PDA

View Full Version : State of the Zombie MOD Server Union Address



NLA
09-03-2011, 02:11 PM
Version History

1.2.9

Updated ze maps so that all zombies are in there.

This makes it so that when the maps change between ze and zm you no longer need to change your zombie.





Am I the only one that thinks this is a terrible idea? ZERO, I'm going to be blunt.. I feel like you need to consult your players (read: the experienced ones, not the mic-spamming children you hear when you enter the server) before you make major changes like this that kill a lot of gameplay and cause a lot of headaches for everyone. Hell, you can consult me, I'll give you an honest opinion about the server from having playered in the servers for over a year or so (and briefly admin'd). Regardless, if anything, this should have been put to a vote and had a thread dedicated to it.

The solution to the annoyance of changing class between map types is not to re-enable fast zombies for ZE.. fast zombies were disabled for ZE waaaaaaaay back when in the first place because they were too fast and ruin gameplay due to overwhelming the humans too easily. ZE is now mostly unbalanced in favor of zombies due to the fast zombies: they penetrate human choke points too easily in such maps as deathstar, mines of moria, and predator, and others. Perfectly good escape maps are now being RTV'd prematurely because of player frustration (among other things). I can't spell this out any more clearly.

The solution is just to enable the zcookie settings by default, the one that says something like "buy same zombie class".

Follow my train of thought here: all zombies are present in typical ZM, so humans will select the special Fast/Poison/Deformed classes due to their special features. When the map switches to ZE, if they were anything but those three special classes, with zcookie enabled they'll retain their class and go on their happy way. If they were Fast/Poison/Deformed on ZM, they'll be classic on ZE, which is fine: it gives players an advantage. But here's the kicker: when they change their class during ZE to, say, Predator, and the map switches back to ZM, their ZE-choice class will carry over. What does this mean? It means that a good number of players won't change their class back to Fast/Poison/Deformed after the switch to ZM. The result: less overwhelming of the players in ZM (for a time), and more importantly, less overwhelming of the players in ZE.

You might be thinking, "But Ness, you're just delaying the inevitable in ZM: of course players will switch their class back!" but you should be aware that there are quite a number of noobs (read: 8-year-olds) playing in the server that would probably not think to switch back. And anyway, if the player wants to switch to another class once back in ZM, they can.

:pals: Everyone wins. :pals:

And now, here are some real, legitimate problems that need addressing, ZERO:

NO ONE LIKES BEING SET ON FIRE FOR >20 SECONDS. NO ONE. :banghead: Its a terrible feature, >20 seconds gives humans an unfair advantage, and should be capped at 20 seconds max. Think about all the advantages humans have as-is: high zombie knockback, lowered zombie speed, long fire grenade effect.. why not just freezebomb the zombies while you're at it? Zombies are players too; if they're frustrated, they'll leave the server.
Alltalk should be enabled automatically. It always just ends up being one more thing for the admins to waste time putting up votes for/enabling. People want to talk and be heard, not have to keep asking IS ALLTALK ON GUYS? CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?
When the server is reset and you don't enable the zcookie settings, your class is reverted to Classic. This completely sucks.. zcookie settings should just be enabled by default.
Admins have to reset the server on a regular 3-4 hour basis due to srcds problems. Why not just have the server auto-reset every 3-4 hours with a script so no-one has to worry about bad voice communication/server performance?
It takes too many players to carry out a voteban/votekick, to the point that the function is useless. Right now an ENTIRE SERVER-1 has to be convinced to ban/kick a player, which just isn't feasible, and should be (ENTIRE SERVER-1)/2 rounded up.
Add the option of votemute, which requires far fewer votes than ban/kick. Not sure if its already there or not.
Map vote text is wrong: should not say "map vote failed", gives players the wrong idea, raises player complaints. Text should say something like "top X maps selected, revote in progress", and tell the players in chat when a map was picked randomly due to ties. No one likes one map being mysteriously picked over another map when a tie occurs if they're not aware the pick occurred randomly.
Fix noblock for ZE/ZM. Every now and then we play a map that has improper settings. There's really no excuse for this still being a problem.. maps with ze_ or escape in the title have noblock enabled, otherwise its disabled. I know for a fact a script exists that handles noblock exactly like this. Side-effect: one less headache for admins.
Fix the zombie spawn settings for ZE maps. Would be nice if zombies spawned a little further into the map, teleported back to spawn, etc. A little vague, but I'm trying to convey that this needs work.
Disable RTV for the first 2 or 3 rounds of the map. There are a bunch of idiot players that will work their damnedest (spamming chat, spamming mic, occasionally griefing) to convince the server to RTV!!!! because things didn't go their way the first round, or because the map wasn't what they voted for at the end of the last map. And they're terrible.
Re-add zm_ninja_beta to the map rotation. It was a fine map, lots of people loved playing it, and it was only removed because of Blade. Why not consult more players about this sort of thing?
Re-add the new updated version of ze_jurassicpark. Its been ranked one of (if not THE) best ZE maps ever made, and the original author recently fixed all of the map issues (!!) and posted a new version: http://www.gamebanana.com/maps/159198


Sincerely,

Ness :violin:

Andrew_Pavlik
09-03-2011, 02:31 PM
It takes too many players to carry out a voteban/votekick, to the point that the function is useless. Right now an ENTIRE SERVER-1 has to be convinced to ban/kick a player, which just isn't feasible, and should be (ENTIRE SERVER-1)/2 rounded up.
Add the option of votemute, which requires far fewer votes than ban/kick. Not sure if its already there or not.

