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Living Dead needs to be revived. *Long*
Posted By: NsU Soldier <skywatcherjames@gmail.com>	Date: 8/6/11 9:53 a.m.
I Love Infection. I Can’t Stand Living Dead. I want to start off by saying that Infection is an amazing game type. I’ve played countless matches of it since Halo 2, and have loved every second of it. The moments of feeling your impending doom as a Human, or the frenzied mindset of being a Zombie were so very unique to these games. But, unfortunately, the games of Infection I’m referring to were all either custom games or H3 matchmaking games. Reach’s Living Dead playlist is a hollow shell of the Infection experience. Living Dead seems like it was barely playtested at all. The problems are numerous and varied, ranging from the somewhat obscure to the glaringly obvious, and many of them have been there since Reach’s launch. Why the Wall of Text? It’s simple. I have felt a rising frustration after each foray into the playlist. Rampant camping, broken maps, messed up game types, this is not the Infection I know and love. Yet after a while, I always end up going back (usually after a playlist update) and desperately hope that many of the major problems were addressed. Each and every time I am dumbstruck with how awful it still is, and how many problems are STILL THERE. I want to enjoy this playlist so badly, but I cannot. I’m at the point where I can no longer go into that playlist and have fun. I now feel obligated to bring up my many concerns with the playlist, before I abandon it for good. Alright, let’s get started. (For brevity’s sake, I’ve narrowed it down to the four biggest problems.) The Big Four Problem One - The 'base experience' of Living Dead is off. Waaaay off. The Zombies should always have the advantage over the Humans. Period. This makes for games that don’t last forever and stagnate, and tend to keep the gameplay interesting and tense. It also encourages teamwork on both sides, and leads to less frustrating games. This needs to be the golden rule of any Infection game type. Reach, however, does the exact opposite. It gives advantage after advantage to the Humans. Maps with long lines of sight (and loads of ‘fortresses’), lots of ammo for Reach’s beast of a pistol, few starting Zombies, motion tracker for the Humans, and sword block to name a few. Oh yeah, and the Humans have RANGED WEAPONS and can keep killing the same guy over and over again. Those should be the only advantages that they have, as they're huge ones. This has produced matches that usually end up with a Zombie massacre. Great news if you’re a Human, not so much if you’re a Zombie. In fact, if you’re a Zombie just be prepared to be farmed for kills over and over again. Problem Two - An inconsistent split of the action. There are three rounds. You can spawn as one side all three rounds. Are you kidding me? Have you ever spawned as Cannon Fodde-, er, I mean, a Zombie three times in a row? Six times? More? If you haven’t let me tell you, it’s hell. Pure and simple. Here are some good examples on how to fix this: * For standard Infection games (which should have 50% of the players spawning as Zombies) there needs to be an even number of rounds. Four seems ideal as two is far too short. Each player should start on either side an even amount of times in one game. * For Alpha Zombies variants (25% of the players spawning as powerful Alpha Zombies) have each person spawn as an alpha Zombie only once per game. Again this is assuming that there are four rounds. Problem Three - The maps. Oh God, the maps. Every map that I have come across in Living Dead has at least one critical flaw. And by ‘critical flaw’ I mean ‘fortress’. Combine that with the Human’s motion tracker, and things become a camper’s paradise. It is good to give Humans some good defensible zones (usually a room, short hallway, or cover laden field), but said defenses should never be nigh impregnable. As a rule of thumb each ‘defensible zone’ should have at least two easily accessible ways to get inside it (bonus points for less ways out). This is to allow ease of access for the Zombies. And when I said, ‘easily accessible ways to get inside’ I meant for the Zombies. Remember, you’re trying to favor them, and the biggest way to do this is with the terrain. Ideally, even the ‘defensible zones’ should be Human death traps waiting to happen. And if you absolutely have to have a hallway with one entrance be sure to keep it short (with poor sight lines) to prevent tons of humans crowding inside. *Cough* Swordbase Red Lift Room*Cough* Problem Four – Provide support for the dang thing. One of the biggest sins is without a doubt the lack of love this playlist receives. Really bad map breaks and exploits go unchecked for months at a time. I now fear that the exploits that still remain will never be fixed. The worst part about it is that some of these maps can be (by and large) fixed by adding a few soft kills and blocking off some rooms. Work that would take around 30 minutes per map to do. But there are some maps that are beyond help. *Quickly glances at The Cage and Pinnacle* Another way to support the Living Dead playlist would be to include Forge maps that encourage the type of Infection gameplay I have been talking about. (After revamping the matchmaking game types) Hold some contests and get a couple of nice, moody Forge maps that work with these new Zombie-favoring game types. Finale So, there you have it. I’m glad I finally got this post out in the open for people to see. A funny thing happened to me as I was typing this. I started daydreaming about what the Living Dead playlist could be. Reach has a beautifully smooth engine and a deeply customizable Forge mode. Now with 343i rolling out a title update which may add more options to tweak the game type itself, Reach has the potential to be the home of the most amazing Infection games to date. It’s just a shame, a crying shame that, at least for now, we have to settle for this… Thoughts?

