Overpowered weapons, Base Laming, Etc
 

My opinion on Zone's current state:

Most of the weapons on Zone are overpowered. Some are just plain annoying (Such as Photon, which I refer to as 'the overpowered enhancedpulsar' and Chainsaw). Some weapons should be removed or stripped of some power. Carrots should be removed, even though they're rarely used. They're bloody overpowered. (How can a carrot kill you in 2-3 shots?). Assaultpistole is another example. Its bullets shoot twice as fast as normal bullets, allowing them to hit you twice as fast as you can hit them. Combined with their sheer power (12 per bullet with 4 bullets, isn't it?), it makes them majorly overpowered.

Base laming is a major issue here in Zone, so I suggest that you be able to select a base to spawn at when you respawn. (Of course, your team has to capture it first). This allows for people to escape unfair odds against players who just sit there, firing their photons or running around with chainsaws. At respawn time, a small map will appear asking you to select your spawn point. Select a flag on a base your team has, and press OK. You will spawn there.

Shop items that used to be in Zone a year ago are no longer there because of the "GELAT" shop. (...What are these gelats? How are new players supposed to understand the concept of "gelats" when there's no valid explanation for them?). These should be moved back into the regular shop. The current weapons in there are pathetic. Metallic Rifle is just plain bad, and Streamer is somewhat better, but what happened to Red Rifle, Blue Rifle, and the ammo clips? They're in the Gelat shop.

Variety. There needs to be something that invites players to the other planets. Right now, everyone goes to Iricia (for the base laming). There needs to be a way to attract players to certain planets.

*Please note that if you ignore, delete or otherwise mangle this thread, then the state of Zone will continue for the rest of the time it has.

** This post is subject to change upon receiving more information.

Agreed.

That's if the other team doesn't hold them to make sure right?

4 TEH CASHMONIES

Agreed.

Have you noticed that almost all the weapon gani's are the same? :O

Uhh, why chance it to please one person.

And zone's almost always been like that, why change it?

Because I'm not trying to please myself, I'm trying to make a fair environment for new players to come in, enjoy the game and possibly sign up.

You fail to see the point of the thread. Please, re-read it.

Well there are new people all the time..

How many stay though?

The point of the thread is to improve Zone. Not to keep it the same. Please, re-read the thread.

Please re-read the thread,blah blah. Plently of people complain. And am i supose 2 count who stays?

No, but you don't have to participate in trying to help Zone if you don't want to. Just get off of my thread :/

The biggest imbalance comes from the cash shop. Assault Pistols are the lamest pieces of trash to walk on Zone. I don't have a problem with the photon rifle, it is not hard to take a user down.

Give us non-cash users ApRippers for commando if you want to re-balance Zone.

i miss the way zone used to be
way back in 2006.
can we just change it so that its the way it used to be?

Commando is 4 gold.
No, zone is mostly used for money now. Unless you're willing to pay stefan/unix the money they're losing.

I didn't say for trials, I said for non-cashers, aka people who don't spend money on items.

If all this stuff on this thread came true, it would be a graal paradise, but we know it's never gonna happen. Unixmad/Stefan or whoever makes money off of Zone is making a fortune. A bunch of people want gelat weps BECAUSE they're overpowered and they think they're good with them. Every oldbie wishes they can have Zone back to 06 or 05 or whatever, but it's not going to happen.

That doesn't mean we can't try. There are more things than just overpowered weapons that can be changed. Any positive effort is good effort and you effort isn't going to help anything. Such pessimism could possibly be what got us into this problem to begin with.

I think that some of the weapons are overpowered. The thing about the streamer, and the metallic rifle is they are balanced. I think a lot of the shop weapons are too strong. A great example of this are the assult pistoles. The assault pistols are extremely fast, but the drawback should have been much slower shooting or much weaker bullets.

Base laming. Any way that the players can be randomly droppped on the gamp might help, perhaps spawn players entering the gmap as far away from members of the other team as possible.

