Talk:Suggestions/31st-Jan-2007

Stamina

Timestamp:	Mark 22:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Type:	Skill.
Scope:	Survivors.
Description:	Let’s start with the basics. Skill name: Stamina Section: Civilian (Under Bodybuilding.) Cost: Standard 100XP Currently, zombies can move as fast as humans, once they have lurching gait. Anything seem wrong with this? This skill would alter this. Inside, doing free-running, there are obstacles which a person avoid, causing them to slow down and accelerate constantly, not to mention jump long distances. However, in the open street, the way is clear, so you can open up full-speed. This skill essentially lets you move outside for two spaces per AP used. It would work like this. The first movement outside uses 1 AP. This also sets a variable in-game. That means that his next move costs no AP, and changes back the variable. This essentially causes the person to use .5 AP per movement, in the closest way to do it with the current system. This movement isn’t free, since it’s paid for in the past action. Doing any other action resets the variable. For an example: Say there was a player named Bob. He has this skill. He also has 20AP. Let’s say he wants to get from his VS safehouse to the hospital, six blocks East. He leaves through the doors of his safehouse, and uses one AP doing it. (19AP) Now he’s in the street. He moves one block east. That uses one AP. (18AP) He moves again, but no AP is used, since his past action paid for it. (18AP) He moves again. (17AP) He moves again, but again, the movement is paid for in advance. (17AP) He moves one more time. (16AP) He is now one block from the hospital. Say there was a zombie in his current square, so he decides to take a swipe at it with his axe. He attacks once. (15AP) He changes his mind, and continues. He moves to outside the hospital. However, the variable was reset, and he uses an AP. (14AP) He moves inside, using one last AP. (13AP) If Bob had done the exact same thing without Stamina, he would have used 9 AP, and ended up with 11 AP to use in the hospital. I know this is going to be spammed, but that’s why it’s here. Please state your comments and ideas.

Discussion

First, you forgot to take off 1AP from the total on the second line of your example. Second, survivors don't need another buff. Third, I'm a firm believer in all actions taking 1AP to undertake. If the "leave other people's skills alone" rule wasn't in place, I'd reccommend nerfing basic free running instead so it takes 2AP to move from block to block, and adding a Master of Parkour skill available after basic free running is bought, that permits movement as we know it already. But then that breaks the "if it doesn't make the game more fun, it's a bad suggestion" guideline... --c138 ^{RR - PKer} 23:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Mmmm, No. As C138 pointed out. --Sirens^{T RR} 00:46, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

More complicated than necessary and a survivor buff: simply put, this is not going to get very nice votes. Personally, I like the idea of moving outside costing less than free-running, but I'd be inclined to support c138's way of implementation above instead (and this makes a comment from all three RR admin! Feeling lucky?) --Karloth Vois ^RR 03:30, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank's for noting that AP overlook. Fierfek pasting. Changed. I have a feeling I would get some very un-nice votes. C138, that seems...interesting, but I don't think that'll make it past minute 15. Just how is it too complicated? It certainly can't be a 50% chance. -Mark 04:33, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

No "half" points. THAT is where it gets complicated. Also, the reason for Lurching Gait is to, you know, allow zombies to PLAY the game (over time, of course).--Pesatyel 05:04, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Why not make it more of an activateabble 'adrenaline' thing, where it does that, then you have to pay for the ones you used moving later? --Nimble Zombie 22:57, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

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Crowd Dynamics

Timestamp:	SporeSore 21:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Type:	Game Mechanic
Scope:	Everyone
Description:	This change would significantly change how the game is played for everyone. I am not sure if the idea is a dupe, but the implementation is certainly not. The idea is that the total number of active players(population) at a given location exacts an AP penalty on movement for all players. Dead bodies will also affect movement though not as much as standing players. Movement will be affected both indoors and out, but outdoors players will not be affected as much. Like most aspects of population, the effect will be exponential. For non-math types that means that at first as population at a location increases the difficulty of movement is small, but at a certain critical point movement starts to become a lot more difficult. The extra AP needed to move will be displayed for the player e.g. "It is so crowded that you will need an extra +1 AP to move." The exact formula is as follows: Indoors/Leaving Buildings - A = exp(P/150) - exp(75/150) + 1 Outdoors/Entering Buildings - A = exp(P/250) - exp(150/250) + 1 Where A is the AP penalty, and P is the population at a given location. If inside, the population is that inside the building, vise versa for outside. The population will include the sum of standing zombies and survivors, and 0.5 times the number of corpses. Since AP must be an integer the penalty will be rounded down i.e. floor(A). Below are two figures illustrating the formulae for the two cases. The blue line is the exact formula. The red line is the value rounded down. Indoors/leaving building, a +1AP penalty starts at 75(players + 0.5*corpses), outdoors/entering building at 150. Indoors, the AP penalty increases faster than it does outdoors. Let me know if a table is needed. Analysis - This will cause several side effects to zombies and survivors alike, some beneficial, some detrimental. It will encourage survivors to disperse, both througout malton and inside malls. It will also simulate the difficulties of disengaging from combat, and the obstruction that dead bodies would pose. It will also change the dynamics of seige to be more realistic. Remember that these numbers are to represent the average behaviour for sites of varying sizes and shapes.

