Gamemodes:
Old:
- Survival – Standard HvZ gametype, humans try to survive for a given amount of time (or until the last human falls). Zombies are given access to upgrades at various times, for instance Infectors at 5 minutes, Tanks at 10 minutes and Husk at 13 minutes.
New:
- Secret VIP – There are 3 special players in this game: the VIP, the General and the Traitor. The VIP is a human who the other humans are trying to protect and is restricted to a given area (we used the usual tambark area), while the Traitor is a zombie masquerading as a human. When stunned, zombies must move outside of the VIP’s area before counting down their stun. The only person who knows the VIP’s identity is the General, while all original zombies know the Traitor’s identity. Everyone knows the identity of the General, making them the only guaranteed trustworthy human. The Traitor acts as a human, but can at any point do a single Traitor zombie tag, revealing that they are the Traitor, and thus turn into a regular zombie. Additionally, if a human hits another human, the hit human is stunned for 25 seconds. If the humans protect the VIP for a given period of time (we used 15 minutes), the humans win. If the zombies successfully tag the VIP, the zombies win. Zombie upgrades are unlocked on a timer like Survival, something along the lines of 3 minutes for Infectors, 6 minutes for Tanks and 10 minutes for Husk (I don’t think we used those exact numbers).
- 6 Round Pair Sweep – Each player is given 6 darts to start with, and may take any number of blasters or a single melee weapon. Humans have 3 respawns at the nearest tree, and go to respawn when they are hit. A melee hit or a zombie tag immediately turns a human into a zombie. Humans try to deposit as many darts to a dart collector as possible and are safe during the depositing, and can no longer deposit darts as a zombie. The only change is that humans now work in pairs instead alone. Once all humans have been turned, the game ends and the winner is the pair who deposited the most darts as humans.
Zombie rules:
Zombies tag humans with their hands onto any body part, blaster, tactical gear, etc, turning the human into a zombie. If a human hits a zombie with a dart, the zombie is stunned for 25 seconds. A human can also stun a zombie with melee, but only with a direct hit to the back.
There are 3 standard zombie upgrades/mutations/perks:
- Infector – zombie(s) get to use foam swords, pool noodles, etc. Tags with said foam melee weapons on humans count as regular tags. Said melee weapons can also be used to block darts.
- Tank – zombie(s) get to use shields, which block darts. The shields cannot be used to tag humans, presumably as a precaution against shieldbashing which could certainly cause injury.
- Husk – zombie gets to use a ranged attack, in this case a handbag full of throwable rubber hands and feet. A ranged Husk attack counts as a regular tag. Husk ammo can be picked up by any zombie, but can only be used by the Husk naturally.
Zombie upgrades can be stacked in some games, so for instance a player could take both a pool noodle and a shield.
If in play, grenades can stun a zombie with a hit to any equipment, including swords and shields, and can be reused at will, though in some gametypes special grenade replenishing rules are in place.
Blasters:
Since there were a lot of different blasters there, I’ve generalised them and only listed down the ones that I saw as significant or noteworthy, or remember for that matter. Being that I can’t be everywhere at once, it’s entirely possible I completely missed some blasters.
Regulars:
Rebelle Sweet Revenge (light mods) – my standard dual pistols, worked well when I went to them against several zombies, but easily overwhelmed by more than ~4.
Elite Rapidstrike (various motors, LiPos) – as usual, the best close quarters point defence blaster around. Somewhat poor accuracy compared to most other things makes them rather ineffective at long range, but raw dart output allows tearing apart hordes at close range.
Elite Alpha Trooper/Rampage (unknown mods, assumed spring) – standard all round blasters that make for excellent entry level blasters. Pump action allows for decent ROF – nowhere near a flywheeler but more than enough for a newbie against a couple of zombies. Decent power is more than usable in a HvZ game.
Elite Stryfe (various motors, LiPos) – effectively mini-Rapidstrikes with a slightly lower ROF. Accuracy seems to be better with them, but I have no actual evidence to back that up. The significantly smaller size and lower weight makes them a lot easier to handle, and the lower ROF is generally not an issue for more experienced users.
New:
Overall while the Zeus does get very good ranges for a stock blaster, you just can’t hit anyone who’s even the slightest bit aware at that range. In the ranges in which a stock Zeus is effective, you might as well just use a standard modded dart blaster like an EAT, and that will give you better capacity, reloading, ROF and ammo compatability.
We started off with a Survival round as per usual. It went pretty much as expected up until the zombies had tagged about 3 humans. The bulk of the newbie humans stuck together and generally kept movement to a minimum, combating zombies in one particular area in the far north of the area. While this meant that one side was automatically covered by the northern border of the play area, they became surrounded by zombies on all other sides. Eventually some of the humans (including me) split off from the group to escape the ever closing box of zombies, and the subsequent poor human coordination resulted in several humans getting tagged.
While the humans generally tried to stay around the higher up north end, the number of zombies made defending an area pretty much unfeasible. Unlike the previous event, I didn’t really stick with any particular human group, and overall the humans didn’t work all that well together. As a result, the Survival round ended rather quickly, and I was the last survivor.
