Re: Dying Light 2 Volatile Hive
Myong Killings
Volatile Nests and their Hives/independent Hives appear in two different locations. The hives themselves being in the game mode Be The Zombie, with these hives found scattered along the terrain (varying from a space in the opening such as a courtyard or even a rooftop). They only appear during the Night during an invasion, and players must fight against the player-controlled Night Hunter to destroy these hives, while the Night Hunter must protect them.They do not appear as actual nests in the Slums or the Old Town i.e. unlike how they appear as locations in the Countryside.However they do appear as significant locations in the Countryside and as part of some side-quest objectives. Whilst the developing Volatiles are technically Hives (as a targetable enemy) and are not to be confused/seen as a Volatile Nest of its own, the Hives still appear in Slums and Old Town (and the Countryside in the open areas) as part of an active Night-Invasion/during Be The Zombie.
These nests are the breeding grounds for Volatiles and are a focus for several side quests to destroy the Hives/developing Volatiles within. The number of volatiles and virals changes between day and night within the nests; during the day more infected are inside taking refuge from the sun whereas during the night more volatiles have left to 'hunt'. As a result, attacking let alone entering a Volatile Nest during the day is far more dangerous than at night due to heavier numbers of infected in the Nests during the day whilst the activity is very minimal at night.
The Night Hunter does not need to be present to find and destroy these nests as the Hunter's objective in Be the Zombie is to protect the hives which are in the open, as opposed to hives which are within the Volatile Nests in the Countryside.
When near a Volatile breeding spot, if listen closely can be heard speaking. They will sometimes say "It burns... Mercy...", "Let me die, just let me die!" Hinting that they are still alive and partially retain a portion of speech.
This quest is found on the quest board at Jasir's Farm. Out of this side quest and the Heart of Darkness side quest, I'd say this one is the harder volatile hive side quest, mainly because you'll have to walk past several volatiles on the way to the hive in this side quest. If you haven't destroyed or entered a volatile hive then don't ever try to enter them during the daytime since they will be crawling with volatiles. Sleep so that the time is day is night. You'll have to move by many volatiles on the way to the nest but the nest will have normal zombies and other variations of zombies guarding it instead of volatiles.
Once Crane enters a volatile nest, a timer will start that will show how much time you have until the night is over. Once the night ends, the volatiles will return to their nests and you'll be surrounded by them at that time. Your main mission in a volatile nest is to destroy all four volatile breeders in each nest. Look for areas with a red glow in a volatile nest to signify that a breeder is in that area. Volatile breeders are volatiles that are stuck in the ground of bloody areas. They will not fight back but they will be surrounded by normal zombies. It's a good idea to kill from a distance with crossbow bolts to keep from alerting the zombies in the area. Once the zombies in an area are alerted, they will all attack Crane at once, which can lead to some extremely violent fights, especially if virals and toads are in the mix of zombies.
Anyway, you'll find this volatile hive to the west of a breeding ground to the southeast of Jasir's Farm. Sleep at Jasir's Farm and venture toward the nest at nighttime. Make sure to have a melee weapon with many repairs left and bring along a crossbow. I recommend traveling to the nest on foot. Avoid all the sights of the volatiles along the way and try to get to the nest as quickly as possible to make sure that you have a lot of time to explore the volatile nest.
You could also try to toss a DIY grenade into an area with zombies and a breeder and this will kill a good deal of them and make killing the breeder a bit easier. The DIY grenade seems to kill off the breeder instantly in most cases, so it's definitely a strategy to try if the zombies are not already alerted to your location. Once the final volatile breeder is killed, the quest will be completed and you'll get your reward. The zombies will still attack on the way out, so be sure to have a melee weapon ready to kill them while leaving.
With The Following, the story of Kyle Crane, the playable character of the base game, continues in a new location, outside the city of Harran. He travels there after a man is found who claims the countryside outside of the city has people living there, infected but free of symptoms. With the supply of Antizin, the drug that suppresses the infection, running out, he has to travel there in the hope of finding the secret to save the lives of his friends. What he finds is a cult, the Children of the Sun, that practically worship the Mother, and they claim it is by their faith that they are protected, even after they have been bit. The people are not particularly open to strangers, so Crane must prove himself worthy of trust so he can meet Mother and learn of her people's cure.
