Game Report 10/3/15

First game of the semester with the Uni's Nerf group, now called META, hopefully the first of many more.

Gamemodes:
Old:
Mini HvZ - 5 second stun for zombies. Usually requires at least 7 players. Works great for initiating new players since it's instantly intense and also promotes solidarity with strangers when you're getting overwhelmed.
Team DM - FPS classic, this one played with 3 respawns and single shot respawn.
 
New:
Tag Teams (10move)- TDM where instead of being eliminated you cannot fire for 10 seconds (but can still move), then can touch a teammate to return to play. Different from the old style which was a 3 second revive (denoted Tag Teams (3rev)).

Blasters:
Regulars:
Strongarms - the usual comparison blaster, simple and effective.
Sweet Revenges (dual) - my usual dual wield pistols. Worked great as always, especially for surviving in HvZ. I wasn't targeted by a zombie until very late in the game due to the intimidation factor
Roughcuts - performed as per usual, more cool factor but much larger than Strongarms.
Elite Rayven (Barricade motors, 2 IMR 14500s) - incredibly overpowered, the only thing that could stop its rampage was running out of clips (mags).

New:
Elite Retaliator - performed similar to the Strongarms, except for the obvious capacity difference as they were supplied with 12 dart clips (mags). The ability to put out so many more darts before reloading was quite an advantage, though as it is harder to use than a Strongarm, it's not the most suitable blaster for newbies. Power is also slightly lacking, which became very evident when I went against a Retal user with my SRs.
Elite Triad (white, orange trigger 90ft XD) - compared to grey trigger blasters the orange trigger Triads packed a serious punch, outranging grey trigger triads by at least 20%. However they had a significant issue in that the barrels are noticeably looser than blue Triads, resulting in a large number of squibs and misfires. This made using the Triads very difficult, as to ensure you would get 3 shots you would need to pick out the best darts you could find, which is not easy for used darts that have been sitting in the sun.
ZS Hammershots (dual) - performed similar to my Sweet Revenges, though not modded so not as powerful. The user is fairly experienced with dual wielding and so wasn't hindered significantly, though the power difference between the HSs and my SRs was noticeable, as I was able to get some good shots off while still being relatively safe.
Elite Rapidstrike (minimised, 2 IMR 14500s) - I used the Rapidstrike similarly to how I use the Stryfe an Rayven, however unlike those blasters, the Rapidstrike puts out a ROF of about 5dps consistently and easily. It's also light enough to one-hand, though of course my Rapidstrike has been cut down to be fairly comfortably two-handable. The main issue came from the Rapidstrike simply being too good all round, much like the Rayven except even more overpowered. It has about the same range, while having a more consistent and spammable ROF being full auto, and as a clip (mag) system blaster also has a huge capacity and reload advantage. I took on three people using Strongarms, Roughcuts, etc using just the Rapidstrike, and I took them all out without getting hit once, as I was able to simply stand back and spray them down. Needless to say it will not be returning to regular games in the near future.

We played in basically the same area as most of our previous games, tambark surrounded by grass, with a few trees and benches but quite open.

Mini HvZ worked great as usual, however with 6 players we tried 1 OZ and it didn't turn out well. When we had a volunteer sacrifice himself for the cause however, it went great. The extra zombie almost immediately got a tag due to a flanking/distraction maneuver, and from there the humans were totally doomed. I was the last survivor with my dual Sweet Revenges, and I managed to survive long enough to use up all of my darts.

TDM was more of a filler game type just to get a few of us going while trying to encourage others to join in. It worked well enough for what it was, the small team sizes meant cooperation and communication was easy, making it quite a fun tactical exercise with the cover we had.

Tag Teams didn't work particularly well, as in a 2v2 situation if you lose your teammate you're basically screwed, and if it ends up as a 1v1 it becomes a duel/standoff and the downed teammates rarely have any chance of getting back in the game.
I feel that at least 6 players are required for Tag Teams to become significantly different from TDM, as having a spare teammate as a distraction gives players an actual chance of getting back in the game.

Not that much happened this time around, we didn't get many players so we were stuck with just TDM style games. We're hoping that branching out into other non-Nerf games will bring in a larger player base, who we can then just assimilate into Nerf games for some larger scale fun.