Curveball: The Black Heart

[PeterTheZoo]

Ok, who's ready for story time with Peter The Zoo, BAY BAY?

Let me start by saying that I really enjoy the Curveball update... that was until I got The Black Heart curveball. Man, am I PISSED! I'm so pissed that I'm ready to slap the tits off a camel!

My entire community was wiped out while I tried to take out the black heart (about 6 people, the others died of "natural causes"). It had a weakness to fire, but I was already low on fuel. I thought: "Well, I have 9 Molotov cocktails and 9 C4 charges in my supply locker... that should do the trick, right?" Nope. One by one they fell in the chaos. I lost 2 Red Talon recruits to the black heart and 3 others before that, while adjusting to the Curveball update. That's 13750 Prestige Points down the drain in one game.

Seriously, I HATE, HATE, HATE this curveball. Your health drains, the fuel in your car drains and the Zeds are insane too. I couldn't even silently fart without attracting them from 20 meters away, not to mention that my black heart was hiding in a small room in the Jolly Collie Tavern on the Cascade Hills map, so that was just another 'curveball' in a curveball. It was almost impossible to attack, because there was no 'right' angle to attack it from. The Zeds being hyper aware of every little move I made, wasn't helping either. Oh, and I was playing on Lethal, so that probably made things worse too.

Pfff... Like I said, I enjoy the Curveball update, but The Black Heart is just VICIOUS. Maybe I just need to figure out a better way of dealing with it, but right now I'm taking a little break from the game. I don't enjoy losing my temper over a game and cursing at my monitor (yes, that's what I did and, no, it's not healthy). I'm going into State of Decay rehab. See you all later. Take care, fellow survivors.

[TheSuit]

If you don't do Black Heart optional quest the heart has 7x health
With the optional quest it only has 2.5x more health

Best option is probably drone strike and don't try to kill it in one attempt since you lose health.

But I agree black heart really needs balancing
One thing I suggest devs do it change it so black heart does not stop you from claiming nearby buildings.


Also they need to balance curveball on a point system.
Assign each curve a point value.

From -10 to + 10
So with 3 curves it can either be -30 to +30

But total curve value never goes above or below -10 \ +10 when all 3 added together

[Freakyweakywoo]

Just had this event, I totally loved it. Had to hike my samples in to find the weakness. Hike back to base and then tool up and tackle it.

Glad I was over prepared because even using it's weakness it took almost everything I threw at it. It was in a really bad location too, in a small room.

I noticed during my hike the game engine was struggling with the event, little frame drop stutters, but my CPU and GPU were running at 40-60% so nothing was bottlenecking.

Overall, enjoying the update.

[PeterTheZoo]

Originally posted by TheSuit:

If you don't do Black Heart optional quest the heart has 7x health
With the optional quest it only has 2.5x more health

Best option is probably drone strike and don't try to kill it in one attempt since you lose health.

But I agree black heart really needs balancing
One thing I suggest devs do it change it so black heart does not stop you from claiming nearby buildings.


Also they need to balance curveball on a point system.
Assign each curve a point value.

From -10 to + 10
So with 3 curves it can either be -30 to +30

But total curve value never goes above or below -10 \ +10 when all 3 added together

Crap, 7 times its health? Well, I did eventually reach the researcher, but I don't know why they have to spawn INSIDE the miasma of the black heart. Shouldn't they lose health as well? It was very hard to reach them, without alerting any Zeds. Maybe it's different on a lower difficulty setting? I understand the miasma gets larger on a higher difficulty and I played on Lethal.

I did have a drone strike available, but I didn't really think about using it. I should have done so to take out the majority of Zeds outside. However, wouldn't that noise just attack more of those hyper sensitive Zeds?

I don't really understand the point system you mention here. I suck at math. Maybe you can explain it a bit in layman's terms?

[PeterTheZoo]

Originally posted by Freakyweakywoo:

Just had this event, I totally loved it. Had to hike my samples in to find the weakness. Hike back to base and then tool up and tackle it.

Glad I was over prepared because even using it's weakness it took almost everything I threw at it. It was in a really bad location too, in a small room.

I noticed during my hike the game engine was struggling with the event, little frame drop stutters, but my CPU and GPU were running at 40-60% so nothing was bottlenecking.

Overall, enjoying the update.

Did you also play on Lethal? So how did you manage to avoid getting hit by plague zombies and blood ferals while attacking it? It only took a few hits for me to get blood plague and the building was so full of Zeds, it was hard for me to get away and recover. Did you manage to kill it in one try, or did you lose survivors in the process as well?

Any tips would be welcome.

[TheSuit]

Originally posted by PeterTheZoo:

Originally posted by TheSuit:

If you don't do Black Heart optional quest the heart has 7x health
With the optional quest it only has 2.5x more health

Best option is probably drone strike and don't try to kill it in one attempt since you lose health.

But I agree black heart really needs balancing
One thing I suggest devs do it change it so black heart does not stop you from claiming nearby buildings.


Also they need to balance curveball on a point system.
Assign each curve a point value.

From -10 to + 10
So with 3 curves it can either be -30 to +30

But total curve value never goes above or below -10 \ +10 when all 3 added together

Crap, 7 times its health? Well, I did eventually reach the researcher, but I don't know why they have to spawn INSIDE the miasma of the black heart. Shouldn't they lose health as well? It was very hard to reach them, without alerting any Zeds. Maybe it's different on a lower difficulty setting? I understand the miasma gets larger on a higher difficulty and I played on Lethal.

