ZS Human Ideas Post

[Guest]

 

 

Hey everyone, been a bit and I thought I would try something new and share my thoughts on some new additions I’d like to see added to the humans array of weapons, defenses and other elements. In this post, I will go through some new Worth Menu Returns, Force-Field and Turret ideas, summarising what they would do ingame and how they can further make the humans items more unique.

NOTE: None of the statistical values I mention are exactly the amount they have to be (IE Cost, Damage, Health etc.), they are open to changing value based on user feedback and or other opinions.

To begin with, the humans currently have access to 3 different Turrets and 1 Force-Field, and I think they could use a little more variety.

The three turrets the humans currently have are the ‘Gun’ Turret which uses SMG rounds, the ‘Assault’ Turret which uses assault rifle rounds and the ‘Blaster’ Turret which uses shotgun shells. These turrets cover 3 of the 5 primary ammunition types (Ammo purchasable from the ‘Worth’ Menu), and the other 2 ammo types have potential to be turned into their own respective turrets.

The ‘Sniper’ Turret and the ‘Mini’ Turret are 2 turrets which differ from the standard model. The 3 turrets currently available in-game are all suited for terrestrial combat, although they can be placed on walls and ceilings by some miracle. These 2 new turrets will be suited to becoming adhesive against walls and ceilings, again with the ability to be placed on the floor. They have a much more spherical and smaller frame which makes them weaker than the previous 3 turrets. As their names subtly imply, the ‘Sniper’ Turret would take sniper rifle rounds and the ‘Mini’ Turret would take pistol rounds as obviously, there are no turrets in-game who use either ammunition types. Each of the turrets are capable of 360° horizontal and vertical turns. They would both be available in the ‘Worth’ Menu and the Arsenal Crate for 60 points each. They can be purchased by anyone in the ‘Worth’ Menu but have a limited stock of 3 in the ‘Arsenal’ Crate respectively.

The ‘Sniper’ Turret can perform said rotations as mentioned above, but moves and fires the slowest of any turret in-game. However, the turret deals 150 damage per shot and has a fire-rate of 1 shot / 1.5 seconds. This turret is capable of carrying 80 bullets, slowly and gradually firing each one and has an integrity of 80%, being slightly weaker than the 3 current turrets. The ‘Mini’ Turret can also perform, move and rotate as mentioned above, instead moving and firing the fastest of of any turret in-game, possessing a fire-rate of 25 bullets / per-second. The downside with this turret is that it deals 15 damage per shot and has an integrity of 70%. This turret can hold 350 pistol ammunition which can be fired out easily.

Overall, these 2 new turrets will provide a new way to defend against zombies, differing from the standard 3 ground based turrets. The design can be experimented with more, hopefully retaining the same spherical shape, but is open to community ideas.

Next up is the Force-Field, being a reliable and goto item in the Arsenal Crate, it's definitely got alot going for it. However, I feel it is due for some new additions of its type of deployable. The Force-Field currently comes in 1 model, being a basic rectangular plane with the ability to stop poison and other projectiles.

I would like to see some new types of force-field in-which I hope will make using them much more flexible. Before adding these, I would change the name of the current force-field from Force Field Emitter to ‘Pane’ Force-Field so each new addition can be different from one another. But regardless, I would like to introduce these 3 new force-field types, the ‘Lower’ Force-Field, the ‘Curved’ Force-Field and the ‘Spherical’ Force-Field.

These 3 new items should be added to make the current usage of force-fields more convenient for the human team. Each one of the caters to a specific entry point / cade holding position. Everyone one of these new force-fields would be available in the Arsenal Crate for their own respective prices, placing at a stock of 2 each.

The ‘Lower’ Force-Field would cost 80 points and is shaped as an elongated rectangle, this force-field would work on defending smaller windows or entrances to the interior of a cade, this force-field is also somewhat weaker than the others. The ‘Curved’ Force-Field would cost 100 points and works on defending a primary attack point of the zombies, curving at a 90° angle and protecting more humans, however it’s has more exposure to poison and other projectiles.  And the ‘Spherical’ Force-Field would cost 150 points and be able to hide humans inside of it, defending them from all angles, its downsides include the fact that it’s extremely vulnerable to poison at that.

