TheAtrocity Posted June 25, 2014 Share Posted June 25, 2014 (edited) Hello everyone! I was in the ZS discussion on Sunday, and amongst some great feedback and suggestions as well as bug reports, I saw something that may spice the gameplay up a bit as well as raise morale: If humans are getting points, why can't the zombies as well? It serves as a great motivator and frankly speaking, many players lose will to participate and will frequently go afk or will really not help the team as much as they could have. Therefore, I have made a simple equation I've come up with in my spare time that will hopefully allow zombies to earn some points. As with any 'solution', it isn't perfect and there can be exploits, but I've tried my best to limit this-I will explain this as I go through this further! Thank you for your valuable attention and I hope some good, constructive feedback to this plan! (Fear not, the zombies will not be getting hundreds upon hundreds of points-I've tried to make it a decent amount but nothing large as you were never supposed to get points in the first place!) The equation is rather simple: Basically, the equation should be applied EACH LIFE. I also assume that any non-integer number will be rounded to the nearest and highest possible integer (whole number actually as we can't have negative points!) just like humans and their arsenal crates. -Cade Damage: How much damage done to a nailed prop that life. -Human Damage: How much damage dealt to humans that life. -Damage/hit: How much damage in 1 hit __ zombie does. (Ex: head crabs will do 7, normal zombies 30, etc.) -^2 or ^3 will signify the exponent process, with the number being the exponent. Finally, possibly this: >Redeem: +15 pts. >+1 Brain (per brain): +5 pts. >Volunteer: +11 pts. (Symbolic 11%) <Maybe not--> More easily abused so I actually do NOT advocate implementing this in! >Boss (each wave): +5 Allow me to explain: I've tried to think of a 'fair' system where zombies will get decent points, but not an overwhelming amount. It's got to be balanced (at least the best it can be balanced) from wave 1 to wave 6. Early waves will be easier to obtain points simply because there are weaker cades or cades in process, not to mention humans running around as well as less-experienced players. Plug in the values for my equation and you'll find yourself earning some points. Let's take a normal zombie for example. It has 200 health, 30 damage/hit, ability to heal. Let's pretend it successfully hits 5 times on some humans its first life but no hits on the cade before dying as well as no kills. That equals (5 x 30) 150 human damage, 0 cade damage. Now let's plug in those values on our handy calculators! (HINT: If you've experience with graphing calculators, try making human damage a constant and cade damage the only variable or switch them around and experiment and analyze the graphs). The zombie player gets 2.2361 points. Rounding that would be 3 points for that life. Let's do 1 more scenario for now: A wraith (100 hp, 40 dmg/hit) at wave 2. It might do 160 to humans in 1 life (4 solid hits) and 480 cade damage. Plugging that in would give our player 3.897 points, or 4. Spread that over more than a few zombies, competition, humans in a solidified cade, some human teamwork and we have lower human damage values per zombie per life. Towards later waves (~4-6), it's going to get extremely tough to damage humans. Most assaults on well-defended cades with a poison zombie will do 40-80 dmg/life, 0 human damage. That means each life, an average person will gain 0.1581 - 0.3162 (or 1 point) each time. We must take into account that individuals probably won't make it because of the sheer number of humans defending and aiming at the 1-3 zombies who will get decimated nearly instantly or stacks, which require much more time and decreases points earned at a set time. Using the equation, I've been able to see that zombies who try to exploit the equation aren't going to earn much. Let's think of it this way: nailed props can be repaired finitely and will be repaired if they're part of a cade. It's going to be defended. You're not likely to deal a thousand damage. Next, we have random nailed props (presumably a player helping out his/her buddy gain points). This isn;t going to work well. Why? Because not many props have 1000 health. Most have 500 or below. If we take a zombie (and let 'em loose at 3 props @ 600 hp (I'm assuming the worst case scenario here), that'll be 0 human damage and 1800 cade damage. That yields 7.115 (poison zombie) or 10.95 (normal). Seems like a lot of points, but you're standing there for quite a bit of time doing nothing. This will result in a higher likelihood of being reported on top of efforts wasted on a mere few points. Giving out some points for redeeming and gaining 1 brain will allow more motivation for zombies to kill a human and end the game quicker. Redeeming takes 4 kills on most maps. Being boss gives +5 on top of earning potentially more points. This fuels more competition! If we can use this, I'm sure many who become zombies can feel better and try playing the game legitimately instead of turning AFK or D/C-ing until next round starts! (I'm not sure if something like this can be implemented but it'd be cool if that were possible!) If you have any questions or concerns, by all means please post/comment/msg/whatever to this topic or me! I hope I helped! EDIT: Clearer picture is now here! Edited June 26, 2014 by TheAtrocity 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Webflashing Posted June 25, 2014 Share Posted June 25, 2014 Why not have the number of kills as points? