The problem with the current panic (revisited) is that rounds where barricading in the basement that results in a human victory is almost non-existant. Like I said before, the glass room really cuts down on what can or can't be done down there. I sometimes see people who try to barricade themselves in the old popular basement spots like the 3 vending machine room by the stairs, the corner room in the back, or the 2 couch + 1 soda machine sandwich next to the vents etc. However, 90% of the times they end up dying early before the barricades can be even built because of the 10+ people running to the glass room who end up dying within the first 10 seconds due to the fast zombie spawning timers. Because of this, it is extremely rare to see anyone camping in the basement at a spot other than the glass room. Rendering a good 50% of the map unplayable doesn't really seem like an efficient use of the map. Also, I don't really agree with the idea that humans will win the majority of the time if the original panic map is used, and I can explain this with the same psychology that is applied for all of the other big camping spots like the orange crate.
The reason why so many people go to the crate and glass room is because it is the easiest place to reach and defend as a human given the short zombie spawning times. The cost to benefit ratio and chance of survival is really high for these spots because of this. If we account for edgers and stray grenades, high density spots like the crate and glass room are one of the worst camping spots. Despite this, people still camp at that spot because there is a better chance to survive with 10+ people than than going to build a barricade in the basement or house given the amount of time they have. In contrast, barricading in rooms in panic revisited is extremely high risk, and low reward. Assuming that the group manages to build a barricade within the first 10 seconds before zombies spawn and wipes out the glass room, and unless a room has AT LEAST 3-4 people, it would be near impossible for them to survive the entire round of 60+ players during hot times on the server. So let's say we swap the panic revisited map with the vanilla panic, and people end up spreading out more. Let's say there is a small group of 5-6 people who camp at the 3 vending machine room by the stairs, and somehow end up winning the round against 60+ people. I am sure that quite a handful of those 60 people who couldn't break that barricade would want to go camp there the next round. I'm sure you know where i'm going with this. What happens when 20 noobs who don't know any better try to cram inside a tiny room? In scenario 1, at least one of those 20 people will become a zombie, and everyone in the room will now die, making that camping spot lost. In scenario 2, the barricade will not be built because there are now 20 more people who dont know what they're doing and either delay the barricading process, or end up breaking it due to the high volume of people. Either way. Everyone dies in that room, people lose interest of going there for the next round because they don't want to deal with the shitstorm that will probably occur again if they all go there. Meanwhile, the smarter players will be aware of this, and try to build at other camping spots in the map. If they end up dying in the end, nothing will happen because people don't want to go to spots that are considered "weak". If they end up winning, the same thing will happen to that room like the 3 vending machine room in the following round: Everyone goes there, everyone dies. The point I'm trying to make is that "good" or "winning" camping spots are really only good for 1-2 rounds of winning. The unpredictability of players, and the volatility of the relationship between # of players and chance of survival is what will ultimately "Balance" the map. The more people in a spot, the higher chance they have of having a complete victory, or a complete loss.
Currently, the layout of panic revisited results in either 100% heavily favored wins for the humans or zombies. Either the zombies get completely trashed by the humans, or vice versa. Pardon me for my loosely articulated statistics lesson here, but If you look at it this way, panic revisited is indeed, a "balanced" map. Let's say there is enough time to play 10 rounds of panic revisited per map rotation. For each win, I will give a score from 0-100 to measure the degree of how the win was achieved. 5 of those rounds will be a complete human victory (humans clearly won, zombies didnt even have a chance if they tried, score: 100 to humans, 0 to zombies), while the other 5 rounds will be a complete zombie victory, score: 100 to zombies 0 to humans. If we average out the scores, it will be a 50/50 ratio between humans and zombies. However, this results in a bimodal distribution (wins and losses are on the opposite/extreme ends of the curve (a lot of 0's and a lot of 100's, with very few 50's). For example, if 80% of the people are on the orange crate, and they die, it is almost guaranteed for the zombies to end up winning even if people are camping elsewhere eg. the roof. In contrast, if the crate group doesnt die, the few zombies left over tend to give up or suicide/afk in the basement (from personal experience of playing panic since it first came out over a decade ago).
I believe if we changed panic revisited to vanilla panic, the distribution curve will become normal and more center focused (more 50's and few 0 and 100's). Because people are more spread out, it makes it so that if 1 camping spot dies, the humans are not necessarily doomed. There will be more scenarios where the humans will be fighting until the timer runs out, with nonstop waves of zombies, with scores of 50. In other words, humans will have to try to win instead of having 20 ppl shooting on 1 zombie, and zombies will have to try to win, instead of having 20 zombies trying to kill 1 person. This way, the win/loss ratio will still result in an average of 50, except the wins/losses will be more in the middle.
Sorry for rambling, but I would like to have a sense of accomplishment for my wins - knowing that my skills of barricading and working with a small group of players is what brought us to the win, instead of sitting in a spot with 20 people shitting on a couple of zombies or vice versa.
At the end of the day, the main issue is the short amount of time that humans have before a zombie appears. If the spawner timer is increased by 10-20 seconds, it will give ample amount of time for barricades to be set up in time to make it so the basement in panic (and other barricading maps) becomes viable again. If nothing is going to be changed, then maps will have to be changed.
As for 4way, I do not believe that it is because people "dont know how to play it" but rather, it's extremely difficult to gather enough people to go "zombie hunting". 4Way might be a good map if there are only a few people on the server like during the downtimes (<20 people), where zombie hunting can be viable if you have a small group of players willing to join you. However, v3 EH server is very packed the majority of the times. Unless you can manage to recruit 15+ people for your zombie hunting expedition, I find it HIGHLY unlikely that you will be able hunt, let alone survive an entire round of 40+ zombies coming at you. The amount of teamwork and coordination that is required for this is nearly impossible to set up in such a highly populated server unless you have a mic and someone taking charge. To this day I have not heard a single person using a microphone in this server. I would love to go zombie hunting rather than camp on the top platform, but the volume of people (and by extension, zombies) on the server makes this impossible to do so. It forces people to go to the platform in order to survive instead of hunting or camping elsewhere. Therefore, for the purposes of the current v3 EH server, 4 way is a poorly designed map.
