Originally posted by Hexerin: "Automated" and "afk"... you guys keep using these terms, but they don't mean what you are thinking they mean.
If you can place so many traps that you can completely ignore Horde night in it's entirety and not even notice, Then you have effectively automated and AFK'd the horde. You, personally, were not involved. And you can in fact place so many that you can
Yes; You made the traps. And that takes time and effort, But the time and effort to make the traps itself already rewards you with experience. And yes, It's not infinitely repeatable without eventual player action. But, It remains that if you can just not bother with the horde night and still win, AND if you got exp from trap kills still get all the rewards from it in spite of not engaging it ON TOP OF also getting all the rewards you got from gathering materials to make all the traps in the first place, It's a wee bit unbalanced.
Sure, Lets make traps give exp. But, To balance it, Mining resources like wood, iron, stone, etc, no longer gives exp. Noone would like that, right? But if you didn't do that balance decision, You'd get 250+k exp from all the resources to make the traps, then 250+k from all the kills the traps got on horde night.
Meanwhile Joe Schmoe is off fighting the horde with his life on the line and actively engaging in the event, and maybe earns 150k exp total, because he simply cannot manually kill zombies fast enough to even come close to the efficiency of a trap base that just needs maintenance after the night is over. Just the exp from trap kills alone will far exceed what a player can get on their own, let alone the exp gained from resource harvesting.
It's just not balanced for a player to get all the rewards, And then get all the rewards a second time; Especially given the second time just requires you to afk in the middle of your nest of traps for 15 minutes while the horde night passes.
Traps are meant to lighten the pressure on the player at the cost of the reward of experience. TFP already bent considerably just by making the harder to maintain and set up electrical traps give SOME exp if you're perked into it. But it's pretty much a guarantee that they will never enable trap exp on basic traps like spikes/barbed wire/etc.
TL;DR: Grinding resources is already the second fastest method of exp gain, It really does not need a buff via also allowing you to get a crap ton of exp from zombie kills you have no personal part in. If the player wants the reward, The player should be present and engaged in the event.