Reign of the Undead updates

[Sammy]

Hi guys.....

 

Made a couple additions this week to ROTU. Going to be playing around with it some to make it more interesting and add some more variation. See what works well and what does not.

 

After playing the game I see too much reliance on the DE. Admittedly my favorite weapon. Rugger tells me that the mag count was bumped way up from the normal 2 rounds because the number of zombies at any one time was increased also to increase the mayhem. But due to its high damage it is very over powered for what it is. However all the other primary weapons just dont do enough damage to handle all the extra zombies. Especially the more powerful ones.

 

So to start, added location modifiers to make it more 'zombie' like. Hits to the arms and legs only do 1/2 damage. Hits to the lower torso / pelvis do normal damage. However upper torso / chest hits do double damage. Headshots do four times damage. So aim for the chest and head when you can. The 4x headshots against the Hell Zombies are quite effective.

 

I dont know yet how the crawlers work. But I hate them. I mean I really hate them. Get gassed and most of the time you are toast. Not sure what kind of temp counter measure can be added. Temp gas protection item maybe. However depends on how temp would work. Cant be a one time purchase that lasts the whole game. That is limited to the soldier class option.

 

Some other things I have in mind that might be fun additions. Will have to see what works and not a lot of trouble to do. Ideas are welcome. Before anyone asks, no killstreaks. Just what you take with you.

[ChknFngr]

I'm kinda afraid to see the DE nerfed down as its the only weapon that can save our asses most of the time. lol but yea we are using it coz the other weapons aren't effective at all.  And yes we all hate them farting bags crawlers, thing is once their farts hit you they slow u down so much u can't escape and you end up miserably on the ground. I'm sure others have some ideas, Kayak would surely have a few once he's back. Seph can have also some, Kid, Surge too.

Actually there was a previous post about the last changes on this server where we made some request/ideas.

 

But i like how it is challenging now, in fact i dont remember last time we actually reached the last round.

Depending on how fast the crawlers round comes, or when the mixed round with many burning zombies comes can change how far we can do.

coz those too are very difficult, we usually all go down at the crawlers and/or the burning mixed zombies.

Edited June 29, 2016 by ChknFngr

[Sammy]

Yea the idea is to balance the weapons out. Make the others useful. Things like recoil vs power like in the regular game. There is too much reliance on the DE and semi-auto shotgun. They are better than most primaries. Probably would be good to start looking at upgrade progression again. Weaker weapons to better ones etc. That is PoV because everyone has their own idea of which weapons are better than the others. I pay the 6500 for an M16 but as-is I dont see it as an 'upgrade'. The 4x head shots at range might change that however due to the accuracy. On the other hand the AK is very good at hip fire.

 

Either that or make primary+secondary weapon purchases totally random for the class. Might be a P90. Might be an M4. Add to the uncertainly that goes with the apocalypse. Lots of different possibilities depending on what works.  The DE, as designed for this mod, is shooting a round maybe 8 times as powerful as an lmg. So the balance was the mag only held two rounds. The bumped up mag size was to give you a little bit of a chance. Or just so you think you are getting somewhere.

 

The exploding zombies can be tough also. Hopefully with the location modifiers it will make it easier to get them at a distance. Of course any time balances are messed around with like this it will take experimentation to find the right mix. It should be challenging but not impossible. The crawlers are just too much especially on CQ maps. Im not sure but its possible explosives will already keep them from spouting gas. I never tried. Or is it just random. In which case I suppose the thing to do is a reminder at the beginning of the wave to treat it as a frag fest. Also, the big zombies can only be visualy shot in the legs and maybe lower torso... game limitation. Not sure if everyone knows that. New players would have to figure that out.

[Sammy]

I forgot, you can change classes at any time for 5000 points. Maybe their abilities should be beefed up a little? To promote class changes? On crawler rounds get the class with the gas protection. Assuming you unlocked it.

 

Also, what are the third category of special abilities? Mine are always 'none'. Is it just there?

