Been looking into the game again, and I wanna make a couple comments to express my ceaseless whining (please give me attention)
VS SURVIVAL
I really like this gamemode conceptually, and yet it's so broken that I just torture myself every time I go on there to try it. So, there's an advantage for both the zeds and the players, but I'd argue the zeds win it most of the time. This is gonna be a bit extensive, so... be warned I guess(?)
SURVIVORS - Basically, you score the win if you're a medic. I can deal with essentially any perk as a zed except for the medic (unless I get a cheap kill with a Siren or something), and you know what the main reason for that is? In a nutshell? AMMO BOXES AND HEALING GRENADES. Half the games I lose in, we get beat by a cocky medic running around for 20 minutes and tossing health grenades over and over, because all he has to do is sprint like mad with that speed boost, find one of the million ammo boxes (which are so frequent because boss fight/normal mode), toss that nade down, maybe juke the zeds/boss a bit to get that extra heal, and then repeat the process. Healing grenades have become my worst nightmare because of this, and now you guys are planning on making a HEALING GRENADE LAUNCHER.
*nervous chuckle*
The perks that usually dominate a game are the Berserker and Medic (because obviously their health and speed are a major concern). I think each perk has its own advantage in this regard, but those two stand out the most (specifically the Medic, because, forever nades). But in addition to that, the Firebug might have the most significant advantage of all, the Microwave Gun. Spam alt fire. That's it. Just spam alt fire and kill everything, they can't touch you. Unless a Siren traps you or a Clot grabs you, you're set dude. But in the case that THAT happens, so long as you have a Medic, that Siren/Clot is gonna regret ever spawning period. I suppose this is where I should complain about the Medic as a perk altogether? Basically, I'm garbage at the game, but I was doing pretty well for myself as a Medic, mostly because HOLY CRAP THEY HAVE A LOT OF REALLY GOOD ABILITIES. Increased healing potency and recharge, drastic perk boosts, HEALING GRENADES, damage durability, armor plus, like, Jesus the list is never-ending with this perk. I think this needs to be toned down a bit, because this is scarily unbalanced. Even if the Medic lacks a kick to their combat, they shouldn't be this difficult to kill, THEY'RE A MEDIC FOR CHRISSAKES! I thought Medics serve as a "I protect you, you protect me" type of deal, but it's more a "I protect you, and then I protect myself" gig going on? Idk, either I'm a pretty good Medic and I just so happen to do really well as a Medic more than anything else (HoE? *selects Medic*), or I have some kind of a point there. Obviously if you nerf the perk itself too much people will freak out, but you can tone down the healing boosts for one, and in regards to VS, I have an idea:
Take away ammo boxes, and GIVE US MONEY. Main struggle as a Survivor is trying to fend off the nightmarish Zed team with so little money. We don't earn enough from the kills alone, so how about you actually PAY US for surviving a wave? Since that's such an accomplishment by itself... Just add a little bonus to the surviving players, maybe? Besides, freeze / flash / healing grenades will be much less of an annoyance if you just limit the ammo boosts. We have our pistols and our knives, which are enough to take down the lower tier player zeds if we're lucky. And when we die and drop our gun, I find it quite horrifying when my weapon literally disappears before my very eyes while I'm spectating during a bloody match. Especially when I use upgrades, because man, those are expensive as hell and a despawn means everything I worked for will disappear. Can the despawn thing be extended to like the duration of a round, at least, so they have a chance to get their stuff back? And further, is there something we can do about players who take other peoples' weapons and sell them?? We're pretty much powerless if that happens, and I've a couple occasions where some jerk took my stuff and ran off with it... (one of which was actually in a VS match, and we lost unsurprisingly).. Nerf this, boost that...
But uh, as for the ZEDS...
Definitely Pros and Cons there as well. Basically every Zed has some notably OP ability that can be a game-ender in most cases. Obviously there's gotta be competition, but, I think part of the gamemode's bad reputation comes from how easy the game's scale can be tipped this way or that. Despite the OP bit, it's alarming when the bigger Zeds tend to die the easiest? It's not that they're easy to kill exactly, but they're slow and sluggish. And if anyone teams up on them, they'll die, REALLY fast. Meanwhile, crawlers, which have the lowest health values in the game, can take quite a few shots before having to take a dive (typically by suicide), and as it turns out they're the most dangerous Zeds in the gamemode. They can do SO MUCH DAMAGE once they get their dirty claws on you, and they're SO FAST! To make matters worse, their insane leaps allow them to juke me really easily, to the point where I'm actually more afraid of a damn crawler than a fleshpound in this gamemode. Fleshpounds are fairly durable, but for some reason I don't last very long as a Fleshpound whenever I spawn as one... Now this may sounds like a matter of "I'm whining because I'm bad at the game," and err, while that's not necessarily untrue (I'm not that bad I swear), it's a lot different when you have a giant hulking enemy that takes up half your field of vision than when you have a supersonic spider running circles around you. Scrakes and Fleshpounds are all melee, by the way, so Medics are their doom. Fleshpounds are only worth anything because they can land so many consecutive hits, which I suppose is appropriate since they're supposed to be Kings among the other Zeds, but in the end, you can't kill a Medic who knows his stuff.
Then there's body health vs head health... to make this short, I'll just point out that all you need to kill one of the player clots is a couple pistol shots to the skull. Meanwhile, a full round of dead on shotgun blasts isn't enough to finish it. Yeah, decapitation is easier than, err, penetration, but that's absurd. Just the other night I was playing against a gunslinger and it was amazing -- I'd already lost my head by the time I'd come to my senses. So I see this, and I think back to all the times I'd had a gorefast running at me and eating shotgun shells, and wonder... Why is this a thing?
Finally, the Boss, the part that always goes wrong. The Patty is superbly powerful, and a nicely calculated rocket blast will pretty much kill anyone. Some days, Survivors get it easy and they take down a clueless Patty player. Every other day, it's just pure death. That is, until you get the Medics, who run around and nade the Boss to death slowly. This is the most agonizing part of the game, especially since the speed boost becomes so ridiculously frustrating. It comes to the point where you literally just can't get to the player, and you start taking automatic bleeding damage. It's so absurd, this is arguably the most unbalanced part of the whole match. Oh yeah, and WHY NOT THROW A BUNCH OF PLAYER ZEDS INTO THE MIX TO MAKE THINGS SPICY!? Apparently Survivors can't have a good time either, because while trying to concentrate on the boss, a bunch of lower tier Zeds show up and destroy everything. I mean, if you can figure out how to organize your team so a couple guys can handle the boss and another couple can deal with the others, good on you. But once I see crawlers leaping around, I just know it's over for us. The other Zeds are really demanding, so the Pat has a major advantage as soon as these other guys spawn. Oftentimes, the Patty will try and stall until his little friends show up. Also oftentimes, this stresses players to chase the Patty into unavoidable traps. You'd think these other Zeds would help finish business with the Medic, but uh, that rarely goes according to plan *sigh*…
And one more thing: the auto-balance system is broken. I've lost a good couple games as a Survivor due to the fact that Zeds can join in whenever they please, and the balancing system doesn't really do anything after the initial game start. Usually it all goes down on the third wave because like three new players join in as Scrakes, my teammate will be dead, and I'll be out of ammo already... now those ammo boxes do sound interesting, but, it's excessive. We simply need more dosh. I'm sure there's plenty more to be addressed, but I've written my unnecessary essay so yeah. Does it mean anything? Not really..
Does anyone even care about VS at this point?