Discussion

I like the way this encourages survivors to go outside when they travel. There are a few problems with the suggestion though. Like, if you're ever in a square with 700 other players, it would cost over 100 AP to leave. A cap on the maximum penalty AP cost would easily fix this. One other thing is, when people enter a building, they've no idea how many people are going to already be inside. It's not fair to penalise them for something they had no way of knowing and avoiding. By the way, those are some really nice graphs. --Toejam 01:07, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The only way to deal with this would be to apply the penalty only if the player performs an action at the (indoors)location. This would make things too confusing. Remember that you get into the building for free, regardless of the numbers inside, if there is not a crowd outside. I think this evens things out. See my comment below.--SporeSore 13:33, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I think your mistaken. I'm not sure how (if it all) the "exp" factors into the equation, but presuming no dead bodies, it would only cost 5 AP to move indoors and 3 outside.--

Pesatyel 05:09, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

exp(P/150) is shorthand for e to the power P/150. (e is a mathematical constant roughly equal to 2.718). What this means for this suggestion is the the cost of moving while indoors multiplies by 2.7 for every extra 150 people inside. This really, really adds up for the bigger numbers. Here's a table:

Number of people present --- AP Cost

200 --- 3 AP

400 --- 13 AP

600 --- 54 AP

800 --- 206 AP

So you can see why I thought it needed a cap. --Toejam 08:34, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

It should have a cap, however if you were in a club with 700 people in a panic(or a mall for that matter), you would not be able to exit easily. What would you suggest for caps? Indoors: 15, Outdoors 15? I want the caps to be high enough to completely discourage players from forming into huge clumps. Just for clarification, when you are moving outside or entering a building the population is that outside a building. When you are moving inside or leaving a building the population is that inside the building. You can always avoid a crowd outside, if you want to. For inside I guess you have to pretend that you do not know how really crowded it is until you have wandered into the throng. For free running from building to building the player would suffer only a single penalty for leaving the building.--SporeSore 13:21, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Should the minimum of 50 for indoors be changed to 75? Yes I think so. Minimum changed to 75.--SporeSore 17:13, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking some more about this suggestion, and I think it would make the game less fun, for two reasons:

1. Less AP means less playtime, and
2. It would stop the big events from happening. There'd be no mall sieges and so on. --Toejam 17:58, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

It seems that the suggester of this idea has forgotten an important fact; AP is not a unit of time. It takes the same amount of AP to pull a trigger, walk a block, or drag a vending machine into a barricade. This idea equates the amount of AP used to move out of a building with the amount of time it takes to push through a crowd. And, on the subject of the numbers, consider the average size of a street block - I'll say 480 ft by 480 ft, (a square version of Wikipedia's size of a Manhattan block). Considering that all buildings in UD appear to take up at least a block, that gives 230,400 feet of floor-space for people to move in. Assuming that an average person takes up a 5ft by 5ft square (a high number, but intentionally such to allow for people to freely move in a crowd), you would need 9216 people before they began to bump into each other.

If you want to drop the size of a building down to 1/2 of a block to a side, you would still need 2304 people before they started having trouble moving.

Would you rather assume that smallest buildings in UD are 50 feet to a side? An intentionally small number - considering that almost all of the buildings are non-residential, it is unlikely that any of them are that small. Still, it would require 100 people before they began having trouble moving.

