PR Class Change: Survivor

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 {{psuggestion|
suggest_time=Old Timestamp|
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Class Change: Survivor

General

Doctors Start With Diagnosis

Timestamp: 11:28, 5 Jan 2006 (GMT)
Type: Starting Skill change
Scope: Doctors
Description: Doctors start with the Diagnose skill instead of the first aid skill. This would make it alot easier for them gain the first couple of levels: I think only the first 1-2 levels because any doctor in his right mind will get that skill as soon as he possibly can, and it's one of the first ones he has access to in anycase, for only 75 EXP. This would also differentiate him from the Medic a little more, and imho in makes sense too: first aid is more of a paramedic sort of skill, whereas a doctor, who usually has time to look things over etc. will be able to diagnose the ailment. Perhaps in this case his starting items should be reduce to just 1 first aid kit, although this remains to be seen.
Notes: 36/38 keep/total
  • Was "Doctor change".
Left Queue: 10:06, 19 April 2006 (BST)

Fire Fighters Start With Radio

Timestamp: Funt Solo 14:39, 10 October 2006 (BST)
Type: Class Alteration: Survivor
Scope: Fire Fighters
Description: Fire Fighters start with wirecutters - which are currently useless. They should start with a radio instead.
Notes: 11/11, well accepted as is.
Left Queue: 23:45, 24 October 2006 (BST)~

Scouts Start With Binoculars

Timestamp: 00:11, 4 September 2006 (BST)
Type: Balance Change
Scope: Scouts
Description: All starting Scout characters have binoculars in their starting equipment, in addition to the flare gun.

With the addition of binoculars to the game, I felt that it would be in character to give the scout class the binoculars to start the game. In fact, I believe that this was discussed in the original suggestion for binoculars. Kevan could simply state that the military has decided to issue binoculars to the pathfinder units being sent into the fray. This does not bring the scout above the three item limit for starting classes.

Notes: 42/42, well accepted as is.
  • Was "Binoculars for New Scouts".
Left Queue: 16:43, 10 October 2006 (BST)

Rearrange Healing Skills

Timestamp: Reaper with no name 15:09, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Type: Improvement
Scope: Everyone who doesn't already have First Aid and/or Diagnosis
Description: Diagnosis is widely considered to be a better skill for newbies than First Aid. The reasoning is that while First Aid increases a survivor's (and other players') survivability, it hampers their ability to gather XP. Diagnosis, on the other hand, allow a player to quickly tell who needs healing. But, how is a newbie to know that?

What I'm proposing is that First Aid (and by extension Surgery) should require Diagnosis as a prerequisite. This will help newbies be able to gather XP, because it will force them to buy a skill that helps them get XP before they can buy a skill that hampers their XP gain. And it makes sense from a roleplay standpoint, because it's hard to effectively treat injuries if you don't know how to diagnose said injuries.

Notes: 16/17. Well accepted as is.
Left Queue: 14:18, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Self-Immolation

Timestamp: 22:50, 7 June 2006 (BST)
Type: New Action
Scope: Surviors
Description: Survivors carrying a fuel can and a flare gun have the ability to set themselves on fire. Possession of these two items would create a new action button, "self-immolate". Pressing this button would bring up a "Are you sure you want to set yourself on fire? Doing so will kill you. Press the self-immolate button again if you're serious" prompt (similar to jumping out a window). Pressing the button twice will cause you to pour the gasoline over yourself then shoot yourself with the flare gun, setting yourself on fire. This is immedietely fatal.

Self-Immolation costs 1 AP, and has the follow effects:

  • It kills you.
  • It uses up 1 fuel can and 1 flare gun.
  • It lets all nearby survivors know you've just set yourself on fire. (i.e. SmartyMart doses himself with gasoline, then sets himself ablaze).
  • It automatically deposits your corpse outside the building. This is rationalized as you running outside the building in your last crazed spasms of pain. (This is to prevent the "death abuse to circumvent barricades" problem).

I see this as an alternative means of suicide if you want to be a zombie but can't find a convenient window nearby. It's also a way to make one hell of a statement to nearby survivors (for added effect, the self-immolatee can shout out a few last words or a political message before doing the deed). Depositing the corpse outside the building will prevent folks from killing themselves then automatically standing up as a zombie inside a safehouse.

During a siege, combat-revived zombies could also step outside and do this in the middle of the horde as some kind of morale booster, I suppose.

P.S. yes, this is pretty freakin' dark, but the game already lets you hurl yourself out an open window.

Notes: 27/36 Keep/Total. Well accepted as is although it gained quite a few keeps due to it being humorous.
Left Queue: 02:29, 30 June 2006 (BST)

Searching

Search Flavor Text

Timestamp: 15:49, 13 Jan 2006 (GMT)
Type: Flavor
Scope: Searches
Description: Disclaimer - This suggestion does not alter search odds, it merely makes search messages more descriptive.

"Searching the building, you find nothing/you find (item)" - I'd wager we've all seen this at one time or another, and I'd also wager that it gets boring reading the same basic thing time and time again.

Therefore, I suggest that we add a touch of description to the result text, describing what you're searching in/on/under/behind/etc, with the descriptions being appropriate to the building you're searching.

For example, in a Hospital, you might see:

  • You search the emergency room and find a first-aid kit.
  • You search a supply closet and find a newspaper.
  • You search an operating theatre, but find nothing.

