Zombie master in Killing floor

[kulik]

Hello,
i think it would be interesting to have 1vsX players gameplay option. 1 zombiemaster playing the game like strategy-chosing spawnloactions, types of speciments, "magnets" to make sure they find their meal and places hidden speciments on the map. He would get extra points for scoring damage to players thus enabling him to bring more enemies.

My second thought is that it would be great to give players only small ammount of cash for killing enemies, but large amount of cash for some objectives they need to acomplish. For instance at least 3 players stay in this circle (marked on floor) for 90 seconds, or reach this place in 30 seconds with at least two players, prevent speciments for entering this room for 3 minutes and so on...

 

[[5.SS]Pzgr.Zay]

I like both those ideas a lot.

 

[Nanostrike]

Objective mode would be interesting. Zombie master mode would be a mess, though. They already have a mod that does this on the Source engine called (Imagine that!) Zombie Master, with the objectives and everything. And you know what? It's a balance nightmare...

The balance of this game is pretty lop-sided already without adding a fleshpound-spamming omni-god...

 

[Akamaz]

yeah, i'd hate to see a level where the ZM just sat there gathering resources then spammed sirens and fleshpounds.

an objective type game would be nice though. or someone had suggested a game where each of the waves was fought defending a different outpost, and you have to move between outposts between waves. It would cut down on being able to kite fleshpounds though.

 

[kulik]

Objective mode would be interesting. Zombie master mode would be a mess, though. They already have a mod that does this on the Source engine called (Imagine that!) Zombie Master, with the objectives and everything. And you know what? It's a balance nightmare...

The balance of this game is pretty lop-sided already without adding a fleshpound-spamming omni-god...

I know about ZM on source, i surely don't say i invented the idea.
Its just the fact that AI lacks some general strategy (not that braindead speciments would have any) that would be hard to program in first place. What if the ZM would have upper limit on spawned speciments that would force him to create balanced waves? He could make some minor changes, but not to be able to spawn three flashpound or something. The good thing as i see it would be that ZM could place the speciments in places where he thinks the players will go, right now the players can outrun them and it takes too long for the AI to spawn new speciments behind them after they changed possition. And one more thing, in final wave the ZM would control the patriarch in 1st or 3rd person mode. ...would be sweet.

About the objectives. I imagined something like 3-6 difficulties of objectives with differentcash as reward.
1."Follow the path"- 150$ for players who will finish it 75$ for others (random path cca 150m across the map)
2."Circle of death"-200$ for players who will finish it 100$ for others
(circle-diameter cca20m and you have to stay inside for 90seconds)
3."Choosen enemy"- 150$ each player
(for one minute don't kill other speciments but the chosen one like sirens or crawlers...)
4."They shall not pass"-200$ for all players
(deffend area marked on the floor, allow no speciment to enter it for 60 seconds)
5."Find the artefact"-275$ for player who finds it 150$ for others
(spawns artefact on the map at random location, find it in 2 minutes)

Note that its just first idea.

 

[SiC-Disaster]

To disable spamming of FP's though you could limit them to say like only 1 FP in wave 6, then 2 FP's in the next wave etc etc.
That way you have to time when you bring an FP in to play.

I like both idea's, and zombie master sounds pretty cool imho.
You can limit amounts of certain zombies to make it more fair.
I dont necessarily have to win a round while playing KF or L4D, i never won a expert campaign in L4D so far but it's fun as hell when you are brutally gangbanged to the ground by hordes of zombies, boomer and a hunter after being dragged away by a smoker.
It's not fair, it's so ridiculously unfair that it becomes funny.
Even when we were hopelessly ****ed over by the Director, we could all laugh about it.
And i think a zombie master mode for KF could do the same. Right now it's just annoying when i get killed, but in L4D it's usually funny as hell.

 

[[Luky]Ace]

Ripped idea from Zombie Master (the HalfLife2 Mod) lol

I enjoyed that game a lot, but ever since KF came out, i don't think i'll be getting on ZM again.
It's not a bad idea, but for this to work they would have to disable spamming of certain zombies, such as Sirens, FPs, Scrakes, and others if they so chose.

I'm assuming it wouldn't be "waves" either, more or less like an all out zombie vs. human war. Or in other words... Non Stop Chaos.

A few problems with this would be:

• Friends spawning Clots or Bloats non stop to level faster.
• Uncooperative Zombie Master
• Controlling Zombies
• Perk Leveling

That would just leave open another opportunity for people to take advantage of this and use it to their advantage. Leaving the game in ruins (by this I mean ruining the core of the game).

The uncooperative ZM could just not do anything, easy fix: Kick Vote/Switch between a player. Not that big of a problem, but could still be an issue.