 

edit: To keep it simple and not a big change, trying out an additional check for the crawlers. If they are destroyed by explosives dont do the gas. Only from the random checks from bullet damage. On those rounds it makes claymores and C4 more useful.

Edited June 29, 2016 by Sammy

[ChknFngr]

not sure about 3rd abilities, but in another server i think u can buy like a fast reload perk, maybe thats what its for , i dunno.

i think ayaq and ramistar and kid have played a lot on other ROTU servers, they may remember more than me.

but i will tell the regular players to come check this post so they can add more ideas.

i agree with you, the upgrade isnt an upgrade at all for the primary.

Actually i dont even care anymore about about primary, i just get the DE, and then i spend the rest of the money on turrets, TNT and some barrels.

but now if the DE is nerfed down, and u have to upgrade the primary too, u would need a big amount of money, so we may have to change prices or something for a better balance.

sometimes i go and buy special weapons, but again, the raygun doesnt work at all, so u need lot of money to upgrade to a decent weapon.

Edited June 30, 2016 by ChknFngr

[Sammy]

I will look at the raygun when I get a chance. I dont know yet how the third category is opened. Maybe prestige.

 

As for primaries, running through the testing there are good weapons currently not in the online list I think.  I tend to stop at the FN2000 here. With the location modifiers hip firing the AK works very well. On bigger maps even high powered sniper rifles are pretty good for long distance with a good shot. Use a side arm for close combat and go for head shots. I dont know if that one is included. But if so might try making it no sway. My guess, if the primaries were good then you might spend a few more point on those than sentryguns. At least until you get the top weapon.

 

Should be working online now, and might actually be too powerful not sure, but destroy the crawlers with explosives. They wont spout gas. Since they are slow it might be too easy tho on the special crawler round if everyone buys c4. Especially because there is a reload bug with the engineer packs. Already asked about that and it will be fixed. Shooting them generates a %30 chance they will do the gas. Might make it so explosives reduce that to %10. Just to there is a possibility it will happen. Will require testing with more players and different maps.

 

Anyways, will post more but gotta go do things.

 

edit: I dont think I uploaded it last night but another thing trying out is that if you destroy any of the flaming zombies with a head shot.... not just damage but destroy... it will still explode but wont do damage. Or similar to the crawlers might just do something like reduce range by 1/2 so they still do something. Hard to do. Especially the dogs.  Like the old cliche from every zombie movie ever made, put them down with a headshot. Otherwise they keep coming.

Edited June 30, 2016 by Sammy

[J3st3r]

The smaller guns like the P90,MP5,Uzi? Scorpion? are completely useless.It takes almost 1 full clip PER Zombie.Accually ALL of the guns need a damage increase except for the DE.If you nerf the best gun in the game you better Bump up the damage on All of the other guns Significantly Or make the zombies have 1/2 the health.

 

The zombies do seem to have WAY to much HP VS the other 6 or 7 ROTU servers I've played on.This is supposed to be a Fun zombie killing game that Anyone can have fun with so throw Realism out the window and make the guns overpowered,they're supposed to be that way.

 

The original creator of ROTU developed it up to v1.8 or 1.9? (I forget which) then someone else took it over and tried to finish it but actually fucked up a few things such as the ray gun not working and most of the other guns were made pretty much Useless because of the low damage and Map compatibility suffered Greatly.Most of the Original ROTU maps and Alot of later added ROTU maps made by the original author no longer work.This mod hasn't been worked on or patched sense Jan 2014

 

They did however upload the entire Source code for everything in 2.2.2. 2.86GB of stuff to monkey around with here @@Sammy

https://code.google.com/archive/p/reign-of-the-undead/source/default/source?page=1

Edited June 30, 2016 by J3st3rXI

[Darth Revan]

Sammy can you add the Wave with all Dog's ? we get more Mix  and Hell zombie waves when the server does a  special wave. I am glad we get 1 wave of the farting bags crawlers,  i think we get a round of the cyclops zombies.  

[Sammy]

Deep thoughts.....

 

Yea I have had all the source code and assets for awhile. Just never had time to look at them. But I wasnt really interested in playing it either at the time. 

