Suggestion:20080205 Trashed (Ruin Buff)

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20080205 Trashed (Ruin Buff)

Jon Pyre 15:16, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion type
Balance Change

Suggestion scope
Ruin

Suggestion description
As many other suggestions have pointed out, ruin costs zombies lots of AP but doesn't do too much more than ransack.

Ruining causes so much damage that's it's still a bit messy even after a repair. You know what a room can be like after some construction work has been done. There's still furniture out of place, a few small items toppled over, debris that hasn't been cleared out yet. Nothing that requires repair ability or tools, just simple labor to clean.

I suggest that after a ruined building is fixed it is described in its description as "trashed." A trashed building doesn't have the same penalties as ruined or ransacked ones. It doesn't prevent barricading or free running at all. Instead it reduces search percentages in the building by 50%. Trashed buildings are also fixed differently - they're fixed by searching. It's assumed that as a survivor pokes through the structure they also straighten things to make their life easier. So a searching survivor might see:

"You search the building, lifting a shelf off the floor to gain access to equipment behind it. You find nothing but at least its a bit tidier in here."

or

"You search the building, clearing some debris from a stack of boxes. You find a first aid kit."

After five searches, successful or not, the trashed status is repaired. The last survivor's search message has the line "The building is now neat and clean" or something similar.

This change would give zombies an incentive to trash a building, at least a resource building. Even if it's fixed immediately for 1AP a survivor needs to spend 5AP for 2.5AP worth of searching in order to get the building back to normal percentages. This effectively raises the cost of repairing ruin to 3.5 AP in resource buildings. It'd be 6 in other buildings since you'd get no advantage from searching, but in non-resource buildings a trashed status is completely cosmetic.

A building can be both ransacked and trashed at the same time - the first is a mess from knocking over stuff, the second is a mess for serious damage to the building, so clearing ransack doesn't clear the trashed parts. However a trashed ransacked building only has the negative search % of the ransack in effect - it doesn't stack. Searching can also fix the trashed status without affecting the ransack. Naturally, ruin replaces a trashed status.