And lastly, how would you control the zombies? Would the ZM be in Third Person/Map Overview or would the zombies just act with their instincts (AI)?

Would their be perk leveling or would it just be a mode for a certain perk level? This will disable friends trying to level up the easy way, but may not be fun for the people with the max and or low perks, because the max have nothing to do except kill and the lower levels can't level up.

 

[kulik]

Ripped idea from Zombie Master (the HalfLife2 Mod) lol

A few problems with this would be:

• Friends spawning Clots or Bloats non stop to level faster.
• Uncooperative Zombie Master
• Controlling Zombies
• Perk Leveling

I muss point out that i didn't invent the idea of course.

Friends spawning Clots or Bloats non stop to level faster. - first i have to say that i hate the perk level system in KF and i hope that when people are tired of grinding they will start using non-perk gamemodes. Second there are faster ways to grind (dedicated maps) than have friendly ZM.

Uncooperative Zombie Master- the ZM should be an assh*le who tries to kill you in anyway the gamerules approve. Just stick to the rules and try to kill this human scum!!! ZM could be kicked and replaced by other player of course.

Controlling Zombies- im not exactly sure what you meant by that. You wouldn't need to control every single zombie as ZM. The zombies would react to players as they usualy do. You would have the posibilities to order some speciments to breach the door or flank the players by setting waypoint, magnet or something. Right now the spampoints are chosen depending on position of players but the living ZM could place speciments where he thinks the players would go and thus create more of the "we are surrounded" moments.

Perk Leveling- it sucks, but it didnt affect the game mechanics. Try to describe it more exact if you see some problems. Thx

SiC-Disaster-
Yeah i know. Getting owned against impossible odds is more fun than to win against favorable odds. The last 10 seconds when you know you are going to die are most horror and entertaining parts of this games.

 

[RoBoT]

i kinda find it cool idea, I always loved ZM

 

[Neiko]

Like anything, if implemented well, it could work. Otherwise, it could lead to a bad game. But, I always wanted to play the director in L4D. Wouldn't mind playing the similar to KF.

 

[omarfw]

I'd like to see an objective game mode that worked a lot like the assault mode in ut2004. that would be much more feasible then a 1vX scenario.

 

[Templarion]

I like the basic ideas of ZM even it has it's negative sides.

I also would like to see objective levels.

 

[Kogitsune]

It could be done in a manner like Warhammer ( and 40K ) matches - each wave the master has a set number of points relative to the difficulty and number of players, and they are given a random hand of 'cards' that have a point cost that, when summed, would use all the points during a wave. The cards would be various squads ( like the ones you can setup for sandbox ) and could be played as many times as the master can afford to place.

Points would not carry over during waves ( who wants to see six waves of nothing and then the entire extended family of flesh pounds pour out on a non-poundamonium server? ), of course.

This could lead to tailoring waves to be hard for all the players. The first few waves aren't really that hard on any difficulty until they stop being mainly clots, so a good normal strategy is to use the knife or be berserker to save money for weapons. What if the wave was more bloats and gorefasts than clots?

It would certainly at least mix things up each game depending on who was the master.

Although it would lead to servers where the admin kicks everyone until he becomes the zm, uses the console to give himself a million points and then spams fleshpounds each wave :/. Or servers where there's five commandos and nothing but stalkers.

It'd be certainly abusable, but I feel that it would at least add variety.

 

[Templarion]

It'd be certainly abusable, but I feel that it would at least add variety.

Actually, I don't care if there were some small exploits or possibilites of abuse. The gaming community will always find their ways to play and legit players always find each other.

I like the memory of the first Diablo game. The dupping and cheating were easy so the community created clans and other ways to stay legit. There were, of course, still cheaters but they only made the community stronger and more willing to follow ways of legit player.

 

[thrash242]

Hello,
i think it would be interesting to have 1vsX players gameplay option. 1 zombiemaster playing the game like strategy-chosing spawnloactions, types of speciments, "magnets" to make sure they find their meal and places hidden speciments on the map. He would get extra points for scoring damage to players thus enabling him to bring more enemies.

My second thought is that it would be great to give players only small ammount of cash for killing enemies, but large amount of cash for some objectives they need to acomplish. For instance at least 3 players stay in this circle (marked on floor) for 90 seconds, or reach this place in 30 seconds with at least two players, prevent speciments for entering this room for 3 minutes and so on...

I like both idea. I'd like to see more defending areas instead of being able to kite enemies indefinitely.

 

[mistk�fer]

I really enjoy playing the Source Mod Zombie Master, so having a mode like that in KF would be great. Some more objective based gaming in KF is definately a good idea!