the only way for dealing with the horde is to shoot at the zombies. Build a base that uses strategy and traps and you hardly need ammo. Or you use grenades or pipe bombs. Neither of them requires brass.

 

This is for example a base designs that relies on grenades and pipe bombs:

 

 

It requires a lot of steel to build but iron is easy to come by.

 

My favorite trap is the dart trap. You only need iron and clay to make the ammunition. It has some disadvantages but can be very effective if used properly.

 

If you want to use the horde to level then the grenades are probably the better option. The traps only give you a maximum of 50% of the XP but I don't care about the XP. Therefore I prefer this variant.

[Blackrook]

At later levels BM gets boring what ever loot drops but a bit more ammo would be helpful.

I think it needs more variety, somebody said different weather effects which sounded a different approach.

But mainly more types of z's and in greater numbers.

At the moment, there isn't enough threat after about lvl 20, and staying high up in most buildings will keep you safe.

Detonators do a lot of damage even if you get 10 of them in a night, it only makes a mess and seldom takes a substantial building down.

We need some zombies that can climb again, or let any zombie be able to climb up each eg treat each other like ladders.

[archergod]

Although most have already mention this, but I want to do my +1 for

 

1. This is a Survival game

2. There is no reward of surviving.

3. You play 7 days to get reward by surviving blood moon. Blood moon is expected to be toughest challenge of surviving.

[AtomicUs5000]

I love the concept of survival being its own reward. Every time this thread comes up, the same arguments about it come up too. However, the reward of taking risks in this game outweighs any survival aspects of this game by ten fold or more. Put simply, this is in fact a reward-driven game and there is no question about it.

 

Every zombie kill, every tree fallen, every block smashed or upgraded, rewards you with experience which equates to skill points to improve your character.

 

Every POI we loot, we are looking for the reward of the best gear in the game. We might be doing it for food and basic supplies just to survive... for like 2 days. After that, all about reward. In fact, let’s see someone do a tier 5 POI daily for the sake of survival... not happening.

 

Every challenge we read we do it for the reward. You can’t tell me it’s just for the challenge. They aren’t a challenge.

 

Every treasure map we read is for the reward. That’s just a given.

 

Every trader quest we accept is for the reward. Sure, the first few help you survive, stock up on food, and medicine. Explain the next 4 tiers. There are even perks to purchase, using your rewarded experience, that increase the number of rewards to choose from and make better use of your hard earned (rewarded) dukes.

 

I’m sorry but the noble fight to try to make this game all about survival was lost a long time ago. This makes a non-rewarding BM stick out like a sore thumb.

[beHypE]

Its pretty clear to me that you find way too much ammo in the game right now for your daily needs but at the same time the bloodmoon hordes are huge bullet sink. The problem is that you actually dont find enough bullets in 7 days do deal with the horde when it does comes but all the other days you are flooded. very simple solution: lower ammo drops everywhere and just make bloodmoon zombies drop more loot bags with ammo.

 

Having to go mine/scavenge for ammo just feels more like a job than a video game when you know the horde is coming. Also the game tries to make you think that you want to save your ammo for the horde night and to be careful about ammo usage while scavenging POIs, but the reality is that you clear POI faster with guns and you also loot alot of ammo in POIs. The 40 bullet you would have saved if you used a bow or melee instead will be meaningless when the bloodmoon require a thousand bullet and you could have gotten more bullets if you used your guns and looted two POI instead. If the bloodmoon horde spawned ammo, then at least youd have an incentive to be efficient with ammo on horde night, because right now you cant really be ammo efficient in POIs anyways (better to use 30 bullets to get 60 bullet twice instead of using your bow/melee and getting 60 bullet and only clearing one POI during that time).

 

the ammo and bloodmoon system looks really broken and illogical to me right now

 

I kinda agree with this. I try not to use firearms for clearing POIs right now (still fairly early/mid game), because.... it's more tense and fun in a way to melee. I'd probably get bored super fast of doing POIs if I just shot my M60 at everything that moves an inch. But indeed, from a pure efficiency point of view, i'm probably far behind someone playing a more run & gun playstyle. Like you said, the ~50 ammo I save per POI would be more than easily compensated by mining a bit longer with all the spare time I'd have. Alas I don't see any solution for this but a complete rebalancing, by reducing how many zombies spawn on horde nights and making bullet crafting way costlier to compensate.

 

In the end the best way to play this game is not to look after efficiency too much. I'm so used to competitive shooters that I look for every edge I can get and it's very often detrimental to the fun I get out of more casual games.

 

 

As far as making BM's more appealing, I guess upping the number of loot bags and/or increasing the quality of loot in bags could help a bit. I very much like the idea of AtomicUs5000, filling some kind of station with blood moon kills and getting a pretty good reward from the trader could be amazing.

[Limdood]

It’s sad that a lot of players don’t like challenges to overcome anymore. I play dead is dead and my reward for surviving blood moon is not having to start over.