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 So this would make repairing ransack cost 3.5AP in resource buildings. That more or less balances it out with the 5AP cost of ruin. Call the 1.5AP difference the compensation for not being able to free run in and carrying a toolbox. --Jon Pyre 15:20, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
2. Weak Keep - Whatever... --/~Rakuen~\^Talk I Still Love Grim 15:53, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
3. Keep Mostly because I like the tidying by searching mechanic. --Aiwe 17:54, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
4. Keep - Sounds OK. --Midianian|T|T:S|C:RCS| 18:08, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
5. Keep - i like this idea --Scotw 18:30, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
6. Keep - I like it. Something flavourful and useful. -- Cheeseman ^W!RandomTalk 18:39, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
7. Keep - I like it! -- John Rubin^{T! ZG} 18:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
8. Keep - Yeah, I like this, improves ruin and evens it out a bit, while not saying thou shalt not find anything!. Still, would be interesting to have and it gives an idea where survivors actually go to search for things in a building, possibly aiding zombies on their next attacks. Acoustic Pie 18:55, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
9. Chocolate hat- Keep, but keep an open minded view to Funt's chocolate hat suggestion. It has potential.Studoku 19:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
10. keep - somehow, i like it. but it should instead of "reduces search percentages in the building by 50%" be "reduces search percentages to those of a ruin", because you don't know sh!t about ruined search percentage. P.S. RE Funt: How come 100% encumbrance stops people from searching? --~~~~ [talk] 19:55, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
    • Re You're absolutely right. Whatever the penalty is it shouldn't exceed ruin. I'm not sure why I assumed 50% would be the right number. Yeah, whatever ruin is would be a good number. --Jon Pyre 21:15, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
11. keep - valid way of helping to solve an existing problem using real world situations.--Zach016 20:24, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
12. Keep - When I read the title I thought, "Oh boy, another kill vote", but after reading it through I started to like it. Keep for realism.  Billy Club Thorton  T!  RR  20:43, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
13. Keep - Not because I think ruin needs a beef, but because I think the mechanics of the suggestion sound fun. Searching is pretty boring, but this would give me a sense of accomplishment and make it more fun, and I like how anyone could do it, even item/skill-less people. Also, gives me a reason to search buildings I wouldn't normally care about. Maybe the building's trashed text could say, "This place is trashed, making it hard to find things. Maybe you could clean it up while searching for items?" Funt makes a good point, though - "And what if the survivor already has >=100% encumbrance? " You need to have it so fully encumbered people can tidy up, too. --Ms.Panes 20:50, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
14. Cool It could be setup so "trashed" is what reduces the search rates but it will not repair until ruin/ransack is repaired. - Pardus 22:49, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
15. Keep- Damn good suggestion. -- BKM 23:26, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
16. Keep - I too want a new survivor toy, not another zombie buff. I vote on merit, not the timing of a suggestion. --Heretic144 23:59, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
17. keep seems counter-intuitive given that we are joininh the crowds of looters (and looters are never tidy!) but as a mechanic it would bring balance!--Honestmistake 00:23, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
18. Strong Keep - Very nice suggestion Jon! At first I cringed at the 50% cut in search rates, but since you can fix it in 5 searches, I think that this is a very balanced suggestion. Overall, very well done! --Hhal 01:02, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
19. Strong Keep -I love this idea. I makes it more of a chore to un-ruin a building. The only thing is maybe 1 xp for tidying it up?--ȠәȻᴙʘɱΔȵƆεʁ 02:52, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
20. A vote for keep is a vote for our children! --Ron Burgundy 05:02, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
21. Keep - Yes, zombies have been buffed recently. That doesn't change the fact that ruin is pointless or even counter-productive from the zombie perspective. Barricade block rates can be (and likely are being) tweaked, but that is entirely independent of ruin effects. If anything, this suggestion to weak, but its a step in the right direction, and a decent method to allow survivors who lack toolboxes and construction to help repair buildings.  Swiers 05:10, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
22. Keep - See Jon, when you don't suggest everything every day you come up with good stuff. I do love the complaints of zombies whining from some of the biggest wiki-trenchies on suggestions too, same people that would complain if ammo find rates were dropped half a percent.--Karek^maps?! 14:24, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
23. Keep/Change - I'd say a lower percentage and more searches needed, though. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 18:44, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
24. Keep - That'd work. --Howard Bentley 00:03, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
25. Keep - Good idea, but would like to use a different word than 'trashed'. --_└^Frozen_┘^┌_Flame^┐ 03:39, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
26. Keep - It has a nice mechanic. --Beauxdeigh 05:16, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
27. I am on a voting spree, but to make this vote valid, I'm in agreement with the above voters. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 15:33, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
28. Keep - Not nearly effective enough, but would be a good first step. Either trashing should lower search rates to 0, or it should last longer. Also, it doesn't address free-running issues, which I think are much more pressing. - Grant (talk) 05:56, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
29. Keep - I like it.--Jamie Cantwell3 08:04, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
30. Keep - Awesome suggestion! --The Gecko PKer 15:14, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
31. Keep - I like it. It seems fair. --WhiteDragon2501 17:05, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
32. Keep - Fair, and a good addition. If I were to change one thing, I would have the clean-up of the building seperated from the searching. It would make it a little less confusing... -Downinflames 02:06, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
33. Definitely Keep - Nice, fun mechanic that adds flavor and balance; I show my support.
34. Unnecessary? - Let's just elimate zombies! They're unnecessary! --BoboTalkClown 02:53, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

    Keep - I like it, gives ruin a little more potency. Five searches isn't much either, right? Unsigned vote after deadline struck. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 14:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Kill Votes

1. Kill - Unnecessary. Why not just have ruin be fixed to ransack? That would still cost 2 AP to fix completely. Don't forget carrying those heavy toolboxes is bad enough.--Kolechovski 16:16, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

   re That certainly is a valid option. I think having a building get fixed by searching is an interesting game mechanic though. --Jon Pyre 16:33, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

