Talk:Suggestions/8th-Feb-2007

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Unique items

Timestamp: Honestmistake 22:31, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Type: something for maxed out characters
Scope: Anyone with too many XP
Description: For 100XP any character can buy a "skill" allowing them to find something unusual on their next search. The Item and the skill vanish upon death or dropping and may be re-bought. The majority of items should be effectively useless such as a new ringtone that everyone in the room hears when someone rings you A "do not disturb" sign for the door or a cuddly toy with one eye missing! The item found should vary depending on where you choose to search but every location should have one item which might provide an actual benefit! Please add your thought and or list of other items...

(OK I suck at WIKI editing... someone please fix this i have tried but don't know what i am doing :-( feel free to tell me on my talk page!)

Discussion

Jesus honest! You take the template(the stuff inside the dashed box) just above and cut and paste, and then fill in the blanks. You look like you started from scratch. No one does that. Copy, paste, edit, voilá. Now tell me, how much water do you add to your Ardbeg?

I don't thats probably why i can't edit wiki for shit ;-) --Honestmistake 09:53, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Good additions for flavor (I'm going to ignore the mention of the folding bike, since it's very unbalanced), and something to use excess XP on, but how used is it going to be? If the item vanishes on death, and the skill does as well (also a nice touch to aid in removing XP from the game), most people are not going to use it. It would make more sense to add a set of new flavor items (similar to the Crucifix) to the game, and require XP to be spent to find them - an additional "search for keepsakes" button, for example, only available to characters within two levels of the max who had bought a skill, similar to the one described. If the items were visible to other players, it would give people another chance to RP - and the image of a zombie carrying a threadbare stuffed rabbit is very funny. --Saluton 02:02, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Some items would be visible; for example the mobilephones ringtone! others like the stuffed toy might be used as a weapon (causing zero damage) Basically the idea is for roleplaying devices which do not unbalance the game and cannot clutter the game so much... I suggested that it only works on the next search and be automatic to avoid clutter... Also i do think that the very rare vaguely usefull item would be good. If its only 1% of special items and they vanish when used or dropped or you are killed and you can only have 1 at a time then even the multiply it by a million is not going to make it bad. Yes a city full of cycling survivors is bad (unless its Amsterdam) but 1 cyclist going past would be odd and well worth receiving a message to notify you of such an event. Even a single use heavy weapon might not be unbalanced and instead be noteworthy. I mean it, you would get zeds forming a line to get blasted with an RPG hjust for the status if it really was a once in a lifetime type of thing!--Honestmistake 09:53, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Rare doesn't equal balanced, though. A weapon that kills in one hit, only has 10 shots (or two), and only drops once per year would not be balanced. Having the item be lost on death is good, but not the skill; since there would be a fairly large chance of failing, the skill being lost would be bad. However, having searching cost enough XP that the total cost of the skill would be spent while searching before the average person found something would be good (of course, this does, essentially, the same thing as losing the skill).
Anyways, back to rare does not equal balanced: for useful items, special care would have to be taken to prevent them from being even slightly unbalanced. A powerful weapon would have to have a low chance to hit; a device that makes it easier to move around would have to have a chance of crashing, or hitting a dead body and throwing the rider off. A list of items that would be findable - or, at least, basic parameters for what they would be able to do - would be good, although it would make the suggestion more complex.
If this is just for flavor items, I'm sure that people will vote for it. If it includes vague descriptions of powerful items, people won't, citing multiply by a million (1% of special items still equals 1% of the players having them, and that's only if everyone searches once. Most of the players in the game are likely to end up with them, even if they have to find them again after using them, or after being killed), rare does not equal balanced (as I explained above), or perhaps Cost does not equal Balanced (for the high cost of XP used in finding the useful items). --Saluton 16:34, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

You did notice that it costs 100XP to even make the search and only about 1% of those items would have any practical use beyond mere flavour and RP value? looking at the new version of bicycle it was probably a bad example but even if it was an uber powered 1 shot rocket launcher and you found one first time; probability suggests that it should take more than 100 searches to find another and that would be over 10,000XP!!! multiply that by a million and i suspect that we will have been eaten by real zombies long before everyone gets one!

