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IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR THE SHORT VERSION OF THIS POST, JUST SCROLL DOWN BELOW WHEN YOU SEE THIS TEXT HEADING AGAIN So the reason for ever even writing this despite the love/hate relationship I have with the server, a part of me still feels obligated to at least try my best to help; even with the fact I've only dabbled in Source at this point and stopped development on my map due to certain life issues coming up. The fact that this community has ultimately lasted as long as it has is a testament to the much older members, whom I will refer to as the old breed, do their best to mentor the up and coming members of the community, the new blood, to help keep the chain moving forward. Time is a fleeting thing after all, not everything can be fixed within reason, and not everything can be addressed, but I want to put this out there because despite what I may say sometimes, I do in fact give a damn. So down below are gonna be a list of suggestions I would like to see at least addressed. I understand some things cannot be fixed, and we will ultimately have to make due with what we have, but I will do my best to give some suggestions and explanations for them as well. First and foremost: The hit registration Now, I understand this will easily get shot down, because it's set in the code, and rewriting the entirety of ZS would be a total bitch. But I've seen some other active communities come up with their own workarounds, one has successfully managed to have their own coded hit reg as well, which is baffling, but I have played on there for at least 100 hours to say, it's definitely there, and it is possible. I just don't know how possible. But there's also a reason I bring this up. I firmly believe, there needs to be a nerf on extended claws. The suggestion I feel sounds rather dumb, but hear me out. With how the hit reg works already in ZS, I feel extended claws might give zombies, too much of an advantage. Because the consistency and latency of all the players actively running around and playing on a 100 person server, something is bound to get mucked up. And in this case, I've had my fair share of hits from quite literally yards away despite the distance I put myself between players, and even I have done so to other players on the server. Extended claws essentially adds to the problem, allowing zombies to basically hit humans with quite literally Eyelander range. Same with humans using weapons that don't really seem that long, but somehow are able to swing at you from more than a good distance away (looking at you Zweihander). So if at all possible, either rework extended claws to be nerfed or removed, and human's melee ranges to be adjusted to compensate for consistency between players to ensure some semblance of balance. Stuff like the Tickle Monster should be left alone since it's the one thing he has as a boss, and at that point, it's a mental game between the players and the boss, as it should be. Zombie Escape: The Sequel So far, the newly added armor is a godsend in ZE on your servers, possibly one of the best additions as it not only gives the humans a much better chance to beat maps, but it also allows us to prevail against otherwise impossible fights. But there is still an arguably prevailing problem I feel can be still fixed if at all possible, knockback and zombie HP. You can't have much of a compromise as our first test has shown, I felt like we didn't have a thorough enough test when it happened, not sure if I was there for that or not, but I think I remember Forrest talking about it. And we had some hiccups the first time. The knockback was still not all there, and the zombies could simply overwhelm the humans still. Which is the biggest problems, giving the zombies a sense of enough power to over take the humans in a fair manner, and humans being able to outlast the zombies through strategic play and a dedicated enough defense on certain maps. Forrest almost struck gold with this, but it wasn't meant to be that particular day. But I feel this can still be fixed, and there was headway made. We can definitely do it. But it's up the developers if they wish to tackle it, I only wish to bring it up. Now to the other thing about ZE, is the maps themselves. Some maps still have some prevailing problems, especially the maps with those dreaded lasers. I've noticed, as many have probably, that you need to jump way earlier than intended, and you barely make the jumps like that. Most like this has something to do with gravity of Counter Strike and Garry's Mod being different, since surfing is argubly scuffed in Garry's Mod, not much you can do there, just a thing to keep in mind, I'm not even sure if there's surfing in GMod, and if there is, ask them f̶u̶c̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶f̶u̶c̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶h̶u̶s̶t̶l̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶m̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶u̶s̶ how they managed to get it to work and possibly collaborate with them, maybe even bring them into the fold. It would introduce an opportunity to sway an old school audience and possibly new insight to HG in regards to a lot of things CSS related, such as Zombie Escape. Last thing I'll bring up