Vytohrim Mutagens – An Hg Zs Overhaul

[Snowyamur]

*Remake based off of the Mutators Overhaul thread. This is improved and simplified. Any attempt at trolling will result in your post removed, reported, and filed.

 

Server Designation

[HG] 24/7 Zombie Survival! | US-Central | FastDL | HeLLsgamers.

 

Date Created

August 2, 2018

 

Author

Snowyamur

 

Purpose

Eliminate linear gameplay | make point-save less addictive | spice up gameplay by mounting on gameplay mutagens

 

Problem

In zombie survival, the goal is usually to survive; very simple and basic concept. The problem with this on the HG Zombie Survival server is that certain actions are taken and repeated to ensure one primary goal: make profit and secure that profit through point-save.

 

Point-save has been the defining mechanic of HG’s ZS server, and it distinguished it well from other ZS servers. The issue with this mechanic is that it has become addictive; no one plays for the sake of fun; they only play for the sake of profit. This is a form of linear gameplay that tarnishes what could otherwise be a great game mode, and ever since the fall of Noxious Gaming, the gameplay has only been improving.

 

To prove that point-save is a linear gameplay mechanic, if we decided to remove it, everyone would quit. It is as core to the server as it is linear because actions committed by players are all driven to profit and point-farm, nothing more, nothing less. Worst of all, nothing changes because of this linear gameplay; everything remains the same, and change, in my opinion, is necessary for this server, and the game mode, to survive.

 

Solution

Vytohrim Mutagens (Vy play-off of vita meaning “Life†in Latin, and tohrim play-off of mortem meaning “Death†in Latin) is a suggestion that drives from Left 4 Dead 2’s Mutations mechanic as well as StarCraft 2’s Mutators Mode in Co-op.

 

It's a player-choice-driven system where once the server map is loaded, players will be introduced to a window that provides a list of at least five mutagens. Players will vote on two mutagens they want to be affected by for the entire round and voting ends once the timer has 20 seconds remaining. The two mutagens that win first and second place in the voting poll will be activated.

 

*EDIT Note: the total number of votes is counted for all players on the server, not distinguished or separated by who is on whichever team.

 

At this point, the mutagens will take effect, affecting certain traits, attributes, and abilities for both the Human and Zombie teams. These mutagens cannot be changed at any time, and any traits purchased from the Worth Menu beforehand will remain, but their effects will be benefitted/ hindered by the mutagens.

 

*EDIT Should players wish to abstain from having mutagens active, they can vote on the extra option "No Mutagens" to disable them for the round. If "No Mutagens" wins over the five randomly-chosen mutagens, then Mutagens will be disabled for the current round.

Edited August 3, 2018 by Syamur

[Snowyamur]

First four sample mutagens, two of which can be active through voting.

 

Corrosive Acquirement

Human Team

+ Barricade repair pools are slightly larger

+ Barricade health pools are slightly larger

- Barricade health pools take a few points of damage/ second

 

 

Zombie Team

+ Can directly damage barricade repair pools through claw attacks

+ Damage to barricades slightly increased

- Attack speed reduced

 

 

 

Life on the Line

Human Team

+ Health significantly increased

- Upon damage by a zombie, start taking large health damage/ second over time until next heal

 

Zombie Team

+ Innate life steal

+ Fraction of damage dealt to human target adds a large amount of decaying health to health pool

- Damage slightly decreased

 

 

 

*EDIT

Bloody Assault

Human Team

+ Melee damage & attack speed substantially increased

+ Health slightly increased

- Projectile & explosive damage, reload speed, fire rate slightly decreased

 

*EDIT Zombie Team

+ Movement speed slightly increased

+ Damage slightly increased

+ Upon successful hit, gain chance of knocking the target a far distance, severely slowing it and blurring its vision for a few seconds

- Attack speed decreased

 

 

 

*EDIT

Death’s Calling Card

Human Team

+ Fire rate increased

+ Upon fatal damage that would kill, gain a temporary, invulnerable shield for three seconds (affect only occurs once every 60 seconds)

- Health slightly reduced

 

*EDIT Zombie Team

+ Damage slightly increased

+ Poison effectiveness slightly increased

+ Upon dying, resurrect with full health on the spot (does not affect Boss Zombies; effect resets upon official death)

- Health slightly reduced

Edited August 3, 2018 by Syamur

[Laces115]

Couldn't this have just been added to the other post? Or even edit your original post to this?

[Snowyamur]

Couldn't this have just been added to the other post? Or even edit your original post to this?

 

No because the past thread became cancer, and I wanted none of that. Made a fresh new one that I'm currently moderating actively.

[Laces115]

No because the past thread became cancer, and I wanted none of that. Made a fresh new one that I'm currently moderating actively.

 

Cancer how? We gave our opinion that we didn't like this idea. That's feedback.

[Snowyamur]

Darkness Falls..

