Before adding new weapons, maps, features or even hotfixes, lets look at the root problem plaguing this mini-game:
Survivors or Infected overpower the other way too quickly and often unfairly.
Every round of Virus is either one of two scenarios:
- One maybe two Infected lose to a group of camped-out survivors.
- One maybe two survivors get infected early and are incredibly likely to lose.
I’ve seen Infected win after struggling to breach camped survivors a few times solely because of lag.
I’ve seen Survivors outlast an Infected horde once only because the Infected didn’t know how to play.
Thankfully there’s actually a really simple solution to not only fix this but help the game be developed with fewer workarounds in the future.
Each players strength should be based the current number of players on the other team.
If there’s less Survivors than Infected, each those Infected shouldn’t be able to catch up and one shot them.
If there’s less Infected than Survivors, those Survivors should almost always be hauling cheeks for fear of being trampled by an Infected juggernaut.
At first I thought this was a camping and pacing problem, just get the survivors to stay moving for longer and it would balance out but that’s not entirely the case.
As of right now Survivor and Infected strength are stagnate with only an Infected enrage buff to offset game stalling camping.
Additionally a few other aspects of the game might have to be reworked to accommodate this type of balancing:
- Warnings can be given when player balance changes.
- Player team ratios could be displayed at the top of the HUD.
- Survivors could get a non regenerative health bar to calculate damage from Infected.
- Survivors could kill remaining Infected after the timer expires to solidify their victory.
- Infected could do good with some weaker ranged attacks of their own.
- Infected could do without the third person perspective advantage.
Lastly I want to say that I really enjoyed many takes on Virus w/ Gmod, GmTower and other games. I believe that Tower Unite Virus can have just as much success as Mini-golf and Ballrace.
My opinion is that the game is already well balanced enough on its own, but which side tends to prevail heavily depends on map design. Hospital and Subway seem to be biased towards survivors and Dust Desertion and Overtime towards infected.
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I feel like the Virus player base is too inconsistent and small to make drastic changes to balance like this. Also, not a fan of survivor health bars. I like the zombie theme of “one bite/scratch and you’re infected”. Keeps it intense and fast paced.
I understand your approach is to balance both sides, which is smart thinking, but that could easily backfire. If you have one vet among a bunch of new players and you buff him up when he’s the last survivor there’s a chance of them just stomping every round.
I totally agree this is one of the main factors, the other being average player skill in the server.
If you got a bunch of new players, infected is going to domino in numbers fast every round. Its a lot easier to just run into someone and swipe over and over.
If you have a bunch of experienced players, survivors are going to hold their ground much firmer. They’ll be able to land their shots and juke zombies a lot better. They’ll have better use of TNT and Adrenaline too, something I think newer player struggle with at first and makes a HUGE difference.
The opinion below is admittedly pretty dated, I used to play tons of a Virus but have not been able to as of late
As for map balance I feel like:
Solar is by far the most popular map pick, with the lowest survivor win rate.
Overtime used to be pretty bad for survivors, but is probably better now with the recent map layout/lighting updates.
Subway always felt 50/50 to me, maybe a little more biased towards survivor.
Desertion/Hospital have always seemed to have the highest survivor win rates to me.
I don’t know what it is about solar that draws so many people to pick it when survivors generally do very poorly in it. Maybe its the cool/exotic setting, maybe its nostalgiac gmod vets, idk. Again, I’m probably totally out on the latest virus trends. Sorry for the wall of text.
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Imma be honest, the only problem I have with Virus is the lack of diverse gameplay. More weapons, or even adding classes with unique playsets could change up the game. Though I like these suggestions too, I ain’t too fussy.
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I feel like classes are more appropriate for zombie massacre. I enjoy the basic and binary survivor vs. infected. I would support continued additions/changes to weapons though. I think the current load out has great variety, but randomization between individual survivor loadouts would be great.
Also I feel the crossbow was a great addition and a good alternative to TNT, even if the scope isn’t the most useful (imo).
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