Would This Work For Nemesis' Zombies?
I'll get right into it. Here's what I'm thinking:
- When zombies attack a survivor, they lunge forward, giving the attack more effective range and a little extra speed.
But, in exchange:
- Zombie missed attack animation is longer.
- Survivors can initiate an interaction to knock the zombie to the ground and kill it during the whiff period (possibly using the head-stomp animation from 4 and 5).
My reasoning is this: When playing Nemesis, one of the most frustrating parts about the zombies is how safe survivors can be even when they run straight into one during chase, because of how slow and stubby the zombie's attack animation is. At the same time, the zombies can't be buffed too hard because currently, the only two ways to counter zombies are tied to either an item you may not have brought into the trial, or a limited map resource you want to be careful of.
So, if the zombies are made more threatening in chase in exchange for them being reliably killable outside of chase (albeit in a way that takes some time, both in making them whiff and in the animation to kill them), everyone benefits, really. Zombies become less of a nuisance while you're trying to do gens or heal as survivor, and they also become less impotent and annoying as killer.
It also opens up the design space for zombie-milling addons. Nemesis already has the green Serotonin Injector, an addon that gives him Undetectable when a zombie is killed- while this is never going to be that great because Nemesis is a loud son of a #########, addons like this can be more reliably useful if survivors can actually kill zombies without a resource, meaning more of them can be designed to replace some of the killer's more lacklustre addons.
Is there anything I'm missing to make this a bad idea? What do you guys think?
Comments
If zombies could be easily killed without requirement outside of chase, then zombie add-ons would be even less relevant since zombies aren't really meant to even get hits outside of careless/inexperienced Survivors unless the Survivor gets sandwiched between Nemesis and the zombie mid-chase (or the Survivor uses the zombie for a free speed boost if not infected).
The zombies are mostly there for (unreliable) info and (unreliable) minor slowdown since they can harass Survivors off of gens and point out nearby Survivors. The info and minor slowdown they provide is arguably one of the only reasons why he's not one of the worst Killers in the game (although he has miserable killrate), being easily taken out would essentially take away his already rng-reliant info and minor slowdown.
If anything, the zombies could use a tad more speed basekit (alongside a needed AI upgrade so they aren't allergic to hills).
The relevant zombie addons - speed, detection range, and arguably the Mutation increase for killing them - are either unchanged or improved by this idea.
They'd still be info, because you'd still see them start to chase survivors and see them get knocked down if survivors try to kill them. They'd also still be some minimal slowdown, since survivors would have to go out of their way to dance around the zombie to make it whiff and then go through the animation.
Some zombie addons would also get a little better- the ones for respawn speed would be more relevant if they're actually being used consistently. Not to mention hypothetical new addons that buff you when a zombie's killed.
Frankly, I would be happy to trade the slowdown you get from zombies away entirely to stop them being so useless even in their best scenarios in chase. I still think you'd get comparable slowdown out of zombies overall, since survivors would have some incentive to go out of their way to kill zombies even outside of being harassed away from gens, but if I'm wrong about that - fine by me. I'd rather see them do something much more impactful.
Nemesis isn't that bad, also. He's like. Fine. Tentacle Strike is strong but fair, and the zombies are a little lacklustre, hence the buff idea here.
Making them killable without prerequisite would only be a viable idea if the zombies were much better and more importantly reliable.
Maybe also making their base respawn time shorter and triggering Killer instinct when a zombie dies would kinda compensate for the loss of built-in slowdown by enhancing the info and presence.
There would be a prerequisite, though, they'd need to be in the whiff animation.
I don't personally think that's a pedantic distinction because the survivor still has to actively cause that to happen. Even when they're not in chase and they have the room move as necessary, it'd still carry a degree of risk considering we're buffing the attack itself in this hypothetical, and it'd still take time to do.
We also are making them better and more reliable, that's the main change being pitched. Make them much more reliable in chase by making the attack something a survivor actually has to try and dodge rather than something that whiffs by default.
I'm not against giving a little info when the zombie dies, though, that'd be a fair addition.