Suggestion:20071217 Slightly Gloomy Buildings V.1

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20071217 Slightly Gloomy Buildings V.1

Heinrich Loche 22:45, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion type
Flavour and tactical change.

Suggestion scope
Certain buildings and the players who use them.

Suggestion description

This is the softer, more far-reaching alternative of the dark/gloomy buildings proposal. It's a separate suggestion, not a resubmission of my other proposal. I'm pretty sure it's separate enough to not be a dupe, but I could be wrong, so vote me to oblivion if I am.

1) Factories, warehouses, clubs, cinemas and mansions are all made 'dark buildings'.

2) Powered dark buildings are the same as they were before this change. In unpowered dark buildings, the line "It is dark inside." is added to the building's interior description.

3) Players inside a dark, unpowered building can only see the five nearest players to themselves. Players can only attack, heal or otherwise interact with those they can see (speaking is as normal). Players they can't see don't appear on the survivor list, or in the zombie count. The zombie count line is changed to "You can see # zombies here."

4) Inside an unpowered dark building, the search rate drops by 5%. This is on top of the normal 5% drop for not having a generator. The search odds can be reduced as normal through ransacking and ruining, but they bottom out at a minimum of 10%, the same as all other buildings.

The following is also changed:

1) A new item, the torch, is added. (Alternatively, it can be called a flashlight if that will be easier on people - it really doesn't matter.) Torches/flashlights can be found in cinemas, auto repair shops, junkyards and mall hardware stores. They take up 2-3% encumbrance.

2) Survivors with a torch may use it to switch it on, costing 1 AP. Using the torch a second time turns it off, costing another AP. Survivors with a torch which is on ignore the extra 5% penalty to search odds in dark buildings (they get the same odds as in normal unpowered buildings), and they can see the nearest ten players to themselves in the dark. For every AP spent with a torch on, there is a 5% chance of it running out of batteries. In this case, a message is displayed ("Your torch flickers out. It must be out of batteries.") and the torch is removed from the inventory.

3) Zombies with Scent skills can see the nearest ten closest players to themselves in the dark.

This change has several positive effects: first of all, it adds flavour, without obscuring the flavour these buildings already have (since they keep their internal description).

Secondly, it adds fear. Survivors in dark buildings with more than a few people inside will be unable to tell if there is a zombie or three lurking in their midst. Because who is closest is determined by the order of the player list (the same as for large buildings - correct me if I'm wrong), active players will always see other active players before inactive ones. That means that anyone who is making actions is, rightfully, seen in the dark, so it's not possible to attack people from the shadows with impunity.

Survivors holding a dark building can defend it as normal, to an extent - they can barricade, heal those close to them, attack active zombies, etc. In the event of a break-in, the active zombies who are moving in will be seen by the active survivors, and combat is pretty much as normal, except that the more people there are in the building the more will be missed in the chaos and go unseen. If a zombie manages to get in and then stays quiet, and a particularly large battle is going on, the zombie may drop out of sight and be able to lurk unseen in the building.

Zombies will be able to attack survivors in dark buildings fairly normally, too, except that if there are many survivors in the building, they won't be able to reach the inactive ones until they make a move, or until the zombies have killed off the more active ones to reach them. The same applies to survivors trying to clear out a zombie-infested building. I don't think this will have much of an effect, except that it might encourage survivors to hide in dark buildings, where they have human shields between themselves and zombies.

Zombies have a slight advantage in dark buildings, because Scent skills do not run out of batteries.

Edit: I forgot to add in torches running flat, so I've done that now.

Voting Section

Voting Rules

Votes must be numbered, justified, signed, and timestamped. # justification ~~~~ Votes that do not conform to the above may be struck by any user.

The only valid votes are Keep, Kill, Spam or Dupe. If you wish to abstain from voting, do not vote.

