History VideoGame / DeadAheadZombieWarfare

* CanadaEh: Northerners will randomly apologize after landing a kill if you run a team with their synergy active.

** Explosion resistance lacks a corresponding perk icon. Since this resistance is listed at the very bottom of unit stat tables, it's possible for someone to stay oblivious to Firefighter's immunity. Meanwhile, stationary objects don't have even ''that'' to indicate their resistance;
** What valor and charisma do. The former provides units with resistance to fear, and the latter makes ''their neighboring teammates'' less likely to get scared;

** Welder is the only example of this among units: his starting health is '''''8'''''. Even at level 13, with a fully upgraded set of items, it can prove difficult to bring him above 100 health. At this point in the game, most enemies can kill him in one hit, true to his title;

* ScreenCrunch: Visibility of the area depends on your phone's display. Because of how the game handles its pixel scaling, the battlefield will look heavily zoomed in on some models, and players will need to swipe left to see incoming enemies. This hinders certain tactics and makes it harder to time your attacks against hordes of runners.

* NintendoHard: The entire game is this when compared to the first. ''Dead Ahead'' is a simple side-scroller that only concerns you with having to tread as far as possible without crashing, while racking up combo chains. ''Zombie Warfare'', however, is a much slower and more methodical game that requires you to rely on trial-and-error for deck building, and plan your moves several steps ahead, with correct timing playing a huge role.

* AscendedGlitch: Policeman's Desperado skin came with a bug that made him skip most of his realod animation – instead of inserting four shells he only puts in one, and is then able to fire multiple shots like normal. This was patched later, but then the bug appeared again and never got fixed. It's even displayed on Policeman's skin selection page. Considering that Desperado skin lacks a faction, players came to believe that developers reintroduced it as a feature.

* CripplingOverspecialization: Firefighter, who exists specifically to counter enemies with poison, fire, and explosion damage. He is the only melee unit to posses such set of immunities, which makes him stand out among similar options. Firefighter is equipped well enough to easily beat missions with the aforementioned kind of zombies, but everywhere else his mediocre attack and movement speed make him very underwhelming, to the point he is entirely irrelevant past location 6.

* CriticalStatusBuff: Units equipped with the Surgery set gain doubled main damage once they reach half health or below. The effect is lost if the unit is healed above the health threshold.

** Policeman Diaz's Special Ability gives a 30% speed increase to all actions if his health is low.

** Lester can come off as a reskin of Farmer – they both have identical stats and function the same, with the only difference being their factions and Lester's quicker firing and reload speed. In practice, this is exactly what makes him powerful in the right hands, as he can provide large bursts of damage more often, all while requiring less time and courage than Policeman and Ranger. Finally, his [[CanadaEh faction bonus]] synergizes with him very well, granting him a lot more powerful double shots. If you manage to compensate for Lester's fragility, he becomes one of the best units for use during the campaign.

* DumpStat:
** Charisma and Valor are this for almost every unit in the game. There's very few instances in which you would actually want to upgrade them, and they are mostly related to using members of Circus Pack outside of their default team synergies and certain units' special abilities.
** Buffs to range rarely prove useful either, as most units already have it at adequate values. In fact, shooters and snipers would rather keep their default values unchanged, as further distances make them less accurate. Austin, Agents, and Medic are the only units who can meaningfully benefit from the buff, but they also struggle in a lot of other departments, so it barely even matters.

* {{Expy}}: [[Series/{{Fargo}} Lester]], [[Film/TurboKid Turbo]], [[Franchise/TheWalkingDead Glenn]], and [[VideoGame/PAYDAYTheHeist Austin]] as blatant examples. [[ComicBook/HarleyQuinn Queen]], [[Franchise/MortalKombat Sonya]], and Builder [[VideoGame/TheLastOfUsPartII Abby]] as more subtle ones.

* ImmuneToFlinching: Various zombies has knockback resistance.

** Funnily enough, the same ad also used to demonstrate that trope by featuring a revealing skin for Sniper Polina that's a ShoutOut to Quiet from [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain MGS V]]. The skin wasn't present in the game at that time, but a slightly edited version of it had been added later, effectively making a delayed [[SubvertedTrope subversion]].