about Zombie Escape, are the maps being added. I'm glad ZE is back for the server since the player base enjoy it for what it is, but I feel we're adding possibly at too fast of a rate. The thing is, I would probably argue this is still experimental. I do know it has been a thing for awhile now, but it hasn't quite perfected it like CSS ZE has, and it honestly doesn't have the hardcore audience, or resources to even come close to touching what CSS ZE is now still. There must be a way to translate things better over to the GMod side of things, asking some of the prominent communities that still exist for ZE, such as Unloze and GFL might give us some answers. It's never a bad thing to ask, because they might know something that our devs don't (not to discredit our developer team what so ever, they have done astronomical things for us and still continue to do so within the best of their abilities, but having a second set of eyes from a different perspective is never a bad idea. In fact, it might just be what we need). Weapon variety and balance: Wait this is dumb, we got plenty of guns. We do, but we use less than half of them since there's a meta at this point on which guns are good, which guns are bad. There should never be a bad gun, or a gun that feels weaker than the latter, it should be noted as a option, i.e. shotguns vs SMGs. Only a few SMGs really stand out , and it still feels like you don't earn enough with them or feel worth the investment. Of course, that's why we have tiers, but even then, why is the Majester Tommy gun leagues better than the EVO at least in my opinion, it should feel like a step up from it, not a downgrade. I can't find myself using it, others use it yes, but I don't really see positives going unless there's a point modifier. Each tier should feel better than the last, not "Oh this weapon is good, fuck the other tier items". Weapons should feel satisfying to use, and it should be more rewarding jumping tiers instead of lowballing yourself all the time. Like the majority of T5, all but a few weapons feel like crap at least in my opinion, Evil Double Barrel doesn't feel as good as it used, I felt like the damage got a significant downgrade, when it's supposed to be the older and better brother of the Doom Shotgun, which for some reason does a lot of damage, even against Zombines. And that brings up issue that plagues, quite literally all the guns, especially when you're crouching and aiming down the sights, the accuracy. I'm sorry, I truly am when I write this, but it's bad. I understand you all did what you could, but there has to be a way, some way to improve it. Snipers should be much more accurate while you're crouching and aiming down the sights, same with almost any weapon excluding shotguns. A popular choice, the Bullseye, is a good all around pistol boasting good damage for the magazine size, but the big issue is, you have to do some crazy shit to get your shots down. Like you need to learn a recoil pattern that is absolutely random even when you are crouching and using it, it feels like even if I should get that shot, it whiffs the zombies and you left looking dumb and comments of "git gud" as you wonder what went wrong. Not saying all weapons need to be laser pointers, but I feel for some weapons, especially a fair bit of the rifles, would benefit from this. Lastly: Zombie classes and Bosses So we have a nice variety, and some of the classes are fun to use, but some of them aren't practical. Take the Bullsquid, a recent addition, maybe even old at the time of writing, that excels at chasing down humans and being an apparently better fast zombie, when we now have the Starved class type for Fast Zombie that does the job of the Bullsquid better, and make his class type feel absolutely redundant. And the class is actually bad at it's job, since the tail most of the time will knockback the player. So I'm putting this up as a suggestion, give it a combo. Make it switch between bites and a tail swing to end it. I'm certain we can do that, it's a basic jab, jab, kick combo that is bread and butter in a lot of games, i.e. the First Metal Gear Solid, a decent defensive option and tool if you needed to dispose of a guard long enough to slip by, or to cause a chain reaction and knock down multiple. Have it bite the first two times lightly, and the tail swing be far more damaging than the bites. Because getting hit by it's massive tail should fucking hurt like hell, not just gently tap me and knock me back from him and allow me to basically walk away since most humans can outrun even the fast zombies with the speed trait. Lastly, and I'm not sure if it has it, make it's bile more effective. It should be devastating to get hit by it, it's more accurate than the poison zombie spit throw and should hit harder. The bullsquids are known to kinda spam it as NPCS, which is why the cooldown is fine to ensure balance, but I feel it should be a bit more dangerous. Next class that needs a buff, is Flesh Beast. Flesh Beast, is quite literally, the meme class. It was in fact a viable option to harass cades and cause people to panic because there was nothing you can do about it, but now, the swing and the spit deal next to nothing, even with buff cards. The thing is, it's supposed to be this hulking thing of flesh and some abomination that was hatched