Overall, for these new force-fields will make use of unfilled niches in cades, preventing projectile based attacks further. And finally, I just wanted to touch base on some Returns for the ‘Worth’ Menu as I’ve also had them on my mind for a while and I think they would be neat new additions. Their value is up in the air and can be decided on if they’re given the greenlight to be put in ZS.

- Asthmatic - Being near Zombie Gases will deal damage.

- Paranoia - Adds a layer of thick fog around the player, limiting visibility.

- Hallucinogenic - The players view will become more distorted and muffled based on the lower the health.

- Entomophobia - You will take 2x more damage from Flesh Beasts.

- Ostraconophobia - You will take 2x more damage from Headcrabs.

- Homicide - You will take 0.5x more damage from all Zombies.

- Teutophobia - You will take 2x more damage from Bullsquids.

- Lophobia - When hit with poison damage, you will not recover lost health.

- Schizophrenia - When more zombies come near you, your hearing will become increasingly muffled.

- Insomniac - When more zombies come near you, your vision will begin to darken.

- Dizzy - When more zombies come near you, your screen will begin to shake.

- Aquaphobia - You will move 60% slower in water and have 50% less oxygen, with or without the Oxygen Tank.

All comments and feedback are appreciated. (Sorry there wasn’t much explanation to those Returns)

[Techyyy]

I would like to add that either some Weapons need to be redone, or removed
And yes this is going to include me ranting on how much I want the MP5 and SG552 to be put back in the server
Ever since the inclusion of "Leveling Cards" were added the whole "Tier build up" was't the go to thing anymore. If someone didn't have the card for it, no one used it. That could just be me, but again there are so many weapons in the arsenal that I see without a number next to it displaying how many users are using it. Take the Tommy Gun and MP40 for instance and speaking of the MP40 the model to this day is bugged and when is dropped, no one can pick it up. Whenever round 4 hits I people who are using SMG's stick to the tier 2 or 3 SMG's because they either have cards for the weapons that they've upgraded or prefer those more than the tier 4. The SG552 was such an underrated powerhouse that (to me) people over saw, the same thing with the MP5, it was "meta" to use the silenced MP9 when tier 2 hit, when tier 4 came people bought the FAL and then spammed for the Ray Gun when tier 5 came, and either stuck with it or upgraded to the Grim Reaper. This might now make any sense and is a lot to be asking from a small group of developers but it'd be nice to either, "Change or Add things to whats already meta" I've might might be right or wrong about my claims but that's only because I've missed so much of what's been changed and/or added to the server since my departure.
Since we're already on the topic of Humans items of use
Can we get something to counter Silent's and Lady Luck's  "Level 90-Fucking-9: Zombie Card"
 

Edited January 16, 2019 by Techyyy

[Guest]

@Techyyy

Very unrelated, but I can definetely reason with you. I too have wanted things to be changed or added in for a long time to no evail (IE Barnacle or Flesh Squid), so know that I've been there, done that. I haven't thought about it the way you have, but again, I can see where your coming from. People tend buy and upgrade a popular weapon more than ever whilst ignoring the lesser known weapons, but It's hard to point the blame at one or another. Cards have been in the game for a while and people would've presumably sunk a good number of points into their upgrades, removing that system may leave players feeling cheated, but could be benefitial in the long run. And re-working some, if not all weapons may be good for the server, it could also confuse players more until they find the next meta weapon while also wasting a huge amount of the devs efforts and time. The best thing I would do is to re-work some of the more absurd weapons without nerfing them to the point of no return whilst buffing some of the lesser known weapons to some degree. And not to sound rude, but alot of things are changing with ZS soon, this next update is going to add, remove, buff, nerf, change or re-work alot of features currently ingame. While they may not be what you would likely want them to be, they're definetely worth a checkout.

[Talbot]

The returns look good,  we could also use other force field types, same with turrets.

[Guest]

@Talbot

Don't mean to repeat myself, but the potential is there. The only issues I see are maybe making the curved and spherical force-fields.

[Hugin&Munin]

Besides of what I have talked with you on steam in relation to the feedback of those Ideas, it's a very nice Idea that I would like to see added to the game. Keep up that creative mind of yours.

