Suggestion talk:20070504 Who's Packing / "Size Up" Skill

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[edit] Copied from Talk:Suggestions#Who.27s_Packing_.2F_.22Size_Up.22_Skill_v2

[edit] Who's Packing / "Size Up" Skill v2

Timestamp:	15:43, 29 April 2007 (BST)
Type:	skill
Scope:	survivors
Description:	Its a bit unrealistic that you have no way to "see" what is in another character's inventory. If a survivor or zombie in your location is hauling around 3 generators, you'd likely notice if you cared to look! And while this may seem like useless information, consider what you'd do if you were a bounty hunter in a location with two known PKers, and had the AP to kill only one of them. Wouldn't it be worth checking to see what weapons they had? Heck, if a "PKer" has no weapons, maybe they are trying to reform... Anyhow, to the mechanics. On every character's setting page, there would be a list of all the character's inventory items. Next to each would be two radio button options- "concealed" and "displayed". By default, all items would be "concealed". Characters with the "Size Up" skill would have an action button with a drop menu of targets. Targets would include all survivors and contacts present in the location (be they alive, corpse, or zombie) but would not include "a zombie" or any inanimate objects. Using "size up" on a target would cost 1 AP and would reveal (as a reported result of the action) a list of inventory items you noticed the target was carrying. The target would also get a report to the effect that you were "sizing them up", just as if you had attacked or scanned them. Now for the meaty maths bit with the heavy lifting. The chance that an inventory item would be noticed / reported to the person using the "Size Up" skill is as follows: For "displayed" items, it is always 100%; all "displayed" items are always seen (not entirely realistic, but it may help reduce server load by limiting RNG calls, and acts as a potential communications tool) For "concealed" items, the chance depends on the size of the item and the total bulk of the items the person is trying to conceal. The total encumbrance of items being "concealed" is added up, and half of this total is added to the encumbrance of the item being concealed, squared (4% for a syringe, clip, or shotgun shell, 16% for a pistol or DNA scanner, 36% for a shotgun or ax, 100% for a fuel can, 400% for a generator); this final total (with an obvious 100% max) is the chance that the item in question is noticed. For example, if you were 50% encumbered, each shotgun you tried to conceal would have a 61% chance of being noticed. If you were instead 100% encumbered, that would go up to 86%. Note that with this formula, there is no point in ever trying to conceal any item with an encumbrance of 10% or more, as it will always fail and just makes it easier to see the other stuff you are trying to hide, so perhaps there should be no option to conceal such items; they perhaps should be "displayed" by default and there would be no option to conceal them.

Discussion

A re-work that hopefully makes the suggestions purpose and benefits clear, and addresses play vlaue / utility / realism flaws that the previous version had. --Seb_Wiers VeM 16:47, 29 April 2007 (BST)

Great. Makes a lot more sense now.--Seventythree 19:22, 29 April 2007 (BST)

Well given that just looking at someones profile lets you see what skills they have this does make sense! Just not sure how useful it would be? --Honestmistake 00:22, 30 April 2007 (BST)

It would be more useful than just knowing their skills is- and hence it costs an AP. Consider looking at two zombies, both 41st level, both with all the skills but brain rot. Which do you revive (or kill) given no further info on either? No way to tell. But if you can see their gear- well, the one that normally is played as a survivor is likely carrying rather different equipment than the one that is normally played as a zombie. It also would be useful to / allow the existence of groups that require / prohibit use of certain gear, which IMO would be a major boost to role play. --Seb_Wiers VeM 00:32, 30 April 2007 (BST)

Hell, as I pointed out when you suggested it before the only real problem I had with the suggestion was that it was unrealistic for people to see certain things. So yeah.... I like.--Seventythree 07:33, 30 April 2007 (BST)

This is one of the better ideas for a new skill that I've seen in a while, and it's survivor-to-survivor, where more options are needed. I like it. Can zombies use it if they acquire while human? I agree that 10%+ items should be displayed by default, as a lot of people will just not bother to use the concealed/displayed interface or not get the idea, and they should default to what makes the most sense. Otherwise it'll be kind of weird -- people walking around with generators and fuel cans, if they're concealed by default, you'll notice all their spray cans and crucifixes and stuff too. The only other weird thing I can see is that making an in-game change (taking that pistol out of where you had it hidden in your boot) is not really something you would do on your settings page, where you change partly-out-of-reality stuff like your group, contacts list, and auto-discard options. The main problem is that the in-game inventory management interface is already so cluttered and horrible, you wouldn't want to add more. I guess an alternative might be to have this work like "drop." There are two pulldown menus on the main interface, one that says "Currently displayed" and one that says "Currently concealed" next to it. On the other side of the pulldowns are twio buttons that says "conceal this item" for the first pulldown and "display this item" for the second pulldown. So to look at which items are concealed/displayed you just open the pulldowns. To change the state of an item, you select it then hit the button right next to it. --Rasi 08:16, 1 May 2007 (EST)

All good points / questions.

No, this would not be usable as a zombie; its a survivor skill, and zombies really shouldn't (from a role play viewpoint) care what somebody is holding- its just "not food". As a zombie, you would (probably) still have the option to conceal / display items, although if it didn't add to much complexity, I could see axing that option while a zombie. The drop-menu is a pretty decent idea- its not like the current drop button takes tons of space, though it IS a pain to use. Having "no conceal ever / reveal by default" on items 10% and up is certainly going into the final suggestion; as you say, having your fuel can / generator make your guns easier to see is silly, if you can't ever actually conceal the larger item. --Seb_Wiers VeM 21:43, 2 May 2007 (BST)

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