Aint no ZPS like the good ol days

[Multigrain]

So I've had this debate with people on the ZPS server before and I thought I'd make a post about it here to see what everyone's opinion on the matter is. So the purpose of this thread is whether you prefer maps like churchseige or lake map types where it involves humans getting tons of weps/ammo to hold out or the classic style of zps maps like aquatica or kerreti.

I personally prefer the classic style of zps, most of those maps being the ones the devs make. What I feel a lot of these new maps lack is the the how linear they are and the design philosophy. I'll start with the how a lot of the "popular" zps maps usually involve the human team going down the same if not similar path every time. This wouldn't feel so bad if maps re-used the same areas over again to make it feel more dynamic.

Now about the designs, most of the "popular" zps maps are based on a simple concept, u get lots of guns and ammo and u kill lots of zombies. Sounds fun right, well it can be when you're human, but if you're a zombie it is just a bore fest of u running into humans until they run outa ammo. Though when you have good players that can headshot with magnums in 1 shot, running out of ammo usually doesn't happen till last 30 sec of map, if not at all. I have played games where Pillz and doc single handedly held off the zombies on their own; it really ruins the experience as a zombie when all you can do is run into death over and over with no progress. Where in contrast if you look at the classic style of zps maps which are rarely played as much and feel much better of an experience when played as human or zombie. Humans are limited on ammo and actually have to scavenge around map, this gives zombies more of a fighting chance. Also adding on to the issue with church maps or even redqueen is that the zombie spawns are mostly somewhere far behind humans making it where you have to run into there wave of ammo, rather than having a variety of spawns that allow for a strategic approach. Though with linear maps setting up spawn points have always fallen into this trap for zps.

What are your thoughts, do you prefer the maps where its a zombie slaughter fest or the classic style zps maps?

[Multigrain]

We had this discussion and I've already stated that how the zombie team's experience is, is based off of how good they are. If the whitey does not get anyone for 5 minutes into the round then yes, the zombies will have a difficult time winning and it will not be fun. The zombie experience depends greatly on the first few zombies and the first few minutes of the game. If you can kill enough humans (and I feel this is more than possible on most maps, churchseige perhaps being the hardest that comes to mind) before they become well equipped and barricaded then the zombies should have a fine time. If not, then I cannot guarantee anything.

If the humans are any way competent enough to land headshots then killing people in the first couple minutes becomes quite the problem. Whenever I play against Pillz or Doc when I'm a zombie for example it makes winning a lot of the times near impossible for the fact that they both have good aim and a stockpile of ammo. I'm using them as examples since they are ZPS admins but there are other players that are able to hold quite well.

However it is not a map's fault nor the fault of the players if a particular group of zombies lack the minimal skill to make any kills so I personally find only the skill of the players in whitey can be to blame for "boring" zombie rounds.

Actually it is the mappers fault since the whole design phillosophy of the map is to massacre tons and tons and tons of zombies before they have a chance to kill you. I'm going to continue to use church for consistency. The generator house and crypt supply enough ammo to hold off against the normal spawn amount of zombies for easily half of the map. Which then all's they have to do is walk to church which has more than enough ammo to hold off the map.

You also argue that experienced players "really ruins the experience as a zombie when all you can do is run into death over and over with no progress." However as we discussed in the server you said that we are indeed a smaller playergroup compared to other games these days and that we do not have a ton of experienced players. Therefore 1 or 2 experienced players in a round should not make a difference in a team of 12 because as a zombie you have a bit of advantage over humans until they are well equipped,

On a lot of these maps it takes about less than 10 seconds to find a primary gun and tons of ammo, so for rushing them before they are equipped it becomes impossible unless its like the persons first time on ZPS or like the map and just is confused about whats going on.

and thus you can either go after the lonewolfs who venture off, the people who are not as good as some, or perhaps ambush a experienced player offguard.

On the linear maps catching people offgaurd is possible on some maps, but on a lot if not most, a player will see a lot of these ambushes since 99% of the time the spawnpoints are behind the humans but occasionally you can catch a stragler who isnt as good. This is for linear maps though, on maps like church or lake it isn't really possible to ambush since you have to break down the doors.

Either way it again falls upon the zombie to make of the round what they will, getting "lots of gun and ammo and u kill lots of zombies" is irrelevant and cannot be to blame for this because generally in most maps you must search before finding "lots of guns and ammo" and thus being able to "kill lots of zombies". This window of time gives zombies apt opportunity to kill humans.

On maps like church, lake, or even cabin the guns are literally laid on a platter in front of you when you spawn, so I don't get where you're getting that from. The round starts and it literally takes a couple seconds to grab a gun, it takes the zombie more time to even get to your door. On linear maps this is understandable but on most zombies still spawn behind you which gives you time to grab the guns and turn around.

