DeathBringerZen

Your setup is fine. The thing you NEED to do is stay on the bridge until round 10. You get the first notification when getting kills with the retriever ANYWHERE you want... the second notification will come when you spend 2 or more rounds on the bridge, but you cannot get the redeemer before round 10.

I have rarely (if ever) read one of your reviews and never not agreed with it. It is like we are the same person sometimes. lol Anyway, having gained your permission, I have loaded the custom section with reviews and links to your site and hope to collaborate in added a LOT more in the future. Your help and assistance not only benefits me, but also the users of this site in what is now an extended off season. Thanks Tom, and welcome to the world of CoDZ!

Add another few zeros to this, and it STILL would not represent the level of how much I agree with the OP. I hated the majority of the EE's on BO2. They were all relatively straight forward. Die Rise was not, but only because most of the quotes did not make any kind of sense as to what you were doing. It got easier as it went along. Buried had a decent EE on both sides, but still we were pretty much taken by the hand and walked through them. Origins is the worst of all. Sure it is a fun enough EE to do, and it seems to be perfectly balanced in terms of difficulty as you progress, but it was definitely a side quest as opposed to an EE, and the audio ques were beyond annoying. It is my biggest pet peeve with that map... listening to that little brat! I want the EE's to be more puzzle orientated. I do not want to be killing zombies during them either... well, not unless it makes sense, like it did on Moon. Trample Steaming zombies, or killing them in 101 different ways (ie: Origins) is not really any different to just playing through rounds. Taxing puzzles that go on to reveal more of the story is better than listening to Richtofen talk about 'Vital energies' or other completely unrelated things to the story or what we are trying to achieve. How does standing on 4 symbols help power a tower!? Definitely hope they never bring back end-games either. That was something the community wanted and then when we got it, we thought.... "meh!" I would also like to see proper rewards. Rewards that make the EE's something worth doing. MotD and Origins aside, the other BO2 maps were only worth doing to get the achievement and to listen to the audio quotes for story development purposes. None of the rewards were worth the effort of doing the EE, and the challenge of finding enough people to do all 3 and then pressing the button is even more difficult due to it being completely worthless... especially the Maxis side. I am still shocked at how terrible they all were, and how badly Treyarch dropped the ball when it came to the whole Navcard thing. Made me lose a lost of respect for them.

Positive, yes.

Yeah, I am in agreement with this. I appreciate that they tried to do new things, but the execution was poor. The maps looked great visually, but the design of most of them was not very well thought out. MotD and Origins had good layouts that worked well when traversing to various areas. The other maps were not so great. Die Rise is a decent enough idea, but they should have definitely made a better may to get back up the map, like a stairwell or something. That kills it for me. I hope that with the time they have, they put it to use of a good storyline, while also developing the claustrophobic style maps. Not necessarily small maps, but maps that make you feel trapped. Like you have no choice but to fight. I would also like much more challenging, meaningful EE's that reward the player with unique things not found in the game outwith them, or at least something useful. I would also like them to be something that seems purposeful. I have faith that they will deliver next time. I am sure they will know what we liked and disliked about BO2 and will understand that it is potentially make or break for the series also. Just so damn long to wait... WTF!?!

I have a saved clip of me using the paralyzer on solo, and in the clip I flew up to the top off the saloon from outside and boom! Game Over!? Had Jugg and QR, but apparently I hit some death barrier on the roof and game ended. Had 40,000 points on me too that I had just taken out of the bank!

I am not going to lie, getting to 52 (or higher) on Origins or most BO2 maps is pretty easy. It is more about fatigue than skill, but there is some strategies we use to speed up the process, like camping together earlier or training together... stuff like that. 40 on Moon is actually really good though, as it takes some time to get there... even on 2 player matches. If you can get to 40 on Moon, then nothing is stopping you getting to 50, 60 or beyond, so do not under estimate how decent you are.

On Buried yes (4 players can have the Mark II on that map), but only 1 person can have the Mark II on all the other maps.

