2022 Zombie Escape balance Voting

[jenz]

Greetings.

We last had votes about balancing the zombie escape server in early 2021. We often got complaints about the results and how their consequences played out since. Hence did i recently talk with the rest of staff about balancing on ze again. After talking with parts of the the admin team as well we thought that enough time would have passed by now to make this new vote about balancing.

If no changes are wished we will most likely not do anything further. If some changes are wished then the staff and admin team will discuss what should be changed in particular.

Currently we do not plan on having follow up votes in case of changes being wished as we just plan to have that discussed internally. Perhaps after more talking this might change again.

Some people will most likely create alt accounts or call their friends who don't play unloze zombie escape at all to participate in the vote. For that reason will we ignore particular votes when they stick out to us as people who are not present on unloze zombie escape. If somebody voted on the thread who has not played zombie escape at all on unloze in 2022 we will ignore their vote too.

Finally: After you voted for an option you must leave a reply in the thread where you explain why you voted for what. If you only vote but do not write a reply where you explain your reasoning for your voting then your vote will also be ignored.

I planned to have this vote thread running for a total of 2 weeks. So until 9th july.

 

[masotflikr]

No nerf humans or buff zm?

 

[jenz]

I first thought that i wanted to nerf zombies where my initial thought would be to reduce the air accelerate on the server from 16 to 12 again. skilled zm players have a way larger game advantage from air accelerate than humans players. However after reconsideration i think that advantage is too valuable to louse as the zm gameplay otherwise turns very stale. Therefore i instead think a better approach is to buff humans.

I unfortunately lack time to be present every day but i do see from my time playing that the settings in overall are too difficult for every day players. People who maybe join once a month or once a year dont have this problem, but people who play every day have a different situation where i believe the current settings make the gameplay to be more of a chore than it should be. Personally i do think there are some options available like increasing the money gained from the cash manager system, re-balancing weapons again or potentially even to re-introduce zammo for the sake of it being more widely usable in the playerbase than just people using weapon binds. Potentially could it even be tried to minimally increase the human run speed as well or to finally try and just allow all weapons to be unrestricted in zmarket except c4, knife, smoke and flash grenades.

 

[jenz]

No nerf humans or buff zm?

Indeed not.

 

[Shino]

I found that already-skilled players benefit even more from the higher aa, since they won't be slowed down as much when strafing back and forth as zombies, and I think nowadays the playerbase is rather on the unskilled part, though not in an offensive way, it's more that there are just a couple more people standing out while the rest is playing in a relatively casual way. and for them, i'd make the game easier by either just increasing KB, or even changing HE grenade a bit (though i'd also revert it back to 12aa for zms but i can only vote for one option, but either way I also think that simply just going back into a more casual, easier-for-humans setting could be tried it for a period of time, if it becomes too easy for humans, we could always revert these changes as well)

 

[mini]

Humans should get a buff.
Zombies do not need a change, because the zombie settings are already okay as they are (They don't ruin the maps with speed, regen or extraordinary max hp and let's agree that these settings feel legit in the matches, it is a different experience than nerfing zombies. BHOP doesn't enter too much in this category since we talk about the general playerbase)
Humans shall get a buff like being able to buy a second nade (nade burn would last longer as well by at least 1 second), get a bigger magazine, rebuys would be cheaper (at least by a bit) and/or getting more start-money (I'm meaning to those 10k you get when you begin a match)

I don't think I can suggest the best settings for humans and probably the suggestions will not be accepted, but at least my opinion is to let humans buffed than letting zombies nerfed.

EDITs : I suggest humans getting a buff because it would give them more convidence & reasons to beat harder maps. I know a team on a certain map WILL NEVER BE PERFECT, but somewhat decent. Most of the time, casual maps are played and we don't get to play (don't even think to win) good maps, because it feels like the casual maps aren't won and the players would just leave until they satisfy themselves with better maps. It's probably me who has this feeling, but the playerbase would get more confidence to beat the maps if they have what they need, I guess.

I know I edited this post a lot, I apologise xd

 

[William! :D]

Being a zombie already can feel very disadvantegous for the average player, especially for maps that are not designed to allow zombies to manouver against the human. Being pinned in a corner or a one-way path really sucks. Zombies should absolutely not be nerfed. However, I think we have proven several times, even with the current settings, that a "good" team (aka players who understand how to play ZE) can easily beat most maps. Often it is not the settings that make us lose the maps, it's players being simply bad.

In that sense I agree a bit shino. However, I think it is problematic to buff the humans because of a bad human team. Unfortunately we constantly lose players, with a bad defense, to zombies throughout the maps and we do badly on average. It is demotivating to constantly lose as humans. Perhaps a buff for humans could aid in keeping the human team alive for longer allowing us to win maps? Or maybe it will change nothing and we'll just get more frustrated zombies but the same losses on maps due to players dying to other stuff? I think the latter is a more realistic result of buffing humans.

