have zombie spawn areas blocked by a fixed sword that they must grab to get to the survivors. when they die, the sword may float, but it shouldnt effect gameplay too much. This may be useful for some infectioneers who hate when people use zombie swords. would this be efficient?
But then the zombies must start with a separate weapon, which is worse than the original problem. It helps very much just to give the humans more ammo. Plus, if you make it phased and spawn time to one, it immediately returns to the spawn area once the zombie dies (except for the host).
I don't think that using sword in fix would be a good idea because the Host will still be able to use sword... Or a sword hanging in the air could block his path. And like Plasma said they will need another weapon which will be even worse if the human pick it up... In my map I've simply reduced the human melee damage by half, so using swords isn't as effective as using another weapons, so it discourage sword pick up. Another thing I've did is to add a shield to zombie, but I've reduced their damage resistance, so in a sword fight they do not die in the first hit because they have a shield, so it give them another try to hit the human. Plus, everytime I play my map I discourage using sword saying that a single human with a sword stand no chance against 2 zombies with sword.
Don't Swords and Hammers always use Damage Modifier instead of Melee Modifier, even when you press the melee button to use them?
That will become my solution in my zombie map then, I will give humans 0% melee damage. I like reach's zombie settings, using the safe havens to designate ok places or bad places for humans. Pretty sweet the stuff we think up.