The problem with other planets, even the more recent ones is time. Iricia is the easiest map to travel (You hop in a bike and it takes a very short time) and you don't have any trees to get in the way. If you travel across the map there is the other team's spawn base. CTF never had this problem because of how large the spawn area was, there was not one specific spawn point. The same thing happened on Alpha. Koth runs into this problem but because the spawn area is usually a few tents, a few players can escape.

Gwars had problems being successful because you had to wait for a new round to start. The fact you could wait 10 minutes was enough to stop some players from waiting (And this happens on DM)

The best thing to do would be to create a small map (So you can enter and get kills) that you can enter all the time, but that had multiple objectives

Eg. Capture the bases to lower the shield, after lowering the shield attack the enemies power planet, enter their base and don't let them touch a certain button to enact their power planet again, and after 50 kills of the other team, the round ends (There wouldn't be anything like the arctic final) You could also have secondary objectives like finding a randomly moving hill and after ten seconds you can get new vehicles or weapons enabled.

Having multiple objectives can extend the length of the round and can promote team work and cooperation.

Zone's maps need variation for players to enjoy them.

I like that lower the shields idea, it's awesome.

She's a communist! She wants everyone to have an equal, fair and overall more enjoyable time on Zone!

DOWN WITH HER COMMUNIST WAYS, UP WITH CAPITILISM! WHERE THE RICH ALWAYS WIN!

Ahem, yes. I think you should run, the army of oppressive staff members are going to deport you.

I think Zone should just go back to the WAY IT WAS, because there used to be no problem with lamming. It was way funner when everyone jsut went for base 1 and didn't lame or base lame. Gleats weaposn should go in regular shop. callses on irica are kind of unfair so I would make it like the spar where every class is for everone. Back in v1 it was cool everyone was good and uses appirces. No lame. No offense to Stefan, and Unimaxed but they are turing zone into a money war. Alot of people can't get gold becasue there parents won't let them or they can't afford it. Old zone was the best thing. Perm weapons,alot of events for small items. It's just 1 month for a weapon and half of the weapons they don't even host off. Soultion to giving perm weapons. Make new event weapons, host less big events,host WAY WAY more small events. Even now people get bored of irica. I mean come on zone is just MONEY MONEY. To get good weaposn, YOU HAVE TO SPEND MONEY. Gold should just be for tags,health, and VERY LITTLE CLASSES. DM could stay the same. With the trial class and gold class thing. Most people get gleats for membership. Classic was better, with the accounts and stuff. I really want zone to get back the way IT USED TO BE

__________________________________________________ _________________________
Sorry about being really stragiht up with this. I JUST REALLY WANT OLD ZONE BACK.

You know, i don't like reading big blocks of words.

Paragraphs. learn it. Use it.

same. x_x

Anyhow, it's pointless unless you wanna pay up for all the money stefan/unix woudl be losing.Zone is all bout moneh nao. Zone is now more friendly to people with money then people who have played longer.

Zone isn't magically going to go back the way it used to be. Even if the server itself did, there wouldn't be the same players and it wouldn't be what you want.

Laming was just as big of a problem then as it was now, but it is addressed now because of the strengths of particular weapons that unbalance the game play more.


Maybe the gelat items can be rotated into the shop monthly for a large amount of money. This is not my idea and I am not taking credit for it.


A business needs to make money. I don't really want to go into this because I know many people are very unhappy with the management of Graal and with the methods in which they obtain money.

The permanent weapons were nice, but they unbalanced game play. When there were so few players, almost anyone around was able to win permanent weapons. That completely unbalanced the game play of Zone.

What weapons aren't hosted off? I can't speak for Jesse or Dan, but some weapons are meant to be extremely rare (Twinblade, Doubleshot (As a prize), lavagun (If they even use that as a prize anymore))

Zone hasn't had a new balanced planet that players actually enjoy. They get bored of Iricia because there is nothing too unique about it, other than there are no trees.

Perhaps it is time a new permanent planet be released instead of the quick event planets (Jumprace, platform, snowrace, lavaevent, zone wars)

Gold is for tags, health, and some classes. Did you mean gelats?