 

Looks like there are things compiled in that I havent seen here. Maybe others have. Maybe a bo minigun. The assets seem to be there. Also a crossbow. If its not used, but there, a no-reload minigun might make for an interesting high value prestige item to buy instead of a sentrygun. Has anyone seen this here as an option? Maybe part of the heavygunner weapon upgrades? There may have to be a limitation so you cant have both at the same time for balance. But the item cost alone might make that unlikely. Could also do with a grenade launcher. I remember seeing that as an AR attachment but could never figure out how to use it.

 

Currently just working on script changes since those can be done with simple uploads that dont require redownloading all the assets. But if map compatibility isnt good, due to assets, then I will see what I can do. That will require a mod recompile. Know of any that no longer work that did before so I can try them and find out why?

 

I agree it should be fun and full of mayhem. Of course 'realism' doesnt apply since there is no such thing. It would be impossible to win. The goal is not to simply 'nerf' the DE. But to make all the others much more valuable for variety. The DE, as is, does promote aiming which is good. Using it all the time gets old. However simply lowering health / increasing damage everywhere would just promote heavy spraying. So the hit locations are meant to be the same kind of idea. Full auto weapons but also promoting aiming with extra damage to upper torso and the head. Try the SMGs and see how they work. Also non DE pistols and headshots for CQ.

 

The rotu DE by default is supposed to have a 2-round mag but do very high damage. Basically guarantee a one shot one kill for most things. Or at worst two or three for the hell zombies. I can see that as a rocket launcher item but not a sidearm. Bumping up the mag and ammo size was a quick adjustment because of all the extra zombies added to keep it fair.

[Sammy]

Sammy can you add the Wave with all Dog's ? we get more Mix  and Hell zombie waves when the server does a  special wave. I am glad we get 1 wave of the farting bags crawlers,  i think we get a round of the cyclops zombies.  

 

That one is fun but problematic atm because of all the exploding damage. I am told people wouldnt last long especially on smaller maps. However, as posted earlier, head shots will soon keep them from hurting. Hard to do because of their size and because they twist and turn alot. But should help quite a bit.

[Darth Revan]

ah ok Np

[iboomboom]

Can you add a staff weapon in weapon upgrades?

[Sammy]

Yup there is a minigun. By default one of the weapon upgrades for the heavygunner class. Overpowered with the loc modifiers. The standard Hell Zombies wave was a cake walk. But the balance is that you cannot go ADS nor can you run with it. Also couldnt restore ammo via purchase but by default you get 750 rounds to start (250 + 500).

 

I dont have a staff weapon model or anims.

[HarryWeezer]

Can't play it. Says setting up game, then redownloads map backlot/mp. Cycle continues; map never opens.

[Sammy]

I get continuous downloads sometimes as well on maps and say fuck it and download manually. I hate that map anyways. Downloads fine for a minute. Then stops and restarts slooooooooow.

[Sammy]

Ok yea the raygun is messed up. Has some wrong settings. Currently its now doing the correct damage here but its not registering the proper hit locations. It should. So likely another setting. Just dont know which. How exactly do you get it? Right now I am just putting test weapons into the regular progression scheme.

 

edit: Personally, I think the raygun is a waste and should be removed for something else. The Tesla gun is much better.

Edited June 30, 2016 by Sammy

[iboomboom]

I don't care which is better, I just want a gun that makes big explosions, kinda like boom boom you know? Like I shoot and the zombies explode in to a million pieces, yeah!

[Darth Revan]

Sound like Iboomboom wants a Rocket powered  Gun ........hand him his own RPG or Tube rename it the BoomBoom gun lol

[Darth Revan]

Sammy you got any thing for shotguns ? Also can we have custom skins for the weapons if that is even possible  for this mod ? 

[Sammy]

There is a spaz in addition to a few of the stock weapons. Tried it out and I dont like it much. Yea custom skins are possible. In the mod only, not client side if that is what you are asking. Going through it the mod is ultra heavy on models and materials so that will take work. To cut down on size I am likely going to have to replace a bunch of stuff to use more efficient items.