This hands and feet Husk is far more dangerous than a Titan Husk, and in my opinion substantially changes the human-zombie dynamic. Previously, Tanks were the only zombie who could threaten a lone human in small zombie numbers – regular, Infectors and the Titan Husk are basically useless alone or even in a small group against an experienced, well armed human. A hands and feet Husk backed up by even a few non-Tanks is far more effective than usual because the Husk can repeatedly pelt away at the human while the other zombies charge/distract/get stunned/whatever.
We played a number of Secret VIP rounds, I think around 4. Overall I think they worked quite well as a secondary gametype.
The first round ended very early by complete chance. The Traitor revealed themselves early, stunning nearby humans and then using their Traitor tag on the nearest human – who turned out to be the VIP! There was nothing that the humans could have done really, and it’s highly unlikely that a Traitor would get tag VIP through pure luck. We all had a good laugh about the situation, then went to play another round.
The second and third rounds lasted nearly the full time limit, with the zombies usually being able to pick off a few humans, but typically not make significant progress until the Traitor revealed themselves and attacked. In both of these rounds, the Traitor usually opened fire on the humans but didn’t use their Traitor tag. While they may not have been able to get the VIP themselves, the distraction and overall chaos introduced by the Traitor allowed the zombies to pick off the VIP somewhere. In both cases I was usually nowhere near the Traitor, and didn’t see the VIP get tagged either time. After one of the rounds I asked another player who the VIP was, and was answered with “I don’t know, but he’s dead”. Since the VIP and Traitor are picked by an admin who does not participate in the game, the admin will declare when the game is over if the VIP does not, so I ended up not knowing who the VIP was half the time.
In the final round, I was the Traitor. For the most part, the humans performed very well – they were always alert and lost very few of their number. I had a suspicion of who the VIP was, but chose instead to just take the General. This was perhaps a huge mistake, but it was a good experience as I hadn’t played a round of VIP where the Traitor had taken the General before. I also chose not to fire at the humans and risk not being able to use my tag. This was perhaps also a mistake as the zombies were never able to make any serious inroads into the human defences at any point, even with Tanks and the Husk. In previous rounds, the Traitor often plays a key role in breaking the human defences when they are at their most distracted. I am an especially poor Traitor, I don’t like turning on the human group and firing on them, and I’m very poor at recognising the best situations to do so.
Taking the General allows everyone to know who the VIP is – the General tells the zombies, while the VIP is free to reveal themself to ensure protection. This takes away one of the only advantages the zombies have, in that the humans are now free to trust one another and no longer need to keep an eye on other shifty humans. In all honesty, revealing the VIP’s identity to everyone is not particularly beneficial to the zombies (unless the Traitor is still in the human group of course), as the zombies will take any humans they can tag, and any humans they do get will just make getting the VIP easier.
Another possible contributor to my hesitance was the introduction of new grenade rules. In the final round, the grenade was reintroduced as a human weapon that turns a human into a zombie (on top of regular anti-zombie abilities). The grenade is the counter to the Traitor, as without the grenade, the threat of the Traitor is not neutralised until they tag someone – a Traitor could choose to stay as a turncoat human and just keep blasting the other humans, and there’s no way to permanently stop them. The grenade allows forcing the Traitor into a zombie without the Traitor tagging someone. The grenade starts with the General, the only completely trustworthy human.
The overall combination of better human defence, me being an awful Traitor and the new grenade in play allowed the humans to win quite easily – something very rare for Secret VIP.
Something else to note is that the shields that the Tanks used were substantially smaller than usual – they covered the entire torso and arms, but left the legs exposed. These Tanks are far, far less intimidating to go up against, and are far easier to deal with in 1v1. As a human, all you need to do is go for the legs – even if you don’t hit them, they’re forced to dodge or block, both of which force them onto the defensive and stop them from charging. With the full body shields that are normally used, a lone human has almost no chance against a Tank.
The last round I played was a 6 Round Pair Sweep, and I think it worked very well. In regular 6 Round Sweep, the humans trying to pick up darts tend to avoid each other, and this tends to leave around darts that people didn’t notice as they were too worried about survival. Additionally, everyone is on edge and always looking around in case someone is trying to sneak up on them, thus reducing their dart pickup effectiveness. Having a partner not only doubles your maximum dart retrieval speed, but also allows one partner to focus purely on picking up darts without worrying about getting snuck up on. This results in a much faster and much more efficient dart pickup overall – I think we picked up more darts in about 2/3rds of the time compared to regular 6 Round Sweep.
Pair Sweep also makes it harder for those humans who just like to attack other humans, as they now have to contend with two humans instead of just one. This helps the dart pickup aspect of the game a lot, as there have been times in regular 6 Round Sweep where I have had to abandon a patch of darts due to attacking humans who I don’t want to engage.
I would like to see more Secret VIP games with the anti-Traitor grenade in play where I am not the Traitor – thus far the humans have lost the majority of rounds, often due to the Traitor being unstoppable, and only stunnable. I think 6 Round Pair Sweep works far better than regular 6 Round Sweep as a pickup game, and would like to see Pair Sweep as the default pickup game.
A link to the same post on my own blog: link