However i am only thinking about items that may be slightly more powerfull than existing stuff and i do suggest that for balance sakes it is lost upon death or is one use! Check out my talk page for a list of ideas i am toying with....--Honestmistake 17:20, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The core of my comments has been that rare does not equal balanced; if you need to have low chances to find an item because of how good it is, chances are that it's unbalanced. Assuming that something is found 50% of the time, and 1% of the items are useful (in other words, a useful item is found 0.5% of the time), than, statistically, 0.5% of the survivor population of UD is going to have one. There are currently 18,000 standing survivors. Assuming that half of all zombie hunters (currently at a bit over 10,000) have acquired all of the skills in the game, excluding Brain Rot, or have acquired all survivor skills and do not want zombie skills (these parameters will describe most of the people who would be performing these searches), you would have 0.5% of 5,000 people who would find a useful item when (if?) this is implemented. In other words, around 25. That's rare, yes, since there would only be one for every 4 suburbs, but rare is not balanced, as I've said. Over time, as more people search for them, more survivors would get them (assuming that survivors search at the same time, and have enough XP for 10 searches each, and fudging the numbers a bit, the end result would be over 200 survivors with the useful items). True, this is all statistically speaking, but it still shows what could happen. Reducing the chance of finding something could make it very unlikely for someone to find a useful item, but people would, eventually. --Saluton 21:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

thing is with the exeption of grenade luncher i think even the 'usefull items are should be no better than normal items just different... the grenade launcher i mention on my talk page probably won't even get to the suggestion as i know it will get spammed, i just like the idea! pretty much everything else that i consider suitable is either 1 use, pointless or breakable upon death.... Rare doesn't equal balanced but it can equal fun!--Honestmistake 01:25, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

a grenade luncher? a guy eating a nade would break all his teeth and then his head would be blown off!--SporeSore 16:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

FAKs manufacture

Timestamp: Che -T GC X 09:47, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Type: balance change
Scope: First Aid Kits and hospitals
Description: Well, this would allow characters with the First Aid skill to create FAKs from the medical supplies that are in a hospital.

To do this you have to be in a powered hospital and of course have the First Aid skill; in that case a new button will appear: "Create FAK". Pushing this button will cost 5 AP and would add a new FAK to your inventory. You would then see the message: "You search the wards and gathered enough medical supplies for a first aid kit". This idea is similar to the current manufacture of syringes in NT buildings.

Discussion Not a bad idea, but I think the AP cost is too low - it can cost about that much to find a FAK anyway, and manufacturing one should be more costly, like it is for syringes. Bump it up to 12, I think, and it will be more balanced. The Mad Axeman 09:53, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Well the idea behind the suggestion is to make hospitals a better place to get FAKs than malls or at least near that, in a mall drugstore, with the bargain hunting skill you have a 33% (1/3) of finding one% chance to get one, and that is without power in the mall, so if this cost 12 AP you would get 4 FAKs at the mall on average, or even more if it has a running generator. just becouse you get rid of the ramdon element i thought 5 AP was the best price. But that is exactly the reason i put the suggestion here, to see what everyone thinks of the AP cost, as a several people who helped me with this thought so (the Cap'n here is one of those)-- Che -T GC X 10:22, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
As an alternative, you could change the type of first aid kit available in malls and other places, splitting them into two groups. Call them common first aid kits and profesional first aid kits. The pro version contains strong painkillers (like morphine), anitbiotics, and other drugs and tools not found in an everyday bandages-and-sticky-plasters first aid kit. The pro version works like they do at the mniute, but the common variety doesn't gain any benefit from the first aid skill tree. Basicaly, it never restores more than 5 hp. The Mad Axeman 10:37, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
nice idea, it would be more like a paramedic kit, right?-- Che -T GC X 03:16, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, whats pretty much what I'm thinking. The Mad Axeman 15:17, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

