Black Plagueheart Curveball insanely overtuned?

[Bebo Time]

I've gotten the black plagueheart curveball in both the tutorial run and my current run of Trumbull Valley, and I simply scrapped my tutorial run because of this curveball. The effects of this curveball are devastating if you aren't immediately taking a scorched earth doctrine to every plagueheart within half the length of the map from your base. How is someone that just started the game on the free weekend expected to deal with this curveball? I genuinely don't know how to take it down beyond throwing every survivor in my camp at it until I lose my community.

The fuel efficiency debuff is so devastating that I can't even think about bringing in more supplies via vehicle, let alone getting back out of there with a vehicle. On top of that, when I pack in supplies to try and take out the heart on foot, I end up blowing through a good majority of said supplies simply getting to the plague site. Am I doing something wrong?

[DeVip]

Exact same thing here. Just destroyed a plague heart only for a black one to pop up a few minutes later in the same spot. Starting a new game, this has utterly demolished my chances of progress. I loathe that you can't permanently disable these curveballs, that they enable again every single time you load your community. Who would think the choice of the player deciding whether or not they want this thing, is a good thing?

[Maya-Neko]

Had it as well and given, how much people complained about it, i was really worried about it being too strong for my first playthrough.

The fuel stuff is definitely annoying, but the distances aren't that big to begin with, so took me like 3 painkillers to get the weak point for the heart, which luckily were explosive.

And when i was about to kill it properly (after killing all other hearts first to get a general idea of what i need to do, on top training the skills of my characters), i went in there with 12 painkillers 3 dynamites, 12 pipe bombs and enough ammunition to kill 20 hordes without any problems (because other players made it sound like it would be a hard and long fight). But in the end, it died surprisingly fast for what others had claimed to be nigh impossible. It definitely took more hits than a normal heart, but nothing which someone, who's well prepared, couldn't deal with. I probably could've also killed it without knowing the weak point.

[Bebo Time]

Originally posted by Maya-Neko:

Had it as well and given, how much people complained about it, i was really worried about it being too strong for my first playthrough.

The fuel stuff is definitely annoying, but the distances aren't that big to begin with, so took me like 3 painkillers to get the weak point for the heart, which luckily were explosive.

And when i was about to kill it properly (after killing all other hearts first to get a general idea of what i need to do, on top training the skills of my characters), i went in there with 12 painkillers 3 dynamites, 12 pipe bombs and enough ammunition to kill 20 hordes without any problems (because other players made it sound like it would be a hard and long fight). But in the end, it died surprisingly fast for what others had claimed to be nigh impossible. It definitely took more hits than a normal heart, but nothing which someone, who's well prepared, couldn't deal with. I probably could've also killed it without knowing the weak point.

My first one was ranged weakness and I dumped every mag of 7.62 I had left into the heart, using my melee to try and take out the plague zombies, but still nearly lost three survivors of the 5 I had at the time of the tutorial run.

Haven't bothered with the one in my current Trumbull run, so idk the weakness, but I might just give up if it's melee.

[Bebo Time]

Originally posted by DeVip:

Exact same thing here. Just destroyed a plague heart only for a black one to pop up a few minutes later in the same spot. Starting a new game, this has utterly demolished my chances of progress. I loathe that you can't permanently disable these curveballs, that they enable again every single time you load your community. Who would think the choice of the player deciding whether or not they want this thing, is a good thing?

How do you even disable the curveballs? I know you have about a 5-day grace period before they start, but I didn't see anywhere where you could say "never ever"

[Rasasha]

Originally posted by Bebo Time:

Originally posted by DeVip:

Exact same thing here. Just destroyed a plague heart only for a black one to pop up a few minutes later in the same spot. Starting a new game, this has utterly demolished my chances of progress. I loathe that you can't permanently disable these curveballs, that they enable again every single time you load your community. Who would think the choice of the player deciding whether or not they want this thing, is a good thing?