Now it can be argued that some maps (churchseige comes to mind, so that is what I will use as an example) may give the player good weapons off the bat and perhaps set them up in an easy position. However it is not the picnic you make it out to be. Many spots humans spawn (crypt, powerhouse, or GODFORBID the outhouse) are not adequate for holding off all round if zombies are smart and attack early on (and there is no reason they shouldn't, it's their motherlovin jobs) The crypt, for one does not have much furniture to barricade with, and wooden barricades can quickly be broken by zombies dumber than a 5th grader.

The crypt gives you enough ammo to hold off for about half the game, though should move to church where enough ammo for whole map. When there's only a couple zombies it's quite easy to move to the church. Also if you feel the need to drop the panic door it gives enough time to ammo up and move to a more secure place.

Also I have be killed many a time because a teammate decided to hit the explosive barrel button, letting zombies blow our cades to shit and having them flood in. That brings up another point ENTIRELY; people are stupid and you can be willing to bet atleast one human per round is stupid enough to fuck up somehow and give the zombies a tad advantage.

This is the point that I made where I referred to the skill level of the human team. In maps like church if the player is able to kill the zombie decently and doesn't do stupid stuff like what you said, it remains to be difficult for the zombie to get the kill.

As for the outhouse, for those of you who have not played church seige, it is as good a place to barricade against endless waves of zombies as it sounds. And power house is easily broken into period. The church is perhaps the hardest part for zombies, however, if done right is not too big a headache for zombies. The success of the zombies/enjoyment of being zombies relies on zombie using their half eaten brains and working as a team, nothing else.

As for the Gen house you can easily hold it off for half of the map if your team is able to aim. All's they have to do is go on the roof with all the ammo and look down, there's heads of zombies as they punch the doors/windows; easy head shots.

Also the zombies do get any players that join in late, only adding to their power in numbers. So do the math Xzombies=Xtime statistically.

This shouldn't be a deciding factor when making the map. The map shouldn't be balanced around having zombies late join. If they wanted more zombies at the start the ratio at the start would be different. Also maps like churchsiege and lake maps are not properly made for the amount of players. If there are 2 players for example there will still be the same amount of ammo and guns. The current state of the map is designed for a full server which still results in zombies throwing themselves into humans until they run out of ammo or don't aim as well. Though for lake maps they aren't as bad as church since it doesn't take you like 30 seconds to break down a entrance to a place, which gives the humans optimal time to position themselves.

The game is more than balanced in many ways, maps have no relevance in determining how a zombie's round is.

This statement is completely wrong if your going to apply it to all maps. Since maps do have a good affect on how a zombies round is. An example is if the map is loaded with tons of guns and ammo, odds are the zombies going to die a lot vs a map where the spawn points are dangerously close to where the humans are going to be which would result in the map being easier for zombies. I for one don't enjoy dieing like 20-30 times before any progress is felt to be made.

I can tell you this though, some of my most memorable experiences were on the dev maps. I don't mind playing church siege, lake, or even redqueen every once in a while. They just lose there fun value very very fast for said flaws in map design. I wish mappers would spend more time thinking about how much weapons/ammo they place on a map, since that aspect of mapping has seemed to gone in the years.

I for one can live with playing the maps I never said go and remove them all, I just saying that they are ruining what ZPS was and what made it what it is. Running yourself into a slaughter fest over and over isn't fun for zombies. The only reason I enjoy playing maps like that is talking to people. Also the map gets a lot more fun when occasionally as human I lower the ammo supply. The result I noticed was humans struggling to hold off having to keep falling back, which at least made a more enjoyable round. I'm looking forward to the fresh start in contagion again with dev only maps for a while, before it starts getting church sieges on that too >_>.

O yeah, TLDR; Running into death over and over isn't fun with no progress to be made, but if it keeps the server populated then meh. Though I don't hold the massive ammo grudge against linear maps as much, the fact of there poor spawn points and how linear they are detracts from the value. Power to the devs for keeping things real

[Cortez (Mr. T. FOO!)]

Holy balls, TL;DR.

Thanks for letting us know! +1 to your post count!

THANKS FOR MODIFYING MY POST FOR NO REASON PILLZ!

[Ðeath.]

... I prefer the old classy maps, indeed. It seems what you guys are talking about isn't about "old maps/system/etc" and more is of "why these maps are bad." Also, I'm pretty sure Red Queen is a Developer map, but an import from Zombie Master (which worked quite well, and yes, I'm aware it's based off of a movie.). I do agree with Multigrain on the "Too much ammo, too much weapons, too little zombies" argument. Sure, they get slowed down a bunch, but when they're camping in a spot, or in a group, does that *really* matter?