2. Kill - I'm looking for supplies, not providing maid service - Headshot Hal 18:32, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
3. Kill - A month's not up yet, and despite what others may say, I believe ruin's working fine for zombies. --Private Mark 23:00, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
4. Kill - meh, I'd rather see something for survivors at this point--Corndoghero^T-S-Z 23:12, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
5. Kill - I'm going to bitch and complain like a zombie for a moment.....wheres the balance, whats the downside to this added effect? - dasoldierguy 19:41, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
6. KillYeah, why not? Why not let them use shotguns too while you're at it? This is the worst suggestion I've ever seen, and the worst timing to boot. Why don't you zombie crybabies get back to the Bash and stop trying to nerf the game for five whole minutes?!TerminalFailure 21:31 5 February 2008 (EST)
7. Kill I still don't see how limiting Survivor inventories, blocking FR, and murdering search rates is considered "Underpowered"... ~A`Blue`Jelly^TME*V*I*L*_? 04:53, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

   This in no way affects free running, because trashing only affects search rates. --Ms.Panes 08:05, 6 February 2008 (UTC) Non-author reply. --Z. slay3r •  Talk  17:59, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

   Ms. Panes, I was referring to Ruin, not this suggestion. I was basically saying why I don't see this as needed. ~A`Blue`Jelly^TME*V*I*L*_? 03:41, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

8. Kill - I don't think that this is the way to go about fixing the ruin/repair problem. --Z. slay3r •  Talk  17:59, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
9. Kill - I like spirit of this idea, but I don't think this is the best way to accomplish it. Perhaps by either upping Ruin Repair to something like 5 AP (or more) or requiring Ransack and Ruin to be "stacked" (i.e. fix Ruin first, then Ransack), or perhaps combine them both. As it is, your description of "Trashed" sounds a lot like the existing Ransack (aside from the "search by fixing" thing). --Specialist290 ♠♥♣♦ 22:34, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
10. Kill - If people want ruin to be changed, IMO it should be changed so as to be more fun for zombies rather than worse for humans. --Toejam 11:06, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
11. Kill - Ruin already serves it's purpose, and is enough of an imbalance as it is. There's no reason to affect search percentages after the building has been repaired. Search percentages are already horrible in any building other than a mall.--Dr Doom86 07:19, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
12. Kill - Ruin is strong enough. I also assume that the mess is cleaned up when survivors fix a ruined building. --Anotherpongo 14:25, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
13. Kill - POWER TO THE PKER--THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks ^{Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS LOE ZHU | Яezzens} 10:43, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

    Kill - Just dosent seem necessary. Unsigned vote placed after deadline struck. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 14:02, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Spam/Dupe Votes

1. Spam - zombies need a buff like survivors need a sniper rifle. Oh, and there's fuck all point in searching some buildings. And what if the survivor already has >=100% encumbrance? This has been thought out about as far as the designs for a chocolate hat. --Funt Solo ^QT 18:53, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
   • Re I'll admit that zombies don't need a buff right now but this is really intended more to fix Ruin. Maybe this shouldn't be added until after survivors get something new. As to 100% encumbrance, perhaps clicking the search button would give you a message like "You're too encumbered to carry anything else, but you explore the building, lifting a collapsed shelf that's in your way." Although there's really no reason why you'd want to altruistically untrash a building for others. It isn't like you need to clean it up to hold the barricades, why not let someone that actually wants to search spend the AP? --Jon Pyre 19:44, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

   • Re - Oh, right, so you want me to tidy up a bank, that has no searchable items at all, by searching for those non-existant items? Boy, that'll make for a fun gameplay device. What you doing over there, George? Why, I'm searching this empty building, Phil. Flavour-wise, this is the shittest suggestion since Moronic Bob suggested a Zombie Godzilla possessed by an undead Kal-El. If you want to fuck up the survivors (and you clearly do) why not just double the encumbrance cost of the toolbox? Of course, the sensible method of doing this is to just make levels of repair, as there are levels of ransack. Thing is, that's been suggested and shot down on numerous occasions because the toolbox does balance out the gameplay. This is like Dupe + Stupid flavour to hide it from being a dupe. Transparently crap. --Funt Solo ^QT 20:53, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

   Discussion moved to discussion page. --Funt Solo ^QT 23:24, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

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