[Lady Luck]

- Asthmatic - Being near Zombie Gases will deal damage.

- Entomophobia - You will take 2x more damage from Flesh Beasts.

- Teutophobia - You will take 2x more damage from Bullsquids.

- Aquaphobia - You will move 60% slower in water and have 50% less oxygen, with or without the Oxygen Tank

In my opinion these are not needed, cause people who know the game well, will know how rare these are. They are just a cheap way to get more from the worth menu points.

A way for human main players to start with more items. 

[Snowyamur]

@Genuline

This is an interesting list of suggestions, but there are a couple of things:

 

Sniper Turret

I like how you find missing sub-types of certain objects, beings, or things that ultimately encourage you to suggest them for ZS, and that's no lie with the Sniper Turret. When I think of this turret, hence the name, I think of snipers, but thinking of snipers, I perceive a powerful weapon capable of destroying something in one shot. 150 damage/ bullet is a lot of damage, but I feel like this value can be substantially-increased such that it won't insta-kill a full-health zombie, but it's close to insta-killing. To work well with this, the fire rate you provided could be slower so that this deployable isn't overpowered.

This is just how I think of it when it comes to snipers, being high-caliber, powerful guns with slow fire rate, and this turret sub-type is no exception. If you wanted to give this turret a unique name akin to "Blaster" and "Assault," I would suggest naming it the "Precision" Turret because sniper weapons require keen accuracy for maximized damage.

 

"Mini" Turret

Probably one of the more interesting turrets, there's nothing wrong with this being the fastest-firing turret in the game, but for how fast it can fire with relation to ammo capacity is bad. If this deployable can fire 25 bullets/ second, which is abnormally fast for a turret, on a maximum ammo capacity of 350 pistol rounds, then this turret sub-type will exhaust its ammunition way too fast for little impact on the zombie team due to the low-damage per bullet, resulting in lower DPS.

I'm aware that these stats aren't final, but if you wanted the final design for the "Mini" Turret to fire at its currently-designed speed and damage per bullet, the ammo capacity needs to be much higher, at least 1200 rounds at best if firing ~30 rounds/ second. That, or make the damage per bullet shot by this turret slightly higher so the DPS is higher and allows the extra damage to act as a substitute for low ammo capacity.

If we wanted to consider how this turret would look in-game, I would make it smaller than all turrets.

 

Forcefields in General

Okay, so I like the specific designs you came up with for the different forcefield sub-types, but I feel like it's redundant to make each one their own item type with their own point cost. This is because something like this takes up Arsenal Crate menu space, and a better way to approach this would be to make use of possible drop-down menus in the Arsenal Menu, something akin to how zombie variants work in the Zombie Selection screen.

More importantly, this needs to be worked on more in-terms of design and explanation because fulfilling "niches" in a barricade carries many definitions and applications, so more detail is needed.

 

"Return" Traits

Asthmatic

This is redundant because being near zombie gas does damage any. If you were referring to the gas at zombie spawns, this is the case. If you were referring to Ghoul zombie gases deployed as zombie spawns, this might be a waste and easy-picking for Worth points because almost no one runs next to Ghoul zombie gases, and just looking at them causes them to disappear, so I don't think this will work.

Paranoia

So, this is like the debuff induced by the Doom Crab's ground-pound AoE attack, and I suppose this one would work. However, sight would only matter if you're running outside of a barricade, swiping at zombies with melee weapons or just running away. If you're inside a barricade, especially the final barricade, sight wouldn't really matter, and the impairment would really be more of a minor annoyance than a disadvantage.

I would say that if players chose this trait for extra Worth, the Worth gained would need to be as low as 5 because this really doesn't impair a real ability to fight or move around.

Hallucinogenic

I like this one, but the effect is weird. If this trait impairs a player's sight when they have it and they're low on health, saying muffled is weird for seeing something, so I'll assume this was a definition mistake. As for distorting sight, it's fine.

Although, I wouldn't call this trait's effects hallucinogenic, more like the result of being feeble or very weak, so I would suggest coming up with a different name for this one.

