Gmod Ze Improvements

[Vinny Mac]

Okay, I figured I finally get around to this, and it's been sitting on my bucket list for literally ever, so lemme just put this out there.

 

Garry's Mod's take on Zombie Escape, is at best, very subpar.

 

I understand the development team have done pretty much all they could to bring Zombie Escape into the server, and I'm elated, because there are so many fun and great Zombie Escape maps to play, there's more out there than just Mako and Santassination. But the thing is, one of my favorite things from my time in the CSS Zombie Escape community I'm in (still in) is the gameplay aspect of it.

 

It's smooth and crisp, you can bhop and strafe around, you can knife zombies back, and it feels satisfying to see the zombie that was trying to dig his knife into your back go flying away like a paper airplane in a jetstream. Of course it can be loads of fun to play as a zombie, having the ability to pretty much tag someone and they're done and the fact you can always legitimately turn the entire tide of the map with just one knife swipe.

 

Here, it's a point farm. A literal one, you play this, because you're broke and you need to earn points back without having to cade or heal, or even to Zmain. While there is an impressive arsenal of guns and the introduction of a freeze nade is extremely welcome, none of it is truly that innovated, f.e. Smoke Grenades will act as freeze nades in Zombie Mod and Zombie Escape in Counter Strike: Source and Counter Strike: Global Offensive. Being an zombie is not fun at all, because you can't do anything other than mindlessly run forward and hope you get close enough to swing, only for your once secured kill to be sent flying forward while people bodyblock you from their injured friend. In a way, it's too forgiving and it's too difficult.

 

Difficult how you may ask, well let me give an example I'm sure all of us are familiar with: The reindeer herd rush in the beginning of Santassination. It was literally removed because it was deemed too difficult for the server. The sad reality is, it's actually one of the easiest parts, because yes you're being bum rushed by a million reindeer, on the Counter Strike side of gameplay, you have Kevlar to help absorb the damage and it's way more forgiving to dodge and weave. Gmod, you get hit once, you're slowed down to a crawl and left to die, if it hasn't already one shotted you. And that's my biggest gripe with Garry's Mod Zombie Escape that just utterly drives me up the wall, the lack of armor. Armor, was, if not, one of the biggest items you needed to manage well if you wanted to last, and here, you don't get it. You take all of it, and the damage scaling is absolutely brutal. For example, I'll post a video comparing the damage outputs probably tomorrow, it will probably be linked under this, but the damage you take is drastically different. In CSS, you'll take a chunk of Kevlar damage, and about roughy 15 points of Health, not a bad deal, you can shake it off and move on. Here, it's like you got slapped by Gwyn followed by a German Suplex from Brock Lesnar, you lose pretty much ALL of your health, and you're literally fucked unless you get lucky enough to be close to the rocks. It's a clusterfuck to deal with the beavers, because they do so much, while in CSS, you legit take 5 damage and 10 points of Kevlar, I'm pretty sure it's that, but it's significantly lower. Heal is a requirement, instead of just sometihng that's helpful. The whole point of Zombie Escape is you want to relay on teamwork and defense, not item usage. A team that has to rely on any sort of item usage is done.

 

That brings me to my next point, the gun play. While here, the Treyr TMP, or known here as the Silenced SMG, is arguably one of the best guns to use. It's fast fire rate and accuracy, plus it's reload, is a favorite of many ZE players. While everything was kept in tact, there's one big thing missing, and it's the biggest elephant in the room for me. Where the actual fuck, is the knock back. Slowing down the zombies is nice, but if there isn't any knockback, how can you hold anything. The guns as a result, have been given comically high damage buffs, when the reality is, the TMP can at best do 150 damage to the head, and roughly 12-35 damage to the chest and limbs areas. And the headshot damage can be lower depending on your distance. Here, it does about as much as a 50 cal round from a M1911A4 LMG. The problem is, high damage can only keep them back for so long considering they spawn on their buddies when they die. So as a result, it's like you never even killed them in the first place. I can't tell you how dumb that sounds. Sure, the points are great, but I'm fairly certain the point of ZE is to escape successfully, not rack up points like an arcade game.

