Zombie Panic Source suggestions

[Mr.]

I have played zombie panic source for 3 days and have a couple of suggestions. Before I get into those I would like to take some time and praise the game's strong points. #1 It has for the most part a great atmosphere, with the music and the environments. I love the set up of the police station with the snow falling outside, the lights off and fires going inside and the sound of a hungry zombie off in the distance. I like the weapons with the exception of the melee. They are loud and proud and can tear you a new one. The zombies look awsome and the humans pretty mean and ready to survive. Now on to my suggestions.

One of the most complained things about the game is the balance. It often is swayed too much for a zombie rather than a balance of the two. The humans have only weapons where zombies have night vision, a more consistant speed and 200 health that recharges BTW. Ammo, medkits, and guns are very scarce, and with alot of players zombies 9x out of 10 win. So suggestion #1 would be include more guns and ammo in the map. And I don't mean a real huge amount.

Melee weapons are pathetic. I don't mean just in usefulness I mean over all. I can swing a chair or shovel with one hand? I saw a guy with a shovel run at a zombie and hit him with the shovel using one hand? Also is it just me or does a keyboard do the same melee damage as an ax? Suggestion #2 model both hands on melee weapons that need two hands to hold like: an ax, or golf club, or shovel, or chair. Also vary the damge of these melee weapons. Like I know a ax should do way more damge than a keyboard. Vary the reach. A golf club should have a better reach than a pot.

Although the guns are great there is some issues with them. I was actually surprised at how much a pistol could wiegh me down. I moved real slow with only 3 pistols. I can understand something like a shotgun or SMG wieghing me down but pistols? Some one suggested that we should be able to dual wield pistols which isn't a bad idea at all. The guns all when fired do not eject any bullet shells. Why do head shots do nothing? I don't have to kill a zombie in one shot with a head shot, just that head shots should do more damage. Suggestion #3 Guns need to eject bullet shells. Pistol should not wiegh you down so much. Head shots should do more damge.

The atmosphere is real good in the game but with a town, police station, ect. ran sacked by zombies I was hoping to see more dead bodies lying around. Some people want more gore. One person suggested that after a zombie took down a human he could then on key down perform an action that would allow the zombie to feast on the brain of his victim. Sugession #4 more dead bodies and a bit more gore, this is a zombie game after all. Not asking that you make it able for the player to eat brains or gibing although the brain idea wasn't half bad.

I kinda figured I would see claw marks instead of bullet holes in the wall when I striked it as a zombie. I can live without seeing claw marks in the walls but it would be cool if you could adapt that to the game and the player models when the zombie strikes them. With people in these places being zombiefied I expected to see more zombie models. Like a zombie policeman model. But I do like the fact that after you kill a human survivor he has his same model just zombiefied! Sugessuion #5 More human and zombie models.

That's it. Do this and I think you will have the best zombie game out there!

[Yokai]

A lot of these suggestions I was thinking myself when playing the public build, and I like your enthusiasm. I can agree that right now the melee weapons do need to be rebalanced in order for them to be truly effective in close quarters. Animations are something I can't exactly ensure but I am sure someone else on the forums with more knowledge can fill one of us in on further animation work.

As for Zombie VRS Human balance, I think that the game is supposed to be a survival based game and I think that the game has the right idea on its balance. However, I don't know how frequently humans win in general but, on the times I've played, I've noticed that humans almost never win... It could either be me being unlucky or it could be something about weapons balance. Maybe, since zombies have so much health, melee weapons damage being high should benefit the human team enough to, not exactly insure victory, but allow the humans to fight 1 v 1 effectively. That being said, we may want to ensure that a 2 v 1 match is an automatic loss. Parrying may be a good addition to the mod as well with some weapons.

On Weight: I'll open the game myself and test some weight and give play test advice thusly. Currently, I think the weight system is alright but from your description, I may want to take another look. Pistols should be weak but very light, but currently, they are received by the players as too heavy and too weak, which causes problems. The devs should either A) make the pistols light but weak, or b) keep them at current weight but make them a bit stronger.

As for dead bodies: This is commonly used in maps and often times I disagree with the placement of ragdoll bodies because it seems to give an environment that feels too artificial, and things seem to be the same way every time you play, making the environment seem way too repetitive. On that note, its really up to the mappers, however I feel that, especially with this type of game, you should go with relatively clean environments and allow the destruction to be cause by events and or randomize the visuals a bit. This way, the environment is mostly depicted by the players, not the mapper, giving a much more natural feel.

And claw marks would be really easy addition, so I would expect to see them. But, it may be hard to make them look realistic, because zombies don't really have claws but they hit and scratch with their hands. Therefor, it would be very hard to make a mark that looks like a light scrape but not a claw scratch...

I think I've addressed my opinion to everyone quite enough, I may post my own open to discussion topic about my ideas later.