Today at Melbourne HvZ we introduced a new zombie, the Mega zombie, and spent much of the day play-testing it. In this Nerf Game Report, I’ll be going through the blasters that saw use, the game modes we played, and in particular how the Mega zombie affected games.
Gamemodes:
Regular:
- (Regular) 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, we used Infectors at 5 minutes, Tanks at 10 minutes and Husk at 15 minutes. Last human to fall wins.
- 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 turning into a regular zombie. Additionally, if a human hits another human, the hit human is stunned as if they were a zombie, however they can still fire their blaster. If the humans protect the VIP for a given period of time (e.g. 15 minutes), the humans win. If the zombies successfully tag the VIP, the zombies win. Zombie upgrades are unlocked on a timer like Survival, with Infectors available from the start, 5 minutes for Tanks and 10 minutes for Husk. If a human is hit by a grenade, they are instantly turned into a zombie. This is the only way to actively eliminate the Traitor.
- Defence Survival – The three zombie upgrades of Infector, Tank and Husk are spread throughout three separated area, about 3-4m wide. Zombies can pick up the upgrades if they touch the desired upgrade inside the squares. If a zombie is stunned within a square, they must move outside of the square before counting down their stun. Zombies are only allowed one upgrade at a time.
- Bounty Hunt – Three humans are designated as VIPs, known to all players, and allocated a particular zombie upgrade. If a VIP is tagged, their allocated zombie upgrade is made available. The game otherwise operates like a standard Survival round.
New/Infrequent:
- None
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 a count of 20. 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 – zombies 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 – zombies get to use shields, which block darts. The shields cannot be used to tag humans, presumably as a precaution against shieldbashing which could cause significant injury.
- Husk – a zombie gets to use a ranged attack, in this case a Zing bow. A ranged Husk attack counts as a regular zombie tag. The Husk may move from the place they were stunned to retrieve their ammo, but do not count down their stun timer until they return to their original stun place.
Zombie upgrades cannot be stacked, so a zombie can only have one upgrade at any time.
If in play, grenades can stun a zombie with a hit to a shield, and can be reused at will. If human vs human rules are in effect, a grenade hit to a human will turn that human into a zombie immediately.
We added a 4th zombie upgrade, the Mega zombie. They can only be stunned by Mega darts. The Mega zombie typically leaves combat when the shields enter combat, though this depends on the gamemode.
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.
Recurring/Regulars:
Elite Rapidstrike (various motors, LiPos) – standard high ROF flywheeler at HvZ. Great for reliably stunning a lot of zombies, but takes a lot of ammo to maintain.
Elite Stryfe (various motors, LiPos) – standared all-round flywheeler platform. Highly effective, compact and very customisable, they are probably the single most popular blaster at HvZ.
New/Infrequent:
Rival Nemesis (one rewired for 3S LiPo) – these were a heap of fun to watch and use. A 3S LiPo puts muzzle velocity close to 120fps, and its huge capacity allows for an absolute barrage of foam to be launched at will. The massive capacity also means that the user doesn’t need to reload often, and can also easily top off the giant hopper when necessary. It suffers from several notable weaknesses however. Firstly, even rewired for a LiPo, it is extremely large and bulky, and rather heavy. Secondly, it suffers the same drawbacks as all other Rival blasters, with Rival balls stalling out very quickly, and becoming near worthless beyond around 15m. Rival balls are also an extremely scarce ammo type in Australia, at least at MHvZ, so scavenging is extremely difficult. Thirdly, it is not particularly easy to refill large amounts of balls quickly without straight replacing the hopper. I also saw some particularly trigger-happy players burn through their load extremely fast, though this can be chalked down to user inexperience.
Elite Dual Strike (removed Elite ARs) – a rather odd blaster that can switch between firing Elites and Megas simply by flicking a switch on the side. This gives it an interesting niche as being one of the only blasters effective at combating both regular and Mega zombies. That said however, its low capacity on both ammo types hurts its viability greatly, as three of each dart type is not really enough for fending off more than one or two zombies. This particular Dual Strike had all its Elite ARs removed, making it fire all three of its top darts at once.
