Suggestion : Group upgrades

[MN ZS FAN]

We have groups, they don't really do anything or give perks. My suggestion is to make groups have a sorta bank account that you can put points in to buy upgrades. This could be +5% damage, +5% speed, stuff like that, you could also have custom gifs for a set amount of points, you could buy more member slots, you could buy XP boosts and stuff like that. These upgrades would affect everybody in the group. You could maybe even have custom player models for groups for a set amount of points that only people in the group can use. I'm not sure the balancing needed or point amounts for the upgrades or even the upgrades themselves if this were to be added. It's just a suggestion that popped into my head.

Just go with snowyamurs reply. 

Edited May 5, 2020 by Cult Cat

[Snowyamur]

I don't agree with upgradeable groups as a means for acquiring gameplay-changing perks. Balancing the Zombie Survival game mode is difficult enough as it is -- adding group perks adds an extra layer of complexity the game mode doesn't need right now. Additionally, a group who has all the perks would stand out as the group everyone wants to join because they will have the best gameplay bonuses. That creates unnecessary divisions in the player base, and we want to avoid that.

 

From your suggestion, because XP is now an available currency in the game mode, I think it would be better to have members in a group be able to contribute the XP they earn to the group XP pool, allowing groups to level up and earn purely cosmetic in-game bonuses. We definitely want to stay away from making points a leveling factor because we already have the Cards system, which is a major points sink, and there are people with point banks past 6, even 7, digits, so any group they join can easily inflate it with levels.

 

Below are examples for how group leveling and receiving group cosmetic bonuses would work.

Ex.: XP Contribution: A member of a group who earns 50 XP will contribute that same amount of XP to the group. From a design perspective, this means the required group XP to level up a group would have to be significant to accommodate group leveling, otherwise, leveling a group would be too easy when it isn't one person alone achieving the same levels normally designed for one person.

 

Ex. - Receiving Group Cosmetic Bonuses: Your group is level 4 right now, and to reach level 5, your group needs 250,000 XP. Your group eventually hits at, or past, 250,000 XP and reaches level 5. They unlock a cool badge to display on their in-game profile that is unobtainable by other means.

 

We also want it where leaving the group removes group cosmetic bonuses.

Ex. - Removal of Cosmetic Bonuses: Your group reaches level 20 and earns a cool emote to use in the text chat, which is unobtainable by other means. Should this person leave the group, or be kicked, they can no longer use that emote. It will disappear from their list of available emotes.

 

Improving groups this way gives them more value, without disrupting the gameplay currently being worked on for balancing. With the current group size limit and custom group names, by making all the rewards the same for every group, the only uniqueness comes from the group itself -- the rewards are an icing on the cake. Thus, the contest between groups would be based on who's part of the group, and not the game-changing perks a group can provide.

[pho-]

originally the plans were all cosmetic changes; it will be hard to achieve now with Marco gone however.

[Snowyamur]

20 hours ago, pho- said:

originally the plans were all cosmetic changes; it will be hard to achieve now with Marco gone however.

We could try to convince him to return. I feel that the reason he left was because the ZS community was toxic, and whenever he or Forrest were being bullied, no one stood up for them.

[pho-]

Forrest returning is probable, but very unlikely; Marco returning is not a possibility. 

[Snowyamur]

Doesn't hurt to try to convince Forrest to come back. His immediate answer will likely be, "No," but we could at least try.

I think he didn't want to be around the toxic environment our ZS community creates, and we can be flexible and have him help out with stuff on our ZS server without having to be around the players, since I've seen the kind of bullying he's been getting from them.

We could also do better, like with all of our developers, protecting them from the harshness and ignorance of some ZS players.