Maybe other options could be considered, such as changing the motherzm ratio on a map to map basis? Less motherzombies for some "harder" maps? Or change things that aid human defense without directly affecting human settings (such as the HE settings). I will vote for buff humans but do know that I do not directly mean it as the vote option states it, I think the options dont truly reflect the "issues" in ZE.

 

[Kaka]

I personally value movement and more difficult movement techniques as a very core part of ze gameplay. Zombie players that are able to do a 'U turn' have put in the time and effort should have that advantage as it isn't 100% consistent and is difficult to do and needs the right criteria's to work. Reducing the aa would only foster more tedious gameplay as you are once again more limited in your approach and can only hope that the humans make a mistake so you can punish it but even that's difficult when rebuys are a thing.

This is why I believe buffing humans is the right option instead, zombie escape is a very team reliant game, even more so when you consider the unloze settings and some ze maps that have the heavy defense with few mistakes design. I believe that's where the true conflict lies, that's it's currently too punishing on mistakes when playing those maps. So with that said giving humans more power or even implementing dogan's old kb boost is something that I would be very much for.

 

[jenz]

Maybe other options could be considered, such as changing the motherzm ratio on a map to map basis? Less motherzombies for some "harder" maps

that should be considered nerfing zombies i think. It does not directly nerf an individual zombie but it sure is a setting that should be related to nerfing zombies as it certainly means the zombie team is in a weaker position on each round start.

"(such as the HE settings)" maybe i just think very square but in my world that very much is related to buffing humans.

 

[William! :D]

Perhaps you're right, Jenz, I just kinda see them as a greyzone inbetween.

Another suggestion I have is bringing back Dogans kb boost but as a vote instead of automatically in secret. If we lose too many rounds on a stage (>5 perhaps), a vote will automatically come up to increase the kb. This would offer a more context based solution.

I just find it unrealistic to expect a balance in settings as there's a huge contribution by player skill, something that very much is dynamic. We can merely optimize.

 

[Singleton]

I'm no expert but I think humans should be able to buy one more grenade as for some hard maps we use grenades on the boss leaving us with none for the final defence, especially when there is little humans. Overall I don't think there needs to be any major changes.

 

[masotflikr]

Nades are fine. If u are increasing amount of nades increase ZCleanse

 

[Alcolo Oasis]

I voted to buff humans because look at the CT biased meme thread.

 

[Ness]

Voted buff bc we lose too much. I would say bring back zammo or change kb maybe

 

[Kiku-san]

I think there's so many variables to count in this matter, but i would choose the bhop as one of the main problems, since one of the easiest ways to win as zombie in a map is having a tryhard part with bhop (such as the spawn in treecolada, or almost every part in uchiha_legacy), but if people still think bhop is not one of the problems, changing the ratio of the money to 1/2 from 1/3 of the dmg should help without touching the kb (wich i think is ok), another idea is changing the time zombies are burnt with nades, or like ness said, bringing zammo back.

 

[Kaby]

dont change anything, settings are fine. also bhop is not the problem, its the reason we are still here

 

[Bantu]

There is a clear indication that humans need a buff now because of the current state of zombie escape.
The current settings has worked very good over the past year and I still believe it is very balanced and refined setting but sadly players today doesn't have the stamina and dedication as it used to be. Maybe it is the new trend of new games that affects the current outplay or it could be simply because of it's stagnant state of zombie escape in general but either way it has affected the gameplay and the motivation we used to have be it either leading or playing it in general.
Let's not forget that in most situations of the map over a ruff estimate of 70%(might be higher or lower) of the players actually defend while the rest just doorhugs and don't contribute so in that viewpoint we mostly adjust to the current defenders and not actually the whole team.

As much as I like the current settings we certainly have to do small changes.
I would suggest maybe a slight increase knockback and add slight reduce on the nade boost or simply more money for rebuys with increased knockback.

 

[Martin]

I decided to vote for the well-being of the average player, so I voted to buff humans.

Its pretty common that good zombies go on rampages/trim most of the new players as a zombie by them not having binds for rebuys, so adding more money wouldn't help. I like what most people have said already. I think more ammo in guns or increased knockback would be the biggest help to the average player as stuff like nades/rebuys changes will only benefit already dedicated players who have binds for everything.

 

[machu]

i've voted for zombies to be nerfed but i want only the non-mother zombies to be nerfed i don't think they should be as strong as mother zms.Hp could be lowered to 1/3 of mother zm and speed could be equal to humans at 250 and we could get rid of their zcleanse too and idk what other nerfs they could be done but i think that kind of nerf is the most fair for everyone.As i'm writing this nobody voted for nerf zombies but i'm still leaving this here to be considered for future changes

 

[Martin]

Thats a very good idea actually matsuki.