 

The solution, make it to where Zombie Escape doesn't give you points until you beat a round or stage on the map. There needs to be actual knock back so the humans can breathe, because once the zombies start outnumbering the humans or grow in numbers, it's extremely difficult to keep them back. The guns need a nerf as well, weapons like SMGS shouldn't be dealing above AR damage and they don't need laser accuracy, otherwise it renders ARs obsolete. The shotguns need to be able to push back the zombies with greater force because the whole point of shotgun usage in ZE is to knock them back better at the cost of range and accuracy. ARs are your all around guns, they need to be able to do more than SMGs and be more accurate up until midrange, the Stalker Rifle is crap when it comes to that when it should accel in mid range. Snipers are fine, but I know for a fact that the Auto Snipers in CSS didn't deal AWP levels of damage. Obviously, this isn't gonna be an overnight thing, but it's a step in the right direction into making ZE more about gameplay and teamwork than just a fucking point mill.

 

Another aspect that can be improved upon, are the humans themselves. We need a means to buy batteries to fuel our armor, and/or buffs to our health, because humans just die too easily to stage hazards that shouldn't be that much of a threat, i.e Enemy npcs.

That, or adjust the damage values of the Enemy npcs and stage hazards to accommodate the fact humans are way more vulnerable on Gmod ZE than in ZE CSS, where the biggest threat, should be the zombies after them.

 

At the end of the day, you can fight all the Sephiroths and Bahaumts all you want, but the zombies should be the most significant threat. They feel like an annoying obstable in an otherwise diverse and colorful landscape in ZE. Counter Strike zombies are a force to be reckon with. One hit, and your time as a human should be done, because either you screwed up, or you got left behind. It's too forgiving in the fact, you can take up to 5 hits to kill, which is utterly rediculous. The fact they can stack up and charge in is great, but the fact there's no means to really keep them back efficiently is extremely annoying, and it's a problem that plagues CSGO's ZE community, hence why people have rolled back to CSS ZE. Zombies feel utterly weak. Yes the knock back is bad, but it was a means of buying a team time, because a single zombie can easily change the tide of a match. They don't have that potential, they all have to hope they can get close to the humans and slaughter them all, if they didn't die of boredom first. It should be fun to be a zombie, not a chore. So what's the inverse for the zombies then with the buffs and nerfs I've proposed for the humans?

 

Zombies should be significantly faster and should be able to end a life in a swing, as it should be, but the knock back should be the only saving grace a human gets from them, as it should be. The whole point of the two different teams is one is trying to complete a goal, the other is supposed to be actively hindering it, or even shooting it down. Also, the redeem system should be removed, because the thing about ZE is, once you lose an man, you don't magically poof up a guy after he kills three of your buddies. It's not fair for either side because it should be fun to play as a zombie, and you should be motivated to stay alive as a human. Now all of a sudden, the zombies actually sound like a threat, not just an obstacle. The zombies need to be a legitimate threat again, more so than what they are, because it simply feels like they're just there as part of the map.

 

Last and not least, the maps, and item usage. So far, the transition for Materias and spells have been fairly smooth, and I'm surprised how you got the maps on here in the first place. But I can't be the first to say it, it's a pain in the ass to use it. Like you legit have to do some weird crouch up or press an combination of keys and hope it doesn't simply boot you to your desktop by accident. You should able to simply press E, even if you gotta up first. There also needs to be a system that can tell you how long an item is on cooldown, because that's extremely pivotal on some maps ala if you're a healer or you have to time wind right. I know I said items aren't and shouldn't be that important, but the point of the items is quality of life and to give the humans a chance, since 9 times out of 10, the zombies are given items to use as well. Another thing to bear in mind, is the movement system. Yes, Gmod uses an completely different movement system, I can already feel the difference between CSS heavy, but smooth movement, and Gmod's slippery but agile movement. I'm not saying there should be bhopping for both sides, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. Both teams benefit from Bhoppers, from being able to hit triggers quicker or to close the gap between you and a kill. Crouch jumping needs to be worked on as well; for some reason, you need to jump way earlier to dodge one of ZE's infamous laser or to avoid an obstacle, which shouldn't be needed considering how ridiculous it is to time the jumps on Gmod.

 

To pretty much conclude this, I want to end it on this note. Undoubtedly, the HGDC has made massive strides to see forth for the ground works for ZE to be introduced to a very much alive and bustling community. Honestly, the sound of it brings me happiness since I grew up on ZE and as a result, it's rooted within me. I don't criticize just to antagonize about it because I can, but it's because I want to see it treated better than it is. Because it hurts to see something like BR in ZS in a more stable and working condition than ZE. Zombie Escape in Counter Strike will only be there for so long, I've seen two communities die with it, FireWaLL, and PlagueFest, one being a precursor for a lot of ZS and ZM community, and the other being in a three-way rivalry between GFL, Hells Gamers, and Plague Fest.