Megas:
Due to the introduction of the Mega zombie, I’ve put all Mega firing blasters that saw action in this section. This is unlikely to be a regular section, as after the Mega zombie becomes integrated properly into the rules (if it does get accepted), any blasters that see notable use will be placed in the normal two sections above.
Mega Mastodon – used primarily as a ridiculous, fun Mega primary. Excessively large for what it is, but not actually a terrible blaster, with quite a good capacity. Generally speaking, any players who used them focused entirely on stopping the Mega zombie and relied on backup to deal with other zombies.
Mega Rotofury (some with upgrade springs) – one of the only Mega blasters with a reasonable capacity, allowing to to effectively combat a couple of regular zombies as well as the Mega zombie. Given its size however, it is very difficult to carry around as a secondary blaster, and has drastically reduced effectiveness and efficiency when faced with a larger horde of regular zombies.
Mega Cycloneshock – probably the best overall Mega blaster, with a reasonable capacity while still maintaining a relatively smaller size. In a pinch, it can hold its own against two or three zombies, regardless of Mega or not. However its bulk and size compared to a similar Elite firing blaster (e.g. a Strongarm/Disruptor or Hammershot) does hurt its viability as a secondary/sidearm.
Elite Dual Strike – the only single blaster that natively fires both Megas and Elites, switching easily with a flick of the switch on the side. A reasonable Mega blaster and a fun gimmick, but not a particularly practical blaster overall.
Once the Tank shields were made available at ten minutes, the Mega zombie was removed from play. From then on, it was business as usual. The Tanks would push the humans around and try to split them up, allowing the rest of the zombies to focus on the now isolated and uncoordinated stragglers. I was able to survive to the end of the round, eventually running out of ammo and falling to the horde.
In the first round, the Mega zombie was able to have a fairly significant impact during the early game. The sudden charges of a mostly-invulnerable zombie from a mere several metres away was very effective at panicking and scattering many humans, particularly those without a Mega blaster at the ready. This, combined with several regular zombies waiting for an opportunity, resulted in more early game tags than usual. Regardless, the sheer volume of fire from the humans was enough to keep the zombies from making too much progress into the human group.
The release of Tank shields, as usual, marks the time at which point the zombies can start seriously threatening the human group. In this round, the Mega zombie was mistakenly left on the field for a couple of minutes longer than intended. The combination of Tank charges with the near-invulnerability of the Mega zombie caused much chaos and caused a lot of humans to get tagged. It was near impossible to fend off such a charge without the humans exposing themselves to nearby, opportunistic zombies. After realising their mistake, the Mega zombie was removed from play before the Husk was released. The human group was generally able to stand firm, however had suffered significant earlier losses and so were a little lacking in firepower. At some point, the General was tagged, whether by a regular zombie or the Traitor I am not sure. As such, the zombies knew who the VIP was and several of them were focusing their efforts on the VIP. In a moment of poor situational awareness, the VIP was tagged near the edge of the tambark by a recently un-stunned zombie, ending the game with a zombie victory.
In the first round, all zombie upgrade were put in squares, including the Mega zombie. From the start, the zombies focused on the southern square with the Tank shields. In contrast, most of the humans gravitated towards the middle and northern sqaures. As a result, the southern square was compromised in an incredibly short amount of time, giving the zombies almost immediate access to the Tank shields. This in turn heavily diminished the strength of the other human defences, as Tanks are far harder to ward off than regular zombies. It was only a couple of minutes more before the zombies gained access to essentially every upgrade, including both Husks and the Mega zombie. With human organisation in shambles, and the zombies fully equipped, this game did not last all that long.
While I was able to survive late in the game, I was tagged in a mess of a confrontation. I had grouped up with some of the remaining humans, and we were running southward after escaping a zombie attack in the northwest corner. We regrouped with a couple of other humans in the southern open area, and were faced with the majority of the zombie horde, all from the north. The ensuing assault and chaos caused a complete collapse of any human coordination and communication. I was run down by a Tank and several other zombies, with no backup. The remaining couple of humans were also tagged shortly after.
