Super vultures and their place in the game / Other solutions

[User]

Super vultures have always felt archaic to me. They feel like a heavyhanded way of discouraging players to use vehicles on horde night.

To my knowledge, there is nothing in the way of information on these guys in the game. There is no warning, no tells. A new player could get a vehicle and think about using it to evade the zombies for a time, or just get away from a bad situation, and suddenly they're swarmed by vultures that move faster than their vehicle, and quickly overwhelm them with status effects. I don't believe there is a journal entry nor a ingame explanation for these guys.

 

This sudden attack feels unfair to new players from what I've seen, and to me, too. They immediately attack you moments after getting into a vehicle, and can cause satus effects through the vehicle. It just tells you "Yeah no, you can't do this, go defend a poi or something". Veteran players just kind of know that you cant interact with your vehicles during a horde at all. I think most people are just used to this, so they don't even try using vehicles during horde nights.

 

However, there is nothing wrong with the idea of using vehicles as a temporary getaway, or transporation, or even to kill a few zombies. I'll share a overhaul I came up with that might alleviate this problem somewhat. This is just an idea, though.

 

Allow players to use vehicles without any restrictions, and remove super vultures, but cause gas to drain significantly faster during horde night, promoting using them scarcely as an escape tool. A full tank might last around a minute or two. This could be coupled with a time to refuel. Make it so that it takes a few seconds to refuel, (depending on how empty the tank is) to add some risk. This could even be modified with grease monkey. I think this would be the best balance between fun and gameplay balance. This could be explained away as something to do with the blood moon affecting vehicles. You can even mention it in a journal entry for visibility, and add some text that appears when a player enters a vehicle during a horde, informing them that something is wrong with their vehicle. The high gas cost would also add a resource cost to it, making it something you cannot do consistently without significant preparation.

 

You could even make zombies target vehicles more. As it stands, they don't seem to go out of their way to destroy lone vehicles, going straight for the player. Make it so that players have to invest in a protected place for their vehicles, or the zombies would quickly swarm and destroy them if nearby/unprotected. If a player opts to not use vehicles, they'd have to keep them a distance away during horde nights. This would add a barrier of entry to this strategy, and could also cause tense moments where the player has to use limited fuel to save their vehicle from being destroyed, or somehow get in while the zombies are attacking it to escape a dire situation.

 

I think this would be hard to implement, but would definitely be a complete overhaul to what we have now, and a lot more fun, in my opinion. It would add gameplay variety to horde nights, which I think would be a major plus.

 

What do you think, is this a terrible idea? It very well could be. I've made a poll asking about if you think super vultures should be reworked into something else or not. Let me know what you think. I didn't make this to bash on the current system, but to explore potential evolutions and changes to make it better.

Edited April 2 by User (see edit history)

[meganoth]

How is that different from a demolisher? A new player will shoot at him and it will suddenly explode, often killing the player the first time. It is up to the player to find out how the demo works, or how the vultures work and what helps.

 

Worst thing that can happen: You die. Which is a very harmless thing in 7D2D, sometimes even beneficial.

 

[User]

19 minutes ago, meganoth said:

How is that different from a demolisher? A new player will shoot at him and it will suddenly explode, often killing the player the first time. It is up to the player to find out how the demo works, or how the vultures work and what helps.

 

Worst thing that can happen: You die. Which is a very harmless thing in 7D2D, sometimes even beneficial.

 

That's fair, but demolishers have a clear blinking light in their chest which at least somewhat communicates an explosion mechanic, or a weakspot/interaction by attacking that part. Cops for instance have a tell for each of their attacks, including the explosion. Even demolishers start a loud noise with a blinking red light before they explode. This immediately communicates to the player that they should get away. There is no tell or warning whatsoever for these special vultures appearing during horde nights when driving a vehicle from what I can tell. There is also much more counterplay with demolishers, from what I've seen. There is a pretty big difference imo, but thats just me, could be wrong.

