[Defense / Survival] Zombie Mechanics

[ravellani]

I am making a zombie survival map. I know, so original, but I want to anyway.

I want to design different zombie types, each with their own mechanic. I know about the generic ideas like fast, spiter, healing, fat/big, and explosive. Those are in almost every game, I am looking for original ideas.

Please tell my why your ideas would be balanced and fun.

Thank you

 

[cleavinghammer]

Corpse Eater: Eats enemies, zombies and corpses to regain health and/or mana, spawns zombies/zombified body parts at the cost of health, throws up corpses to deal damage.

Resilient: Two-phase zombie that reanimates as a skeleton when killed.

Ambusher: Has Locust in order to play dead, loses the ability in order to attack.

Reanimator: Reanimates/Resurrects nearby zombies, depending on the difficulty.

Undying: Skeleton that continuously reanimates unless the corpse is destroyed. Hits hard, but very slow.

Zombified Body Parts:
* Legs: Very fast and evasive.
* Torso: Slow, can stun.
* Head: Very slow, can poison and infect.

 

[Oliver]

Demonhost: A powerful possessed zombie when it's about to die the demon jumps to another nearby zombie. Mechanically this means that instead of dying the demonhost kills and replaces a nearby zombie. On final death (that is a death without nearby zombies) it explodes and the demon flys away.

Cordyceps: A mushroom zombie, when it dies it creates a mushroom which parasites nearby alive units, when they die they turn into more cordyceps zombies. (use some medicine item or ability to remove the infection)

Puppet master: Permanently invisible, can raise dead, will blink to avoid being attacked. Fragile.

Elder Zombie: An abomination hero which can eat dead bodies, doing so will permanently and persistently buff it. So everytime you encounter it it's stronger without an upper limit. This creates a constant lingering threat.

Infested Hulk: A large slow zombie which has a locust swarm type ability. On dead it creates a dummy unit which casts locust swarm. Can fly short distances by using carrion swarm.

 

[ravellani]

These are all great ideas, I like them all. Thank you and keep them coming.

Any and all ideas.

 

[noob]

Zombie ward: uses big bad vodoo in order to make the other zombies unmanageable.

 

[ravellani]

Like a zombie with permanent taunt?

 

[Oliver]

On topic of taunt:

A smoker like in L4d - it has a reskinned shackles spell (channel to incapacitate and damage an enemy), then when it dies it creates a cloud of smoke which casts taunt on spawn (maybe casting taunt periodically even). So players are pressured into prioritizing targeting it but killing it create a new challenge which will mess up any microing/target prioritisation.

 

[noob]

On topic of taunt:

A smoker like in L4d - it has a reskinned shackles spell (channel to incapacitate and damage an enemy), then when it dies it creates a cloud of smoke which casts taunt on spawn (maybe casting taunt periodically even). So players are pressured into prioritizing targeting it but killing it create a new challenge which will mess up any microing/target prioritisation.

As much as the other zombie mechanics are manageable zombies that locks or stuns targets are problematic due to the fact usually zombie maps are centred on non zombies being massively outnumbered by zombies.

 

[Oliver]

As much as the other zombie mechanics are manageable zombies that locks or stuns targets are problematic due to the fact usually zombie maps are centred on non zombies being massively outnumbered by zombies.

Maybe have the smoker have some "warm up period" (in which you are encouraged to focus it down) afterwhich it has the shackles type spell but it lasts only for a limited time (so it's punishment for not killing in the warmup period but not game ending).

 

[noob]

Maybe have the smoker have some "warm up period" (in which you are encouraged to focus it down) afterwhich it has the shackles type spell but it lasts only for a limited time (so it's punishment for not killing in the warmup period but not game ending).

Could work.

 

[N00b-Morti]

Deseaser: when they die they release infected fog on the surrounding that turn every living being in the surrounding in zombies, if the die while infected.

Ground Aficionado: can hide under the ground like Undeads' spiders, but can actually move under the ground and emerge making surprising ambush.

Reverse Zombies: for a fun spin, it would be cool to have at least an help with a class of zombie that if bite your army, actually get infected and turn into human in a span of 10 seconds to give you allies.

The NecroEater: a zombie starting with 0 Mana and with no change of charging it overtime. The only way he can get mana is eating corpses. If the Mana reaches a certain level - let's say 50.. the Zombie turns into another unit: a Zombie with spells able to curse, poison and summon. So it is a unit to kill before he can turn into something threatning

SpiderZombie: Nothing Special. Just a weird af model cause yes.