12 seems to high. I'd go for 8-10. --Cap'n Silly T/W/P/CAussieflag.JPG 10:08, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Make it 5AP but also require 1)surgery skill 2)hospital be powered to balance out the AP cost.--SporeSore 13:00, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
It already says that the hospital has to be powered, but adding surgery, may be good-- Che -T GC X 03:16, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I could go for 10 Ap, but surgery and powered hospitals are both pretty common. The Mad Axeman 13:37, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
well is till think 10 is too high, but as I said before, if most people agree with you I will have to accept it. I just think that with a 10 AP cost it wont be used even if by some miracle it gets implemented-- Che -T GC X 03:16, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I think that's way too high. FAKs in hospitals are 14%... So six or seven AP should be good. -Mark 03:20, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Aren't people going to argue that this would NERF Infection. Some people claim that Bite is balanced, but if this is implemented, more FAKs will circulate, making it easier to recover from Infection...meaning that Bite needs a boost. Also, Funt makes a point that the fun in the game is the RNG, is the actual random chance.--ShadowScope 04:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, you could have something in there about infected survivors making FAKs take damage. So if the AP cost is 10, then you lose 10 HP if you are infected and make a FAK. Then this wouldn't nerf infection.--Lachryma 23:54, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Still, it does get rid of random choice. Infection is not so scary when you just head to the FAK Manufacture Plant and know you're going to live with about 10 HP left. Before, you have to worry if the RNG Gods will spare you or make your life miserable and cause you to die. Now...there is no RNG God.--ShadowScope 03:22, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Well but even if you know you can get to the hospital, you are not sure if the hospital would be powered, and even them i guess that problem could be fixed by simply making that you cant manufacture one while infected-- Che -T GC X 04:42, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
You make the suggestion far more complicated than it is meant to be by banning manufracture by infection (and Kevan hates Complicated Suggestions), and even so, you can increase the quanity of FAKs on the market, because suriviors who are not infected will manufracture to heal their buddies quickly. Overall, infection is pretty nerfed bad.--ShadowScope 13:53, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Well in fact you complicated the suggestion by saying it nerf infection when infection is already nerfed to make the game fun for survivors. to put it simply infection shouldn't be cured with FAKs. just as an example today one of my human alts just got revivified and as soon as I stood up I got bitten and infected, with 21HP I managed to get to the nearest mall even when the nearest 2 entry points were overbarricated, i got into the mall with 2 hp said "infected and really badly hurt, please heal me, and 2 hours later i'm as good as new. The point is infection doesnt kill anyone-- Che -T GC X 06:11, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Currently, with the RNG Gods watching, you can desperately search for a medkit until you have one HP. Then you just sit back and wait for someone to heal you. No one dies from infection, unless they are parachuting, not paying attention, or are role playing. So, in effect, infection is nerfed to the nine hells, and that's just how it is. This suggestion doesn't change that.--Lachryma 06:26, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Heh, survivors on 1 HP? Delicious! So many players, so little time. --Karloth Vois RR 11:06, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

well I would like some more imput in the AP cost before putting this in suggestions, for now I'm thinking to put it with 8 AP cost-- Che -T GC X 07:44, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


Make Barricade Costs Equal

Timestamp: ShadowScope 02:14, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Type: balance change
Scope: Barricades need some nerfing, but there are controversy on how to nerf them. Then I read Reaper with no name talking about balance basically be 1 zed vs. 1 surivior. And then I recall the fact of 1 Surivior builds a barriacde with 50 AP, and 1 zed takes it down for 68 AP. Surivors feel happy that they are defeating the poor Zeds by having them waste AP knocking the barricades and I feel that need to be addressed.

So, here is what I suggest. Increase the AP cost for building Barricades, by increasing the chances that one cannot build a barricade when it is high enough. I don't know how to come up with it, but here is something as a protoype.