Message Index

Living Dead needs to be revived. *Long*	NsU Soldier	8/6/11 9:53 a.m.
Re: 100% agree	pete_the_duck	8/6/11 10:17 a.m.
Re: 100% agree	INSANEdrive	8/6/11 10:21 a.m.
Re: 100% agree	NsU Soldier	8/6/11 10:36 a.m.
Re: 100% agree	NsU Soldier	8/6/11 10:43 a.m.
One more thing...	INSANEdrive	8/6/11 10:49 a.m.
Re: 100% agree	pete_the_duck	8/6/11 12:41 p.m.
Back in Halo 3	Azo 'Galvat	8/6/11 10:48 a.m.
Re: Back in Halo 3	NsU Soldier	8/6/11 10:52 a.m.
Re: Living Dead needs to be revived. *Long*	DEEP NNN	8/6/11 10:53 a.m.
All true	RC Master	8/6/11 11:02 a.m.
Re: Living Dead needs to be revived. *Long*	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	8/6/11 11:21 a.m.
Re: Living Dead needs to be revived. *Long*	BanditORR	8/6/11 1:00 p.m.
Re: Living Dead needs to be revived. *Long*	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	8/6/11 1:06 p.m.
Re: Living Dead needs to be revived. *Long*	SonofMacPhisto	8/6/11 1:42 p.m.
Re: Living Dead needs to be revived. *Long*	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	8/6/11 1:58 p.m.
Re: Living Dead needs to be revived. *Long*	SonofMacPhisto	8/6/11 3:21 p.m.
Re: Living Dead needs to be revived. *Long*	RC Master	8/6/11 2:02 p.m.
Re: Living Dead needs to be revived. *Long*	SIX min WHISTLE	8/6/11 1:27 p.m.
Re: Living Dead needs to be revived. *Long*	FyreWulff	8/6/11 2:39 p.m.
Re: Living Dead needs to be revived. *Long*	SonGoharotto	8/6/11 2:47 p.m.
Infection should always end with every human dead	SonGoharotto	8/6/11 2:51 p.m.
Re: Infection should always end with every human d	Lurono	8/6/11 8:55 p.m.
Re: Living Dead needs to be revived. *Long*	General Vagueness	8/6/11 3:29 p.m.
Re: Living Dead needs to be revived. *Long*	Hyokin	8/6/11 4:02 p.m.
Re: Living Dead needs to be revived. *Long*	General Vagueness	8/6/11 4:10 p.m.
Yes Please	ZaneZavin	8/6/11 4:17 p.m.
Get out of my head, Mr. Soldier	iMonkey777	8/6/11 5:02 p.m.
Re: Living Dead needs to be revived. *Long*	Someone	8/6/11 6:14 p.m.
Variety is the key!	padraig08	8/6/11 8:31 p.m.