I did have a drone strike available, but I didn't really think about using it. I should have done so to take out the majority of Zeds outside. However, wouldn't that noise just attack more of those hyper sensitive Zeds?

I don't really understand the point system you mention here. I suck at math. Maybe you can explain it a bit in layman's terms?

Drone strike can go through walls. So if you place drone strike next to wall ( not roof )
It will damage the heart inside. Also drone strike isn't instant - meaning you have tons of time to run away after calling the strike.

Point system is something I just made up.
Right now the curve ball can roll any 3 - which means you can get 3 terrible ones and for next 2 ingame days your life becomes a living hell.

The point system I described would just be a rebalance of the existing system so you at least always get some benefit.

[The Elder Glock]

Originally posted by PeterTheZoo:

Originally posted by Freakyweakywoo:

Just had this event, I totally loved it. Had to hike my samples in to find the weakness. Hike back to base and then tool up and tackle it.

Glad I was over prepared because even using it's weakness it took almost everything I threw at it. It was in a really bad location too, in a small room.

I noticed during my hike the game engine was struggling with the event, little frame drop stutters, but my CPU and GPU were running at 40-60% so nothing was bottlenecking.

Overall, enjoying the update.

Did you also play on Lethal? So how did you manage to avoid getting hit by plague zombies and blood ferals while attacking it? It only took a few hits for me to get blood plague and the building was so full of Zeds, it was hard for me to get away and recover. Did you manage to kill it in one try, or did you lose survivors in the process as well?

Any tips would be welcome.

Stimulants and firebombs makes wonders

[Dandelion-Prophet]

Sounds like a skill issue

[Zozzero]

Oh well, new player here, Day 2: Black Heart. This is quite an OMFG. Yeah, it is just hard, but like one sec you have half tank in the car, next none... it is harsh. Luckily noone died from my team of 5 so far, but damn... 2 fuel bombs, 15 saw-off bullett, 45 pistol bullett, and this thing is just cheerful. Neighbors say goodbye because I can't spare my time with them... c'mon...

[MynameisBruce]

least you are getting curveballs, im probably 15ish hrs in and not a single one yet

[Zentun]

I just started playing for the first time and i decided to turn off the curveball, as a new player it was really messing up my fun.

[Cryptic Bong]

Normal hearts in Lethal need 3 bloater gas and 1 flare so a few more Bloater gas with road flares will make it really easy to destroy it

[PeterTheZoo]

OH, SNAP! I DID IT! (And it was the worst possible scenario too.)

My SoD rehab lasted for about 12 hours, before I entered the Cascade Hills map again on Lethal. On day 3 The Black Heart appeared in the East Valley Veterinary Clinic... Right in the middle of the map! That meant all roads were effectively cut off by its miasma. I was about to cry and curse again, because I didn't want to lose my new Red Talon Contractor; a Demolitions expert, Victoria Tram. So I sent David, a pest exterminator, to gather black plague samples and make his way to the scientists. That went about as well as I expected with about 30 hyper sensitive Zeds on my tail. I barely was able to give the samples to the scientist, before running like hell for my life. Unfortunately, David succumbed to blood plague, just before reaching his base. And then came the diagnosis...

Its weakness was melee attacks.

I thought: "Well, that's it. I'm dead. But, whatever."

I equipped Tram with a sledgehammer and sent her on her way. As expected, Zeds all over me, but I had a few energy drinks and painkillers with me and - most importantly - some smoke grenades. These made sure I was able to get in a few hits with the sledgehammer, before I had no choice but to retreat, as uncle blood feral was about to take a few chucks out of my hiney.

I made it out alive. I couldn't believe it. However, The Black Heart was still alive as well and I had to disappoint a few enclaves on the west side, because I couldn't reach them, due to its miasma.

With only 2 survivors left (Tram and Felisa Colón, a woman who took self defense classes before the outbreak), I'm proud to say I even survived a vicious siege on my base in the middle of the night. After that, I recruited another legendary survivor, and this guy had some ScentBlock on him. The next day (because I'll be damned if I was going to do this mission in the dead of night), I covered Tram in ScentBlock and made my way to the clinic again. I threw my last smoke grenade at the black plague heart and started swinging that sledgehammer if my life depended on it (and it did). And then...

KABOOM! KILLED IT! I couldn't believe it. :-D

Right now I'm so happy, I'm positive I can do this again. Killing a black plague heart with melee attacks on Lethal has to be the worst. If I can do this, then I'm sure I can take down the next one too.

All's well that ends well. :-)

[Lemonidas of Sourta]

Congrats, OP. And thank you for your sacrifice to find a nice tactic to kill it in melee. I had one pop up in the middle and it was weak to fire but it took me 3 runs and all of my fuel to kill the damn thing

[S-COLT PILGRIM]

Yeah, there's something wrong with Black Heart. when the Curveball first came out, i played with one community (Car fuel's fine, no health drain, Bites aren't super deadly). I tried with another community moments ago and (Car fuel drains in 2-3 sec, Losing Health to bite fast in BPH zone) I hadn't even have chance to get close.

Did the Dev's explain why Fuel drain in the lore? or did they just throw in it for the LOLs? Because there's nothing in the Curveball menu that explains it, feels unnecessary. Whatever patch they dropped lately after curveball is Fing things up or its meant to be a hair pulling experiment.

Update: Scentblock and whatever its weak to. Mine's weak to explosive... so 2 C4 and 4 Nades.

[jasonwstone]

I thought I'd just drive by and see what this black heart was about. Ran out of gas and was like "I didn't think I was low on gas" but no problem I had an extra. But ran out of that too.