[Pillz]

This is one issue I've had as Head Admin.. I prefer classic maps, but about 25% of the players that come in will wonder where the cabin/lake maps are.

I simply just don't have much experience playing the different cabins and lake maps because they never suited my play-style. Nowadays I'd be willing to play them, but my main issue with them is how shitty some are. Lake of the dead for example, looks like four lunchboxes on a lake; and each house has it's own "preset" difficulty level for zombies getting in. If the humans cade and lock window's soon enough; they win. If whitey picks that house immediately, they'll probably die. If you spawn in the big glass house, zombies can always drop in from the windows and it's usually the easiest house to raid; unless they're set up with shotguns already on the windows.

Some of them are decent and pretty fun to play; they just piss off newcomers into thinking the whole game is unfair like that. That's why I've always preferred classic / dev-intended ZPS gameplay on stock maps and decent customs.

Then there are servers who have every single map they can find, and those do well too. Yet on our server I'll often find it dying on maps like Hideout, Darkwater and the such. Maps that are amazingly made, and don't require you to camp the whole game. Camping is always a strategic way to win in ZPS though, if you have the ammo, and the barricades; it seems like a good way to stay alive. S'long as we're not doing it on Obj maps, it's a classic zombie survival strategy, also usually a noobs first gameplan.

For me it's just a matter of finding proper versions of the maps that aren't buggy, glitchy or just annoying and ugly.

[Multigrain]

I wouldn't mind a lot of the maps if most of the zombie spawns weren't mostly placed somewhere behind the human pack. I wish more maps were somewhat like hideout tbh (hideout being one of my fav maps),where the spawn points are extremely dynamic where each area has up to 4 spawn points and you can choose the area to spawn in. On maps like this I love being zombies because of the depth of strategy brought from it.

[Doc. Mentalist S.]

I rather just play zps mainly because of the people that I am familiar with on the server. But nowadays, there's no real motives in playing. Unless i see like 6 or more friends on.

Maps like armory, church, and RQ are boring, I like maps that equalize the gameplay throughout the round.
Which is why I just spectate or play carrier. Call me a liar, but it's true. It pains me to see people get massacred and have them leave.
So I just go in, populate, server gets to 16+, leave. <--- my usual routine. Or just stay and keep order which is rarely needed.

Now in the perspective of new players, all they want is a simple play through with the minimum amount of admins having to use their ability. Because they get paranoid and think that this server gets a lot of bad seeds and such. As well as a good time.It's good that we encourage players to help populate the server by asking them to invite their friends.

I wouldn't mind a lot of the maps if most of the zombie spawns weren't mostly placed somewhere behind the human pack. I wish more maps were somewhat like hideout tbh (hideout being one of my fav maps),where the spawn points are extremely dynamic where each area has up to 4 spawn points and you can choose the area to spawn in. On maps like this I love being zombies because of the depth of strategy brought from it.

I like hideout's simple concept aswell but the map itself is pretty open, giving me less maneuverability. It's a pretty big map which I also hate, but at least the guns are clustered and ammo kept far, almost finding a specific type of gun impossible or a at 25% chance of spawning at all.

Other good maps such zpo_biotec (pronounced BI-OH-TECH NOT BI-OT-TICK), channel9 and the ones listed in the first post.

ZPS implementation of late joining is like same with it years ago. A LOT of people abuse it, just avoid playing the carrier. It's a ratio of 10 survivors to 1 zombie. Late joiners just add up, to possibly 15:1.

This thread is pretty bias, since it talks about zpo, and excluding the game modes zps, zpa and zph.

tl;dr: ZPS can either encourage or discourage players from playing, similar of maps that are good in my opinion and what makes them good, topic only talking about the zpo game mode.

[Pillz]

It's hard to keep every single player happy, most of them leave before telling you why they're mad. Some leave the second they're killed as a human, and some leave when the map changes.

I'm not to sure what maps to take off or keep; I got a few complaints about hideout being too big so I took it off, mainly because I saw the server dying and emptying on it a few times. I'd be happy to bring it back, but I think another problem is how understaffed ZPS. On top of that, most of the admins/players join the game after I'm already there and leave shortly after I do. Everyone needs to play more when I'm NOT there; which is often nowadays, but we gotta start taking shifts to keep the server alive until we have regular players at all different hours of the day.

On a side note though guys; which maps on the server do you think are bad for the population, and which maps not on the server should I add that might help? Or simply you just want to see them again/try having them in rotation.