Keep Votes

1. Keep - This change might create a lot of unforeseen circumstances, so if there's anything important or gamebreaking I haven't thought of, let me know. --Heinrich Loche 22:48, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
2. Meh - Seems kind of complicated to me... BoboTalkClown 22:49, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
3. Keep - I like the idea. There are some things that need cleaned up (you forgot to add in flashlight batteries.), but overall, I really like this idea. Gives survivors a reason to keep some of these buildings a little better stocked and guarded.--Druuuuu ^OcTRR 23:40, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
4. Keep - Complicated but cool. --Blobdude^{Talk TM MC} 00:10, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
5. Change Inactives should always show up first. - Pardus 00:17, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
6. Keep- Just plain cool! --Darth Lumis^{T! A! E! SR} 01:53, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
7. Keep - Very cool, incredibly in genre. This scene happens in most zombie movies I've ever seen. Bran Eating Zombie 17:37, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
8. Keep - This suggestion is downright awesome. If it's easy to impliment I see no reason not to do so. --FigureFour 5:37 PM, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
9. Meh - Can't find anything wrong with it, but not particularly groundbreaking, considering this takes place in a much under-used part of the city. ~Ariedartin • Talk • A KS J abt all 17:52, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
10. Keep - I like the part about only being able to see the first five people. That's actually better than the other version where you couldn't see anybody. I keep getting this mental picture of just seeing five pairs of glowing eyes... --Uncle Bill 09:46, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
11. Keep - This would add some amazing flavor. Maybe flashlights would only hold so many charges, or something? Even still, I really like this suggestion. Just don't add Arms to the list of gloomy buildings. --Vandurn 14:49, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
12. Keep - Could be interesting. --Midianian|T|T:S|C:RCS| 20:19, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Kill Votes

1. Kill - This wouldn't work for me, you say that if one zombie can sneak in. If one zombie can what's to say 50 can't? Then 5 are seen, but 45 remain hidden or it could even be hundreds! take havercroft for instance, it has 400 zombies in the suburb, outside buildings, so with this inforce, those 400 could simply go into one building and only register as 5. It may be unlikely but it still can happen. It would also mean massive survivor and or zombie co-ordinated attacks could go on without being seen and turn the tide of the battle, but mainly zombies will do this as there is more of them on the streets and they have more advantaged over humans in these kinds of situations. And even though survivors can do the same, my betting is they won't. Thus my vote is at kill. Acoustic Pie 23:15, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

   If there are large numbers of zombies in a building, only the most recently active five (or ten to people with torches) will be shown, yes. I don't see that as a problem. The only way in which it affects the outcome of the battle (unless I'm overlooking something) is that each side doesn't know how many there are of the other side. --Heinrich Loche 00:00, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

2. Kill - Above and below. I don't have a particular reason right now. I just don't like.--  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 23:17, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
3. Kill - This might work, but i don't like.--Anti Gorefest5^TMW!B! 00:52, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
4. Kill - meh, I don't think it really needs implementation--Corndoghero^T-S-Z 13:08, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
5. Kill - I'm hopping on the "meh, I don't like it" train too. There is something to this that just doesn't seem right --Ryiis 14:45, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
6. Kill I don't think zombies should be able to hide in a building. --Jon Pyre 15:03, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
7. Kill - factories and warehouses are a good source of useful stuff. Don't cut the find rates there. --Pavluk ^{A! E!} 18:13, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Spam/Dupe Votes

1. Spam- Don't nerf people needlessly, don't make something that targets low level zombies, and the changes between this suggestion and the Dark Buildings one have only served to make it worse.--Karek^maps?! 16:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)Dupe - Dupe of this, it's a blatant revision and as such a dupe until that is removed. There's no point in suggesting two version of the same thing at once. The only even significant difference is that this one specifies the details and doesn't drop search rates to 0%. Remove the old one or remove this one.--Karek^maps?! 00:42, 18 December 2007 (UTC) The Dupe was removed so changing my vote.--Karek^maps?! 16:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

   Try reading the big bold parts. --Heinrich Loche 01:30, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

   You gave it a nice big power boost, good for you, doesn't change the fact that it is a revision of a current suggestion open to voting proposed by the same author with all the important things the same. You gotta pick a hole not play the fences. Dupe was made exactly for things like this where people try to spam the system to get something passed.--Karek^maps?! 03:18, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

2. Dupe - I'd go along with Karek's view of this suggestion. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 07:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
3. Dupe away! --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 20:56, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
4. Dupe - As above. --User:Axe27/Sig 05:04, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

   Since the other version has been withdrawn for a while now, none of these dupe votes are valid. --Heinrich Loche 20:41, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

5. Spam - -- dǝǝɥs oʇ ɯɐds: sʎɐʍ1ɐ! 22:17, 29 December 2007 (UTC)