Once again, Zone isn't magically going to go back the way it used to be. Even if the server itself did, there wouldn't be the same players and it wouldn't be what you want. It wouldn't be the same community, and there would still be some of the newer players.

I don't want to really reiterate how I feel about this, but...

Weapons:
There is a fine line between overpowered and strong.

Base laming: Just warp players in as far from the opposing team as possible, on the player's team's side.

Shop items:
Find new circulation methods that allow for the gelat items to be bought for reasonable prices once every month.

Variety:
Iricia is chosen for a reason. Quick and easy kills. There aren't trees or obstacles and bikes make travel on the map easy. Maybe they could add snow drifts and blizzards. Snow drifts could make traveling harder, and during a blizzard you would risk freezing and frostbite.
Perhaps the Iricia tunnels could be adapted to reach all bases, including team bases. If so there might need to be time limits on the tunnels, that are extended whenever blizzards hit.

[RANT] I would like to see some natural effects on gmaps. Examples of this would be Iricia having blizzards and snow drifts. Grassy planets (Gwars, DM, Alpha, CTF) could have rain with blocking puddles, like blocking snow drifts. Koth could have mudslides that could limit the entrances to the hill more.
The guild wars lava cave could have lava flows where the lava rises and can't be walked on and can damange your player. The secret, hahahha secret :p, bunkers on Iricia could have lighting problems and breaks in the walls that let snow in. It might also help if there was variation in the objectives of each map, not just capturing the base. You could have mini objectives such as protecting an NPC for X amount of time for X amount of money. A spar bot or another player's mission could be to attack that NPC trying to kill it. [/RANT]

There are plenties of ways to improve the game play and still keep it entertaining for the players.

Capital letters and plurals. Learn them. Use them.

Stefan, and Unimaxed are probbaly not going to fix zone. I would like them to but THEY WANT TO MAKE MONEY.
Things they should do:
Put ads on the sites. Put ALOT, all you have to do is put them in secret places popups that never popup xD.

LOWER THE PRICE OF GLEATS, and bring back buying a playerworld,zone gold, GOLD memberships. I also would suggest for them to lower thoose prices too.

I like the way that Stefan, and Unimaxed did the gleats for the membership but they got rid of 1 gold for stuff etc, 1 month gold for servers etc, and 14day gold for servers etc. Keep THOSES!



Suppernanny, I really like your idea about Irica, To get people on another planet just make a warp saying what ever planet you want, always works, pointless in my words but you call a event people get all rounded up.

I was half tired. :( Didn't care much.

You just posted above about how they should change zone,etc. Now something else? Anyhow, I don't understand half of what you said, but ya Sn has nice ideas.

Add a few spar bots that only aggro the oppsite team at there base.I'd hate to fight a sparbot that shoots so fast and h4x dodge with 5 other guns being shot at me.

Base Laming can be stopped by killing your 'friends', so that's not an issue... and if you think it is, stop being so dumb already.

The gelats are fine, and it's fine to buy items from the shop. However, some weapons from the shops are ridiculous and should be terminated, or downgraded.

We do get quite a few new players once in a while on zone, and some just leave because they can't handle the laming, guns, maps, or whatever, but it's alright because more will come and more will stay over time, unless something -terrible- happens and it makes a crap load of people pack there bags and leave zone for good, which I haven't seen much of... not since this.

Online games happen to need to make money, so stop complaining already and deal with what we have.

Yes, but there are more functional ways than what's happening now. Graal went from mild marketing (£40 for a whole years access to nearly everything!) to extreme marketing where almost every single item in the game costs a ton of cash.

True. and Phoenix, the way the shop was with zone was good. Instead of perm make gleat weapons 1 month for a good price.

If I recall the only things you -need- to buy are subscriptions, which uh... for zone anyways, cost gelats, which is quite fair considering it's 300gelats (3 dollars I believe) for a month, so about 36 for a year. Although, it's changed much because you could get Zone and GK (As well as developing servers) for a great deal, unlike now. You could also get classic for a great deal too, and I have no idea what the price is now since I've got it forever.