[Waffuls the Huntress]

zpo_biotec (pronounced BI-OH-TECH NOT BI-OT-TICK),

Shhh... It's ok Doc, you can pronounce it that way if you really want to

Reminds me of how people in TTT pronounce "Tendovvi" as many, many other things. Norm is "Tend-den-dovvi." So, Biotick can't be that bad? XD

[Wholegrain]

zombie panic was the best

had the best community and was sooooo fun

zombie panic source up to 1.25b was dank and then it seemed that around 1.4 I was getting bored of the devs fucking with the game so I really stopped playing it.

[billynoggs cade master]

I don't like the new zps for various reasons.

1: Being the fact that damage registry is worse than ever before.

2: Being the fact that the last update has messed up a lot of sourcemod commands on my server. For example Slay and timebomb is still broken. Now I have to resort to teleporting people into a zombie spawn and then freeze that person to get the same result of a slay.

3: My server also crashes everyday now, and sometimes when those crashes happen my graphics drivers stop working and I have to restart my computer because of that crash.

4: In my own opinion of course, The new crosshair sucks for the fact that long range shooting is now even more difficult.

5: The auto infection in my opinion is a joke. Why should someone else take up the task of being the the carrier if it was shitty enough to make the last person playing the carrier rage quit.

6: I don't like that the zps devs don't want people to see sprays by default. Not everyone is going to realize that there is a new "Disable sprays" option in the multiplayer options that they have to untick just to be able to see thier own/ other people's sprays.

Conclusion: As I have been playing zps since it was just a beta back in 2007, I have come to see more and more with each update that the developers want to mold the game into what THEY want it to be, Not what the players want. And their lack of play testing before their release of their updates has most recently taken a great toll on my zps community/server. If I could have a choice, I would go back to the old school zps of 2008 without thinking twice about it. That is my opinion, Although other might see it differently.

@ Multigrain, the reason why you would perfer the old school maps of zps is because they are in fact developer made stock maps, and this you have already said, but what people seem to miss is when someone makes a mod for source engine, if the developers decide to release the .fgd with the mod, they are pretty much welcoming people to make maps for the mod without anyone's approval of how good the quality of the map is in the game before it circulates among servers. That is one of the BIG factors of why zps is the way it is today. Too many inexperienced mappers use zps's .fgd to make and release a map that they think is good to their standards, which isn't always the case. In my own opinion I would say that 80% of maps on zps are complete garbage. Mabey it's just because i have insanely high standards as a experienced mapper for the source engine. But like I said before I would much perfer the 2008 version of zps. And if I could go back in time, I would make sure that a .fgd never got released for zps.

Cheers
Billynoggs

[Pillz]

Sprays weren't disabled for me, they were checked as on the first time I checked.

Slay and Timebomb work on our server and never messed up?

I haven't noticed more crashing than usual in ZPS; but it still crashes as much as it used to. Which can be every other day sometimes.

Auto infection is stupid when it glitches out, IE I'm last survivor, killed all the zombies, and the last zombie ragequits. Then I'm immediately infected. Stupidstupidstupid.

[billynoggs cade master]

@Pillz

Well on my server we are running a lot of plugins, which would be understandable to why it crashes often BUT, When i spoke to one of the zps devs, he said in the upcoming update (obviously not upcoming anymore) they were going to add better plugin support for the servers. Which I find false because ever since the last update the server crashes WAY more ofter and sourcemod is broken for us. Mabey I just got the unlucky end of the bargain but the fact still stands that things are definitely out of whack. And that's weird how your sprays were enabled by default, because the option is "Disable sprays" not enable them, So if you clicked the option for the first time after the update then your sprays should be disabled. Probably just another bug

[Wholegrain]

@Pillz

Well on my server we are running a lot of plugins, which would be understandable to why it crashes often BUT, When i spoke to one of the zps devs, he said in the upcoming update (obviously not upcoming anymore) they were going to add better plugin support for the servers. Which I find false because ever since the last update the server crashes WAY more ofter and sourcemod is broken for us. Mabey I just got the unlucky end of the bargain but the fact still stands that things are definitely out of whack. And that's weird how your sprays were enabled by default, because the option is "Disable sprays" not enable them, So if you clicked the option for the first time after the update then your sprays should be disabled. Probably just another bug

oh god the devs


I remember back when they were on some super abusive shit years ago

all evidence of it on the forums is gone though

anyways moving past that the devs rarely deliver and don't care for the community like fixing custom content only up till now.

ZPS died when it got released to steam publicly, instead of having to dl it and put it in your source folder and restart steam.

all of the tards came in

then the tard maps came

then more tard players came

it is an endless tard cycle

it is so bad I want to add "mus" in front of the tard to emphasis how bad this is

yes it is condiment retarded

/end useless post

[billynoggs cade master]

@ Wholegrain

Agreed and LOL. Mustard is pretty bad, especially when it's smuthered all over software.