Constructions Strength

  • 1 Loosely barricaded (100% barricade chance) [1 AP/Barricade]
  • 2–4 Lightly barricaded (100% barricade chance) [1 AP/Barricade]
  • 5–7 Quite Strongly barricaded (75% Barricade Chance) [1 AP/Barricade] (For the most part, 75% barricade chance is merely a token gesture, it really won't cause any hardship for the player, I believe...)
  • 8–10 Very Strongly barricaded (75% Barricade Chance) [1 AP/Barricade]
  • 11-13 Heavily barricaded* (50% Barricae Chance) [2 AP/Barricade]
  • 14–16 Very Heavily barricaded* (25% Barricade Chance) [4 AP/Barricade]
  • 17+21? Extremely Heavily barricaded* (10% Barricade Chance) [10 AP/Barricades]

Up to VSB, it takes 10 AP to barricade, therbey sealing the building and preventing zombie attacks. However, it cost more AP to barricade up. To complete buidling up to HB, it cost 6 AP...to build up to VH, it cost 12 AP. And, finally, at EHB (up to level 4), it cost 40 AP.

This means a total of 68 AP is spent...with hapens to be the amount of AP a Zed has to spend to tear down the barricade. Of course, for a surivior, it is AP-effienct to barricade up to VSB. But when you barricade beyond VSB, it cost more AP, making suriviors lose lots of AP in building these barricades. And since malls usually are at EHB (for good reason), this makes Zeds feel as if they are being useful, as the AP they spend knocking down an EHB barricade means a surivior must waste 10 AP rebuilding that Barricade.

Of course, this is all based on averages (if the RNG gods love you, you can spend less AP. If the RNG god hates you...then you spend more AP), and I think the numbers need to be changed, so this is why it is here.

Description: Full description. Check spelling and be descriptive.

Discussion I like it. The fact that survivors will still be quicker/more efficient at lower barricade levels will mean that zeds won't be able to consistently get in during an even fight (meaning defense isn't impossible or even necessarily difficult), but at the same time it's not so overpowering that zombies can't overcome it occasionally with some slight luck. --Reaper with no name TJ! 15:55, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

  1. I don't like it. I'm a major proponent of the idea of leaving barricades as they are. They are the first, last and only defense for a sleeping survivor, and they are the first and second line of defense for everyone else. Let's recall a little bit of tactical truth, it is always easier to defend than to attack. Defenders as such should not be penalized because the zeds want to complain. That said, I also think that some sort of Zed hoard bonus should be created if it's possible to do with current game mechanics. I will never support an idea that weakens Barricades simply because some zombie groups can't coordinate. Despite all my negative comments, nice job on creating the suggestion, it seems pretty well thought out and well reasoned. If I were a bit less stubborn about Barricades, I might have said yes to it. --Tirak McAlister 23:43, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Well, zombies are pretty good meta-gamers, so they can coordinate well. It is just that they felt the need to coordinate due to the fact that there are too many humans, and that in the long run, zombies will get disappointed that with enough meatshield, an area is virtually unbreachble. But yeah, I do understand your points.--ShadowScope 04:11, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The reason barricades are hard to break is that if zombies don't break in the status quo is maintained. If zombies do break in survivors die. At no point does the number of zombies get reduced. Survivors can't win. Zombies can. Urban Dead is about maintaining balance so killing survivors is purposefully kept difficult. Conflicts are supposed to linger. The genre is all about besieged survivors. It isn't about zombies easily crushing any building they attack. --Jon Pyre 19:21, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I should have asked before you put it up for voting, but where does this "68AP to destroy a maxed out barricade" figure come from? AFAIK, it takes (on average) 4 ap for a zombie to demolish a level of barricade (though this figure is not proven) and there are at least 19 levels of barricade, which comes to 76AP, not 68. --S.Wiers X:00 03:04, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Egad. It came from the wiki page on Barricdes. Now that I think about it, the 68 AP figure comes if the barricade level is at EHB+1, which is 17 barricade levels, and was not updated when you could barricade higher than 17 Barricade Levels. Gah. I'll let this one remain, and then maybe later on, revise it to make it equal 76 AP.--ShadowScope 03:25, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Zombie Rush V3

Timestamp: Swiers X:00 18:12, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Type: Skill (sub-skill to memories of life)
Scope: zombie
Description: If a zombie with this skill took a barricade from "loose" to "collapsed", the door to the building (if any) would automatically open, and the least active zombie (the one logged out the longest) present outside the building would automatically be moved into the building. There is no associated AP cost to either zombie- instead, its an improvement to how the acting zombie makes attacks on barricades.