How do you even disable the curveballs? I know you have about a 5-day grace period before they start, but I didn't see anywhere where you could say "never ever"

You have to experience at least 2 curveballs in your game, then an option will appear in "gameplay" options to toggle it off. Unfortunately it doesn't stay off when you quit the game, so when you load back in you have to remember to toggle if back off again.

[Balsover]

Yup, new player, just got The Black Heart.

Time to start over I guess, these Curveballs suck.

The one before that was The Lone Raider. How is that fair when starting out?

[WarBucks]

there is a bug where the option wont appear. I have that but too fml

The devs intent was once that first set of two curveballs happens. then the off/on option appears in the menu permenently.

Having an invisible option in a menu, any menu, is never a good UI language. It especially bad for a menu item thats intended to then be visible forever.

Make it grey and unselectable, sure, but never invisible.

[Lemonidas of Sourta]

Step 1 - Claim outpost at edge of black heart range and deploy mines.

Step 2 - Stand where blue zone and your outpost range intersect. Watch as those spawns run into mines and get deleted. Now you have some breathing room.

Step 3 - Chug energy drink and a scentblock if you have them and beeline for the heart.

Step 4 - Drop an artillery/drone strike near the house wall where the heart is located. Not too close to the wall or the smoke won't deploy. The strike would hit the heart.

Step 5 - Go near heart and drop smoke grenade. Don't drop them on the heart but a little bit distant so that if melee is it's weakness, you can dodge away and still be in smoke cover when the heart releases its toxins.

Step 6 - Stand in smoke and go full ham on the heart according to it's weakness.

Step 7 - Smoke lasts 30-ish seconds. Redeploy smoke before it clears.

Step 8 - Chug your energy drink/scentblock once more and beeline back to outpost to resupply or change characters in case you got unlucky and your char is close to a full-blown infection.

Repeat steps 2-8 until plague heart is dead.

If you run out of smokes, use boombox or firecrackes to distract mobs while you whale on the heart. This is more dangerous as Ferals would still come for you but no choice.

[tenser-spencer]

Some really good tips. Thanks.

[Fatlip]

Originally posted by WarBucks:

there is a bug where the option wont appear. I have that but too fml

The devs intent was once that first set of two curveballs happens. then the off/on option appears in the menu permenently.

Having an invisible option in a menu, any menu, is never a good UI language. It especially bad for a menu item thats intended to then be visible forever.

Make it grey and unselectable, sure, but never invisible.

I'm facing the same issue now, Completed 5-6 curveballs on my last playthru, option to disable curveball didn't appear. Now on a new map with the same community, completed 7 curveballs, and the option to disable still has not show up.

[Bebo Time]

Originally posted by Lemonidas of Sourta:

Step 1 - Claim outpost at edge of black heart range and deploy mines.

Step 2 - Stand where blue zone and your outpost range intersect. Watch as those spawns run into mines and get deleted. Now you have some breathing room.

Step 3 - Chug energy drink and a scentblock if you have them and beeline for the heart.

Step 4 - Drop an artillery/drone strike near the house wall where the heart is located. Not too close to the wall or the smoke won't deploy. The strike would hit the heart.

Step 5 - Go near heart and drop smoke grenade. Don't drop them on the heart but a little bit distant so that if melee is it's weakness, you can dodge away and still be in smoke cover when the heart releases its toxins.

Step 6 - Stand in smoke and go full ham on the heart according to it's weakness.

Step 7 - Smoke lasts 30-ish seconds. Redeploy smoke before it clears.

Step 8 - Chug your energy drink/scentblock once more and beeline back to outpost to resupply or change characters in case you got unlucky and your char is close to a full-blown infection.

Repeat steps 2-8 until plague heart is dead.

If you run out of smokes, use boombox or firecrackes to distract mobs while you whale on the heart. This is more dangerous as Ferals would still come for you but no choice.

Could I make this into a guide on here? Crediting you of course. This feels like something that would help people

[LetsGoChamp]

At least you can play the game. Mine started crashing after 38 hours and I cant even play it.

[Murray EDS]

I'm only on my 3rd community and the black heart curveball is really terrifying. The superspeed zed's, increased plague heart health and the vehicle fuel draining really make taking on the black heart very tough. Got lucky when I took down mine.