I think we will maybe have to just agree to disagree on the difficulty factors between both games then. lol. (I'm cool with that... ) It could easily be down to the fact that maps were much bigger, so opened up more also, but I just did not feel that there was enough challenge in the majority of the maps. I know I am decent at the game mode, but it does not stop me taking a few tumbles now and again on BO1 maps... even Ascension. I just don't feel the danger factor in BO2 maps. Even Origins is crazy easy these days. I got to 69 solo before taking a down on my high round run, and did a quick round 52 run on co-op with only 1 down. If that was Moon or Ascension, I am sure I could add another 2-3 downs onto that for sure. Got me in the mood to run some BO1 high rounds now... lol

Origins was hard initially for sure, and MotD is not always an easy map to traverse through, but the rest are all relatively easy enough when I compare them to playing on Black Ops 1 maps. I am not saying that BO2 is a walk in the park, but it was not even remotely challenging enough, and if anything it dumbed down the series somewhat, replacing the challenge of the zombies with the challenge of getting setup and dealing with trolls. Thankfully, I don't play public matches though. Gave that up early in the BO1 season.

Yeah, I do agree that the setup required in BO2 causes a lot of problems for players, but the maps and zombies are definitely easier to deal with. My friends list is made up of great players so that is probably one of the reasons the leaderboards look pretty decent I suppose. Private matches are not the same as they were in BO1. Custom matches do not count towards the leaderboards, where as private matches did. It is a struggle sometimes (most times actually) to get a 2 player match going in a public lobby, so why did they even bother giving us various co-op leaderboards in the first place!? My point is that if they kept the original set up for private matches, getting a 2 or 3 player match set up to count on the leaderboards would have been simple.

I am pretty sure the zombies have definitely been dumbed down in BO2. In BO1 if you get too close to the zombies they WILL beat the shit out of you within a split second. In BO2, you can dance and prance around them, almost mocking them while doing it and you are lucky to get struck even once (bit of a slight exaggeration, but not much). This is obvious when comparing the leaderboards in BO1 to those in BO2. Most players on my friends list have 30-40 recorded on their co-op BO1 leaderboards, but scores between 50-70 on co-op leaderboards. Sure there is strats you can use in co-op on BO1 that make it easy, but mistakes can and usually do get made because the zombies are pretty unforgiving in BO1. On BO2, the only thing preventing high rounds for most decent players is fatigue. I am of the persuasion that BO2 was made somewhat easier so it could try to expand itself to a wider audience, and it is pretty evident that it worked. Talking about things that let BO2 down... the removal of Private matches! Why was this done!?! Trying to get a 2-3 player match going in a public lobby is a complete farce. Who's stupid idea was that one? Yeah, then there was the fact that matches stopped counting if someone left. NOW all the reasons why I hated BO2 are coming back to me. lol

Yeah, seriously man. Most people I play with or speak with say they loved the EE but hated the map. I have played through it a few times recently and still don't enjoy it. The maps does not feel very atmospheric. The design really leaves me feeling off with the map. I look at how many areas are so poorly laid out and in almost every game I play, I am usually on the dirt path outside training. Aside from that area, the map has no other training spots, and all the camping spots are near identical. Either 1-3 windows and an entrance, or no windows and just a back to the wall strat. It looks awesome, but it just feels thrown together. Having the house was clever, but still just felt stupid. Having the big guy having to open stuff EVERY game was also tedious to the point of being off putting. The fact that it is too easy, even for novice players is straw that broke the camels back for me unfortunately, and that is a theme ever present on BO2. They definitely dumbed down the zombies to cater for a bigger market, and maps like Buried suffer because of that too.

@ZOTD - Yeah, I suppose it is down to peoples preferences. I play with a lot of people who have been hardcore since WaW and they do not enjoy BO2 very much. Some of them don't even play it, which I think is madness. lol. I may not enjoy the game that much, but it is still zombies at the end of the day, so I will still play it nonetheless, but like Chopper said, Tranzit is really bad and is heavily hated on. It lacks anything worthwhile to do on it except tool up then train it out in 1 of 5 of the easiest training spots in zombie history. Going from Moon where we had a lot to do and a pretty decent map concept to Tranzit was disheartening. That is why Tranzit was popular for some time... people just refused to believe it was this empty and worthless. Turns it it was (probably), and what is left is a map that does not have much more to it than a WaW map but in a larger scale. A small, worthless EE. A poor WW, and a severe lack of anything to do or use to your advantage. The map itself is actually OK in terms of design, but silly decisions like the PaP, non controllable teleporters and lack of rewards or story development did not help it's cause. Still, I accept that not everyone is going to share my opinion on the game or the maps. I see MotD getting a lot of hate, and I don't get that one myself. I like the map and think it had a great story to it, even if it held no strong relation to the main one. I still think they got the perks all wrong on that map, but the weapons you obtained and the ones on the map itself were really decent. Set up was a chore, but was not required. You could easily play a long game on that map without the spork or redeemer. Lack of Stamina completely killed it for me though. I don't know many who like Buried though. You are actually the first person I have really noticed who is in favor of it.

