HOWTO hordes

[yarse]

I honestly don’t know why the sentiment is that hordes are too hard for Cataclysm. This isn’t a “lol scrubs get gud” post, trust me.

They’re challenging, obviously, and require not only a strong character and good equipment to survive but also a lot of game knowledge. In short, they are perfect as is because they’re challenging enough for the player to be considerably wary of taking them on whilst not being unbeatable, still offering the usual Cataclysm fair of being able to dispose of them in a hundred different ways, and actually rewarding the player for taking them on or creating them in the first place - if you play with Static Spawn then a horde has to come from somewhere, and when they’re dead there won’t be any zeds in that somewhere.

As for actually taking them on, I go for the most versatile approach. I start by setting up a killzone to funnel the zeds towards me. Then I start picking off the dangerous squishies - shockers, spitters, boomers and bloaters - with a sniper rifle. As the horde approaches I juggle in between thinning them out with sniper fire - prioritising one-hit kills, softening up brutes and hulks with grenades then finishing them off with shotguns or revolvers, and using melee for regular zeds. If things ever get too hairy then I’ll start lobbing molotovs, grenades, pipe bombs and using flamethrowers. A motorbike acts as a bug out if all else fails. I can elaborate on what you generally need to do if you want.

This is not even considering traps; sound distractions such as noise emitters; smoke grenades, stun grenades, flashbangs etc. for general debuffing.

My only issue is when the hordes seem to appear out of nowhere for no good reason. As in those times you’re peacefully foraging in the woods only to return to your base overrun with hulks.

[EditorRUS]

My only issue is when the hordes seem to appear out of nowhere for no good reason. As in those times you're peacefully foraging in the woods only to return to your base overrun with hulks.

This is why I consider them too hard. These bitches seem to hear even slightest sound - even sound of your footsteps and run to you. This is even more better when you play with static spawn. You spawn in your evacuation shelter. Now you can be sure - they WILL go to your point no matter what you do. You have only one choice - to run into a city. But that's not better either - it's filled with same shit, but in less amounts.

Honestly, I tried to spawn in my debug world. I teleported into a city, made some noise, then I teleported just in the middle of clear field far away from the city and stayed for a while. And you know what? A horde came. No matter where I tried to teleport - they came. No safe zone at all.

BTW, hordes seem to be dynamically spawned, regardless of Static Spawn mode activated. And that means they are infinite.

[Muaddib]

Personally, I just make dynamically spawned NPC’s deal with it.

I take all the sneaky traits, and just wait until an idiot further up stream starts using his shotgun.

[Zireael]

I seem to recall hordes having a spawn pool - and when it’s exhausted, boom, no more horde.

[Goombah]

That’s good. Everything I heard implied otherwise, and I even usually play with them on and just avoid them. xD

[JayJayForce]

This is the quote that started all this:

The Wiki Thread

I can still see my third char taking the first ten steps out of the shelter towards the nearest town far to the South across an empty plane. I check my map and my first reaction is: “Oh Gods, half the town is coming for me!” I just ran and ran hoping to lose them, first to the West and then the North after running into a Nether spawn. Into the territory of a ant nest, completely unsure if they’re still following and desperate to find someplace safe. And then Moose. The End.

I’m not exaggerating when I say half the town came after me, the entire thing was blocked by flashing Z’s and so were a good number of plains tiles in front of it. It faded quite quickly as I moved to the West, but there were still some flashing Z’s and I saw at least one Zombie when I turned North at the starting map edge to avoid a kreck and gracken.

So, here are some questions from me:

Do hordes ever disperse by themselves and when say a ten tile Horde turns into a 1 tile Horde, does it still have the same spawn pool as the large horde or not?

I think wiping out a horde shouldn’t be made easier. They are meant to be difficult and dangerous to even skilled players and they’re just that. Besides, would you try and take on a zombie horde by yourself IRL?

I do think they’re too sensitive though. In my example, I hadn’t even banged two rocks together so there’s no way they should of heard me and a player can’t pick out an individual monster from even a fifth of that distance. Just WAY too sensitive, maybe a bit fast as well.

My only other possible complaint would be what happened to my 2nd character. I was heading to my first house, isolated from the bulk of town, looking for some disinfectant and bandages. The horde came from outside town. After failing to find anything, having to dodge a tough zombie in the house and with the first members of the Horde visible through the windows I had to run. Problem was, the direction of the horde forced me to run along the town only to get ganked by 3 or 4 static spawned tough zombies.

[Zireael]

Who said hordes can only spawn in towns?

[Muaddib]

Yeah, I’ve seen hordes hang out around science labs and power stations.

Hell, I’m currently fighting a horde around an isolated 2-story hotel in the woods.

[Cowbot]

How many Zeds should I run-over with my deathtruck to wipe the horde completely?

[system]

I’am not the best player, as I do like to suicide in the early game due to stupid mistakes, but I’ve learnt a little bit how to deal with hordes in the early game.
If, in the early game you spot a massive horde, that is lots of Zs, just run in any direction. Avoid any buildings, and run through forests (as forests destroy perfect line of sight), if you don’t see anymore Zs of that horde you were running from, you’re safe.