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Papa John Posted June 26, 2014 Share Posted June 26, 2014 (edited) For the love of god please just use this page to make an image of the equation and I'll take a look at it. As far as the thread goes a basic form of zombie zs points will be implemented soon. Since people with probably ask the system currently gives the zombies 50 points when they kill a human and 2 points each time they deal damage. Edited June 26, 2014 by Papa John 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irontaco Posted June 26, 2014 Share Posted June 26, 2014 (edited) Awesomely explained man, easy to understand and seems like a really dynamic system. Also Papa John the basic system you speak of seems really overpowered considering how many kills some people can get with wraiths or bosses, same with the damage. A more complex system seems better suited for a topic as complex as how to balance something like zombie points. The regular zombie gets 1 or 3 kills in a round, the good zombie can get up to 9 and i've seen it go as high as 15+ on some cases, do the math, that's more than what any human does in a single round. Zombie-obtained points should be something a lot harder to get than Human-obtained points considering that when you are turned into a zombie it's a form of "losing", points gotten as zombie should be used as an extra or encouragement more than anything. I have a few things in mind to suggest for Atrocity's system, though! Here i go: - A zombie point multiplier given under certain circumstances if the zombie plays well or cooperates with the team. Higher bonuses for rarer/more helpful actions. - Specific points for destroying deployables, cade damage is also added up to these: Arsenal Crate: +4 points Ressuply Box: +6 points Turret: +4 points Aegis board: +2 points Spot Lamp: +2 points Message Beacon: +1 point - Any zombie managing a prop kill gets x3 for the brain since it is such a rare event. - Reedemers should get x2 points for a while since it is an actual achievement and zombies would play harder so this happens. - Bosses like Shade have different killing mechanics at times, his prop kills should be worth the same as a normal brain kill, but, if certain criteria is caught at some time like, receiving heavy close range light damage for x time, while being close to other zombies, then points should be awarded for every 200 hp, pherpaps 3-5 (a decent quantity so Shade is encouraged), since it'd be considered "helping with a stack" - Poison headcrabs should get x2 for kill or x2 multiplier for points given for the damage done if he manages to bite a human and isn't just spamming M2. - Bosses like The Butcher or Nightmare should receive special bonuses on x ammount of kills, similar to a "kill more, get more" thing, like, say, a butcher manages to pull off 4 brains, he gets a x2 multiplier and now every extra brains he gets is worth 10 points, along with any damage done during that life. (maybe x1.5 mult sounds better so it isn't op), if he stops getting brains for some time the multiplier stops - Zombies managing to pull off high quantities of kills should get a small multiplier if they're actual kills and not a mix of assists and kills. - Whoever kills the last human gets 30 points. - Whoever gets the first kill in a match gets a x2 multiplier for a few seconds. - Bonemesh gets points on healing his fellow zombies, pherpaps 1 point for every 200hp healed. Edited June 26, 2014 by Irontaco 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Papa John Posted June 26, 2014 Share Posted June 26, 2014 Also Papa John the basic system you speak of seems really overpowered considering how many kills some people can get with wraiths or bosses, same with the damage. A more complex system seems better suited for a topic as complex as how to balance something like zombie points. The regular zombie gets 1 or 3 kills in a round, the good zombie can get up to 9 and i've seen it go as high as 15+ on some cases, do the math, that's more than what any human does in a single round. Zombie-obtained points should be something a lot harder to get than Human-obtained points considering that when you are turned into a zombie it's a form of "losing", points gotten as zombie should be used as an extra or encouragement more than anything. The problem is that because becoming a zombie is viewed so much as a "losing" state early zombies feel no need to stay in the fight. The idea behind zombies getting points is to make it less of a negative and more of a positive in that "it sucks I died, but now I have the