from the virus. And it feels like a joke using it, and getting killed by it. It needs to flat out deal more damage. Like a decent bit more than what it has, I feel like Ghoul can hit harder than this class, and that's kinda sad considering ghouls aren't even really good against cades. The addition of Flesh Beast being able to squeeze through small enough holes is interesting, but other than that, it's a joke to what it once was. Another class I feel needs to be addressed is Bloated. But Bloated is better now, but it can be better, how does a zombie that is big and fat somehow deal less damage than a regular zombie. It's much thicker and tougher than the standard zombie, it should be hitting harder slightly instead of the other way around. It's fat being swung at something with force that isn't supposed to be empathetic to the living, it's supposed to be almost animal like in a way. Bloated should be hitting harder than their other counterparts, it's not some sort of sub class, it's a different class, and it should be the middle ground for Poison Zombies. A class that needs a possible rework is Gore Blaster (correct me if I got it wrong). It's a violate regular zombie that is much more toxic yes? Then it should carry some of that property. It shouldn't overbear the other classes, but I feel like it should be a decent bit stronger with a light poison property. I understand it's basically a bargain bin Bloated Zombie with bleed, but I feel like it should still have some poisonous properties. It could be worked where Gore Blaster deals more barricade damage and light poison, while Bloated deals more average cade damage, but much more poison. Now bosses, oh boy, bosses. Where to start? Shadow Shade? Well Shadow Shade I feel is a easier fix, just up the healing rate on it, so it's viable as the healer class it's supposed to be, it should make humans do what they can to hunt them. But at the same time, make it to where they can only pick up lighter props or if that's not possible, get rid of it's ability to lift props. It's quite literally the heal mage of the Z team besides Medical zombies, but I feel like medical zombie is more effective at it's job than the Shadow Shade does. Time for the eleplant in the room, Swamp Legion. This thing, is honestly, just poorly handled. Like I felt like people were complaining it needed to deal more damage, rather than more consistent damage, so they made it to where it literally one shots people, even without the Damage buff, and that's just, dumb. We have a class for that, it's called the Puke Pus, it's spit is supposed to be devastating and dangerous for cades without a forcefield or open windows. But instead, it feels like you're throwing rocks at a tank, and Swamp legion feels like in comparison, shooting rockets at a single soldier in the middle of nowhere. Swamp Legion needs a overhaul. As a sub class of a boss, it shouldn't be outclassing an entire another class of Boss, it should be that, a sub class. But at the same time, make it where it's moe consistent, like the spray is much more narrow and focused, allowing for Swamp Legion to do it's intended job subclass role, while not sacrificing either class to scrutiny. Another class I feel needs to be looked at are the King Headcrab and the Doom Crab. One feels useless, the other was nerfed to all hell. I wanted to see if we could take King into a new direction. Downwards to be exact. Why down? It's a big crab, therefore, it should be able to burrow into even wood or break the floor boards and go under. It's much stronger than it's regular counterpart, it's the King of Heabcrabs after all. It gives him a new purpose, keepaway. It makes him a nuisance even than what he was, and an actual one at that. Doom crab needs a good rework, the quake he leaves is fine, and I'm glad it was fixed, but now he deals no damage, His damage should be buffed somewhat, but make it to where the quake effect is activated at a certain height, rather than after it lands. The thing that needs to be also buffed is it's spit. It needs to deal some damage, all it's good for is a debuff, which isn't really enough in my opinion. Yes the humans are debuffed, but they aren't really that discouraged, they simply find Doom crab annoying, which isn't what they should feel. They should want it dead, and giving the spit damaging and debilitate the humans at the same time. It would force the humans to find a means to deal with the crabs. Last and not least, probably the simplest too. Howler. It's great he gives buffs to zombies in a general area and slows down humans. But if it's basically the buffer of zombies, shouldn't it be able to debuff humans. I'm sure if they existed irl, and I heard a scream like that, I wouldn't exactly put it past me that a cold sweat would beat down. It should carry some debuffing properties, kinda like a scare meter. To the point where if left exposed for too long, it would then cause the player to freeze up. The only way to deal with it at that point is to be healed to a high enough threshold or keep away till the meter falls. It should be based off how close they are, i.e. if there's a wall between the Howler and the human, then it should be minimal at best, while direct exposure to the howl should have much more dire consequences and evidently cause the meter to shoot up much higher than