Now that’s just evasion tactics, for actually dealing with hordes get yourself a melee weapon that will one to two-shot zombies. A Katana is nice, a Nodachi is better, of course you could use a fire ax with some good melee/dodge skills. In addition, get some Molotov cocktails, get as much as you can make. Remember this method requires that you actually know where a horde is, a camping horde that took up residence near to your base is a prime target for this technique. So, when you do get all that’s needed, go and approach that horde when the day is getting darker and darker. You want your vision to be about 1/2 or 1/3 of what it is on a sunny day, when you do find the first zombies, attract them. Just run back a few tiles, and activate one molotov cocktail. Throw at the ground in the path of congo-line of zombies and watch them burn.
If for some reason, you start seeing zombies avoiding the death-trap-of-fire, just throw some more Molotov cocktails in their path. Obviously, if some zombies get too close, just run, as Molotov cocktails don’t help at melee range, and since darkness is coming fast, you’ll be able to retreat successfully.

The only problem with cocktails, is that even if you burn the zombies, they’ll revive. So, kill the zombies you can with Molotovs, and go and smash the zombie corpses in with whatever weapon you’re using. Repeat again and again, until the horde disappears, also if you don’t want to wait till the next day, you can go and kill zombies with your melee weapon, safely at night (if you want to deal with shockers, shocker brutes, and other nasties, use a molotov to kill’em).

Hope that helps for anyone that wants to kill off hordes.

[Stelknecht]

I like hordes. Well, not like them, but they’re an interesting challenge at late game, and a thrilling danger in early game. I don’t know what I’d change.
I don’t have any real problem with dealing with them. A martial artist can usually hew through them, a half dozen mininukes do the chore, my vehicle usually suffices to leave sprays of gore everywhere. I’ve never tried shooting a whole horde. Don’t think I’d choose to waste that much ammo. In early game, of course, I run away. A lot.

[Nopkar]

Hordes are a touchy subject. My advice is to consider them one collective organism. Avoid them as they’re almost always death.

If you’re faced with detection your best bet is to break LOS and outrun them. If you have to fight use choke points like house doorways or even the corners of buildings to single them out until you can break sight and run. Now’s the time to use those molotovs. Pheromones are useful as well but it’s not often I find myself in possession of any when I stumble onto a horde.

Vehicles are alright but I’d recommend reinforcing the front. that first run through almost always tears off the spikes.

My favorite tactic is to pull them to a house and use a talking doll just on the other side of the door I run through. close the door, drop the activated doll and slip out the front. keep running straight and through the next house. by the time they get through the door I’ve broken line of sight and they’re occupied with the sound and ignore any I make. I skirt the edges of the horde and go about my business.

[Sunflash]

I’ve left them turned off since i had a low acent character readinv a book in the shelter get broken into by an entire horde.

Thus my advice is to keep them turned off.

[Coolthulhu]

Hordes + revivification = terror of tedium
One or the other is fine, both is just too much.

However with hordes turned off, cities become empty after a while. Also, hordes spawn rare zombies, like technicians.
I wish there was an option to make hordes generate exclusively important zombies. Brutes, shockers, hulks - that sort of thing.
Hordes of fat, hazmat, dog and regular zombies are just making me wish we had an autofight function (like in Stone Soup).

[Valpo]

I love running through hordes like a boss.
Ignoring everything on my way through but the ocasional spitters n shokers that i shoot down with extreme prejudice.
Best thing about spitters is they decompose themselves so i only need to shoot them down .
The shockers i butcher … the rest can revive all day long for all i care :P.

[Stelknecht]

My most recent horde. Guns and melee this time, endgame character. Believe not a single one of these puddles of gore had a pasta extruder?

[Muaddib]

[quote=“Stelknecht, post:20, topic:8282”]My most recent horde. Guns and melee this time, endgame character. Believe not a single one of these puddles of gore had a pasta extruder?
http://i.imgur.com/bJInblg.jpg?1[/quote]

Offtopic question… do you dig the realistic distances option?

[system]

Make them slower and maybe cap the amount of existing hordes in X*X map tile range. Maybe cap number of hulks/shockers etc.

[jimboblordofeskimos]

Eh, early game I run from them, late game I start gearing up and going out specifically to thin out hordes.

If you are willing to fill most of your inventory up with weapons, you can do alot of damage :).
Dropping down a few lines of caltrops and setting up 2 or 3 houses to fall back from one window to another then firing off a few shotgun blasts to drag them in has worked well for me.
So yeah, generally for me its a case of having a top tier melee weapon and a few things for maintaining it, 1 pistol like a glock for general killing, 1 high powered pistol, 1 shotgun, 1 sniper rifle and ammo for all of them. Then mollis, nades, etc :).

So I guess my solution is moar dakka

[MarcoVGnG]

What the hell is this horde ?!
I play with 6 at Spawn rate ( static ) and i ve only a few Z / horde …
How are you doing to gave them as big???