What is horde control?

Simply put, killing the waves of zombies coming at you and your group. Horde control is accomplished in several ways, some of which take time to develop, others are easy.

1. The waves

every game on NR has waves of zombies, these are the regular zombies, some run, some explode, some slowly shuffle their way toward you, some crawl, while others continue to run at you after you have shot them and their heads are off. Stemming the waves is easy, spray and pray. In coop mode with four players, it is best if each person has a zone of fire. In barricade factory, imagine the fence is split into two section, the one on the right and the one on the left. each section should have two players in it, each having overlapping fields of fire. Having a partner with a slow reload weapon means that your partner should fall back off the fence a little, letting you know that they are reloading and you have to cover their area.

watch the edges, as the zombies like to come down a column and then into the factory area. The trick to stemming the waves is not to shoot in a straight line. Spread your fire around a little. As the waves get faster, it will be inportant to pick up the big orange zombies and shoot them. If you have selected the perk friendly fire, shooting the orange zombies causes them to blow up, thereby damaging a large group of zombies around them. It is essential to keep in mind their blast radius, as you or your team takes damage from them.

2. But what about bosses?

Early in each game, single or coop, the bosses are slow and so are the zombies. At this point it is easy to navigate around the field of play and shoot the horde then attack the boss. as the waves increase in intensity (speed) and numbers, this is no longer a viable option. In coop, it is important for one person (usually the medic) to attack the boss, and one other person to control the horde coming towards the area. Medics with shields are very strong, but when they pick the correct perks for that type of play, regular zombies hurt them more than the bosses do. Later on in the game, it may take two people on the boss with one player controlling the hoarde in the area with the fourth player stemming the tide as best they can on their side of the area of play.

Remember this, the boss will not end your play in barricade factory (other than by killing everyone) as the boss doesn't exit the area. The regular zombies exit the area, thereby ending the game. Remember to mine the exits. in the farm mine around the scarecrow, and in platform, mine around the soldier.

Perks that help with the boss, for non medics, are those perks like improved loadout, reflexboost, armor, and heavy armor. Having perks like these allow you to take less damage, and they increase your speed and movement. Dive rolling or jump rolling and having that perk allows you to take less damage and allows you to move out of range of the boss. Remember to shoot and move, killing regular zombies in your path. Remember to try and shoot the exploding zombies before you get there, with the friendly fire perk, you also damage nearby bosses.

The last part on bosses is this, don't stand still. I see way to many players in barricade factory hugging the fence as a boss is running towards them. For non medics, this will take about half your life later in the game.

3. Perks that assist in horde control
Having perks like armor, messy, accuracy, intensity, etc are nice, but for real horde control you will need three other powerful perks that also upgrade, seekers, Hand of God, and darts. The seekers are very nice for horde control in that they will spread out the further they get from the player. You should use the gaps that they create to either move, reload (R key), or switch weapons if needed. Darts require several upgrades to become effective. To further maximize your ability to use these perks, you will need to become proficiency and mastery (perks).

The first perk you should pick, in my opinon, will always be auto experience.With auto experience activated early in the game, you level faster, allowing you to pick all those great perks you will need. YOu will need a minimum of 25 perks to make it further into the game, especially if you play the gunner. The first perks after that perk is subjective and it would depend on who you ask. I prefer to get heavy ammo, my armor perks, dexterity, accuracy and messy, followed by several others in no particular order. If playing the gunner, I get rage unlimited and the perk that allows your powerups to last longer.

Perk selection is somewhat dependent on your style of play and the type of character you select.

4. Weapons

Once again, this is dependent on the player you select and your style of play, snipers have to have the sniper rifle, gunner have to have a greande launcher, medics get the axe, etc. For your secondary weapon, each class has bonuses for certain weapon types. I disregard this. I prefer to have at least one quick firing and most importantly very quick reloading speed weapon. Reloading speed is critical late in the game. The horde becomes so fast, having an aa10 or a minigun will require you to run to reload. Nail gun and AK47 reload very quickly, as do other guns. Play around and see what gun works best for you. I prefer the AK47 for its rate of fire, reload speed, and damage, but this is just my pick. The longer the game goes on, the less I want to repeatedly click my mouse to fire a shotgun.

5. Powerups

THis is a very lengthy part of long play. When I say long play, I am talking about a good run of about 3-4 hours. Cloak goes to the sniper, shield goes to the medic, rage to the gunner, after this, GHOST and turrets are probably the most important powerups. Ghost should be used in the following manner, whoever has the best GHOST on your team at that time should get the powerup. IF that player has the perk SNARE, they should pull the GHOST to the center of the board before using it. Pulling powerups with SNARE is something that takes awhile to get used to and isn't easy. GHOST fully perked , can clear a board and kill a boss, but not both unless it is very early in the game. Killing bosses later in the game is hard, so use the GHOST on the boss and clear the horde yourself. Remember, bosses can and do run through ghosts so you aren't safe standing behind them. Turrets can either be placed strategically on the gameplay area, or pulled with the SNARE perk to be put beside a boss. Once again, later in the game bosses are incredibly hard to kill and I would use it on a boss and thin the hoarde myself.

6. When you are done reading this, go read Bier 808 forum posts on gameplay. He and ARKY are probably the two best players I have played with. I am not discounting any of the other players skills that I have played with, but he and ARKY are the leaders of Nation Red Coop Elite, and hold many of the highest scores.

Hope this helps someone.