Edited April 2 by User (see edit history)

[User]

Well, seems like the majority don't see it as an issue. In that case, this suggestion is redundant. Thanks for the feedback! I apologize for the dumb suggestion 😅

Edited April 3 by User (see edit history)

[Riamus]

On 4/2/2024 at 10:58 AM, User said:

Well, seems like the majority don't see it as an issue. In that case, this suggestion is redundant. Thanks for the feedback! I apologize for the dumb suggestion 😅

You have only 6 votes.  I wouldn't assume that the first few people voting constitute that general opinion of everyone.  😀

 

My thoughts on it are that I don't want an easy way to avoid zombies.  I'd rather be forced to run away if they manage to break through my base.  That adds a lot more excitement than just getting in a vehicle and driving.  Even increasing has usage wouldn't really impact much.  You can drive fast enough to be out of range in a few seconds and then stop until zombies start closing in again and repeat.  Even with increased gas usage, you aren't going to need to do all that much driving.  And it is trivial to refill the gas tank of you carry fuel with you.

 

Now, whether or not they should try to prevent cheesing horde night through the use of vehicles.... That is another topic.

 

Of course, now that you can kill zombies with vehicles, you can basically spend all horde night driving over zombies with impunity if you keep enough repair kits on hand, so having those vultures is probably a good idea just to add a small amount of difficulty.

 

As a side note, you can still drive away from zombies on horde night if they aren't set to sprint (maybe even if set to sprint).  You just have to drive slowly and stop after very short distances.  You can stay just out of reach and it doesn't seem like you ever trigger those vultures from what I've seen.  I did it once when I gave myself a lot of experience for free in the first week and found out that the first horde night is significantly harder when doing so since I didn't also give myself better gear.  They broke my minimal wood/cobble base quickly and I was on the ground without much to keep me alive so I used a minibike and drive slowly for short distances and never had an issue.  Of course, maybe that was only because it was the first horde night, but I did have cops already, so I would have expected those vultures as well.

[User]

3 hours ago, Riamus said:

You have only 6 votes.  I wouldn't assume that the first few people voting constitute that general opinion of everyone.  😀

 

My thoughts on it are that I don't want an easy way to avoid zombies.  I'd rather be forced to run away if they manage to break through my base.  That adds a lot more excitement than just getting in a vehicle and driving.  Even increasing has usage wouldn't really impact much.  You can drive fast enough to be out of range in a few seconds and then stop until zombies start closing in again and repeat.  Even with increased gas usage, you aren't going to need to do all that much driving.  And it is trivial to refill the gas tank of you carry fuel with you.

 

Now, whether or not they should try to prevent cheesing horde night through the use of vehicles.... That is another topic.

 

Of course, now that you can kill zombies with vehicles, you can basically spend all horde night driving over zombies with impunity if you keep enough repair kits on hand, so having those vultures is probably a good idea just to add a small amount of difficulty.

 

As a side note, you can still drive away from zombies on horde night if they aren't set to sprint (maybe even if set to sprint).  You just have to drive slowly and stop after very short distances.  You can stay just out of reach and it doesn't seem like you ever trigger those vultures from what I've seen.  I did it once when I gave myself a lot of experience for free in the first week and found out that the first horde night is significantly harder when doing so since I didn't also give myself better gear.  They broke my minimal wood/cobble base quickly and I was on the ground without much to keep me alive so I used a minibike and drive slowly for short distances and never had an issue.  Of course, maybe that was only because it was the first horde night, but I did have cops already, so I would have expected those vultures as well.

Yeah, I was actually thinking about it after I came up with the idea, like what would stop players from just refueling/reparing constantly? 😅 Didn't really think it through I suppose.

 

I guess something just bothers me about the current system. I agree that there shouldn't be an easy way to nullify it- the challenge, so its this sort of weird problem where vehicles make it easy, but on the other hand, massively punishing players for trying it feels a bit off as well. Not sure how to explain it in depth.

Edited April 4 by User (see edit history)