Yes, all of these numbers ignore walls, and the number of floors a building has, but they can show that the numbers given for the AP increase a bit ridiculous. --Saluton 17:01, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

The increase in AP is not for time, as you suggest, but for effort. As stated, the numbers used have to represent the average conditions of different size/shaped buildings and lots. Finally, a building may be twenty stories high, but the only relevant floors are the first two, unless you can fly. The last time I checked the Wikipedia humans did not have wings. Maybe my numbers are too low, or maybe the idea is ill-founded. I do not need a real life-calculation for a game in which everything is a simulation. The uniform grids of Malton are not real, they are a model to simplify gameplay.--SporeSore 18:15, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

So, it takes the same amount of effort to pull a trigger as to drag a vending machine? You cannot claim that AP has any relation to time, amount of effort, or anything else; it is merely completing an action (actions which take more AP do so because, if they did not, the game would become unbalanced). As for the height of the building, survivors would probably tend to go to high floors, except when barricading (represented by the fact that, in a tall building, you can always jump out the window and die). And yes, humans don't have wings - at least, not functional ones. And yes, the game is a simulation, so I probably should not have equated it so much to real life.

To fix this suggestion - even though it is not broken, exactly, and would probably work well if implemented as it is - I would suggest altering the formula based on the type of building. Thus, malls (which are designed for large numbers of people) would be able to contain more people without any AP penalty than smaller buildings, such as motels or pubs (which are not designed for large numbers of people, or at least not as large numbers of people). Having a movement penalty in a mall containing 75 people, when malls are built for much more, would be a bit silly. --Saluton 04:26, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. Originally I was working on a suggestion that restricted only survivor movement relative to zombie numbers, but realised it was unworkable and unfair. This idea will never get passed because people want to have their full AP of movement. I can't be arsed to take this any further when it will get spammed. A simple fix would to be classify large buildings the same as outside for the AP penalty. I was not as interested in movement within buildings as I was with the movement in and out.--SporeSore 16:58, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

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Inspect Barricades

Timestamp:	TheDavibob LLL 17:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Type:	Slightly more info
Scope:	Survivors with Construction
Description:	This should be simple enough, but I propose a small button, next to ‘Barricade this building’ entitled ‘Inspect the Barricades’, for Survivors with the construction skill. Use of this will lead to a message appearing: You inspect the barricades. They are [very strongly etc.] barricaded, [one] more will make them [heavily barricaded]. This suggestion is fairly simple, and may help survivors to barricade the building to the right amount, though it is not game changing. Construction people get it, as they are used to putting up barricades. What do you think?

Discussion

I like this suggestion. Someone with construction skill should be able to assess exactly how strong a barricade is, for 1AP. You do not mention AP, but it should be 1AP. Actually, should be 1/2 AP but since we don't have halves it has to be 1.--SporeSore 21:14, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Similar ideas have been tried and failed. The main "against" argument is NOT knowing adds to the game. Also this would make barricades "better" than they should be. Do you risk trying to pile more crap on if your not sure how high the barricade REALLY is or do you get to save AP KNOWING what it really is. If I see a barricade at EHB, is it EHB? EHB+1? +2? +3? Do I try to add to it? With this suggestion, there is no need to wonder. You KNOW it is at EHB+3, so there is no need to waste AP trying to add to max it out.--Pesatyel 05:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

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Barricade Nerf

My reason for kill: Having a dedicated survivor, a dedicated zombie, and a dedicated PKer, as well as having had to raise FOUR newbie characters to "adulthood" in the game, I can say that this isn't going to nerf barricades terribly. The only places this is really going to hurt are malls, and as Gage stated, they shouldn't be places where people can stay in safety for months at a time. Any other place, when a horde breaks in, the building is usually cleared before anyone can barricade it. However I think it should allow for survivors to barricade if all zombies in a building are inactive. Considering how likely that is to happen, I doubt the author will have a major issue with it. --Sirens^{T RR} 02:39, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

We'll see how this blows over. If it goes badly (I suspect it might) I think that is a change I might be willing to make.--Gage 02:42, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, this raises the question of "How do you define 'active'?" What do you suggest should be considered an active?--Bassander 02:44, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Either zombies that are currently logged on or who spent an AP in the last x minutes or something like that.--Gage 02:45, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I'd simply define it as zombies who have AP to spend, though I suppose that could easily be abused by leaving a single AP. Perhaps we could add on to this by time since last AP-spending action. A person could continue logging in and spending a single AP, but they would eventually run out. --Sirens^{T RR} 02:48, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Mia, why do you say it will only hurt malls? Malls have the manpower, and the firepower, to actually kick a couple of zombies out in a matter of minutes. If zombie or two get into an outlying NT and let forth with a couple of feeding groans, they'll have plenty of reinforcements well before they get kicked out, and once they arrive, well the problem just becomes exponential. There'd be no option but to abandon your fellow survivors. I think it would decimate all but the very strongest of suburbs within days, and then they'd fall too, eventually -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 09:36, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

My reason for spam:

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK IS WITH THIS SUDDEN RUSH TO MAKE PLAYING SURVIVORS LESS FUN?! I'VE GOT AN IDEA. WHY DON'T YOU TRY MAKING ZOMBIES MORE FUN WITHOUT NERFING SURVIVORS? IT'S HARD ENOUGH ALREADY FOR SURVIVORS TO LAST OUT A DETERMINED SIEGE, AND MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR THEM TO LAST EVEN A HALF-ASSED SIEGE IS ONE OF THE MORE FUCK-BRAINED IDEAS I'VE EVER HEARD. If your intention is to make everyone become a zombie, I suppose you might come up with this idea--after a night of huffing the fumes from your mother's crotch-deodorant can. I've got a proposition for you. Everyone who voted Keep on this stank-ass piece of bullshit can print out this page, roll it up into a tube, and shove it up your ass!! Maybe then you'll actually be thinking straight! --J Muller 02:49, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

SHUT THE FUCK UP! ARE YOU REALLY SUCH AN IMMATURE RETARD THAT YOU CAN'T MAKE A POINT WITHOUT "SCREAMING" OR SWEARING OR CALLING PEOPLE RETARDED?!?!?!?111

The preceeding line it to mock the individual above. Congrats if you caught that!

First, as I stated above, this really wouldn't make survivors less fun to play. I really wouldn't bother them much at all. You're just one of those people that thinks any suggestion that slightly hinders Survivors is going to make the game less fun. You want the game to be easy for your side. This skill will hinder survivors a little bit, potentially, but it won't bother older, more experrienced, and intelligent players.

Next up, the game is due for a zombie buff/survivor nerf, the way it always is whenever the ratio gets out of hhand. For references, the ratio as of this edit:

Standing Survivors : 18736 (62%)

Standing Zombies : 11390 (38%)

Now, this might not look so bad, until you realize that in the past, Mall Tours dropped the Survivor count WELL below 50%. This isn't happening this time because, drum roll please, things are WAY to easy for survivors.

Next time actually think before you make an idiot of yourself. --Sirens^{T RR} 02:59, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Swearing is about stage two of being pissed for me. Considering that stage three is "hunt you down and kill you in your fucking sleep, I'd suggest you take your swear words and shut your fucking mouth.

As for making survivors less fun to play, yes, it fucking would. For now, as it stands, sieges are still fun for survivors and zombies because the survivors can last for a while and have fun thinking they might have a chance, and the zombies eventually break in and kill everyone.

As for the ratios, I'm already fucking aware of them, and I think they are a problem. If I ever think of a way to make playing zombies more fun without making survivors less fun, rest assured that I'll rush it to the suggestions page. But for now, I unfortunately don't have any ideas for that.

--J Muller 03:05, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

My initial bold text was making fun of you loosing your cool. That's it. Isn't that special?! The last mall siege I was a part of, I saw the barricades going up while I was gnawing at the only survivor in the room. I don't know about you, but there's something SERIOUSLY wrong with that image. Now how about this. Change your spam to a kill vote unless you can think of a better way to make the game fun without hurting survivors. Until you do, I'm just going to call you a whiney pro-survivor, because that's what you are.

I bet you even ZK to get "revenge". HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! --Sirens^{T RR} 03:10, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I know. I was merely explaining why I was swearing. And as for the lone survivor cading while being attacked, well, he's just stupid. But for your information, if my survivor character gets killed, I don't ZK.--J Muller 04:30, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

There have been attempts to make zombies more fun (I name my own suggestion, of course) but they were shot down. Perhaps if prosurvivors were less vicious, then less radical suggestions could be passed/implemented.--Lachryma^☭ 02:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

And of course, the fact remains that without zombies, this would turn into PK War. The way to get zombies to play is to give them a chance...and the only way to do so is by buffing zombies...or nerfing suriviors. Which is the exact same thing.--ShadowScope 02:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations, Muller. You are so stupid your response actually had me laughing. I found it more comical then anything else. Also, take Sirens' advice on thinking before acting.--Mayor Fitting 03:13, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Care to explain? No? Then shut up.--J Muller 04:31, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

You aren't making any friends or influencing any people here J Muller...--Gage

That's not really my objective here.--J Muller 05:49, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

All I wanted was a semi civil discourse. Thanks for ruining it though. That was really classy of you.--Gage 05:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Hey, don't get me wrong. I'm all for civil discourse. But this has been suggested so many times, and I've said so many times that people need to make playing zombies more fun without nerfing survivors, that I'm really at the end of my rope here.--J Muller 06:28, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