There is almost always an admin on ZM, this shouldn't matter.


Fix noblock for ZE/ZM.

Thought this was already the case?


Disable RTV for the first 2 or 3 rounds of the map. There are a bunch of idiot players that will work their damnedest (spamming chat, spamming mic, occasionally griefing) to convince the server to RTV!!!! because things didn't go their way the first round, or because the map wasn't what they voted for at the end of the last map. And they're terrible.

if they are doing this then kick or ban them till the map is over, you are an admin you shouldn't be putting up with this.


Am I the only one that thinks this is a terrible idea?

If you just care about being a rank whore, sure. If you don't and play ZM for the challenge then no. When there is 15+ humans at a choke and 1 fast zombie gets it, with there super low health on ZE maps to began with, thats the 15 humans fault, not the settings. I thought ZE maps were way to boring and one sided the way there are now. Did ZE maps need some sort of fix, sure, but taking away fast zombies wasn't the solution.


Besides the server needing to be reset, all the other complaints are easily fixable by good admins and players.

NLA
09-03-2011, 02:40 PM
if they are doing this then kick or ban them till the map is over, you are an admin you shouldn't be putting up with this.
I used to be an admin. I stopped paying for it, lol.


If you just care about being a rank whore, sure. If you don't and play ZM for the challenge then no. When there is 15+ humans at a choke and 1 fast zombie gets it, with there super low health on ZE maps to began with, thats the 15 humans fault, not the settings. I thought ZE maps were way to boring and one sided the way there are now. Did ZE maps need some sort of fix, sure, but taking away fast zombies wasn't the solution.
Andrew, do you even play ZE often? I assure you that a fast can punch through a bunch of the most skilled players far too easily. If anything, the fast zombie in ZE appeals to the rank whore that likes to easily tag tons of humans. Remove Fast and Deformed to prevent too easy punching through defenses and (maybe) remove Poison and you have a pretty level playing field, apart from the absurdly high HS chances and knockback on zombies. An even playing field should be the goal here for ZE.

ZERO
09-03-2011, 02:59 PM
Uhm... the fast zombies have the same settings that the predator zombies did before the most recent update. So basically you are complaining that the zombies are not also invisible!? For the update the specs for the predator zombies were lowered slightly so that the fast would be faster but not any faster than other zombies already were. The only real change has been the deformed which are still the slowest compared to the others on ze maps.

As for new maps those should be in the maps request section.

As for map votes I do not make that plugin

As for vote mute there is no plugin that does this that exists that actually works.

Andrew_Pavlik
09-03-2011, 04:16 PM
ZE shouldn't be easy mode. And exactly what Zero said.

NLA
09-03-2011, 04:50 PM
Uhm... the fast zombies have the same settings that the predator zombies did before the most recent update. So basically you are complaining that the zombies are not also invisible!? For the update the specs for the predator zombies were lowered slightly so that the fast would be faster but not any faster than other zombies already were. The only real change has been the deformed which are still the slowest compared to the others on ze maps.

As for new maps those should be in the maps request section.

As for map votes I do not make that plugin

As for vote mute there is no plugin that does this that exists that actually works.
What about the other things? ;)

I'll double check the speed settings in-game.


ZE shouldn't be easy mode. And exactly what Zero said.
I never said ZE should be easy mode, I said it should be balanced. Don't put words into my mouth. :headache:

And I still stand by having the zcookie auto-buy being the default, and fire time being capped, automatic alltalk, and automatic server resets, and fixing up the various things (RTV, zombie spawn settings, noblock) that need to be tweaked. The server needs work to be as fun as it could be.

Amon
09-03-2011, 05:53 PM
I never said ZE should be easy mode, I said it should be balanced. Don't put words into my mouth. :headache:



How are you going to balance something that factors experience and knowing the map?

ZERO
09-03-2011, 08:18 PM
That is why when there is a map that needs to be configured differently people need to make a configure thread so I can investigate it.

slipstream
09-05-2011, 08:39 AM
Could there not be a whole other zombie just for ZE maps?

8k hp - escapes are not necessarily meant as killing maps, so high health will keep most zombies alive
knockback - low but still enough to keep them away while running
speed - slightly faster than humans, they do have to have a chance of catching up, not just at choke points
jumping - just high enough so they dont need to crouch jump, this is another way for zombies to catch up, but not stupidly fast



And I would just like to LOL at the people so concerned about points on a zmod server, pretty funny stuff considering humans just sit behind a cade unloading clips just to get a kill, very little skill required. You just have to get lucky you get to a good spot without any idiot following you.

Rezel
09-05-2011, 12:27 PM
I would not totally say that, we have a lot of skilled zombie mod players who are good at what they do. Sometimes setting up a barricade can be a total bitch.

I really miss the older rank system which brought more teamwork than this does Rank probably keeps a lot of our players still on here.

As for splitting the server it would probably split our community in half too much as we only have about 32 people max on the zombie mod on the weekends. To split the server would more than likely mean splitting the amount of people we have in half, or even quarter. it would be a better idea for us to set a limit of how many escape maps can be played per barricade maps:: example:: per 4 barricade maps is 1 escape map.

Srry72
09-05-2011, 01:00 PM
Not sure if its possible but like I suggested before shorten the map times. Move through maps quicker. Make ZE something like 3 rounds before the next map vote. I forget how many rounds before a map vote it is but maybe 5 on ZM until the next map vote. Again I don't know if this is possible.