* LongRangeFighter: Almost all ranged units in the game are this, with only a few having no problem fighting back enemies that get too close.

* MasterOfAll:
** Policeman Diaz is capable of all things crucial for success in ''Dead Ahead'': area control, moderate preparation time for a ranged unit, high single-hit damage, good close-quarters combat, and general survivability. There are simply no missions in the game where he is a bad option.
** Rogue, at least among melee units. Despite having the worst base agility in the game, he also possesses extremely high base melee damage and the ability to stun on crits, which he also lands quite swiftly. He is also one of the few Fighter units who sees use in [=PvP=], thanks to his special ability that grants him up to 90% bullet resistance[[note]]He also has natural inability to become a zombie on death, and can get access to explosion immunity as part of the TMF faction bonus, if bullet resistance wasn't enough.[[/note]]. There's a reason why Rogue is considered the best, if not the only good unit in the TMF faction.
* MasterOfNone: Builder. He is the most basic Damager out of all while lacking any traits that could make him stand out. When compared to his alternatives, he lacks in either health or attack/movement speed. It doesn't help that he’s outclassed by all of the bullet resistant damagers in Skirmish. As Grenadier has a powerful ability, then Guard and Light Soldier have higher stats and are more reliable.
* MightyGlacier: Some heavyweights manage to live up to their intended role, working as examples of this trope. Policeman, Juggernaut, and Lionheart are all pretty slow units with a solid amount of HP, who can deal massive damage with their weapons and signature moves.

*** [[DoubleSubversion Double subverted]] with Internal Forces' and Militia's synergy decks. They are largely inefficient, and their team powers aren't helping the case.

** Welder is the most extreme example of this in the entire game, as his starting health is '''''8'''''. Even at level 13, with a fully upgraded set of items, he can barely reach 80 health. At this point in the game, most enemies can kill him in one hit, true to his title;

** Even though Jailer is a perfectly viable unit that is also crucial for enabling his team's 3/3 synergy, there's no reason to keep using him after you unlock Rogue. Aside from team differences, he does the exact same things as Jailer, and more effectively at that, thanks to ridiculously high damage and faster attack animations.
** To add salt to the wound of Builder being such "nothing" MasterOfNone unit, Grenadier has the exact same base stats as him, with the exact same resistance as him, with a much faster attack speed and a powerful ability on top. Even Guard and Light Soldier outclass him, who both fulfill his same role, and have significantly higher stats.
** Carlos is a good, formidable force himself, putting out high amounts of sustained damage from a distance. However, he often gets overshadowed by Sonya because Sonya also handles herself in melee, an extremely valuable aspect for a ranged unit. Even though Carlos actually beats her out in having more sustained firepower and dps, he's still a vulnerable unit and is often easy kill if even just one zombie gets close to him. Sonya's punches, on the other hand, do respectable damage. And on top of that is her critical hit spin kick, which knocks enemies back for her to finish off with her SMG. When the late game comes and the player starts meeting Insectoids, this matters a lot more, as they're constantly going to be jumping into many Ranged unit's most vulnerable range. Sonya is one of the few ranged units who can deal with Insectoids who pounce on them, due to her good melee combat capabilities.
** There are multiple item sets that blatantly outshine all other options. For any unit, this is the case with Gentleman, which provides a temporary x1.5 damage multiplier once they start their critical hit animation. For ranged units, the most broken option is Hunter, which provides a high boost to bullet damage based on distance traveled. There's simply no reason to use any of the other sets for the majority of units.

* ShotgunsAreJustBetter: Shotgunners tend to be better options than Shooters just because of how widely spread the enemies are. What also contributes to this is their faster preparation time, which especially shows with Farmer and Lester. Higher base damage also plays a role, although not as much as you'd want it to. And Diaz, the only long-ranged Heavyweight who also wields a shotgun, happens to be the best Heavyweight.

** Juggernaut has the highest base health in the game, which also scales a lot with each level. He is one of the few units in the game who can go above ''1000'' HP, and is also the easiest one to pull this off on.

