| Timestamp: |
'arm. 03:43, 16 July 2007 (BST)
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| Type: |
New Skill
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| Scope: |
Zombies and Survivors
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Description and Effect
- Necrotic Bite can be purchased by zombies for 100 XP after purchasing Infectious Bite. "Some zombies now have flesh eating bacteria in their mouths, which gets into a bite wound and eats away at the the survivors flesh."
- A Necrotic Infection can only be given to a player that already has a Normal Infection. With this skill all successful bites will result in a Normal Infection being upgraded to a Necrotic Infection
- A Necrotic Infection costs HP in the same way as a Normal Infection does - that is, a survivor with a Necrotic Infection will lose 1HP per 1AP spent (except talking).
- FAKs do not automatically cure a Necrotic Infection, but still recover HP in the normal way. Success rates depend on whether the FAK is being applied to the player themselves, or to another survivor:
- FAK applied to self: 50% chance of curing the Necrotic Infection.
- FAK applied to fellow survivor: 75% chance of curing the Necrotic Infection (rises to 100% if in a powered Hospital and healer has the Surgery Skill).
- Curing the Necrotic Infection leaves the player with a Normal Infection which can be cured in the normal way - with one FAK.
- Heals in Powered hospitals by a player with the Surgery Skill cure both infections, clearing both Necrotic Infection and the Normal Infection.
- The Scent Blood and Diagnosis skills allow any player to distinguish which survivors have a Necrotic Infection. (Note that the Diagnosis skill does not currently detect a Normal Infection.)
- Survivors who have a Necrotic Infection will have their HP shown in black.
- Upon being given a Necrotic Infection you receive a warning message:
"You have been given a Necrotic Infection! Each action (except talking) now costs you 1 HP. First Aid Kits can cure this type of infection, but success is not guaranteed. Getting healed by a fellow survivor is more likely to cure you."
- Upon being cured of the Necrotic Infection, you see a message explaining that you still have a Normal Infection:
"You are cured of the Necrotic Infection, but are still suffering from a Normal Infection."
- Zombies are not affected by a Necrotic Infection, just as they are not affected by the current Normal Infection.
- Upon revive, the player no longer has the Necrotic Infection, but will have a Normal Infection. (This is in line with the way the current infection works - a survivors who dies whilst infected will still have an infection once revived.)
Changes since Necrotic Bite 1.0
- Infection mechanism changed - no longer need to grasp survivor then bite. A total of two bites need to be landed on the survivor.
First successful bite = Normal infection. Second successful bite = Necrotic Infection.
- Self heals possibly, but not guaranteed: Self heals have 50% success rate, healing others 75%, healing others in a powered hospital (with Surgery skill) 100%
- Successfully curing a Necrotic Infection leaves a Normal Infection (unless you have the Surgery Skill and FAK another player in a Powered Hospital - that removes both infections). The Normal Infection can then be cured in the normal way.
- Survivors get warning message when they get a Necrotic Infection.
- Information needed for cooperation no longer withheld - available to survivors who have Diagnosis or Scent Blood.
Potential Questions
- Why a more powerful infection?
- The current Infectious Bite is a low-powered skill. Having an infection that is removed with the application of just one FAK means that survivors can carry one FAK on them to heal an infection, so that they can use their AP to achieve what they wanted to that day ('cade, shoot zeds, etc) and then go sit somewhere to let another survivor patch them up.
- Why is it easier to cure another player than it is to cure myself?
- This is the main mechanism that makes the Necrotic Infection more powerful than the Normal Infection - by making self-cures not guaranteed by holding a FAK or two in case you get infected. A survivor with a Necrotic Infection requires at least 2 FAKs, and on average 3 FAKs, to self-cure (2 to remove the Necrotic Infection, one more to remove the Normal Infection). This makes an infection a much more serious event, getting closer to how worried you arguably should be when bitten by a zombie.
- Cure rates for FAKing other survivors are higher to encourage cooperation between survivors. Having a positive incentive to work together increases the fun of Urban Dead (as opposed to a negative incentive where not working together has a negative effect and working together keeps you at the level you were at before). Note that even a survivor with no healing skills has a better chance of curing the Necrotic Infection that a survivor trying to self-cure? This means that even newbies can positively contribute to a group of survivors, whilst still keeping the Necrotic Infection relatively powerful compared to the Normal Infection.
- What are my chances of inflicting a Necrotic Bite?
- If your goal is Necrotic Infection only (and assuming a maxed-out zombie) it would be more AP-efficient to just continuously Bite the target. (If you used Claws first to get the Tangling Grasp bonus, then your average success rate of landing a bite tends to 25% - see column F on this Grasp+Bite table).
One successful bite inflicts the Normal Infection, a second inflicts the Necrotic Infection. Let's compare the chances of both:
| Num of AP spent |
Chance of Normal Infection |
Chance of Necrotic Infection
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| 1 |
30% |
-
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| 2 |
51% |
9%
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| 3 |
65.7% |
21.6%
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| 4 |
76.0% |
34.8%
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| 5 |
83.2% |
47.2%
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| 6 |
88.2% |
58.0%
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| 7 |
91.8% |
67.1%
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| 8 |
94.2% |
74.5%
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| Link to working coming soon.
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- Why does it take so many bites to get a reasonable chance of inflicting a Necrotic Infection?
- Although the current infection is low-powered, it does have power - even survivors who seek to carry around a precautionary FAK still have to use AP looking for FAKs (rather than completely relying on other players to heal them). This means that an infection does have an 'AP-cost' for survivors (though it's low because the Normal Infection is healed so easily). The Necrotic Infection requires more FAKs to be cured, and so has a higher 'AP-cost' for the survivors. By making inflicting a Necrotic Bite also have an AP cost, we go some way to balancing the cost to the survivors.
- Upon revive, a Necrotic Infection is 'downgraded' to Normal Infection. Why?
- Currently, if a survivor dies and has the Normal Infection, they will still have it when they they are revived. I think that this skill would be overpowered if players were revived and still had the more powerful Necrotic Infection. This skill would be overpowered if it could continually kill a player (cures are not guaranteed, remember). Not guaranteed means that you are held hostage to the RNG, which (as we know) can string together a surprisingly long series of misses/failed searches etc.
There are two possible ways stop this happening:
- Dying causes a Necrotic Infection to revert to a Normal Infection. Do not allow zombies to have the Necrotic Infection 'flag' at all.
- Revives (revivification syringes) downgrade a Necrotic Infection to a Normal Infection
- These are code choices for Kevan. The end effect in-game is still the same.
Summary of Main Effects upon Urban Dead
- Makes a bite a potentially serious proposition.
- There is another positive incentive for survivors to cooperate, this places more value on survivors who have the Surgery Skill, and encourages all survivors to buy healing skills earlier than they might usually.
- When infected in a wasteland the effects would be serious but not insurmountable:
- Zombie-held suburbs would become (even) more dangerous and require more planning from survivors to have successful trip there.
- In highly populated suburbs and large sieges healing others would become the most effective tactic by far. The stronger infection would still have a larger cost to fix overall, most noticeable the stronger form of infection would make re-barricading while active zombies are around even more costly/dangerous.
Areas for discussion?
- There is a bonus when healing another player in a powered hospital (surgery skill only). Should this be extended to self-heals too?
- Death/Revives clear the Necrotic Infection. Should it instead still be present after a revive?
- Earn XP for curing Necrotic Infection? This would also encourage healing of others.
- The warning message could be worded better?
- Do you see any additional effects on the game?
- Survivors who have a Necrotic Infection can be detected by the Scent Death skill?
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