Discussion

This version achieves a few things-
  • Being tied to barricade collapse limits how often it can be used
  • Being tied to barricade collapse means existing anti-zerg measures can prevent its abuse (they make attacks on barricades much more likely to fail)
  • Being tied to barricade collapse makes it primarily affect actively defended buildings
  • Being tied to barricade collapse makes it an "improved barricade attack"- something the game really needs, IMO
  • Limiting it to the "least active zombie" simplifies intended use but complicates abusive use
--Swiers X:00 18:19, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Suggestions that automove other players almost guarantees spamination.--SporeSore 00:18, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Is that because of the "move other player's characters" part, or the "auto" part? Feeding drag is an automove on another persons character, and seems to work rather well. This just brings a zombie inside to the food, rather than the food outside to the zombies. Hmm- since loose barricades only have one level, I suppose offering a special "zombie push" attack that only works on light barricades might work. It could cost more than 1 AP, removing the free / automatic aspect. --S.Wiers X:00 00:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Submit this and you will see what I mean. Although a suggestion may be consistent with something else in the game, people will spam it anyway. For example, dead zombies can still hear feeding groan, but any other good suggestions that have been made giving dead zombies a sense of their surroundings(e.g.Suggestions/28th-Jan-2007#Sense_Tremors) have been killed by whiney pro-survivor cry-baby momma's boy bitches. All suggestions that have been made allowing a player to control other players have been spaminated. See Frequently_Suggested#Pied_Piper_Skills. I was not criticising your idea, I was trying to warn you. :) --SporeSore 13:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I understood the bit about controlling others characters- my question was, is there some way to work this so it avoids that problem? IMO its not any more controlling than feeding drag; in fact, it is less so, because its much easier to avoid and generally helpful to the affected character. So I suppose it boils down to, its a pro-zombie suggestion that would fall prey to an emotional "zomg, zupar pawrz zombie mind control" argument? Stuff that. I'm not gonna tone down my suggestions for that crowd. Kevan reads stuff on his own, yah know? --S.Wiers X:00 14:57, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Could you please stop revising the suggestion every few days? I've been trying to offer useful input on it, but every time it's been revised all of my suggestions have been lost. Post a revision in the discussion area first, to give people a chance to consider what they have said, and the changes made.