 

I knew it was going to be a can of worms once I delved into it.  Fortuantely most of it already works fine. Just replacements and code additions. Nobody to blame but myself.

[J3st3r]

Looks like there are things compiled in that I havent seen here. Maybe others have. Maybe a bo minigun. The assets seem to be there. Also a crossbow. If its not used, but there, a no-reload minigun might make for an interesting high value prestige item to buy instead of a sentrygun. Has anyone seen this here as an option?

 

The rotu DE by default is supposed to have a 2-round mag but do very high damage. Basically guarantee a one shot one kill for most things. Or at worst two or three for the hell zombies. I can see that as a rocket launcher item but not a sidearm. Bumping up the mag and ammo size was a quick adjustment because of all the extra zombies added to keep it fair.

 

Yes seen and used the Mini gun before on other servers.It had 3 600 round clips and took a good 15-20 seconds to reload unless you had the Fast Reload perk Which is Also missing from the Perks vender.

 

It was 1 of the Special guns.It was after the silenced M4 and P90 that had 300 round clips and fired ridiculously fast and just before the Alien blaster (which doesn't work on this server for some reason) The DE used to be the Last gun in the Special guns Just before the usless 10 shot Noob tube that you could not reload.Thinking the nube tube was intended to fire Tactical Nukes that's why it only had 10 shots and was the last upgrade for the Special weapons.

 

The fella that took over the mod fucked up the DE with V2.2.2.It's supposed to be OP with LOTS of ammo because it was the Last and Best upgrade in the Special weapons since the "nuke tube" was not working.

 

If you really want to see what the DE is supposed to do go in a server that has ROTU 2.0 or 2.2.0 running.

 

v2.0 was a complete re write and has the best map compatibility and 2.2.0 added the good special weapons stuff and improved zombie mechanics.

2.2.0 is really good and 2.2.2 has a Bunch of stuff messed up in it but added a couple new zombies,skins and sounds.

 

If you can find and put in the files for the Raygun from version 2.0 or 2.2.0 that will work correctly.It's supposed to do massive splash damage when you shoot a mob.Like throwing a basket ball sized water balloon onto a crowd of people.  It's a splash damage weapon like a RPG so that might be what's fucked up.It's doing no splash damage.

 

 

BTW the zombies on this server have almost 2x the hp that any other server has lol

Edited July 1, 2016 by J3st3rXI

[Sammy]

I suppose thats another thing. Was that supposed to be the third choice in the class menu? Special abilities or something? There was never anything there. Maybe another one of those prestige things. In which case a heading would have been nice to say so.

 

I think the 2.2.2 version was supposed to be a somewhat substantial upgrade but it was never finished as a work in progress. Which is why it has issues. But the one handling it just didnt have the time anymore. So it wasnt fucked up just not finished. I assume the original creator was contacted and the decision was to put it all online for people to continue as they wish, as sort of an incomplete open source package.

 

I am considering altering different things somewhat. For one, take it further towards a specops vs zombies thing in look and feel. More of a stricter MW feel to it instead of a pot luck of modern and future. But maybe the mix of technologies is more fun. In which case the raygun should be replaced with a better weapon and not something from a 50's scifi movie. It would do the same thing just fit better. Maybe bo2 or ghost has a futuristic looking weapon that would fit. I dont know them well enough. Keep the current class system but with some improvements on the specialties within them so they are more useful.

 

Anyways the idea is to move away from a shooting gallery with ducks in a row but a bit more towards combat, so to speak, requiring a little more skill. Thus the higher location modifiers for more vital areas and lower ones for arms and legs to promote accurate fire.  Shoot them in the arm and they will just growl at you and keep coming.

[ChknFngr]

u get the raygun after a few rounds at the shop and only if u reached prestige level 1 i think. Like the turrets.

its the first special weapon u can buy, u can upgrade it to the flamethrower then the luchtsomething, then the minigun, then the thundergun

[HarryWeezer]

Got the game to start but ever time the Zombies are let loose, it CIs to a stop.

 

I'll check back next month.