The reason why so many people go to the crate and glass room is because it is the easiest place to reach and defend as a human given the short zombie spawning times. The cost to benefit ratio and chance of survival is really high for these spots because of this. If we account for edgers and stray grenades, high density spots like the crate and glass room are one of the worst camping spots. Despite this, people still camp at that spot because there is a better chance to survive with 10+ people than than going to build a barricade in the basement or house given the amount of time they have. In contrast, barricading in rooms in panic revisited is extremely high risk, and low reward. Assuming that the group manages to build a barricade within the first 10 seconds before zombies spawn and wipes out the glass room, and unless a room has AT LEAST 3-4 people, it would be near impossible for them to survive the entire round of 60+ players during hot times on the server. So let's say we swap the panic revisited map with the vanilla panic, and people end up spreading out more. Let's say there is a small group of 5-6 people who camp at the 3 vending machine room by the stairs, and somehow end up winning the round against 60+ people. I am sure that quite a handful of those 60 people who couldn't break that barricade would want to go camp there the next round. I'm sure you know where i'm going with this. What happens when 20 noobs who don't know any better try to cram inside a tiny room? In scenario 1, at least one of those 20 people will become a zombie, and everyone in the room will now die, making that camping spot lost. In scenario 2, the barricade will not be built because there are now 20 more people who dont know what they're doing and either delay the barricading process, or end up breaking it due to the high volume of people. Either way. Everyone dies in that room, people lose interest of going there for the next round because they don't want to deal with the shitstorm that will probably occur again if they all go there. Meanwhile, the smarter players will be aware of this, and try to build at other camping spots in the map. If they end up dying in the end, nothing will happen because people don't want to go to spots that are considered "weak". If they end up winning, the same thing will happen to that room like the 3 vending machine room in the following round: Everyone goes there, everyone dies. The point I'm trying to make is that "good" or "winning" camping spots are really only good for 1-2 rounds of winning. The unpredictability of players, and the volatility of the relationship between # of players and chance of survival is what will ultimately "Balance" the map. The more people in a spot, the higher chance they have of having a complete victory, or a complete loss.
Currently, the layout of panic revisited results in either 100% heavily favored wins for the humans or zombies. Either the zombies get completely trashed by the humans, or vice versa. Pardon me for my loosely articulated statistics lesson here, but If you look at it this way, panic revisited is indeed, a "balanced" map. Let's say there is enough time to play 10 rounds of panic revisited per map rotation. For each win, I will give a score from 0-100 to measure the degree of how the win was achieved. 5 of those rounds will be a complete human victory (humans clearly won, zombies didnt even have a chance if they tried, score: 100 to humans, 0 to zombies), while the other 5 rounds will be a complete zombie victory, score: 100 to zombies 0 to humans. If we average out the scores, it will be a 50/50 ratio between humans and zombies. However, this results in a bimodal distribution (wins and losses are on the opposite/extreme ends of the curve (a lot of 0's and a lot of 100's, with very few 50's). For example, if 80% of the people are on the orange crate, and they die, it is almost guaranteed for the zombies to end up winning even if people are camping elsewhere eg. the roof. In contrast, if the crate group doesnt die, the few zombies left over tend to give up or suicide/afk in the basement (from personal experience of playing panic since it first came out over a decade ago).
I believe if we changed panic revisited to vanilla panic, the distribution curve will become normal and more center focused (more 50's and few 0 and 100's). Because people are more spread out, it makes it so that if 1 camping spot dies, the humans are not necessarily doomed. There will be more scenarios where the humans will be fighting until the timer runs out, with nonstop waves of zombies, with scores of 50. In other words, humans will have to try to win instead of having 20 ppl shooting on 1 zombie, and zombies will have to try to win, instead of having 20 zombies trying to kill 1 person. This way, the win/loss ratio will still result in an average of 50, except the wins/losses will be more in the middle.
Sorry for rambling, but I would like to have a sense of accomplishment for my wins - knowing that my skills of barricading and working with a small group of players is what brought us to the win, instead of sitting in a spot with 20 people shitting on a couple of zombies or vice versa.
At the end of the day, the main issue is the short amount of time that humans have before a zombie appears. If the spawner timer is increased by 10-20 seconds, it will give ample amount of time for barricades to be set up in time to make it so the basement in panic (and other barricading maps) becomes viable again. If nothing is going to be changed, then maps will have to be changed.
As for 4way, I do not believe that it is because people "dont know how to play it" but rather, it's extremely difficult to gather enough people to go "zombie hunting". 4Way might be a good map if there are only a few people on the server like during the downtimes (<20 people), where zombie hunting can be viable if you have a small group of players willing to join you. However, v3 EH server is very packed the majority of the times. Unless you can manage to recruit 15+ people for your zombie hunting expedition, I find it HIGHLY unlikely that you will be able hunt, let alone survive an entire round of 40+ zombies coming at you. The amount of teamwork and coordination that is required for this is nearly impossible to set up in such a highly populated server unless you have a mic and someone taking charge. To this day I have not heard a single person using a microphone in this server. I would love to go zombie hunting rather than camp on the top platform, but the volume of people (and by extension, zombies) on the server makes this impossible to do so. It forces people to go to the platform in order to survive instead of hunting or camping elsewhere. Therefore, for the purposes of the current v3 EH server, 4 way is a poorly designed map.