 

Time is Zombie Escape's worst enemy. We legitimately have only a few mappers left for it, and as much I'm trying to learn the craft, more and more of them are leaving to move on to bigger and better things, such as other communities or even jobs because they're gifted. I genuinely want to see Zombie Escape thrive again, even if it's another form. HellsGamers has essentially become a second home because it's the only thing that reminds me of those golden days of where I was playing on my school desktop in secret or on my old shitty laptop, doing my best to help the team win no matter how bad or good I was at it.

[ForrestMarkX]

I fully agree and can implement some of these changes. The main reason I don't touch ZE is cause changing the slightest value could utterly fuck everything up

[Master ToF]

cause changing the slightest value could utterly fuck everything up

 

Only Terrible knows the ze code well. But he's banned. Good luck.

[ForrestMarkX]

Only Terrible knows the ze code well. But he's banned. Good luck.

 

I know the code perfectly well, the stuff Super added isn't trivial to understand. The things I was talking about were zombie speed, knockback, and weapon damage

[ForrestMarkX]

Wall of text

 

Can you please PM me a summary of this so I know exactly what to change and adjust.

[Snowyamur]

Another aspect that can be improved upon, are the humans themselves. We need a means to buy batteries to fuel our armor, and/or buffs to our health, because humans just die too easily to stage hazards that shouldn't be that much of a threat, i.e Enemy npcs.

That, or adjust the damage values of the Enemy npcs and stage hazards to accommodate the fact humans are way more vulnerable on Gmod ZE than in ZE CSS, where the biggest threat, should be the zombies after them.

 

One thing I would like to point out is that there is no realistic way to make human players die "slower," partly because if a player walks into a trigger_hurt trap on the map and dies from it, that's on them, and partly because I think the goal is not to make humans harder to kill, but give them opportunities to recover.

 

Most of the time on ZE maps, the only form of healing is through materia and spells, both of which are one-time use. That mechanic works well when considering the responsibility the healing-owner upholds, using it only when necessary and on a certain stage of a ZE map. Being a form of recovery, this is one of the main reasons why many players on ZE maps survive; they can heal health they lost to enemy NPCs, zombie players, or non-instakill trigger_hurt traps.

 

Why am I mentioning this? I am not denying the use of armor for players, since that will indeed give them the edge over the zombie players, but what about the zombies? Provide them more damage to penetrate that armor? That's extremely dangerous in scenarios where players lose most of their armor, which makes it all the more fun, I agree.

 

But one thing I considered was if adding armor could make environmental damage pointless. Adjusting environmental damage to balance against the armor players can work, but that could be extra work for different environmental hazards.

 

One thing I would suggest that may/ may not be better/ worse than buying armor is placing static healing stations in parts of the ZE map where players are given brief hiatus from rampaging zombies. I'm not aware of specifically where players are able to "rest" and heal, but doing this will allow all players to forcefully heal themselves, unless they fall behind and their paths are forever blocked. Healing materia and spells can still be used, and you might ask why keep this if we have healing stations. The reason is because of bosses; during boss fights, there are no healing stations, making healing materia and spells all the more valuable.

 

Healing stations prevent players from blaming the healer should they not be healed at an early stage where they are already dying. This does not, however, stop blaming altogether because if the healer doesn't do their job when asked, then blame continues, but at least isn't out of immaturity.

 

I wish to provide more on this, but this is just my take on a possible, more effective substitute to players buying armor.

[Kritzinho]

One thing I would like to point out is that there is no realistic way to make human players die "slower," partly because if a player walks into a trigger_hurt trap on the map and dies from it, that's on them, and partly because I think the goal is not to make humans harder to kill, but give them opportunities to recover.

 

Most of the time on ZE maps, the only form of healing is through materia and spells, both of which are one-time use. That mechanic works well when considering the responsibility the healing-owner upholds, using it only when necessary and on a certain stage of a ZE map. Being a form of recovery, this is one of the main reasons why many players on ZE maps survive; they can heal health they lost to enemy NPCs, zombie players, or non-instakill trigger_hurt traps.

 

Why am I mentioning this? I am not denying the use of armor for players, since that will indeed give them the edge over the zombie players, but what about the zombies? Provide them more damage to penetrate that armor? That's extremely dangerous in scenarios where players lose most of their armor, which makes it all the more fun, I agree.