Anyways, you're right... it's getting ridiculous now, I don't understand all the sudden need for money (ALTHOUGH YOU DONT HAVE TO BUY ITEMS FROM THE DAMN SHOP), but I don't mind it as much as you guys.

Gold subscription gave lifetime classic subscription. I can't remember if that was changed though, I think it was because people gave their old gold accounts to friends so they could play on classic servers without actually paying themselves.

They removed lifetime classic, But people who got it before got to keep it.

Win.
I got a idea for oped weapons. Every month they select a random weapon/item from the gelat shop, and they release it for zone money in the shop. The first 30 mins it's released its at 1/2 price. The weapon last a week or 2 and should be VERY expensive in zone $.

Pros-People can get there hands on these weapons/items.
- Gives people something to waste zone money on once a month ( So they can save up and wait for something )

Cons- More people with this crap.

Hm. I was actually contacted privately about this...

If you still need help with this, give me a shout.

SHOUTS!

Sean I think Dan was looking into having something similar to what you were talking about being done.

I like your idea Sean, but the weapons should be like between 8 and 12k for 1 month of the weapon.

Nah, then people would run around with the weapon for a month ( same time as the gelats) which I think is unfair.. + nubs with lame weps for to long gets lame.
I was thinking more 10k+

10k - 15k would be the most reasonable price.. But back to the first post, yeah. Best idea I've probably seen to improve zone >.>

Even if they make all the money off it, why don't they just do this:
Instead of making money off of just ONE server, spread it out evenly. This way, you don't have one thousand newbies running around with "plasma chainguns" laming your base, and there isn't sh*t you can do about it. When you have more than 5 people doing this at the same time, it's impossible to escape. Now, if Unix or Stefan, or whoever would like to fix zone, please do it QUICKLY.

I use to play zone all the time, and I was pretty good at it, I was one of the first to get the Photon when it was released, along with Az, and others. Now you can just call a 1-900 number and get 12 photons and pointless "gold weapons". Damn those gelats :(

Well, um, we could just like...make the guns a lot more balanced?

Both of them.
ROFL!
THAT MADE ME LAUGH IN MY CHAIR IN MY HOUSE ON MY STREET IN MY TOWN IN MY COUNTY IN MY STATE IN MY COUNTRY IN MY WORLD WHEN I READ THIS!
Try again.

Umm.
It'd be better to have both Gold servers back to the old trial, when they play and then if they log off they're restarted. THAT will get them to pay. And maybe some FREAKING PUBLICITY FOR GRAAL!!!

Me thinks Base Laming on Iricia is being worked on >.>

Get some more staff. Dan should actually work on getting more staff instead of working on new stuff, so that we can have MORE people working on NEW stuff. Also have some ADMINISTRATORS OF DEPARTMENTS, like weapon-power-speed-etc. department, and more graphicsers, and more scripters(?), and more than just Supernanny doing all the levels.

You know what is going on at debug Switch. You don't think about it, you know it..


I disagree so much with most of what you said. Dan shouldn't be working only on getting more staff. He should be working on new content just as much as anyone else. He can hire new staff members and still help.

I don't think there is really a need to have administrators of departments for things just involved in balancing weapons. It would be a useless position creating a bunch of department administrators such as those.

I am not the only one doing levels. Deas_voice also works on levels. Dan does levels also.
There is not a need for a million staff members, we just need quality ones who complete the tasks at hand. A handful of skilled developers can sometimes achieve more in one week than 50 unskilled developers working on the same project. QUALITY > QUANTITY

You fail with your sarcasm. Try again.

It didn't work then, Zone was almost dead. How's this going to help it?

Dan does get new staff, (E.X. Pheet). Zone has tons of new stuff in the Debug that just needs to be moved. Really, Zone is set for a few years or so. That whole weapon-power-speed is just stupid. Dan is already all of those. I think Crono did some levels along with Cor?