Zombie Escape in Garry's Mod is a weird one. CS:GO and CS:S Zombie Escape's concept is all about humans busting their asses off to not let zombies get them and coursing through the map. The only way that doesn't happen is when the server settings or the map is fucked.
But not here. Currently, ZE is used to farm points by the humans or the few zombie mains who can sneak up and score hits here and there. You'd have that 3-4 same humans every round with their TMP or SG550 farming the shit out of zombies, gaining 250++ points per round (which in ZE lasts 4-5 minutes instead of regular ZS which can last 15-20 minutes). The same goes for the top 3-4 zombies who can bunnyhop or spam crouch and jump to avoid hit detection and claw humans, gaining massive 200++ points in one go. The root of the problem comes from the fact that current ZE is too forgiving for humans.
To understand this, let's look at some reasons why:
1. CS:GO and CS:S ZE zombies one hit kill humans (except when the map has items/triggers to prevent this) and instantly turn infected humans into zombies with FULL hp and no death/revive animations. Infected humans instantly become a zombie and in a split second joins his undead brethren in the chase.
2. Zombies have too few of hp. For comparison, popular CS:GO ZE servers have 10,000 HP zombies and many popular maps also trigger zombies to have up to 50,000 HP (which oddly doesn't work in gmod). Not to mention that in CS:GO and CS:S, weapons don't deal nowhere near as much damage as GMOD ZE (can you imagine if SG550 has 200 base damage in CS:GO or CS:S??)
3. CS:GO and CS:S ZE zombies sometimes have varieties. This point is not the most crucial thing in the list but the idea of having multiple zombie types should be entertained.
4. Zombies cannot jump once shot and the slowdown from being shot lasts way too long. This is bullshit imo and needs to be changed.
Sure, OBJ maps are also a slaughterfest for humans. But at least in OBJ mode, humans have to buy expensive guns, cade and not have unlimited ammo.
Here's a list of suggestions to make ZE harder for humans and not a point-farm fest:
a. Make zombies 1 hit kill all humans like the og ZE. Before you go on a rant on how that's stupid, read other suggestions first. If this is too much, then significantly increase the swing speed of zombies. Something like 350% or 400% buff. Yes, give zombies meth.
b. Remove the ambient darkness for humans caused by massive zombie swarm. This is a bigger issue than you'd think. Now that zombies are a dangerous threat, the reduced visibility from a zombie swarm can overrun the human teams easily. This is a good compromise for all other zombie buffs.
c. Massively increase zombies HP or massively nerf guns' damage. Adjust bosses' HP accordingly if the latter is chosen. 7,000 base HP is a minimum if former is chosen. Furthermore, make knockback have more kick and remove the 2-3 sec slowdown when getting shot as a zombie. Also zombies should still be allowed to jump when getting shot. Add a bit of regeneration for zombies while you can.
d. Add more varieties of zombies, unlockable by F3. Multiple variants that fits ZE theme:
-fast zombie (just a faster but more frail regular zombie without the ability to jump/leap and scale walls)
-poison zombie (have more hp and different hitboxes but lack the ability to throw poison)
-ghoul (has slowdown effect, irrelevant in case you decide to make zombies 1-hit kill humans)
-bloated zombie (instead of throwing poison upon death, this zombie has massive health regeneration but is slower than regular zombie)
-half zombie (regular zombie's torso+head, sneaky at times due to close-to-ground hitbox but prone to headshots and have more knockback)