Right now I feel Virus is nothing but a gamemode just based around survivors camping in an open area of the map while the first infected keeps running at them in the hopes of eventually hitting someone.
We also know that the infected is always in a disadvantage considering that he can’t jump trying to dodge bullets, and his natural green light makes him easy to get spotted even before he turns a corner, making “hail mary” strategies fail pretty easily.
I feel something new should be added to the infected to help him attack or spread groups of survivors, and considering that the right mouse button does nothing but a useless roar, I think it could (and should) be changed to a secondary attack.
Here are some possible ideas of what it could be:
Idea #1: Smokescreen
The infected is able to puke out a green slimy ball. Once it hits a surface, it explodes into a big cloud of green smoke, covering the survivor’s sight.The smoke will then stay for 10 seconds, until it finally dissipates. This can be really helpful to strategize an attack plan and block out corridors or big camping spots with smoke. It can also be stacked with other infected smokes to completely cloud an entire group.
Idea #2: Furious Leap
The infected is able to do a large leap to immediately reach the group of survivors. However, not only does this ability has a cooldown of 10 seconds (use it wisely), but once the infected has leaped forward, it won’t be able to attack for 1.5 seconds, to add fairness to the survivors (this should prevent an infected wiping out an entire team in a matter of seconds).
Idea #3: Toxic Gas (the joke is too obvious, it’s not even worth mentioning)
A similar concept to smokescreen. However, instead of blocking the survivor’s line of sight, the smoke will now force him to stay away from one area.
Once the ball of gas is released, the smoke will be a lot more weaker, but it’s gonna cause the survivor to feel sick (via sound feedback, like a cough sound effect). A small hud component will then pop up, alerting him to leave the area immediately, and with a countdown of 5 seconds. Once that countdown reaches 0 and he’s still in that area, he automatically turns into an infected.
These are just some ideas that came right out of my head that I think could really improve the overall gameplay of the gamemode. Although some of these ideas might be come across as OP if stacked (which could be easily prevented if, for example, they were restricted to enraged infected players), I just think they would make rounds a lot more original,frenetic and fun.
Tell me what you think.
Edit: I’m still of the idea that this could really spice up Virus’ gameplay, so here’s another concept I thought of:
Idea#4: Scream of Sorrow
Based on the State of Decay 2 Screamer, the infected could release a very loud scream that would shake the players camera and ring their ears for a short time (maybe even slow them down?), but he has to stand still for a couple of seconds in order to initiate it.