There is more than just the unbalancing of the staves. Take the perk situation. Maps like MotD should have had Stamina Up... not Deadshot. Why was that perk even on that map!?! Why was it not on Buried instead? Then there was the strange choice of having Tombstone on Tranzit and Who's who on Die Rise, when it is pretty obvious to most that it should have been the other way around. Buildables were for the best part awful. Tranzit electric trap and turret where so bad that no one uses or even builds them. Buried was a bit better, but also had some strange choices like the trample steam. Seems like it was put in to accommodate glitchers more than legit players. The excessive use of persistent perks was also a sign on incompetence at 3arc. Whoever though of some of the ones they included should be embarrassed. Like you said in an earlier post, most of us did like Tranzit at first, but it was the mystery surrounding the map that made us enjoy it. When it finally set in that the map was nothing more than a large, stock map with nothing good to do in it except get your perks and play it out, it soon became apparent that the BO2 journey was not going to be as good as many expected it to be. I enjoy playing Die Rise on solo, but will never play it on co-op anymore. MotD I still enjoy, but Buried is really terrible in my opinion. I rate it as the worst map in zombie history, even below Tranzit & NTZ. It is stunning visually, but it is so badly designed. How many people even go into the barn, courthouse or church when playing? What about the saloon, the gunsmiths or the other buildings? It may have been a good idea on paper, but the execution was terrible. Origins is the best map on BO2, and MotD is decent. 2 maps do not make the game under rated though, but I get what you are saying and I know a lot of people who enjoy the maps I particularly don't. Still, I do believe the majority of people hate BO2, and that is not just me basing it on statistics. I don't know very many people who enjoy BO2.

The zombie balance is completely messed up on that map. More so than any other on BO2. In a 4 player game, if you train separately from others, players in the room with the hole or the Buddha room will get next to no zombies the entire game. You really need me to explain balance in zombies to you? Well, for a start, the balance is that yet again, the map does not split zombies evenly between players, and then there is the fact that some staffs are ridiculously over powered when compared to others that are severely under powered. Buried is a joke of a map. There is the church, courthouse, barn, tunnels etc that all NEVER get used. They are all wasted space and what you have left is the outside area of the building or the maze to use as playing area. The features within the map also make it ridiculously easy, so there is no difficulty balance to the map or real challenge. Regarding the knifing issue... I have seen people complain about the knifing since the game first launched, albeit the MP side mainly, but the game runs on the same engine, and the punches are a hazard when not the host. They are not worth the time and effort it takes to obtain them, but unfortunately they need to be done in order to finish the EE. I appreciate that you think the game is under-rated, but I think you are in the minority with that opinion, and I think Treyarch themselves know that the game mode was not well received this time around.

This is your opinion... and one I completely disagree with. Of course we all wanted another BO1... it was great. BO2 started off poorly. Tranzit and NTZ were awful (majority opinion), and it did not improve greatly as things went on. Die Rise was OK, but was not thought out well when it came to co-op. Zombie spawn balance was completely messed up and revives were impossible if players were situated in certain areas. MotD was actually really good, but the design was a little uninspiring and unbalanced for certain players depending on the strategy used. Map also severely lacked longevity too it. Buried was trash from start to finish. Nothing good to say about that map at all. Throwing as much as you can into a poorly designed map does not make it entertaining. Origins for me was the only map that was designed well and had a great balance, but the storyline and features within the map were really bad in my own personal opinion. The punches are trash and were shown to be so by the awful knifing dynamic that comes with the dated engine. Staffs were also unbalanced. Whoever got the Lightning Staff got a raw deal for sure. The EE's were also awful throughout, with no thought into them, the steps and definitely the weak rewards that were all more or less overshadowed by easily obtainable in-game features. Tranzit power up drop (obtainable easily in-game), Die Rise perks (obtainable easily in-game), MotD (weaponary obtainable without finishing the EE), Buried (perma perks... persistent Tombstone!?), Origins (apparently opening the crazy place was our reward... that and the end sequence!... must have been this reward beyond out imagination Sam promised us!). BO2 is underrated? lol... good one man.