 

But one thing I considered was if adding armor could make environmental damage pointless. Adjusting environmental damage to balance against the armor players can work, but that could be extra work for different environmental hazards.

 

One thing I would suggest that may/ may not be better/ worse than buying armor is placing static healing stations in parts of the ZE map where players are given brief hiatus from rampaging zombies. I'm not aware of specifically where players are able to "rest" and heal, but doing this will allow all players to forcefully heal themselves, unless they fall behind and their paths are forever blocked. Healing materia and spells can still be used, and you might ask why keep this if we have healing stations. The reason is because of bosses; during boss fights, there are no healing stations, making healing materia and spells all the more valuable.

 

Healing stations prevent players from blaming the healer should they not be healed at an early stage where they are already dying. This does not, however, stop blaming altogether because if the healer doesn't do their job when asked, then blame continues, but at least isn't out of immaturity.

 

I wish to provide more on this, but this is just my take on a possible, more effective substitute to players buying armor.

 

I found this quite complicated to solve... I have an idea but i dont think its ideal, give another weapon for ZE players to choose, a super version of the Medic Pistol, which would have armament imbued to it, the % of armor it gives is really low i believe its 4 per shot with armament, adding the fact you need to actually aim to heal it should'nt be a problem, and as a bonus it would add more teamwork to ZE.

btw it should have longer healing rate and only 5 or 10 stocks, due to armor being a really good thing. Or instead of a weapon it could be just a healing kit with a long cooldown and armament.

Dunno sincerely, but i would like to see this teamwork on ZE i would really like

 

The other way i found to add armor is, simply, giving a prefixed amount of armor at the start of the round, calculating a balanced amount depending the way it behaves on the hazards, and the actual zombie damage

the rest of the game would be all players fault

Edited May 30, 2018 by Kritzinho

[Snowyamur]

I found this quite complicated to solve... I have an idea but i dont think its ideal, give another weapon for ZE players to choose, a super version of the Medic Pistol, which would have armament imbued to it, the % of armor it gives is really low i believe its 4 per shot with armament, adding the fact you need to actually aim to heal it should'nt be a problem, and as a bonus it would add more teamwork to ZE.

btw it should have longer healing rate and only 5 or 10 stocks, due to armor being a really good thing. Or instead of a weapon it could be just a healing kit with a long cooldown and armament.

Dunno sincerely, but i would like to see this teamwork on ZE i would really like

 

The other way i found to add armor is, simply, giving a prefixed amount of armor at the start of the round, calculating a balanced amount depending the way it behaves on the hazards, and the actual zombie damage

the rest of the game would be all players fault

 

A Med Pistol with already augmented with armament sounds interesting, but would that be something players have to buy like the other weapons available for ZE? How would that balance against how much damage the zombies inflict? You would have to have about 10 people shoot you at once with a single healing dart from an augmented Med Pistol if it healed 10 health per shot, but with 4 armor per shot, that's only 40.

 

As for the healing kit, that might not be necessary because there are some environmental hazards that insta-kill human players, and the way you described it sounds like how a medkit in normal ZS would function.

 

Otherwise, interesting options here.

[Kritzinho]

A Med Pistol with already augmented with armament sounds interesting, but would that be something players have to buy like the other weapons available for ZE? How would that balance against how much damage the zombies inflict? You would have to have about 10 people shoot you at once with a single healing dart from an augmented Med Pistol if it healed 10 health per shot, but with 4 armor per shot, that's only 40.

 

As for the healing kit, that might not be necessary because there are some environmental hazards that insta-kill human players, and the way you described it sounds like how a medkit in normal ZS would function.

 

Otherwise, interesting options here.

 

Well i agree with the healing kit, indeed would be like the normal one, and Yes it should be a cheap buyable weapon, the low armor healing should be fine due to zombies, if we boosted their damage it would be quite unfair for humans, so we have some armor to protect against hazards, as i think the damage zombies would do would remove most or all the armor this is more like a protection against hazards than zombies anyways.

 

But i think. it should be interesting if we could remove the restriction for healing only when your target loses hp, to healing whenever you want, so the person with this gun should be able to heal armor anytime to anyone he wants,

this way making it more useful even though the armor rate is so low, you would be constantly healing making this less situational, as some maps with materias would make you unable to heal armor until your mates get a lot of damage... Well, its all i can think about right know

Edited June 3, 2018 by Kritzinho