Ranged zombies: thoughts?

[SpookyLucaZ]

Seeing as HVZ is humans VS zombies and not just HvH, what are most's thoughts on zombies with ranged non-melee abilities?

All the campuses I've played on in CA have had some form of thrown/shot attacks; we all know of the infamous 'spitter' zombies and 'tanks' from L4D throwing gravel and cars around, as well as the occasional blasphemous act of zombies using pistols and even rifles. At what point would you say its gone to far and completely disrupted the zombie theme? I'm having issues accepting zombies at one of the campuses I play at having zombies wielding mavericks...

[Exo]

I think that zombies are meant to be used as horde types, and zombies shouldn't be smart enough to use the weapons. They could be implemented in gameplay, but they should be called something else, used as a very limited unit (not everyone on the field should be one), and maybe even treated as a third-party. This could give rise to some interesting mechanics, like humans and aliens teaming up against the zombies, or the aliens assisting the zombies, as the alien deems fit. You could modify this to be a moderator-only class, used to balance unfair gameplay tactics, or maybe as a side-quest type. Killing the alien could allow a party access to a unlockable ability or weapon.

[Masturcief42]

I personally hate the idea of a zombie that can kill from a distance. When using a ranged zombie in a mini-game of mine I chose to have a 'boomer' that threw a sock (and could not tag) and forced a human to stand still for 2 seconds, imparting them to fire their blaster as well. This made for some interesting teamwork/leave him, he's dead when one member was stunned. To me, special zombies in general should have no effect on how humans are killed (touch) but on the tactics used to take them down. For me, a tank zombie should be a zombie that can take many socks, cannot kill, but instead incapacitates humans much like in l4d. ( I can tell you about how each special infected should work but let's not get too off topic)

[Dyslexda]

I greatly dislike it. In my view (I realize the game creators don't necessarily support this), there are a couple core tenants of HvZ. One, the human>zombie progression is irreversible; no going back to being a human after you die, as it makes the zed side the lesser side, the one you don't want to be on. Two, humans use ranged, while zeds use H2H/melee. This distinction keeps the sides, well, distinct. Give zeds ranged attacks, and suddenly you don't need to worry about smashing into the human tank; I'll just sit back and pot shot it, and because humans will be massed up, it'll be easier for me to hit them than for them to hit me. Give humans melee and you remove the need to distance yourself from the zombie menace (it's also OP as fuck). Sure, you can have a game of tag if you monkey with either of those tenants, but I don't view it as a "true" HvZ experience.

[SpookyLucaZ]

I think that zombies are meant to be used as horde types, and zombies shouldn't be smart enough to use the weapons.
You could modify this to be a moderator-only class, used to balance unfair gameplay tactics, or maybe as a side-quest type.

This. One of my least favorable zombie films is land of the dead. It is the zombie version of twilight to me; it simply ruins the idea of thoughtless zombies after that one goal to eat everyone alive. Using guns, and understanding how to explode cars? GTFO.

I personally hate the idea of a zombie that can kill from a distance. When using a ranged zombie in a mini-game of mine I chose to have a 'boomer' that threw a sock (and could not tag) and forced a human to stand still for 2 seconds, imparting them to fire their blaster as well.

I was killed by a ranged zombies sock tag(which stunned me so I couldn't run/shoot) and then devoured by a horde at one of my best games which left me baffled at first. In general, the idea of a sock or thrown only weapon seems fairest since the accuracy isn't purely range based, nor is it on always on par to some of the weakest blasters some use. It is a challenging encounter that only a specific fellow moderator at my home campus has the ability to do. In general, his strikes are lethal.

Give zeds ranged attacks, and suddenly you don't need to worry about smashing into the human tank; I'll just sit back and pot shot it, and because humans will be massed up, it'll be easier for me to hit them than for them to hit me. Give humans melee and you remove the need to distance yourself from the zombie menace (it's also OP as fuck). Sure, you can have a game of tag if you monkey with either of those tenants, but I don't view it as a "true" HvZ experience.

My home campus and another I've played at allow melee and as much as I wish it didn't, it is part of the recipe that makes up our game. I feel it changes alot of the core HVZ you speak of. I mean, whats to stop the 95% of the human pop. from making a 3$ melee weapon from PVC and pool noodle? But I digress...
Pot shotting the humans is a general tactic for most ranged zombies since the instinct all humans have is to either turn there backs and run(thus not dodging the shot/sock) or clumping together.

[Dyslexda]

Pot shotting the humans is a general tactic for most ranged zombies since the instinct all humans have is to either turn there backs and run(thus not dodging the shot/sock) or clumping together.

And I admit that'd be an interesting tactic to introduce, as it would effectively destroy any chance of a true tanking force. Humans would be forced to all spread out into a skirmisher formation, greatly diminishing their ability to concentrate firepower on a horde.

[Mr. Three]

We use noodlers and Zombies wielding socks with 3ft. tethers on them as some of our Specials to extend our Zombies' reach, but I agree that giving Zombies projectile attacks breaks the distinction between the Human and Zombie factions and can be overpowered, as the reverse is true concerning melee and Humans.

[Raist]

We experimented with a 'spitter' type this year. The sock the spitter threw was only available during 'Mission Hours' and we limited it to one individual. It was also tied into the storyline to make sense, as we went with a more metaphysical/dark entity story this year.

Overall, I thought it worked well. I think we could have made it work better in retrospect, but I don't think it went poorly with the limitations we put in place. Now, the "Boomer" (Becomes a stationary spawn point when stunned) may have been a bit OverPowered in execution.

[yuiikari]

We ran Reavers as a third side (the others being zombies and humans, obviously), and met with some success.  They were equipped with pistols and grenades, and could only tag wounded humans (which was humans that had already been shot in the past fifteen minutes or so), which would then grow their ranks.  Story-wise, I think they were a virus mutation (in the planning stages, they essentially ancient alien zombies), and it worked well enough (though our zombies tend to be smarter than the average zombie, plot-wise).  The short of it is that zombies shouldn't be able to kill at range, but mezz effects seem cool (we did consider ways to stop folks from moving after getting hit, but the veteran humans found this disagreeable).

[dshepherd719]

At Mizzou the general consensus is that WONT happen as it will piss off a lot of vet players.

Although, with the last semester during a mission there was the Psycho. The Psycho had a Nightfinder that could stun humans for 2 minuets, and since the mission was to restrain the Psycho and take a few flag football type flags. The general strategy was to surround Psycho and the zombies, kill all the zombies, take flags, and if you got stunned run behind the people who were not.