I actually pretty much agreed with that by claiming all other maps to be built around ideas as opposed to storyline. MotD was very non canon though. Sure there is some things that relate it to the main storyline, but it never proved any of those things... just hinted towards them. Tranzit may have been built around an idea also, but the setting definitely resembled what you would expect the Earth to look like after the rockets hit, so it felt right, even if the map itself was poor. I only say poor though because of how they executed it. Lack of perks, wall weapons, wonder weapons and decent things to use within the map itself. All the buildables are terrible... even the Jetgun, though it can obviously be put to good use, it was still an awful idea. I think MotD was a good map and looked the part too. Most other maps were completely devoid of proper though or attention. It is a shame looking back on it, but it is what it is. Any thought of micro transactions and additional DLC drops for BO2 is completely out of the question, so we have to hope that the next outing delivers or it could definitely spell the end for the game mode. That or several poor attempts at reboots that will strangle the life out of it completely and eventually see us resenting it. Hope that is not the case though... I truly do.

Agreed. Maps like Die Rise and Buried in particular seemed to be completely built around an idea for a map as opposed to be made to support a storyline. Being in China for Die Rise seemed to make absolutely no sense towards the story at all, and the garbage and irrelevant comments to come from Maxis and Richtofen did not help any. Buried may have had the rift present, but the whole concept of the map was terrible. Did not help that the map was also a tragic mess also. I also feel Origins was built around an EE, but was still a decent map nonetheless. The bugs and glitches on it are completely unforgivable. I cannot tell you how many times I have been on round 50+ only for a Panzer to spawn in and glitch the game out completely. Death Barrier in the tank has ruined co-op games for me also.

I feel the same way as you do mate, and pretty much agree with everything you said. BO2 left a bad taste in my mouth, and I not quite as optomistic about the future of zombies as I once was.

Agreed. Unless you actually negotiate where you are training on a map before hand, then nowhere on the map belongs to anyone. I am a fair and honest player, but when I play with people who try to claim spots on the map as there own without giving notification, or get rude about it, I just grief them till they go down and bleed out, then rage quit. At the end of the day, it is nice to be nice. If someone wants a spot in a map, they are welcome to it, but just as long as they say they are taking it and don't just assume it is their given right to have it in the first place. I always take the leftover spots after everyone else is set up and found their spot, so I don't mind letting people take whatever spot they want.

You CAN get another one from the box while the player who has it is down or in who's who mode. Basically, the trick on BO1 was to have one person obtain the maps wonder weapon, then down himself at the box using a grenade or splash damage weapon, and while they are down, smash the box and try and get it. When a player is down the game counts the weapon as out of the game and back in the box. When people used to try for 2 rayguns on BO1, they would get one, pack it then hit the box and as soon as the hit it the would shoot at the ground and die and hope the box spat out another raygun. I have tried it successfully myself and it does work. Same with the WW. Get it and down yourself while another player smashes the box trying to get it. I have been in games on Ascension messing about and 3 players had a thundergun each. You can get more than one Mark II on Buried obviously, but not without doing the exploit on other maps. Sure you could fluke it during a fire sale (it has happened before), but when you try packing one of them, it does not come back out of the machine, so the only way you could do it successfully is by doing the going down method after a player has obtain and packed it, and no one would be willing to take anything up to 100 downs just to get a weapon.

This is definitely a positive, on an otherwise rainy day for me. I do agree that the game (MW4 or whatever it will be) deserves a chance, but like Hell said, I too have completely found myself burned out with MP! I bought Ghosts in the hope that Extinction was going to be something that could fill the void left by zombies. Unfortunately this has not been the case. My last hope for that game mode was fluttered away when the first DLC dropped. Same as PoC but in a different environment. Custom zombies will keep me occupied for some time, but it never can compete with the ease of playing console zombies, and I am now intrigued to see if this next title has something with this side of the community in mind. Also noticed a few retweets from a certain area in the community claiming we WILL still be seeing zombies in 2014!?! Either way, I am still depressed. That bottle of Jack on my shelf is looking mighty tempting right now.