** Because most common ''and'' dangerous enemies of location 7 are all fire-resistant, players tend to assume that this is also true for the 8th world. As a result, they don't try using Red Barrel or Flamethrower against Twins, who are almost unbeatable otherwise.

** Carlos is a good, formidable force himself, putting out high amounts of sustained damage from a distance. However, he often gets overshadowed by Sonya because of one thing: she has good close combat skills. Even though Carlos actually beats her out in having more sustained firepower and dps, he's still a vulnerable unit and is often easy kill if even just one zombie gets close to him. Sonya's punches, on the other hand, do respectable damage. And on top of that is her critical hit spin kick, which knocks enemies back for her to finish off with her SMG. When the late game comes and the player starts meeting Insectoids, this matters a lot more, as they're constantly going to be jumping into many Ranged unit's most vulnerable range. Sonya is one of the few ranged units who can deal with Insectoids who pounce on them, due to her good melee combat capabilities.
** There are multiple item sets that blatantly outshine all other options. For melee combatants, this is the case with Gentleman, which provides a temporary x1.5 damage multiplier once you land a crit. For ranged units, the most broken option is Hunter, which provides a high boost to bullet damage based on distance traveled. There's simply no reason to use any of the other sets for the majority of units.

** Cashier is also a standard fighter, but he has a relatively slow crit animation, and doesn't have any special perks to his name. He does have unusually high stats for what kind of unit he is. Which at least makes him powerful. However, his special ability is when he truly shines, granting his critical hits quadruple damage. A 4x in damage on crits makes Cashier a powerhouse who can deal with some of the most dangerous or tanky threats in the game all by himself.

* SuicideMission: Every mission counts as this for your close-range units, as it's very unlikely for any of them to stay in battle for a long time. [[WeHaveReserves Not like that's a problem]], not for Bill at least...
* TakeYourTime: The phases of the final boss are triggered by reaching certain thresholds of its health. There's no other limits during the first and the second of them, and the boss only starts attacking in the latter. This means that you can do practically whatever you want throughout the first phase, as long as you don't deal too much damage to the boss.

* LadyNotAppearingInThisGame: A gender-netural example is present in a particularly infamous ad of the game. It features a massive grotesque zombie that looks like a cross between Demon and Cephalopods, and is able to summon and
''launch'' multiple Energy Spheres. It doesn't exist in the actual game.

* BodyArmorAsHitPoints: Willy's, Soldier's, and cops' shields work as separate health bars.

* LadyNotAppearingInThisGame: A particularly infamous ad of the game features a revealing skin for Sniper Polina that's a ShoutOut to Quiet from [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain MGS V]]. It doesn't exist in the game.

** Rogue, at least among melee units. Despite having the worst base agility in the game, he also possesses extremely high base melee damage and the ability to stun on crits, which he also lands quite swiftly. He is also one of the few Fighter units who sees use in PvP, thanks to his special ability that grants him up to 90% bullet resistance[[note]]He also has natural inability to become a zombie on death, and can get access to explosion immunity as part of the TMF faction bonus, if bullet resistance wasn't enough.[[/note]]. There's a reason why Rogue is considered the best, if not the only good unit in the TMF faction.

** Rogue is a 15 cost Fighter class unit, which means he should be a [[CannonFodder disposable]] fodder unit, right? Not exactly. He have incredibly high health and damage for his cost, a very useful stun on crits ability, ''and'' his special ability grants him up to 90% bullet resistance[[note]]He have explosion immunity as part of the TMF faction bonus as well as inability to become a zombie on death, if that's not enough.[[/note]]. There's a reason why Rogue is considered the best, if not the only good unit in the TMF faction.