Entomophobia

Like Asthmatic, this trait seems to be easy-picking for extra Worth because Flesh Beasts don't show-up until Wave 4 (or is it Wave 3?). Because of this long delay, coupled with not many players finding proper use for the Flesh Beasts, especially when humans are in the final barricade, this one won't work as well.

I don't understand what the name is.

Ostraconophobia

Okay, so this trait might be unfair for humans for three reasons:

• headcrabs are small, so they can fit through small openings in barricades and map obstructions, making them the go-to to bypass faulty map design and overpowered barricades.
• they have small hitboxes, making them harder to hit and kill.
• humans have low health, so headcrab damage is something that must be managed with as much care as if someone was hit by a normal zombie.

If this trait gets added in, the Worth received in exchange for this better be plentiful because headcrabs can deal about 6-8 damage, and doubling that, coupled with their almost non-existent cooldown for attacks, would give them substantially-higher DPS than the normal zombie against humans with this trait.

Homicide

To start off, I don't think the name fits well with what this trait is supposed to do; it could be different and better. As for the effects, as with the Ostraconophobia case, I need to make known again that humans have low health. Having 100 health maximum is small compared to how much damage normal zombies can inflict per attack, which is ~35 damage per basic attack. Multiplying this value by 0.5x and adding the result to the base would result in around ~50 damage for a basic attack against humans with this trait, which turns this into a death trap.

The Worth gained from this trait better be high because this is a risky one, but no risk, no reward, so I'd say this is for the most daunting of players.

Teutophobia

I'm indifferent about this because I've yet to see the bullsquid in-game and see how it is as a zombie type.

Schizophrenia

This works.

Insomniac

I feel like this is just the same as Hallucinogenic, but under a different definition. This is better to fall under the Hallucinogenic trait.

Dizzy

This could be the new Hallucinogenic trait when that trait gets re-named. That's about it, otherwise, this trait works.

Aquaphobia

Again, another trait that's easy-picking for Worth. Not many of maps on our server have water, so this would just be chosen to accumulate more Worth. On the maps that do have water, the stats need to be slightly lower because moving 60% slower is more harmful than one thinks for those who have this trait and are trying to swim. The 50% less oxygen seems odd as a debuff given that not many players build underwater barricades, but as an effect that matches the name of this trait, I suppose it's fine.

 

That's my take on everything listed above. Very nice list, but a lot of things need re-works.

[Guest]

@Hugin&Munin

Thanks for reading!

@Lady Luck

I think if all of the perks that cause increased damage against zombies were combined into one, it could work (IE You take 0.5x or 2x more damage from zombies).

@Snowyamur

Thanks for the feeback as usual! And to make things easier, I'll follow along the lines of the format you've given above. For alot of this, I will be using alot of hind-sight as I am seeing flaws more and more as I look at your response and my original post.

In most zombies casees, they will either be at full health or just under it, being near 400 health or so. The 'Sniper' Turret deals around 150 damage, which would require atleast 2-3 shots to kill one zombie. And if it were to be rebalanced as it is right now, eithre the fire-rate or the damage would need to be reduced. And I agree with the 'Precision' Turret being used instead of just 'Sniper' Turret. And I also agree on your points about the 'Mini' Turret, increasing the overall ammunition it can hold would improve it, and maybe lowering the damage to make it have that sorta "burst" effect.

When I talk about 'niches' in a cade, I refer to points in a barricade which need to be defended from zombies breaking and entering. This can include vents, windows, breakable walls etc. And the force-fields I've suggested are intended to cover each area where the Force Field Emitter can't or doesn't do well when it can be used elsewhere. With the limited stock and the lack of different force-field types, it can be hard to use the current one. And if these 3 were added, I would like to see the drop down menu added to it, maybe like the Beacon where you can right click and choose your force-field type.

And with all the traits I've mentioned, I think most of them can be combined into one trait, see below:

- Susceptible - You will receive 2x more damage. (Combines Entomophobia, Ostraconophobia, Homicide and Teutophobia)

- Light Headed - The players vision will become more distorted based on health (Combines Hallucinogenic and Dizzy). This needs a little explaination, distorted view would look like a photo filter to play around with (IE Stretching the screen, Bending the screen etc.).

Also I apologies for some of the Returns mentioned, I think some of the effects I've listed are already present ingame, while some are unnecessary.