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.

[Arbiter Spectre]

I’m playing on Lethal, and when I heard the black heart could expand to 1216 meters and take up 1/3 of the map, I knew it was going to be a huge problem if I didn’t finish it off immediately. I knew this would be extremely difficult since I had to walk on foot, and death was guaranteed. So i turned on multiplayer and three others joined in effort to stop it. I wanted to discover the weakness first but for some reason, all three of the players who joined me immediately started attacking the heart, like wtf? It’s not enough that the black heart drains your hp overtime, but zombies are stronger inside. So why go headfirst? Unfortunately, all three died while I escaped with 3 hp. It was difficult trying to find the weakness too since the group who are finding the weakness are inside the black heart’s territory. But soon enough I defeated the heart. I wonder if the black heart is a one time thing or does it come back later on?

[3201]

i LIKE LIKE LIKE LIKE this curveball.
I play lethalx3 and this game is too easy it gets boring. i need extra hard challenges

[thebear05]

I just finally finished the black heart. It took two attempts and was finished using the 12 round grenade launcher. Mine did not affect the vehicles fuel and I could drive right up to the warehouse. However in my case scentblock did not work. The black heart zombies found me on both attempts.

[Protocol7]

I got the Black Heart on a brand new community with 2 days of survival in Dread difficulty.

I'm all for the idea of curveballs but there needs to be a logical difficulty progression - at 2 days in a brand new community I barely have enough explosives and molotovs for a normal plague heart, let alone this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥!

[Arbiter Spectre]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Protocol7:

I got the Black Heart on a brand new community with 2 days of survival in Dread difficulty.
- at 2 days in a brand new community I barely have enough explosives and molotovs for a normal plague heart, let alone this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥!

If that’s the case Id recommend trying multiplayer to get help with that

[Protocol7]

Lol it's brand new, I'll just roll another community - 2-3 days is like what, 1-2 hours of gameplay? Cheers though

[Tarp]

Black Plague Heart pretty well sux, and it turned me off of using Curveballs. I disable them as soon as I load a map, which brings up another question: Why can't I disable them for good? I find them annoying, as even the positive ones are meh.

[JohnMcHobo]

Oprindeligt skrevet af 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

WAIT!?!?!
Bloater Gas damages plague hearts!?

[Arbiter Spectre]

[/quote]
WAIT!?!?!
Bloater Gas damages plague hearts!? [/quote]
Yes, but you first have to throw a flare down near the heart, then proceed to throw multiple bloater gas near the flare to do the most damage in the game. It’s important to throw the flare first; not the second. This is because if you throw the bloater gas first and the flare second, the flare will disappear

[Blood Flowers]

Oprindeligt skrevet af JohnMcHobo:

Oprindeligt skrevet af 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

WAIT!?!?!
Bloater Gas damages plague hearts!?

Yes, as long as you ignite them from any source.
Road flares seem to work best for this (most consistent for only requiring 3 bloater gas), but firecrackers work pretty decently too (if you're like me and almost never find road flares for some reason). Firecrackers tend to be a lot wonkier though (not in igniting the bloater gas grenades, it still does that fine) and may require 3-5 bloater gas grenades to kill the heart for some reason.

[Tyr]

It's impossible to even get close to the black heart, can't drive, haven't got the equipment to make smoke grenades, scent blocker or any other way of getting close before a over the top horde drains all my stamina, health, , ammo etc...
It needs balancing

[Logid]

I like how it works (and I've dealt with them on fresh start lethal), but maybe there should be an option to disable it (so you can play with curveballs but without getting that one) as I understand how others may struggle with that one.

Mind if you get a very very bad one that makes playing a living hell (like one very early on a fresh run just in the middle of the map), you can always scavenge a few materials and circuits, level CC to level 2 and just change maps.

[Protectron]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Tyr:

It's impossible to even get close to the black heart, can't drive, haven't got the equipment to make smoke grenades, scent blocker or any other way of getting close before a over the top horde drains all my stamina, health, , ammo etc...
It needs balancing

I'll agree that it shouldn't happen too early in a run. Could start on day 7 and onwards, for instance.

[Smollest Feng]

having the same issue came back to the game after awhile and got this curveball its annoying if anything its weakness was fire i grab like 3 napalm granades 20 fuel bombs 12 pipe bombs and dump an entire ak 47 and echo shotgun mag into it and nothing like this is stupid lost too many survivors already to this unkillable plague heart no idea what else to do

[Protectron]

Oprindeligt skrevet af A actual bunny rabbit:

having the same issue came back to the game after awhile and got this curveball its annoying if anything its weakness was fire i grab like 3 napalm granades 20 fuel bombs 12 pipe bombs and dump an entire ak 47 and echo shotgun mag into it and nothing like this is stupid lost too many survivors already to this unkillable plague heart no idea what else to do

I actually got a Black Heart spawning within range of my base recently. So I took a Timberwolf and 30 .50 bullets, as well as 9 Bandages, and went there... climbed up on the car and started shooting. Also fired off a Drone Strike. After around 15 shots, the Heart had still not blasted the first shockwave. So I gave up and went back to talk to the informer about the weakness. Turned out to be fire. So I loaded up on 30+ Fuel Bombs and went back. I was surprised because I actually managed to throw the Fuel Bomb far enough to hit the Heart all the way to the back by the kitchen. But anyway, it still took like 20 bombs to kill the Heart.

So it is weird that 20 fuel bombs wasn't enough to force a shockwave. Going by that it took 3 bombs to make it to the first shockwave, I'd take a guess at 35 Fuel Bombs to kill the Heart.

On Lethal, with a Groundbreaker Shovel, you need 20 unpowered strikes to kill a Heart. The first shockwave is at 8, iirc. Then the second is at 14 and the kill at 20. So 40%, 30%, 30% in other words. It goes without saying that with 20 fuel bombs and all the other damage, you should have been able to damage 40% of the Black Plague Heart's health.

So you may have missed with some of the fuel bombs, or you exaggerated how many you bought. As in my case, there is a huge difference between the non-weakness damage types and the weakness damage times in terms of efficiency.

This guy here is probably going to be helpful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=239FygsMFi4&ab_channel=RvidD%27sStateofDecayScience