The difficulty of zombies and how it can be improved.

[this.is.how.to.do.it]

The feedback of BO2 zombies has been quite mixed. Personally, I've liked it, however one major thing has been bugging me for a long time in zombies; the difficulty. Once a certain point is reached in this mode, the difficulty just doesn't change. Sure, more zombies come each round but surviving doesnt get any harder. It just takes more time.

With treyarch moving zombies to the MP engine, we were promised on several occasions that this meant 'double the zombies'. I thought that this would mean that in any mode we would have twice as many zombies on a map at a time, so 48. Unfortunately, this has simply not been the case, (maybe with the exception of 8 player grief). Now, the reason this has been bugging me so much is that i thought this could be the answer to how zombies could be hard again.

At the moment (with 24 zombies max at a time), we reach a point where it doesnt get any harder. But if the amount of zombies on the map at a time double, every strategy would be made more challenging. Camping would take more coordination, kiting would require immense skill, high rounds would mean more than 'you beat the boredom'. Now rather than this number being implemented to any round (as the current zombie max is), it could gradually increase as the rounds progressed along with the zombies health and the total zombies each round.

This would be a great start as the game would instantly be more fun and challenging but i dont want to stop there. At the moment, it is my opinion that the bane of zombies is that it takes too long to increase in difficulty and when it reaches its max, it doesnt go anywhere. The game becomes tedious. The only way to fix this is to make the game more difficult.

At low rounds, there are three ways the game progresses in difficulty; zombie health, speed, and numbers each round. At mid rounds, the speed of zombies maxes out and so it no longer impacts the progression of difficulty. Therefore, as ive previously stated the only progression of difficulty in zombies is through their health and numbers each round. I think this needs to change. Ive said that i think the number of zombies on the map at any time is one other way difficulty should progress. I also believe that the speed of zombies should continue to increase to a higher maximum possibly equal to that of the sprinters in verruckt and COTD.

I want reaching say round 30 or 40 to be an achievement again, rather than being something you just go through the motions for. I honestly think that these suggestions would make zombies challenging again without dramatically altering the gameplay we all love. What do you guys think?

[Electric Jesus]

I see where you're coming from but I kinda disagree. Here's why.

This is a community of good zombie players. However, think about it. One out of how many games with randoms make it past round 30? One out of every hundred? Less? Like I said, we personally could do this on our own, but the majority of players can't even make it TO round 30, let alone way into high rounds.

However, with die rise for instance, the first 20 rounds or so (which are the rounds in which you establish your long-term strategy) are much harder. I think that is undeniable. So for all intents and purposes, it IS harder. However once you make it past that part of the game to the part where you are actually performing your train / camp, it flatlines. But like I said, only 1% of the community or less can actually reach that period routinely.

If you were to increase the zombies cap to 48, that would greatly increase the difficulty of camping. Perhaps too much so. Think of your favorite camping strategy. Now think of your camping strategy with double the zombie's. You might not realize how great of a leap that is. The same goes for training. Imagine your horde of 24 zombies. It takes up most if the room, the biggest room in the map, doesn't it? Double it. You almost literally COULDN'T use this strategy if there is no room big enough to permit a decent train and have enough space for it. With both of these strategies so greatly affected by this change, Even for the 1% who are actually skilled it would be TOO hard.

Plus the early rounds would be devastatingly difficult. Especially for the 99%. When you're scrambling through the map to get to the box or a perk or something with your wall guns and your minimal perks, imagine taking on double the zombie's, before you've even established your above strategy.

So yeah. I don't agree. Maybe on a map that is designed to have this capacity it would be good, but as of now it's a big no-no.

[this.is.how.to.do.it]

Yeh you're right about the early rounds. If it was implemented then it would be ruined. Thats why i think it should progressively increase from the mid to high rounds. That way, the early rounds that we establish ourselves on (and many randoms dont make it past) would be unaffected. Then as we progress to the rounds when we're set up and everything flatlines the difficult would increase as it should.