 

Humans lose flashlight.. Humans have very limited vision.. (similar to what happens on nightmare event)

Humans take constant damage when away from "light sources"

These light sources can behave exactly like the supply crates..

 

 

Zombies Move 25% faster and deal 25% more damage but have 35% less hp.

Zombies take damage while standing inside light sources Similar to being on fire

Random chance of spawning at nightmare?

Random spawning nightmare has 1/2 hp of boss spawn

 

Darkness Falls…

Human Team

+ Flashlight is brighter

+ When near light sources, gain increased damage, fire rate, and attack speed

- Flashlight now has a battery timer

- When in darkness, damage, fire rate, and attack speed reduced + gain tunnel vision

- Map is now covered in darkness

 

Zombie Team

+ Nightmare health, damage, movement speed, and attack speed slightly increased

+ Night vision more effective; can see human targets farther away and more clearly

- When near light sources, take health damage/ second over time

- When in darkness, gain a shield that absorbs damage and regenerates

[Snowyamur]

Cancer how? We gave our opinion that we didn't like this idea. That's feedback.

 

Not the way you guys phrased it. It could've been phrased better, plus I wanted a fresh start. Like I told Kapu, I simplified the suggestion. This is the official thread now.

[Laces115]

Not the way you guys phrased it. It could've been phrased better, plus I wanted a fresh start. Like I told Kapu, I simplified the suggestion. This is the official thread now.

 

I think it would be a LOT better if these were admin-only activated events, like how we do Party Popper. Having a potentially good, normal game get RNG'd into a different situation, and losing for it, is not satisfying. Special events are admin-only for a reason.

 

Huge changes to basic gameplay like this shouldn't randomly occur without player or admin consent just doesn't sit well with me.

[Snowyamur]

I think it would be a LOT better if these were admin-only activated events, like how we do Party Popper. Having a potentially good, normal game get RNG'd into a different situation, and losing for it, is not satisfying. Special events are admin-only for a reason.

 

Huge changes to basic gameplay like this shouldn't randomly occur without player or admin consent just doesn't sit well with me.

 

That's a fair point, but it's why I made these mutagens player-driven now. You get to choose what mutagens you want, and only two from a list of five every round will be active every time.

[Snowyamur]

I think it would be a LOT better if these were admin-only activated events, like how we do Party Popper. Having a potentially good, normal game get RNG'd into a different situation, and losing for it, is not satisfying. Special events are admin-only for a reason.

 

Huge changes to basic gameplay like this shouldn't randomly occur without player or admin consent just doesn't sit well with me.

 

I've also added that players can vote to opt out of Mutagens.

[Techmo]

There might be a problem with being able to opt out with a vote, or at least a simple vote. Any team with more players would be able to remove mutagens from the current game if they weren't in their favor, and the other team, the next game, would be unable to do the same due to insufficient votes. We would have to make the votes weighted based on the number of players on each team.

[Snowyamur]

There might be a problem with being able to opt out with a vote, or at least a simple vote. Any team with more players would be able to remove mutagens from the current game if they weren't in their favor, and the other team, the next game, would be unable to do the same due to insufficient votes. We would have to make the votes weighted based on the number of players on each team.

 

I would say make the votes so that all players, no matter what team they're on, would vote on it. The total vote count should apply to all players currently on the server.

[Techmo]

My concern is that their vote would be biased based on what team they are on. If there are 60 humans, and 20 zombies, and a mutagen gives humans a buff that is a bit more desirable than zombies, zombies would be unable to have a deciding part in the vote due to greed and other things. Unless all mutagens are perfectly equal and perceived as so by the general server population, it might be a problem.

 

Maybe we could show the mutagens and hold the vote before the teams are decided, but players would still consider themselves to most likely be assigned to human team, and adopt the bias for human mutagens.

A vote where each team members vote is equal to (1 / <team population>) out of a total 100% of <server population> would keep things even, and give both teams equal power in the vote no matter the situation.

Edited August 3, 2018 by Techmo

[Snowyamur]

My concern is that their vote would be biased based on what team they are on. If there are 60 humans, and 20 zombies, and a mutagen gives humans a buff that is a bit more desirable than zombies, zombies would be unable to have a deciding part in the vote due to greed and other things. Unless all mutagens are perfectly equal and perceived as so by the general server population, it might be a problem.

 

Maybe we could show the mutagens and hold the vote before the teams are decided, but players would still consider themselves to most likely be assigned to human team, and adopt the bias for human mutagens.

A vote where each team members vote is equal to (1 / <team population>) out of a total 100% of <server population> would keep things even, and give both teams equal power in the vote no matter the situation.

 

I like that each vote would count as one, and that is something I will certainly include when considering my suggestion and its fairness. One thing's for certain, bias is possible, but avoiding bias, while not impossible, is hard.

