We had this discussion and I've already stated that how the zombie team's experience is, is based off of how good they are. If the whitey does not get anyone for 5 minutes into the round then yes, the zombies will have a difficult time winning and it will not be fun. The zombie experience depends greatly on the first few zombies and the first few minutes of the game. If you can kill enough humans (and I feel this is more than possible on most maps, churchseige perhaps being the hardest that comes to mind) before they become well equipped and barricaded then the zombies should have a fine time. If not, then I cannot guarantee anything.
If the humans are any way competent enough to land headshots then killing people in the first couple minutes becomes quite the problem. Whenever I play against Pillz or Doc when I'm a zombie for example it makes winning a lot of the times near impossible for the fact that they both have good aim and a stockpile of ammo. I'm using them as examples since they are ZPS admins but there are other players that are able to hold quite well.
However it is not a map's fault nor the fault of the players if a particular group of zombies lack the minimal skill to make any kills so I personally find only the skill of the players in whitey can be to blame for "boring" zombie rounds.
Actually it is the mappers fault since the whole design phillosophy of the map is to massacre tons and tons and tons of zombies before they have a chance to kill you. I'm going to continue to use church for consistency. The generator house and crypt supply enough ammo to hold off against the normal spawn amount of zombies for easily half of the map. Which then all's they have to do is walk to church which has more than enough ammo to hold off the map.
You also argue that experienced players "really ruins the experience as a zombie when all you can do is run into death over and over with no progress." However as we discussed in the server you said that we are indeed a smaller playergroup compared to other games these days and that we do not have a ton of experienced players. Therefore 1 or 2 experienced players in a round should not make a difference in a team of 12 because as a zombie you have a bit of advantage over humans until they are well equipped,
On a lot of these maps it takes about less than 10 seconds to find a primary gun and tons of ammo, so for rushing them before they are equipped it becomes impossible unless its like the persons first time on ZPS or like the map and just is confused about whats going on.
and thus you can either go after the lonewolfs who venture off, the people who are not as good as some, or perhaps ambush a experienced player offguard.
On the linear maps catching people offgaurd is possible on some maps, but on a lot if not most, a player will see a lot of these ambushes since 99% of the time the spawnpoints are behind the humans but occasionally you can catch a stragler who isnt as good. This is for linear maps though, on maps like church or lake it isn't really possible to ambush since you have to break down the doors.
Either way it again falls upon the zombie to make of the round what they will, getting "lots of gun and ammo and u kill lots of zombies" is irrelevant and cannot be to blame for this because generally in most maps you must search before finding "lots of guns and ammo" and thus being able to "kill lots of zombies". This window of time gives zombies apt opportunity to kill humans.
On maps like church, lake, or even cabin the guns are literally laid on a platter in front of you when you spawn, so I don't get where you're getting that from. The round starts and it literally takes a couple seconds to grab a gun, it takes the zombie more time to even get to your door. On linear maps this is understandable but on most zombies still spawn behind you which gives you time to grab the guns and turn around.
Now it can be argued that some maps (churchseige comes to mind, so that is what I will use as an example) may give the player good weapons off the bat and perhaps set them up in an easy position. However it is not the picnic you make it out to be. Many spots humans spawn (crypt, powerhouse, or GODFORBID the outhouse) are not adequate for holding off all round if zombies are smart and attack early on (and there is no reason they shouldn't, it's their motherlovin jobs) The crypt, for one does not have much furniture to barricade with, and wooden barricades can quickly be broken by zombies dumber than a 5th grader.
The crypt gives you enough ammo to hold off for about half the game, though should move to church where enough ammo for whole map. When there's only a couple zombies it's quite easy to move to the church. Also if you feel the need to drop the panic door it gives enough time to ammo up and move to a more secure place.
Also I have be killed many a time because a teammate decided to hit the explosive barrel button, letting zombies blow our cades to shit and having them flood in. That brings up another point ENTIRELY; people are stupid and you can be willing to bet atleast one human per round is stupid enough to fuck up somehow and give the zombies a tad advantage.
This is the point that I made where I referred to the skill level of the human team. In maps like church if the player is able to kill the zombie decently and doesn't do stupid stuff like what you said, it remains to be difficult for the zombie to get the kill.
As for the outhouse, for those of you who have not played church seige, it is as good a place to barricade against endless waves of zombies as it sounds. And power house is easily broken into period. The church is perhaps the hardest part for zombies, however, if done right is not too big a headache for zombies. The success of the zombies/enjoyment of being zombies relies on zombie using their half eaten brains and working as a team, nothing else.
As for the Gen house you can easily hold it off for half of the map if your team is able to aim. All's they have to do is go on the roof with all the ammo and look down, there's heads of zombies as they punch the doors/windows; easy head shots.
Also the zombies do get any players that join in late, only adding to their power in numbers. So do the math Xzombies=Xtime statistically.
This shouldn't be a deciding factor when making the map. The map shouldn't be balanced around having zombies late join. If they wanted more zombies at the start the ratio at the start would be different. Also maps like churchsiege and lake maps are not properly made for the amount of players. If there are 2 players for example there will still be the same amount of ammo and guns. The current state of the map is designed for a full server which still results in zombies throwing themselves into humans until they run out of ammo or don't aim as well. Though for lake maps they aren't as bad as church since it doesn't take you like 30 seconds to break down a entrance to a place, which gives the humans optimal time to position themselves.
The game is more than balanced in many ways, maps have no relevance in determining how a zombie's round is.
This statement is completely wrong if your going to apply it to all maps. Since maps do have a good affect on how a zombies round is. An example is if the map is loaded with tons of guns and ammo, odds are the zombies going to die a lot vs a map where the spawn points are dangerously close to where the humans are going to be which would result in the map being easier for zombies. I for one don't enjoy dieing like 20-30 times before any progress is felt to be made.
I can tell you this though, some of my most memorable experiences were on the dev maps. I don't mind playing church siege, lake, or even redqueen every once in a while. They just lose there fun value very very fast for said flaws in map design. I wish mappers would spend more time thinking about how much weapons/ammo they place on a map, since that aspect of mapping has seemed to gone in the years.
I for one can live with playing the maps I never said go and remove them all, I just saying that they are ruining what ZPS was and what made it what it is. Running yourself into a slaughter fest over and over isn't fun for zombies. The only reason I enjoy playing maps like that is talking to people. Also the map gets a lot more fun when occasionally as human I lower the ammo supply. The result I noticed was humans struggling to hold off having to keep falling back, which at least made a more enjoyable round. I'm looking forward to the fresh start in contagion again with dev only maps for a while, before it starts getting church sieges on that too >_>.
O yeah, TLDR; Running into death over and over isn't fun with no progress to be made, but if it keeps the server populated then meh. Though I don't hold the massive ammo grudge against linear maps as much, the fact of there poor spawn points and how linear they are detracts from the value. Power to the devs for keeping things real