I took out the plague heart (normal difficulty, weakness revealed as ranged weapons) by using a character with marathon, stealth, and gunslinging , also took a 9mm MP5SD (bounty broker offering this now as part of Critical Response Pack) and a prepper's AK47 (this was carried by AI companion used as a mule).

Using my main character with the above 3 skills and light encumbrance, I basically infinite crouched sprinted everywhere, when the zed's came too close, I just aim snap using the MP5SD and headshot all the superspeed zed's and even ferals.

Reached the plague heart, swapped to prepper AK47 with advanced muzzlebreak and proceeded to just unload into the heart. Probably took 120 rounds (I think, might be mistaken, was panicked) to take it down, then a feral comes in and almost takes me down before my companion AI headshotted it.

Thought I was a goner but luck was on my side. Lemonidas of Sourta has some good ideas for future encounters.

[Lemonidas of Sourta]

Originally posted by Bebo Time:

Originally posted by Lemonidas of Sourta:

Step 1 - Claim outpost at edge of black heart range and deploy mines.

Step 2 - Stand where blue zone and your outpost range intersect. Watch as those spawns run into mines and get deleted. Now you have some breathing room.

Step 3 - Chug energy drink and a scentblock if you have them and beeline for the heart.

Step 4 - Drop an artillery/drone strike near the house wall where the heart is located. Not too close to the wall or the smoke won't deploy. The strike would hit the heart.

Step 5 - Go near heart and drop smoke grenade. Don't drop them on the heart but a little bit distant so that if melee is it's weakness, you can dodge away and still be in smoke cover when the heart releases its toxins.

Step 6 - Stand in smoke and go full ham on the heart according to it's weakness.

Step 7 - Smoke lasts 30-ish seconds. Redeploy smoke before it clears.

Step 8 - Chug your energy drink/scentblock once more and beeline back to outpost to resupply or change characters in case you got unlucky and your char is close to a full-blown infection.

Repeat steps 2-8 until plague heart is dead.

If you run out of smokes, use boombox or firecrackes to distract mobs while you whale on the heart. This is more dangerous as Ferals would still come for you but no choice.

Could I make this into a guide on here? Crediting you of course. This feels like something that would help people

Sure, dude. It's all good

[Blood Flowers]

Scent block trivializes black heart if you have access to it. I've had 3 pop up in my current nightmare map (1 of which popped up within 3 days after I had just killed one). 2 of those times I collected 5 black plague samples on the edge of the zone, prepared a melee weapon + a ranged weapon (and ammo) + explosives, used scentblock, drove over to the NPC to get the weakness info, and then proceeded to drive over and kill the black heart. Usually had a minute or two remaining on scent block still by the time I was done (granted this was only nightmare not lethal, but for lethal you'd just have to play a little more conservative and wait to use your scentblock until after you get the weakness rather than on your way in).

Bit trickier without scent block depending on its weakness. Explosive or fire (fire weakness is still weak to explosives, at least it only required 3 bloater gas) is still trivial, just requires more resources. Ranged is pretty easy too, though you might have to make two trips (unless you get lucky and get a spot where you can shoot from somewhere via ladder). I think melee would be the hardest with no scent block & especially if you get the health draining black heart zone since you'd be racing against time but also forced to deal with all the spawns (I'd probably have to do multiple trips over several days if you asked me to melee a health-draining black plague heart on nightmare with no scent block. No idea how someone does that one lethal haha).

I haven't had the fuel draining black heart yet though, all 3 of mine were health draining + high speed + sensory buffed zombies that constantly screamed so they would never leave an area unless you killed all of them.

Thus with how over tuned scent block is, I don't really consider this curveball to be all that over tuned... with one caveat. I personally think this curveball shouldn't appear before day 10 of a fresh community (and probably before day 20 it'd be nice if you couldn't get it a second time within a few days of killing the first one). it's just too resource intensive that while maybe you could clear one on day 10 of a fresh start... it'd probably take so many resources and so much time that you'd be set back immensely.