indirect exposure. Make the Howler more of a threat than simply being the buff boss. To conclude this mess of an article, I understand not all of this is possible, and I did not mean to offend with any of this, this is ultimately a suggestion and my opinion on the state of things on the server. My only wish is for it to be acknowledge, and if it's possible, to see if we can work something into it. Now my ideas are rough, but there are general ideas of what, if at all possible, the development team can work on. For those who read this, thank for you giving the time to read this. And feel free to add or subtract suggestions, this "manifesto" is simply a rough draft, it's up to the rest of us as a whole community to push ideas for our developers. After all, feedback is important, but keep it constructive. I did my best too despite my wording, I do and truly feel the developers are doing all they can to keep the server afloat, this would simply be the cherry on top, and a cherry I feel should be added on top if possible. AT THE REQUEST OF A USER, I MADE A TL;DR VERSION DOWN BELOW TO MAKE IT EASIER AND FOR THE SAKE OF CLARITY To summarized this a bit since it is rather long admittedly: - If something can be done about the hit reg within reason and or we find the means to modify it, please do so, if you can't, I'm glad it got somewhat acknowledged here - ZE still needs a bit of refinement and more compatibility to ensure we have the best possible ZE experience, it's mainly about optimization of gameplay at this point, even if not all of it is possible - I feel some weapons need buffs and they need to feel better with each tier, the accuracy of some weapons needs to be upped - Some classes I would like to see some overhaul or a general rework to ensure every single class and subclass feels like it has a place and it is balanced.

Ok first of all talking about the hit reg and the extended claws, I agree with you that sometimes the range for this zombie buff goes out of hand and is sometimes class connected, but it does not need a removal but a slight nerf and like you said it only happens when the server is on high population. What I think will be an ideal fix is make it apply to certain classes, classes that do less damage will have a higher range that classes with high damage but the classes with high damage will still get a range increase but not as much as the weaker hitting zombies or just straight up decrease the range for all classes. Now for the ze part I completely agree with you in almost every point, more than that I hugely support you for talking about the lazers and how you need to jump earlier, like yesterday on tyrrany alot of players jumped but died just because of the delay. Ok now for the weapon variety I will have to disagree with you on the point about having all the weapons feel good and rewarding, there should always be a weaker weapon and a stronger weapon, along with that I get alot of satisfaction using a weak gun and making points with it because you shouldnt , thats something a gud gun never has. Now I play alot as a zombie and will say alot about this topic, gotta say giving a ballsquid a combo is honestly a good idea because now literally nobody is using it and that combo might save the class, lets be real here the only classes that people use are: zombie, fast zombie, poison zombie, bloated, and zombine along with poison headcrab, but what about ballsquid or other headcrabs? What about wraith or ravenant and flesh beast? Giving this combo might give some variety and add ballsquid to this list. Gotta agree on bloated too, before this honestly I thought he was good but now a fat zombie that is slow and big does less damage than a norm z? Wtf? I think he need to be alot more slow with more damage, a damage increase by alot. Now for gore blaster in my opinion its another retarded class, I think instead of him exploding and doing 30 damage to humans and getting zero to one point is stupid, make it so that the explosion damage is like 2-10 or a little bit more but make him get points for that explosion. One thing you said wrong is swamp cannot one shot without buffs or upgrading him with cards, he can come close to killing a human but not in an insta kill. Most of the time the human the swamp “one shotted” was already damaged, yet people think its a 1 not kill when in reality its not. He does need a nerf but saying how its op and can one shotnis just wrong, just dont get too close to cade or windows and dont aproach him with damaged health. Now howler you forgot to say how big of a range he has, its almost like a mini tickle if you upgrade him correctly. His range needs to be nerfed by alot. I completely agree that howler needs to debuff humans kinda like the doom crab but in a dofferent way, also I said this already but he needs to make points for howling.

Resupply's default ammo giveaway is smg. Why not add an option to receive the desired ammo. Like somewhere in HG options. That way, mele users can get a high tier weapon and already have some ammo to use.

Fixed in the next update

^ Rather a wall of text from someone who cares about zs instead of nothing. Thanks for the input @Vinny Mac, I am reading it right now.

New movie trailer out, Chernobyl. Trailer doesn't seem too bad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rle1Bywi61M