In this Secret VIP round, we picked two Traitors in an attempt to speed the game up. I do not believe this had a significant effect on the game however. This round ended in a zombie victory, not long after the Husk was made available. In this round, the zombies had been able to make deeper and more threatening charges into the tambark area than usual, with the lucky zombies achieving a tag or two. This apparent lack of human coordination resulted in a higher human casualty rate, which coupled with the shields, gave the zombies a significant attritional advantage. By the time of the Husk release, the zombies were already charging at will, with the Tanks often scattering the humans. In the chaos, the VIP was tagged, ending the game.
I did not catch much of the Bounty Hunt round, as I spent that time packing up rather than chasing around players to observe.
The Mega zombie did not have a huge effect on the regular Survival round. Being only able to walk in that first round, they had little function except encouraging the humans to move more than usual in early game. They offered essentially no real threat, due to the ease of stunning. Their invulnerability to regular darts however served as quite the distraction for other zombies. Much like Tanks, they draw a lot of attention, and their semi-invulnerability makes them much more risky to stunlock. Even when granted the ability to run, the Mega zombie did not pose a significant threat in Survival. The large open space made it extremely obvious where they were, and having just one of them made it very easy for the humans to keep track of them. Nonetheless, their mere presence did encourage more movement from the humans. Besides the psychological factor of a semi-invulnerable zombie, switching to a Mega blaster makes humans far more vulnerable to regular zombies. As such, often the easiest method for survival against the Mega zombie is simple avoidance.
In Defence Survival, I felt that the Mega zombie was mostly detrimental to the game. Like in regular Survival, it is much more risky to stunlock the Mega zombie than a regular zombie. In Defence Survival however, stunlocking is essentially the entirety of the early game. As such, the inclusion of the Mega zombie puts the early game dynamics of Defence Survival in jeopardy, not dissimilar to how Tanks affect Defence Survival when the shields are retrieved. Furthermore, there is no distinct point in the game at which the Mega zombie should be removed from the field, and such, it stayed for the whole game.
This problem was present in all Secret VIP rounds, particularly the first, as well as the Secret VIP round. The most reliable way to fend off the Mega zombie was to have a human assigned specifically to stop them, which while ok in early game with high human numbers, became a struggle as human numbers diminished, and in particular when Tanks came out. It is not difficult for a Tank to block the Mega darts fired at a Mega zombie, especially given the limited capacity of most Mega blasters, thus giving the Mega zombie a short period in which they are essentially completely invincible. On top of Mega zombies already being exceptionally powerful in late game alongside regular zombies, the combination of Mega zombies and Tanks is practically uncounterable without a massive volume of fire.
I think Mega zombies are an acceptable mechanic in the early game of certain gamemodes. In particular, they work nicely in early game Survival where sheer human numbers prevent a forced lose-lose situation. They also give zombies some way of actively distracting and disrupting the humans in early game, which makes for a more enjoyable early game. In the close quarters games of Secret VIP and Defence Survival however, the Mega zombie forces the humans to employ quite risky tactics to fend them off. While I believe it could do with a little more play testing in Secret VIP, I feel that the Mega zombie should not be in Defence Survival. On top of being quite restrictive and risky to counter, there is also no easily well defined time at which the Mega zombie should leave the field, which leads to potentially uncompetitive late game encounters. I would also like to participate in more play testing of the Mega zombie in Bounty Hunt. In early game, I believe the Mega zombie would work well, as there is no forced close quarters combat. However like in Defence Survival, it is not easy to designate a fair time for the Mega zombie to leave the field.
I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing the Mega zombie in future events. It adds an extra element of variety, and can make games more fun and entertaining. However I feel it needs to be limited in use, as it can very easily unbalance games and make them uncompetitive for the humans.
You can find the same post on my own blog: Outback Nerf