Much of the gameplay is very similar between this expansion and the base game, with some obvious exceptions, including the map. Rather than an urban environment, filled with buildings to climb and leap between, you are in wide, open fields. Of course the fields are filled with zombies, because you have not left that horror behind, and without the buildings to climb, avoiding them is more difficult, but there is something that helps. Not long after starting the expansion, you will find a buggy you can use to more efficiently cross the map.
While the new map is kind of nice, being quite a departure from the base game, there is no navigation system to help you take the right path, and with the number of times I found myself needing to cross the map, I wish there was one. Sometimes paths are one way, or at least one is and it was the path I most often took to cross between the North and South halves of the map. There was another path, but depending on where you are, it is not the easiest to take.
Regardless, the map works pretty well as it gives you plenty to explore, and you will want to explore as that is the only way for some new locations to appear. Without the fog removed from the map, pins marking unexplored locations, loot caches, and missing people will not appear. You will also come across random encounters, and these are quite important. As I said above, you must earn the trust of the people, and rescuing them from bandits or zombies is an effective way to do that, in addition to the different missions available to you.
Before getting too far from it, I want to come back to talking about the buggy, which is fine as a way to cross the map, though I cannot say I consider myself a truly competent driver of it. The thing I found weak about it was how it felt like the durability and repair system for the weapons was tacked onto it. The buggy has multiple parts to it, and these can be upgraded as you find new parts, or unlock the ability to craft them. Like the weapons, these will wear out over time and have a limited number of repairs to them. For the weapons, this is not so bad because, in my experience, you will probably find better weapons before the one you are using is trash. That is also the case with the buggy parts, but because there is such a lack of variety to them, I do not believe this was the best design.
I probably ended up with four or five of the lowest level parts each, which I found while playing normally, in addition to the higher level parts I found, but I do not think I completely wore out a single part. That feels like a significant waste to me, having all of these unnecessary items in my inventory, not taking up space that excludes anything else, but still present despite not having any real value. My feeling is it would have been better if these parts had unlimited repairs to them, and you only find or can craft one of each, at each level. The crates you find them in could then just be for the new crafting materials that are part of The Following. If nothing else, it would remove the desire to hunt for and open up these crates that so often did not really contain something worth it, especially those with a Very Hard lock.
The lock pick system of Dying Light is certainly far from my favorite design, but even the Hard locks felt fair, in that they were hard but not pixel-perfect in their demands. Not really the case with Very Hard locks as I found one that was almost, almost all the way to the right, but was actually the slightest distance above that limit. By slightest I mean if you look at the video below, I doubt you will be able to spot the difference between failure and success.
With luck, if either a vehicle or lock pick system return in Dying Light 2, they will feature a new design, or better tolerances in the case of the latter. Before I forget, one thing quite annoying with the buggy was Crane never turns it on when he enters it. You have to apply the throttle, forward or reverse, before he turns the ignition, which feels a very unnecessary and unwelcome step when you are trying to escape a horde. If it were me, I would be reaching for and turning that key as I got into my seat, and possibly even taking the time to train myself when it is safe, because when you need to go, you need to go quickly.
One thing that does appear to be returning is at least something similar to the volatile hives. The volatiles are the most dangerous zombie in the base game, because they are hardy and ferocious, but fortunately also only out at night. Perhaps as an attempt to force players out into the dark, the hives were introduced as this is both where the volatiles hide during the day and where you can find new ones being created. You can enter and destroy the sources in order to clear the hive and reduce the threat of volatiles, and the time of day you attempt this does matter. As I said, during the day the volatiles are in there and will be on guard. At night, however, they will leave to prowl the countryside, leaving normal infected and virals, the more aggressive infected in the hives. Though still a threat, especially when they swarm, these are easier to manage and using the camouflage skill helps significantly as well. Of course you will likely need to cross the volatile countryside at night to reach the hives, hence why I said these may have been introduced to get the players out at night.
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