As a result, the players that dont make it past, lets say round 30, would be unaffected. While the zombie players who are accustomed to dying from boredom would have the challenge. The whole idea of this is to greatly increase the difficulty. Reaching round 50 shouldn't be the same difficulty as round 40. Ultimately, as rounds progress, it should reach the point where survival is simply not possible or at least almost impossible. Otherwise surviving is not a matter of skill, its a matter of not getting bored. I want to be dying because i'm not skilled enough to survive any longer rather than killing myself because I'm bored.

[The Clay Bird]

Yeh you're right about the early rounds. If it was implemented then it would be ruined. Thats why i think it should progressively increase from the mid to high rounds. That way, the early rounds that we establish ourselves on (and many randoms dont make it past) would be unaffected. Then as we progress to the rounds when we're set up and everything flatlines the difficult would increase as it should.

As a result, the players that dont make it past, lets say round 30, would be unaffected. While the zombie players who are accustomed to dying from boredom would have the challenge. The whole idea of this is to greatly increase the difficulty. Reaching round 50 shouldn't be the same difficulty as round 40. Ultimately, as rounds progress, it should reach the point where survival is simply not possible or at least almost impossible. Otherwise surviving is not a matter of skill, its a matter of not getting bored. I want to be dying because i'm not skilled enough to survive any longer rather than killing myself because I'm bored.

the thing is, when they designed the zombies mode back in WaW, it was simply a mini game, and especially on Nacht, it wasn't designed to get into that high of levels. the majority of players like EJ said, simply don't understand the mode well enough to develop the skills necessary to get to rounds that high.

Still, even if the difficulty "flatlines" it doesnt get any easier after that, thus one small miss-step still spells death. so high rounds take not only time and persistence but flawless persistence. I don't think they need to change the engine at all to make it harder. Just keep making new and interesting maps and weapons and features, which overall in black ops 2 i would give them a B- so far for that

[83457]

I would like to state that I dislike adding 'annoyance' in lieu of challenge or fun. In waw, there wasn't any programmed annoyance that I can think of.

Come bleak ops, not only is the programming wonky as heck, but they began to add annoyances to zombies. Please stop.

You now lose the bowie if you die, it cost the same, lasts less time, was generally harder to get.

Get stabbed by teammate as you revive them and die.

Kino: gas zombies.

Five: zombie thief.

Cotd: george.

Shangri-la: drop monkeys, scream zombies, and to a lesser extent, fire zombies.

Ascension: perk monkeys.

Moon: moon (what wasn't annoying?)

Then bo2;

Tranzit: foggies, time consuming buildable in the in-itself-agitating jet gun. Long runs through fog pointlessly annoying. Random tps...

Die Rise: lost zombies standing in corners or swarming an elevator. The death slides that still aren't patched after 2 patches which arguably have done more harm than good to zombie mode. The local script error stopping offline play. Waiting on elevators only to have the zombie you just walked away from appear next to you on the elevator.

Can we just have zombies and fun without pointless annoyance?

[TheBSZombie]

there is a fine line between adding something that adds difficulty then something that adds annoyance. The fire was supposed to be something that adds difficulty. It was annoying at first but now that I have gotten use to it and learn the map, I have learned almost every single jump over lava. more zombies would be extremely cool ( I can imagine running trains of 70 zombies in the tunnel) but would also make more people get EXTREMELY pissy about the jet gun even more. It wouldn't be able to kill a whole hord and if its durability lasted longer you still would be swarmed by the 30th zombie

[this.is.how.to.do.it]

There have been a lot of things added that are annoying, but they dont make the core game any more difficult since there is always a strategy to avoid them. Since this is a round based survival game, it just seems obvious that surviving should become more difficult as rounds progress. It shouldn't get any easier. It shouldn't plateau. It should continue to increase in difficulty until we die because we cant survive. Adding more zombies perfectly achieves this goal. The method of increasing difficulty has to be fair to all playstyles and players, possible within the engine, and true to the core experience without making things annoying. This is that answer!