 

To get around that, I can make it so that each Mutagen can have the same number of buffs and debuffs for both teams, that way even if more desirable or not, there still remains an even level of playing field.

 

I do appreciate this feedback, but more work must be done on this suggestion. I believe this could be something great for the server if implemented properly with the correct balance.

[Laces115]

My concern is that their vote would be biased based on what team they are on. If there are 60 humans, and 20 zombies, and a mutagen gives humans a buff that is a bit more desirable than zombies, zombies would be unable to have a deciding part in the vote due to greed and other things. Unless all mutagens are perfectly equal and perceived as so by the general server population, it might be a problem.

 

Maybe we could show the mutagens and hold the vote before the teams are decided, but players would still consider themselves to most likely be assigned to human team, and adopt the bias for human mutagens.

A vote where each team members vote is equal to (1 / <team population>) out of a total 100% of <server population> would keep things even, and give both teams equal power in the vote no matter the situation.

 

This isn't even considering the fact that people ALWAYS vote the first option. Mid-game, people just want to get votes out of their face and keep playing. So whichever choice, "yes" or "no" is first, it WILL usually win.

 

That's why I think it should be something admins start and, maybe then, players can vote on whether they agree with the admin's idea. Just like how admins propose votes on Party Popper and such.

[Snowyamur]

This isn't even considering the fact that people ALWAYS vote the first option. Mid-game, people just want to get votes out of their face and keep playing. So whichever choice, "yes" or "no" is first, it WILL usually win.

 

That's why I think it should be something admins start and, maybe then, players can vote on whether they agree with the admin's idea. Just like how admins propose votes on Party Popper and such.

 

The question is can we get enough admins online to do Vytohrim Mutagens? That's a lot of time commitment to do something like this, but maybe it will make admins more active on the server, which is a positive.

[Laces115]

The question is can we get enough admins online to do Vytohrim Mutagens? That's a lot of time commitment to do something like this, but maybe it will make admins more active on the server, which is a positive.

 

You'd be surprised how often they are on. As long as it's a vote available to mods in general, and not say, Forest and Marco only, they wouldn't be outrageously rare.

[Snowyamur]

You'd be surprised how often they are on. As long as it's a vote available to mods in general, and not say, Forest and Marco only, they wouldn't be outrageously rare.

 

In that case, now comes the question as to how often should admin be making Mutagens active or not. Once we resolve this problem with deciding on active or not, we're pretty solid for the suggestion.

[Snowyamur]

New mutagen:

 

Crippling Pathogen

Human Team

+ All healing sources are slightly more effective

+ Health slightly increased

- Movement speed decreased

- Every minute, permanently lose 3 health points in the health pool

 

Zombie Team

+ Damage increased

+ Innate life regeneration

- Every minute, lose a few points of damage, but gain a percentage of health and innate life regeneration

[Kapu]

My biggest concern is that balancing many of these will be impossible. There will always be a human-sided or zombie-sided one that people would always vote for. Also, small note, yeah some people play for profit, but that doesn't mean that profit isn't their fun. You're making the MASSIVE assumption nobody has fun just playing the game, which is obviously just wrong. I play for profit so when i'm bored I can dump 500+ points on a weapon and watch the zombie hoard be exterminated. Clearly people like how the gamemode plays right now, because we can hit 90 pop consistently, even sometimes on weekdays.

 

Additional random suggestions:

 

~ Require the population to be above 50

 

~ Have the vote menu appear once every 3-5 maps

[Snowyamur]

My biggest concern is that balancing many of these will be impossible. There will always be a human-sided or zombie-sided one that people would always vote for. Also, small note, yeah some people play for profit, but that doesn't mean that profit isn't their fun. You're making the MASSIVE assumption nobody has fun just playing the game, which is obviously just wrong. I play for profit so when i'm bored I can dump 500+ points on a weapon and watch the zombie hoard be exterminated. Clearly people like how the gamemode plays right now, because we can hit 90 pop consistently, even sometimes on weekdays.

 

Additional random suggestions:

 

~ Require the population to be above 50

 

~ Have the vote menu appear once every 3-5 maps

 

Well, until we figure out how to make voting less biased, I guess it's safe to keep this idea in storage for now.

[Kritzinho]

Balance is Overrated, just make it random and put a maximum mutagen per X rounds or maps and also a make it cicle between every mutagen without repeating.

 

The Vote could still be viable in case people want the game to have mutagen or not, but the best way to do it is to do it random, theres never balance when you are able to choose, people will always try the same things that they think they will benefit.

[Kapu]

Balance is Overrated, just make it random and put a maximum mutagen per X rounds or maps and also a make it cicle between every mutagen without repeating.

 

The Vote could still be viable in case people want the game to have mutagen or not, but the best way to do it is to do it random, theres never balance when you are able to choose, people will always try the same things that they think they will benefit.

 

If your post starts with "Balance is Over rated" nobody is gonna listen to you