DepressoExpresso
Unremarkable User
Hey I’m currently taking a break from ze but I’d thought I’d give out my opinion on the state of the weapons for spy (from the view of the worst spy main ever) and on the gamemode in general. I feel that all weapons should just be adjusted to be a niche variant/gimmick version of stock in most cases. I will only be talking about stats and functionality and are mostly just guidelines and I am not considering raw dps values.
Tl;DR Stat changes and Gamemode thoughts at the bottom if you don’t want to read about my spy weapon rant.
Tl;DR Stat changes and Gamemode thoughts at the bottom if you don’t want to read about my spy weapon rant.
Secondary:
Revolver
Nothing much to say, good old reliable stock. No Change.
Ambassador
Although the damage bonus is nice, this weapon should probably be reverted back to being a handcannon headshot machine as it is already difficult enough to headshot zms while the damage drop off is insane and piercing and on hit slow is meaningless especially on noobmode. This should be the go-to secondary for those that plan on playing gun spy. In my opinion, moving the debuff of Wearer Cannot Disguise to this gun aswell as slightly buffing the firing speed and reload speed in return for lowing damage would allow skilled players to have a great defensive potential while also not limiting gun functionality.
L’Etranger
No clue. If this weapon ever needed balancing then it should be more focused on helping with cloak management rather than firepower but allowing anymore cloak on hit would be too much of a significant change that would break dead ringer. No change.
Enforcer
This being the more dps orientated version of stock, I cant say much about dps values but balancing this weapons dps to its fire rate in turn decreasing defence effectiveness seems decent enough. No change.
Diamondback
This weapon has actually been done dirty. This gun should reward those that go for multiple backstabs while also be weaker than stock without crits. I much preferred to older version of this gun with a greater amount of bullets. Having removed Wearer Cannot Disguise would allow spies to actually use this weapon instead of stock with some changes in stats such as decreased move speed would force spy to be in a more defensive position to fully use the diamondback crits without getting punished.
Melee:
Knife
The best and most versatile option out of the melee, no issue with it at all (apart from the uber bug where sometimes don’t gain ubercharge on backstabs, but this only affects those that goes for chainstabs rather than it does on for single stabs). No change.
Your Eternal Reward
Although this weapon was made to be a zm item holder killer (stealth stabs mean nothing when zombies are already braindead) the playstyle revolved around one shotting a single zm isn’t worth the risk as you lose the ability to uber and speedboost on backstabs and that your more than likely negatively impacted by the movements speed change on autodisguising as a slower class (unless it doesn’t, haven’t tested) is a massive downside just for oneshotting a zm item holder that have additional health, as most zms already die on a single or double backstab. The downside of losing an entire cloak on disguising isn’t that much of an issue as you would usually pre-disguise before going in.
I think the damage should be nerfed as insta killing a zm item holder would ruin the balance of most item carry maps where both human and zm items are broken (e.g. l0v0l maps) or where humans are supposed to die due to edging zm items (e.g. pirates (free barbussy, I need my dopamine rush of getting a human strike)). Instead, only allow to deal massive damage instead of instakilling zm item holders would allow spies to still be rewarded for backstabbing while not overly destroying map balance (totally ignore this damage nerf if you cant oneshot zm item holders, I haven’t tested in a while) and also give spies an additional cloak back on kill would allow skilled players to have a get out of jail free card with 2 backstabs allowing for a fully charged dead ringer.
Conniver’s Knife
This is the most useless knife ever. That’s it. Honestly, putting spy at 145 is a death sentence where even light classes can one shot you all for a minor 300 overheal without uber meaning that you will never be able to tank npcs, bosses or any sort of map damage without backstabbing, and in most cases you wont even be in contact with zombies, and with the case of overhealing, you lose this extremely quickly. There is no upside to this weapon and with some maps just make it seem as if your playing on hard mode. I do not know how much of a weapons stats you can change but I have two possible rework ideas. Number 1, instead of getting a 300hp overheal you would rather get set to 250~275 max health allowing spy to tank a single hit in exchange for not getting uber on backstab. This would allow players that don’t often go for backstabs to play how the class was designed for once while also being rewarded for backstabbing as the additional health would be significant enough while the no uber on backstab not affect them at all.
If setting class health is not possible then instead allow buffs when overhealed such as increased movement speed (can be abused with a medic pocket to item/doorhug but that’s just taking away 2 players from defending) and make the overheal time longer.
Big Earner
I honestly don’t know how you would change this as I never use this knife as there is only downsides if you plan on chainstabbing but gaining speed for a facestab is not bad for those that play safe rather than consistently backstabbing making the downgrades negligible. No change.
Spy-cicle
This is honestly the best counterpart to stock knife although I have seen very few players use it. Giving increased melee range in exchange for slower swing speeds plus the on-hit slow bonus makes this the best single backstab counterpart to the stock’s chain stabbing abilities. No change.
Secondary PDA:
Invis Watch
Cloak and Dagger
Dead Ringer
I think these are all balanced well with cloak and dagger allowing spies to tank a single hit in exchange for 50% total cloak time and dead ringer timers are fine. Only issue really is the dead ringer bug which makes it so dead ringer sometimes doesn’t activate/pull out when you right click (or my mouse is just broken). No change.