opportunity to get all those points back". As they will repeatedly get killed as zombie but know that if they are even able to hurt the humans they are able to get points and if they kill one they get even more. Which, ideally, causes less people to rage quit as zombies and make them more engaged in the game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irontaco Posted June 26, 2014 Share Posted June 26, 2014 Yeah, that's kinda the point we're discussing, but plain out giving them 50 per kill seems a tad too exaggerated, you could literally get a lot of point-obsessed people to suicide midwave to maximize their point chances if the situation seems good enough in x map. A system that is focused on if the zombie actually plays well and is being cooperative instead of just clawing at a prop nailed 500 meters away from the humans seems to be more effective, at least, in my opinion. The whole topic is hard to balance though, considering how the gamemode is originally built, so it kind of requires a lot of thinking instead of doing simple glue and duct tape things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAtrocity Posted June 26, 2014 Author Share Posted June 26, 2014 For the love of god please just use this page to make an image of the equation and I'll take a look at it. As far as the thread goes a basic form of zombie zs points will be implemented soon. Since people with probably ask the system currently gives the zombies 50 points when they kill a human and 2 points each time they deal damage. Sorry. I'll do that next time! Thanks I'd like to say that +50/kill is a bit too much. I think what's really hard to define and set a line is where to limit the amount of points (because being on this server still isn't about to gain points, it's about to have fun, participate in teamwork, and play the game the way it's meant to be played) and still have some small form of motivation/reward for performing zombies. If I've predicted a decent path for a zombie on my graphing calculator using my equation, it amounts to roughly 150-200 points each zombie (in fact, you can easily acquire more than that). I don't think that's too bad considering that you were never meant to earn points as a zombie and we don't want (well at least I feel) zombies earning over-the-top points more than the bottom....25-35% of human players. I'm also trying to address the fact that at many times, we're seeing very well constructed barricades. You can get +50/kill sure, but getting the the brain requires some serious effort+teamwork and many will just give up at the sight of how fast they die and it feels like they aren't doing much at all. Once zombies DO break in the final barricade, it's usually 20-40 people. That's a lot of points to hand out, but in reality there won't be an even distribution. "Last-hitters" and "Kill-Stealers" will get much, if not most of the kills. I personally feel that handing out gradual points that correlate to effort, skill, and even luck to be "fairer". However, I see your point in raising the amount of points for a successful kill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAtrocity Posted June 26, 2014 Author Share Posted June 26, 2014 Awesomely explained man, easy to understand and seems like a really dynamic system. Also Papa John the basic system you speak of seems really overpowered considering how many kills some people can get with wraiths or bosses, same with the damage. A more complex system seems better suited for a topic as complex as how to balance something like zombie points. The regular zombie gets 1 or 3 kills in a round, the good zombie can get up to 9 and i've seen it go as high as 15+ on some cases, do the math, that's more than what any human does in a single round. Zombie-obtained points should be something a lot harder to get than Human-obtained points considering that when you are turned into a zombie it's a form of "losing", points gotten as zombie should be used as an extra or encouragement more than anything. I have a few things in mind to suggest for Atrocity's system, though! Here i go: - A zombie point multiplier given under certain circumstances if the zombie plays well or cooperates with the team. Higher bonuses for rarer/more helpful actions. - Specific points for destroying deployables, cade damage is also added up to these: Arsenal Crate: +4 points Ressuply Box: +6 points Turret: +4 points Aegis board: +2 points Spot Lamp: +2 points Message Beacon: +1 point - Any zombie managing a prop kill gets x3 for the brain since it is such a rare event. - Reedemers should get x2 points for a while since it is an actual achievement and zombies would play harder so this happens. - Bosses like Shade have different killing mechanics at times, his prop kills should be worth the same as a normal brain kill, but, if certain criteria is caught at some time like, receiving heavy close range light damage for x time, while being close to other zombies, then points should be awarded for every 200 hp, pherpaps 3-5 (a decent quantity so Shade is encouraged), since it'd be considered "helping with a stack" - Poison headcrabs