Now, on to my feedback: It needs a location in the skill tree. If it's the start of a new tree, it's overpowered, because it bypasses memories of life to open doors. Secondly, the absence of an AP cost, or chance of failing, is enough for me to vote kill on this if it ever gets to voting. Add an AP cost - high enough to make this tactic only useful in certain situations, say, 5 AP - a chance of failing (40% base is what I've been suggesting), and a chance of either the zombie who is being moved, or the zombie who is moving the other, being injured - 40% not injured, 10% moved zombie, 30% moving zombie, 10% both, with the damage/other effects equal to the zombie's attack with the highest percentage to hit OR the highest damage, if all of the percentages are equal. And please act on this: it's what I've been suggesting for the last two versions, and none of them has considered it. If nothing else, explain why my suggestions are being ignored. --Saluton 02:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about the discusion dletion- the revisions usually acounted for suggestions, and the original suggestions did have major flaws, so i figured it best to avoid forcing folks to harp on them. Thanks for your comments here.
As to the skill tree, I figured "Type: Skill (sub-skill to memories of life)" covered that. I'll make it more explicit in the voting wrote up. Since it does everything MoL does and more, that's the logical place to put it- else, nobody would by MoL.
I don't much like the failure chances or injury because they are so very arbitrary. Why 40%? Why damage as an attack? Why doesn;t anything else in the game (including feeding drag) work that way? I don't like that kind of arbitrary complexity- it doesn't add balance, just obfuscation.
Per the V3 text, the chance of failure comes from the fact that it is an attack on the barricades- which generally means only a 25% chance to succeed. Per the comment above, I'm thinking that it should be a new attack type ("push") that costs more AP than a normal barricade attack (because it clearly has a better effect than a normal attack on the barricades) but otherwise works as detailed above. Does that sound reasonable? I was thinking 2 ap, but if every zombie in the game had this skill, all attacks on loose barricades would likely be "push" attacks, so 5 AP does seem reasonable. That's high enough that folks might choose NOT to use "push" attacks in some cases, I think. --S.Wiers X:00 02:27, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
First of all, this is the discussion page. You don't have to remove and resubmit it each time. Just edit it. That's what this is for. Anyway, I don't like the idea. The most logged-out person might not log in for one or two full days, far long enough to be headshot and dumped. Plus, they would be attacked before the person who did the smashing, so it's effectively a bodyshield. It's a form of griefing. -Mark 03:24, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
The intent behind using the longest-logged out zombie, was that they were most likely to log in the soonest, and thus most likely to benefit from being pushed into the building. And yes, it IS body shielding- that's how zombie hordes work, that's the POINT of a zombie horde. If body shielding bothers you, there is a very simple way to attack an active zombie; click on their profile (visible when they perform an action) and add them to your contact list. As for being headshot, zombies face that same risk outside the building or inside.
Most dedicated zombie players would be happy to be pushed into a building, even if it meant they usually just got a headshot, but they do have a choice to avoid it very easily if they wish. They can just sleep in an open space, like a street, graveyard, park, or wasteland. Or they could find an open building to sleep in- even if they get killed, you can't push a resting corpse into a building, even with this skill. Either one would 100% prevent them being pushed into a building. So in terms of potential "greifing", its easy to avoid, and hence not really greifing at all- any zombie that gets pushed, almost certainly WANTED to be pushed, or at least didn't make the (trivial) effort required to avoid it.
But that does raise a good point- I'd be sure to include advice on how to avoid being pushed into a building in the skill description, and encourage Kevan to put it in the news update if the skill were introduced to the game. --S.Wiers X:00 03:44, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
To Decrease the pure body-sheilding effect, how about if a message announces the zombies actions to those inside the building when they push another zombie in? The message would include a link to the skill users profile, allowing them to be added to contact lists and singled out as a target, just as if they had killed a generator, radio, or survivor. That would lead to real-time combat for the skill user, and a better chance that the pushed zombie is left alone for a time- and so maybe can log in before being killed! --S.Wiers X:00 17:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
However, when the barricades do drop - and this happens fairly often - the zombie is moved in for free. Since most zombies would be likely to try to get this skill, it would result in a free lunch, since they would be attacking the barricades anyways, and then moving in another zombie as a free bonus. That's why the chance of failing even after the barricades are down is good (and additional AP cost), and why a chance of the zombie being moved hitting the zombie doing the moving (or the other way around, or both being hit by the other one) would be a good addition - it would balance it a bit more, without ruining it's use; actually, subskills could be added to the skill tree that would decrease the chance of failing, and of being injured. --Saluton 16:26, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I see your point, but I'd still prefer to keep it simple. Damage doesn't mean much to a zombie, so it would hardly be a deterant. Nor does a few points of damge really affect how easy it is to kill and dum a zombie. I think making it an alternate barrier attack (only usable vs loose barricades) that has a lower chance of success and a higher ap cost is the way to go. That helps negate the "free luch" effect, and would mean that in some cases a zombie player would have a hard choice- go for the push, or just take the barricades down fast before they get built back up? --S.Wiers X:00 17:47, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

It sounds like a good idea to me. I think I might have seen something similar at one point, but my memory sucks.--Labine50 MH|ME|'07 05:07, 10 February 2007 (UTC)