In a police department, you might see:

  • You search the front desk and find a pistol.
  • You search the break room, but find nothing.
  • You search behind a water cooler and find a shotgun shell.

Similar location-appropriate messages could likewise be created for fire stations (equipment locker, radio room, garage), mall stores (on shelves, in gun racks, behind cash registers), schools (cafeteria, desks, supply closets), and just about anywhere else you might find useful items.

Additionally, if the Powered Buildings Search suggestion is implemented, additional flavor text could be created for failed searches in unpowered buildings:

  • You try to search a supply closet (or evidence locker, or stockroom, or other small room), but it's too dark to see anything.

Edit: Feel free to suggest other search-text ideas here.

Notes: 15/21 Keep/Total. Well accepted as is, however some people thought the list was a little small on flavor text.
Left Queue: 09:19, 18 May 2006 (BST)

Search X Times v1

Timestamp: 23:37, 7 Nov 2005 (GMT)
Type: Optimization
Scope: Survivors, Server Load
Description: Adds a search times box to searchable areas and malls. The default value in the box is 1. When a player clicks a search button or a search store button the player will search that many times. The character is charged an action point for each search, and the ip address is charged a hit for each search (to not encourage the making of more characters). Actual number of times searched is minimum(times entered, remaining AP, remaining hits, empty inventory spaces). Displayed action text could be the regular result action texts from all searches (easier coding) or a compact form stating how many times searched and how many of each found item were found.
Notes: 17/17 Keeps/Total. Page should offer # of searches <= remaining AP; possibly a dropdown from 1-X where X <= remaining AP
  • Was "Search X Times".
Left Queue: 16:09, 22 Nov 2005 (GMT)

Search X Times v2

Timestamp: 03:12, 21 April 2006 (BST)
Type: Improvement
Scope: Searching
Description: Searching probably accounts for a significant number of clicks Urban Dead receives. Here's an idea to A) Cut Down On Hits, and B) Make searching more convenient, without giving survivors any kind of gameplay advantage.

I suggest a small two-character sized text field be added next to the search button that could have any number inputed from 1-50. The default number would be 1. If you enter a number greater than one it would perform that many searches, using up that amount of AP and counting as that number of IP hits. However to prevent a survivor from exploiting this to say, find ammunition or first-aid kits while battling a zombie indoors it would first send you to a redirect page that would not switch to your search results for 1 second for every search you perform. You'd have this on the screen:

You begin to search 25 times.

The page would automatically load up the results after the appropriate amount of time. This can be done very easily without any server stress using a <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="X; URL=..."> tag. While that page loads the player could check their email, chat online, browse the wiki, read an article somewhere else, without having to click over and over again. After the appropriate amount of time the page would load up however it wouldn't just display the items they found as static text. Instead the found items would be arranged alphabetically in two or three parallel rows at the top of the screen (as many as needed) with a small checkbox next to each one. At the bottom of the items, above your normal controls, would be a "Discard" button. That way if someone was unlucky enough to find fifteen newspapers they wouldn't have to spend time individually discarding each one. They could simply check off the ones they're throwing and hit "discard". The whole checkbox setup would be gone after you discard. The items also appear in your inventory as usable items if you want to use one of them in your next turn. To get rid of the items found message with the checkboxes, discard button, and the whole shebang without throwing any of them away just refresh the page, perform any action, or hit discard without checking any boxes. You'd still spend 1 IP hit for each item discarded as currently.

A few notes:

If you hit your max item limit while searching it would stop your search process. Say you start to search 30 times but max out your inventory after 21 searches. You would stop then without throwing away the additional 9AP. It would still take 30 seconds for the page to load though.

For survivors with Shopping to avoid making tons of extra text fields for each individual store search button at a mall I suggest making one two-character sized text field after all the store buttons that would count for all of them.

In summary: Let people search X times to make dozens of searches happen with a single click, but make it take 1 second per search to avoid exploitation. Also make it easy to discard the items. This would probably cut down on the clicks Urban Dead receives by lots and lots and lots, now that thousands of survivors would not have to click 30 times each while searching the gun store or hospital. Obviously you wouldn't want to use this feature all the time when you wanted fine control over your AP while searching, or while zombies were present. But if your attitude was "I'm late for work/class/other thing. Let me just quickly burn off my AP searching" this would be a time saver and server load saver.

Notes: 17/21 Keep/Total. Well accepted as is providing that there is no way to bypass the waiting period.
  • Was "Cut Down Server Stress With This Refreshing Search X Times Concept".
Left Queue: 09:16, 21 June 2006 (BST)

Zombie Reduces Search Chance

Timestamp: 15:14, 5 Jan 2006 (GMT)
Type: Search Odds modification
Scope: Survivors
Description: You're ransacking through an old office; running a fine toothed comb over the place, looking for that all-important first-aid kit. Suddenly a zombie breaks into the room. You're panicking. You don't have time to search, because of the shambling monstrosity lurching towards you.

Search odds are halved when there is a zombie in the same building as you (or in the same block outside, if you're outside).

Simply that. I don't believe many people will search whilst zombies are in a building (except for freerunning into a resource building to quickly search and then duck back out again), but it adds a more urgent touch of "Kill the zombie!" whenever a zed breaks into your safehouse.

Notes: 43 Keeps, 20 Kills, 63 Total.
  • Some concerns that it would make taking suburbs easier if there were zombies in every TRP
  • Was "The Horror".
Left Queue: 13:44, 5 Feb 2006 (GMT)