Hello, it’s me again.
I’ve been playing this mode for a bit, so I want to bring my nitpicks about general balance. Take my points with a pinch of salt as most of my playtime on this gamemode was in singleplayer.
— Class Specific —
- Doctor
You expected this, huh.
Anyways, this class is super broken for either singleplayer or multiplayer (more the former), and it’s simply because the Transplant ability is, in its current state, too strong.
How so? It basically denies death until Vampires or Pumpkins start showing up. The ability lasts for waaay too long (20 secs at base) and it’s never worth upgrading. I get the Doctor class needs to be the most able to survive, but this ability heals for way too much.
How would I fix? Cut the base duration to 10 Seconds, make the upgrades add 2 or 3 Seconds per level and change the heal per tick to 3~4 HP.
This is the most needed balance change, as I’ve seen a couple threads about it. (See [Zombie Massacre] Quality of Life Improvements ) My suggestion only covers numerical value changes and should be easy enough to change.
- Journalist
While their kit is in a good state right now, I do feel upgrading the Camera Flash ability should at least do something.
Let’s say you want to change class in Day 5 from Survivor to Journalist, all your points that went to the Ramming Shield are not being used as Journalist because the upgrades do nothing.
How would I fix? Something simple would be nerfing the base range a bit, then adding range per upgrade.
Something more interesting that I thought is, when you kill a zombie with the flash, you get a 5% chance per kill to add to your next combo per upgrade, starting at 0% base.
This was something that used to be a “feature” some versions ago that got fixed, understandably because it was always 100% and super broken.
— General Upgrades —
- Starting Health
I feel the cost of the upgrades is not well distributed, while I do agree the first upgrade should be very cheap and that the last should be a bit expensive, the second should not cost the same as the first.
How would I fix? Change the cost of the second upgrade from 1500 to 2000.
- Movement Multiplier
The stats and the costs are distributed really weirdly, 2000 points for the first +28% movement speed is really, really good and makes a huge difference, then the next upgrade drops the ball and gives only +7% for 4000 points which is frankly a pathetic upgrade. The last one also takes the cake because it’s +15% for 5000, it’s practically meaningless to upgrade to this point.
How would I fix? Make this path have only 2 upgrades (100% → 120% (3000 P) → 140% (4000 P), or distribute the buffs better per upgrade.
— Weapons —
- Automatic Shotgun
Of all the weapons that you can pick up, this is easily the worst one. It barely performs better than the Dual Handguns, only doing 25 (5x5) damage per shot (Assuming you hit every pellet), it also scales super badly with damage upgrades because each pellet does only 5 base damage.
This weapon needs a substancial buff ASAP, it should do at least double damage (5x10), so it’s on par with the Kimber, which is at least decent.
- Tommy Gun
This just needs a small tweak on damage and ammo count, DPS wise it does just a bit worse than the Uzi, which is okay, but the ammo is a bit on the short end for a machine gun.
I’d give it base 60~80 ammo and/or increase the base damage from 15 to 18~20.
I find it kinda funny that the ZM Tommy Gun is a whole other story compared to Virus Tommy Gun lol
- M4A1
I consider it the most busted weapon of the game, it has everything: fast fire rate, super accurate, strong DPS, lots of ammo, and it’s not too rare compared to the actual top tier, the Minigun.
Personally I’d nerf the ammo from 200 to 120~150, and nerf the damage from 40 to 30~35, and it would still be a pretty good weapon.
If you have more suggestions or stuff about the general balance of this mode this feel free to speak so in the comments, also huge thanks to @Reitousair for making a DPS chart to reference my weapon balance suggestions.