Building:
Red-Tape Recorder
This item is spy's bread and butter, legitimately what makes spy so great as giving sustain to such a selfish class allows you to continuously stay on the move within the zm backlines rather than having to rely on your team for heals. No change.
Sapper
Honestly, sapper gets extremely outclassed by red tape with barely anyone uses apart from those that don’t know what red tape does or doorhuggers <-- more useless than afks. The +2% faster move speed is extremely negligible especially if you’re rushing for items as scouts have bfb and bonk. I don’t know the speed break points for each class but buffing the move speed given and/or giving an extra stat such as faster cloak recharge rate would allow for a more aggressive playstyle in exchange for sustainability.
Weapon Stat Balances
Ambassador:
+235% Damage Bonus ⇒ +175% Damage Bonus
-20% Slower Firing Speed ⇒ -15% Slower Firing Speed
-25% Slower Reload Speed ⇒ -15% Slower Reload Speed
NEW: Wearer Cannot Disguise
Diamondback:
+65% Faster Firing Speed⇒ +50% Faster Firing Speed
-74% Damage Penalty ⇒ -50% Damage Penalty
-60% Less Accurate ⇒ -30% Less Accurate
-6.25% Move Speed on Wearer ⇒ When Held: -10% Move Speed on Wearer
REMOVED: Wearer Cannot Disguise
On Kill: 12 Seconds of 100% Critical Chance ⇒ On Kill: 6~8 Seconds of 100% Critical Chance
Your Eternal Reward:
+33% Cloak Drain Rate ⇒ +25% Cloak Drain Rate
+66% Damage vs Players ⇒ +50% Damage vs Players
NEW: +50% Cloak on Kill
Conniver’s Knife:
Overhealed to 300hp on backstab ⇒ Set to 250~275hp on backstab
Or
NEW: When Overhealed: +5~10% Faster Move Speed on Wearer
NEW: +25% Longer Overheal Time
Sapper:
When Held: +2% Faster Move Speed on Wearer ⇒ When Held: +5% Faster Move Speed on Wearer
NEW: When Held: +10% Faster Cloak Recharge Rate
ZE Gamemode in General
This will be my hot takes section for the game mode in general. FYI this is coming from someone who has only played ze on skial and very few hours on css and csgo ze.
Noobmode
I believe noobmode should be balanced to allow humans to be able to defend easier rather than allow those that edge to not be punished. Having an insane amount of slowness on hit is quite irritating to play with as zm and boring to play as humans as there isn’t really a horde to shoot against, rather more of a stray pack. For noobmode, I do like the fact that it is easier to kill bosses (e.g. djinn boss) allowing for new players to actually experience how the boss fights and entire map is like while also not being that punished by npc and boss damages although I do not like the fact that humans are allowed to tank multiple hits from zombies due to them edging as new players will never learn the positioning and defence places needed in each map. Noobmode should not be overly catered to new players rather than making it easier to allow players to experience more of the map. Making the gamemode that much easier is both a negative to new players as they really wouldn’t care about winning the map as there is no struggle to get there and regs would not enjoy having a such a fake win.
How would I try to change noobmode, no clue. Instead of the massive slowness and knockback, I feel like it would be better just to stop zombie velocity rather than give them slowness and only increase knockback by a bit in comparison to normal mode. Presuming that it is still currently 40% damage reduction on normal and 70% on noob, humans should still take the same amount of damage from zombies hit on either modes but keep the increased damage reduction done by npcs, bosses and map hazards on noobmode as well as increased damage dealt to them allowing players to experience more of the map.
Map nominations
Hot take but map cooldown shouldn’t increased, the player base will always vote for shitty maps no matter whether you increase the map cooldown or not. Even if you increase the cooldown, players will still only join and nominate maps they like and keeping a cap on it would decrease the player count more. While I do agree that the map rotation brain rot has reduced the player bases shared brain cell from 2 to 1, making them have to wait a bit longer would mean there will just be new bad maps to join the cycle.
Honestly making it cost credits for map nominations doesn’t seem that bad as many new players wouldn’t have the experience to know which maps they prefer as many right now are continuously flooded by the current map rotation of santa>korea>banban and that regs can actually use their credits for once apart from saving for titles or force rtv (pls lower cost, I need to give players their vitamin C with ze_icecap). With this, you could also scale the amount of credits that it takes to nominate maps that have already been played on for that day, further increasing the incentive for a larger map rotation.
Leader and Item Role + Votemenu Options
I know people are talking about making a leader role that people have to apply for but honestly the current design of having to need 5 people to vote for someone is decent enough. What I do think that should be added for leaders is that they have a lower votemenu cooldowns or at least able to call a difficulty vote on the same round that the difficulty mode has changed (to ungrief the round), additionally there should be an option to vote out the leader. There should never be an item role or a restriction on picking up items as new players will always need to experience what and how to use items if they ever want to get better.
Things that I would want to happen but will never be implemented
Right now we do have the item command to look up pickups but most people have no clue about it and some people are just too dyslexic to read. So entwatch when? Never.
P.S. I just made this forum account and I probably wont come back to it. I wrote this rant in a few hours and didn’t proofread so…