 

It’s always about loot anymore, constant carrot on a stick, Positive reinforcement, u know.

 

It's actually the opposite.

 

People aren't complaining that they want a reward for everything.

 

People are complaining about the design behind the blood moon. TFP have pushed for the blood moon being SOLELY an "obstacle" - something to be overcome. The zombie loot change was specifically done because the devs didn't want "loot delivered to the player's doorstep." They wanted the reward for the blood moon gone.

 

And there was complaints, but eventually it settled into "OK, fine. If the blood moon is JUST an "obstacle to be overcome, then we'll bend our gamer thinking to the task of overcoming it." And they did. Gamers beat the algorithms behind the blood moon in minutes flat. They figured out bases that were immune to damage, bases that zombies never swing at, they drove around on vehicles, waited on roofs. They successfully overcame the obstacle wonderfully.

 

Except they LIKED the old tradeoff. Fight the horde -> get the loot. Skip the horde -> no loot and you've used up that gaming time. It made sense...it was a meaningful choice in the game. Now they're listening to the devs saying "play like this. Do it because we said so." And the player response is "well, why? you've made that aspect of the game unappealing, avoidable, and unrewarding. It's a cool game aspect, but you've removed the point in partaking in it"

 

And for some reason, the forum community constantly thinks that players who say this are just whining for a reward, and that the blood moon should be it's own reward.

 

I play "life." It's a good game, I have no plans on giving it up any time soon. I'm not too thrilled about the "work" aspect of the game. Luckily, the devs of "life" have implemented some fairly good incentives to the "work" aspect of this game and made it worthwhile for most people to participate in. I imagine that if the incentive for "work" was removed, most people would probably stop participating in that aspect of the game. Not you though! You think the challenge is enough! You should let your bosses know they don't need to/never will need to pay you for work ever again. The experience and sense of duty you get out of it should be enough for anyone.

 

In short, if you implement an aspect of a game whose cost is higher than it's reward, and make that aspect avoidable, then people will avoid it.

[Liesel Weppen]

It’s sad that a lot of players don’t like challenges to overcome anymore. I play dead is dead and my reward for surviving blood moon is not having to start over.

 

I'm ambivalent about Blood Moons. If i'd deactivate them, there would be no challenge anymore. Nothing what you are working towards. On the other hand i'd find them anoying. If you want to build or take some loot expeditions, you're always interrupted by those damn BMs.

My co-players have very different thinkings about this. While one would prefer only blood moons, other hate them, and the third ones are like me something like "i don't like it, but somehow i need it anyway". That's why we can't simply make BMs happen less frequently.

Atm we agreed on the setting, that BM happens earliest after 7 days and then within 3 days for sure. We also turned of the red day number in the UI, so we don't know which day exactly a BM may occur, until we hear the thunder and see the red sunset.

For me personally that made it a lot more exciting.

 

I don't play any games with permadeath. Especially not games that take a long time to level up and build stuff. But i started with A15 and already mentioned there that "free" deaths are also anyoing. So the death penalty in A18 is a great change i waited for since i play 7dtd. I'd even prefer a harder penalty, maybe loosing one level and therfore also one random stat? But i don't want loose a whole game just because i made a single wrong step once. It's still just a game, not real-life.

 

I'd appreciate anything that makes bloodmoon more interesting/varying. But i don't have any satisfying idee how to achieve that and i'm also happy with. Just make BMs give you loot is boring. Just make Zs stronger is also boring.

The BM-Lovers of my co-players will also dislike it, but make softer Bloodmoons happen, so that the gamestage only says what max difficulty a BM could be, but it may turn out even -30% or so. Would at least add some variance.

[Liesel Weppen]

And there was complaints, but eventually it settled into "OK, fine. If the blood moon is JUST an "obstacle to be overcome, then we'll bend our gamer thinking to the task of overcoming it." And they did. Gamers beat the algorithms behind the blood moon in minutes flat.

 

Except they LIKED the old tradeoff. Fight the horde -> get the loot. Skip the horde -> no loot and you've used up that gaming time.

Exactly that.

We try to balance the game ourself, e.g. we don't build an AI-tricking base which makes a bloodmoon ignorable, even if we know how we could make it. There should be some challange anyway, something the player has to play, not just sit around and wait until your trick-base has taken out all Zombies.

Some of us like the bloodmoons and play them like a round of "killing floor 2", they'd even accept cheating in ammunition just for being able to play a bloodmoon every second day.

Others like looting POIs (which became better and better), building stuff, running trader quests, ... some of them would even perfer skipping the BMs.

I tend to be one of the second group, but turning of the BMs would make the whole game something pointless.

[RipClaw]

What made the horde worthwhile for me was not the loot. It was that I saw in the end that I had accomplished something.

 

The zombies are like ghosts now. After a short time their corpses disappear and you can't see how many they were. In A16 I had a huge base and the ground was almost completely covered with the corpses of the zombies. This is a completely different feeling than when you just see the damage to the base after the horde but not what caused the damage.