* NotCompletelyUseless:
** Medic is often considered a highly inefficient unit, usually being outclassed by simply bringing Medkit into your deck. However, she shines during the Halloween and Christmas event, since keeping specific units alive is much more important, and Medkits are limited in these events. All this makes Medic a mainstay in teams during annual competitions.
** Willy's inadequate performance often leads to him being seen as a letdown. There's practically no regular mission in the game where he shines at least somehow. The only place where he actually sees use, being part of the safest strategy for that level, is during the final boss battle. Stacking dozens of Willys on sleeping Eggs allows to stunlock the boss once they all reach him, allowing players to skip all phases of the fight, which are notoriously punishing and are tied to a timer. Considering it's the very last mission in the game, spending 11,000 coins on a bad unit ends up being worth it.

** Matter of fact, the trope was zig-zagging from the start. Prior to update 2.9.2, the level cap for everything was higher, meanwhile efficient methods of coin farming required specific units to be at least level 10. Underprepared players didn't have a choice but to grind missions with highest coin rewards... Yet once they could get their hands on all the crucial upgrades the proccess of money making was becoming mindnumbingly easy, boiling down to either fighter spamming in Wall Mart, or bulletproof rangers stacking in Corn Farm. These events were able to provide players with enough coins to buy all units in a few weeks, and more than enough items for selling in the future. Unfortunately, the limitations on event attempts and shopkeeper's bank made those methods unable to catch up with unit upgrades – the prices were scaling too high past level 13, and it could easily take a month to raise a single unit past the 16 mark. Meanwhile, maxing out someone could take ''a year'' since reaching level 19 in the first place requires ''at least two'', and there was no way to speed the grind up due to lack of quests. In the end, even though post-game players always had something to save up their money for, 99% of the time their savings were turning forever dormant, as grinding for levels usee to be ''that'' tedious.

** Prior to update 2.9.2, the level cap for everything was higher, meanwhile efficient methods of coin farming required specific units to be at least level 10. Underprepared players didn't have a choice but to grind missions with highest coin rewards... Yet once they could get their hands on all the crucial upgrades, the proccess of money making was becoming mind numbingly easy, boiling down to either fighter spamming in Wall Mart, or bulletproof rangers stacking in Corn Farm. These events were able to provide players with enough coins to buy all units in a few weeks, and more than enough items for selling in the future. Unfortunately, the limitations on shopkeeper's bank and event attempts made those methods unable to catch up with unit upgrades – the prices were scaling too high past level 13, and it could easily take a month to raise a single unit past the 16 mark. Meanwhile, maxing out someone could take ''a year'', and that's without taking into account that reaching level 19 in the first place takes you ''at least two''.
** Right after unit levels got capped at 13, the trope took full effect for veteran players, as even those who haven't upgraded their units much still received a big enough compensation to buy all newly introduced specials, and max out units they haven't touched before. Meanwhile, players who haven't progressed far into the game have received nothing and got forced to deal with new bus prices, which became unreasonably high.
** The aftermath of update 3.6.0 had an effect similar to the previous example, but it ultimately resulted in the trope becoming [[AvertedTrope averted]]. This is thanks to the new item system, which turned out to be a perfect coin sink: many veteran players didn't even notice how their virtual wallets got empty after constant item set grinding.

** The aftermath of update 3.6.0 had an effect similar to the previous example, but it ultimately resulted in the trope becoming [[AvertedTrope averted]]. This is thanks to the new item system, which turned out to be a perfect coin sink: most veteran players didn't even notice how their virtual wallets got almost empty after costnat grinding for perfect item sets.

** Prior to update 2.9.2, the level cap for everything was higher, meanwhile efficient methods of coin farming required specific units to be at least level l0. Underprepared players didn't have a choice but to grind missions with highest coin rewards... Yet once they could get their hands on all the crucial upgrades, the proccess of money making was becoming mind numbingly easy, boiling down to either fighter spamming in Wall Mart, or bulletproof rangers stacking in Corn Farm. These events were able to provide players with enough coins to buy all units in a few weeks, and more than enough items for selling in the future. Unfortunately, the limitations on shopkeeper's bank and event attempts made those methods unable to catch up with unit upgrades – the prices were scaling too high past level 13, and it could easily take a month to raise a single unit past the 16 mark. Meanwhile, maxing out someone could take ''a year'', and that's without taking into account that reaching level 19 in the first place takes you ''at least two''.