should get x2 for kill or x2 multiplier for points given for the damage done if he manages to bite a human and isn't just spamming M2. - Bosses like The Butcher or Nightmare should receive special bonuses on x ammount of kills, similar to a "kill more, get more" thing, like, say, a butcher manages to pull off 4 brains, he gets a x2 multiplier and now every extra brains he gets is worth 10 points, along with any damage done during that life. (maybe x1.5 mult sounds better so it isn't op), if he stops getting brains for some time the multiplier stops - Zombies managing to pull off high quantities of kills should get a small multiplier if they're actual kills and not a mix of assists and kills. - Whoever kills the last human gets 30 points. - Whoever gets the first kill in a match gets a x2 multiplier for a few seconds. - Bonemesh gets points on healing his fellow zombies, pherpaps 1 point for every 200hp healed. I never thought about arsenals and the such! This feels like a great suggestion! I've tried not to get into boss-specifics as I'm just trying to push forward a possible solution for general use! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Papa John Posted June 26, 2014 Share Posted June 26, 2014 (edited) Sorry. I'll do that next time! Thanks I'd like to say that +50/kill is a bit too much. I think what's really hard to define and set a line is where to limit the amount of points (because being on this server still isn't about to gain points, it's about to have fun, participate in teamwork, and play the game the way it's meant to be played) and still have some small form of motivation/reward for performing zombies. If I've predicted a decent path for a zombie on my graphing calculator using my equation, it amounts to roughly 150-200 points each zombie (in fact, you can easily acquire more than that). I don't think that's too bad considering that you were never meant to earn points as a zombie and we don't want (well at least I feel) zombies earning over-the-top points more than the bottom....25-35% of human players. I'm also trying to address the fact that at many times, we're seeing very well constructed barricades. You can get +50/kill sure, but getting the the brain requires some serious effort+teamwork and many will just give up at the sight of how fast they die and it feels like they aren't doing much at all. Once zombies DO break in the final barricade, it's usually 20-40 people. That's a lot of points to hand out, but in reality there won't be an even distribution. "Last-hitters" and "Kill-Stealers" will get much, if not most of the kills. I personally feel that handing out gradual points that correlate to effort, skill, and even luck to be "fairer". However, I see your point in raising the amount of points for a successful kill. I can understand your position but there are few issues with the premise, primarily that in terms of damage zs is something of a racket. In that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer in terms of damage because those who initially gain the most damage are selected as boss zombies (and those boss zombies deal the most damage). Now while your equation accurately deals with the amount of damage the zombie class does it doesn't take into account the amount of health that zombie has and health plays a key role in how long a zombie can spend attacking a barricade or human. Which means, at most, three people (maximum boss zombie count) are making any actual points while the rest are making 1 or 2 points a round if they are lucky. What does that mean for the other zombies? They won't want to waste their time doing damage they are well aware isn't going to amount to any dividends. So they either wait around zombie spawn for more humans to be turned or leave the server entirely. Truth be told we get enough flak from people as it is for having game tracker enabled and "enabling the try-hards". Introducing a "skill" mechanic where we attempt to quantify skill in a game about surviving waves of zombies will only be adding gasoline to the flame. To be entirely honest considering the chaos that is the zombie horde it is nearly impossible for anyone of the zombie team to accurately or effectively "Kill Steal" or "Last Hit" a human. So the tl;dr is that if you are trying to apply the skill curve to zs you are going to find yourself falling short of your expectations. Edited June 26, 2014 by Papa John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Marche Posted June 26, 2014 Share Posted June 26, 2014 Interesting, the best way to gain points for later with a high population is now to be the best zombie rather than the best human. 50 points a kill sounds fantastic for being an abandoned mall shade. Spend wave 1 and 2 playing and then leave, walk away with 500+ points. Also, anyone complaining about "gametracker enabling the tryhards" is hilarious, because the only people who stopped trying before were bored of the same content and only played for gimmicky stuff, like cading the fountain outside of movies. Now that good players are trying again people don't know how to handle it, even though if you play on any server with a skilled playerbase you will certainly be spawncamped to death on wave 1 and possibly on wave 2 regardless. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Papa John Posted June 26, 2014 Share Posted June 26, 2014 (edited) Interesting, the best way to gain points for later with a high population is now to be the best zombie rather than the best human. 50 points a kill sounds fantastic for being an abandoned mall shade. Spend wave 1 and 2 playing and then leave, walk away with 500+ points. Also, anyone complaining about "gametracker enabling the tryhards" is hilarious, because the only people who stopped trying before were bored of the same content and only played for gimmicky stuff, like cading the fountain outside of movies. Now that good players are trying again people don't know how to handle it, even though if you play on any server with a skilled playerbase you will certainly be spawncamped to death on wave 1 and possibly on wave 2 regardless. We have no recorded instances where someone single handedly achieved 10+ human kills within the first two waves, but I'll keep an eye out for it. The problem with spawn camping in the first few rounds is that no one wants to continuously run into a firing squad repeatedly and achieving the same result each time (death). It is why the population for the zombie team on the first few rounds goes down instead of up because it isn't fun to play, so they don't stick around. But above everything else the game is called Zombie Survival, not Wall of Bullets simulator. When it gets to a point that zombies are unable to move because of the sheer firepower the humans are throwing at them, then there is a problem. Because then you lose the survival element, as zombies become no more of a threat than reloading is. Which for humans is fine, they get to rack up the points, but the zombies have no such incentive to keep trying. Thus the problem. Edited June 26, 2014 by Papa John 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Marche Posted June 26, 2014 Share Posted June 26, 2014 (edited) http://puu.sh/9KJoU/baae38bb65.jpg http://puu.sh/9KJAs/d935d5b301.jpg http://puu.sh/9KMpz/1615bf1274.jpg http://puu.sh/9KOEG/e66b2ffedd.jpg <--- Not 10 at wave 2 but 20 at wave 4 is functionally equal You probably don't see it because the decent players are staying human for obvious reasons right now. I could go on and on with screenshots of it but I think the point is there, it's very easily possible to amass 20 brains with a high pop. This is actually good, imo, because I know myself and many others would purposely play zombie just for that incredible profit. I agree with that on the second point, it's a large problem in modern zs. However, this lies mostly in map design I think; Take area 17 for example...impossible to spawncamp. Also 5 minutes ago http://puu.sh/9LdZU/c68ed8f13d.jpg Edited June 26, 2014 by Matt Marche 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fuzzy Dice Posted June 27, 2014 Share Posted June 27, 2014 We have no recorded instances where someone single handedly achieved 10+ human kills within the first two waves, but I'll keep an eye out for it. That happens all the time. Hell I broke 20 by wave 3. (Not that impressive because it happens alot.) Its called a shade on abandoned mall or mall of the dead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Papa John Posted June 27, 2014 Share Posted June 27, 2014 That happens all the time. Hell I broke 20 by wave 3. (Not that impressive because it happens alot.) Its called a shade on abandoned mall or mall of the dead. Interesting, well I have reverted the change so more thought can be put into it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Marche Posted June 27, 2014 Share Posted June 27, 2014 Perhaps you could have the # of points earned decay as the brains you earn increases. 50 For 1st kill, 40 for second, down to 10 for 5th and beyond. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magic Posted June 27, 2014 Share Posted June 27, 2014 Since I have been actively reading all of your responses, figure I should offer my opinion. I honestly believe we should look to add more of an incentive for the zombie team. Yes, it can be viewed as "losing" if you are killed by a zombie, but personally I have and seen others leave the server if killed by a zombie and wait until the next map. Whether that fix is adding points for each zombie kill or something else has yet to be seen. My personal suggestion is go with what Matt said about the points decreasing each kill for REGULAR zombies. For boss zombies, there needs to be a different method of obtaining method because after all, they are the most powerful zombies and can get kills easier then the average zombie. Just look at the screenshots posted by others, 20+ kills, 50 points each would equal 1000 points (50 x 20= 1000). Not all humans can even earn that many points in one game. We need to develop a well balanced system for both regular and boss zombies for this to work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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