This is just an idea, but why not just allow the cades to be brought up when their are 10 or less zombies in the building? That would reduce the nerf effect in smaller fights, but would allow this to still easily apply to large sieges. Just my thoughts. SuperMario24 03:16, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm really surprised and upset this suggestion is getting the support it is. Anyone who has played for more than a few days should realize how incredibly overpowerful this would make zombies. Anywhere but the most heavily populated malls if zombies break in they're often there for several hours. It's unlikely that enough survivors to kill off all the intruders would come by before the killed zombies get reinforcements or more simply just stand back up and stroll right back in. And even a powerful mall would likely fall to even small bands of zombies if each zed could force surivors to kill them numerous times with every breach. Yes barricades are hard for one zombie to get through. But once down every zombie that enters is effectively like an entire set of barricades a survivor must destroy before the building is secured. And every survivor killed requires a wait time and an expensive revival process. Barricades are really quite balanced. --Jon Pyre 03:26, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. He didn't even bother dealing with ZERG issues. If the problem is that malls are too "fortres like", as eluded to in the suggestion, then deal with THAT.--Pesatyel 09:35, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

As I stated before, you are taking this the wrong way. You are taking it so that the ratio will change. But think about this: How many of those 'standing survivors' are actually standing? --Nimble Zombie 03:50, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

If your thinking along those lines, it would be better to tally it as thus, with "T" meaning total survivors, "H" meaning standing hunters, "X" meaning unknown survivors (newbies, discarded zergs, etc.): T - H = X

Currently, that would leave "X" as 8013, with about 1/2 - 3/4 being newbies. Subtract 4000 - 2000(For rounding purposes) to get the total number of survivors, which would then be 14k - 12k compared to the 11.5k zombies. The problem being, bodies aren't counted. To count them, add 3.5k survivors and 2.5k to zombies. Still unbalanced, but not as badly as everyone think. Of course this formula isn't perfect and doesn't take into account pkers and other anti-survivor survivor groups. More of my thoughts. SuperMario24 04:05, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

(Hope its the right spot to post)Good idea, but i think it needs tweaking. Maybe something along the lines of percentages. The more zombies in the zombie to human ratio in a building, the harder it is to barracade. So it can still be done. But the more zombies you have around you, the harder it is to find a table to nail to the door. Eh, my thoughts. And im mainly a zombie player Jackson 5 03:56, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

There is this in Peer Review.--Pesatyel 09:44, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it's way overpowering. Sure, it would weaken mall defenses, but in doing so it will pretty much make living in the backwaters an impossibility. How about making it harder to barricade the more people are in a building. If there's over 50 you find it harder to make your way through the crowd with that shopping trolley for the barricade, so it takes more AP. That specifically targets survivors where they're strongest, rather than weakening the malls, and totally nerfing the outriders. How about having a 40% chance of not noticing a drop in the barricades since your last move in crowded buildings? Target those malls, and the over-safe suburbs, with barricade suggestions and I'd consider them -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 05:27, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Zombie numbers have gone down but I don't think it's because the game is imbalanced. Rather I think it's that zombie players get bored easier since they have less do to, and don't even have the risk of death that survivors have. Monotonous activity and low stakes are the cause, not unfair game mechanics. Rather than a giant unbalancing nerf the answer is to figure out some new things for zombies to do. --Jon Pyre 05:31, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

No shit. Imagine what will happen should zombies actually surge again? With this OVERPOWERED barricade nerf? I really don't believe he's looking at the bigger picture or the ramifications of this OVERPOWERED suggestion. I mean if Survivors and Zombies were reversed on the "stats page" would he want insta-kill rocket launchers to "even it out"?--Pesatyel 09:44, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually this suggestion serves to make the game what it is supposed to be, the apocalypse. Survivors are supposed to be running from the zeds, barely surviving. If this is implemented malls will fall fast which I actually feel is a good thing as they are a never ending supply dump. Survivors are meant to be nomadic and only staying in one place for a short while until the barricades and guns aren't enough to keep the zombies out anymore. The only question is if it doesn't reduce the chances of survival to nothing, but if survivors are clever and run fast they should survive. Whitehouse 14:10, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I must ask that someone keep an eye on who is voting. I have already found one case where the user's only contribution was to vote keep on the suggestion, which could mean the account was only created to vote(Of course it may also be innocent). That is probably the only current one, but I can see that some people feel very strongly about one side or the other and it may happen again. SuperMario24 15:33, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, so what? They're a member of this game, and they have an equal say as you do for how Suggestions are made. Just because they haven't been highly active on the Wiki doesn't mean you can simply invalidate their vote. That's some real cold shit to suggest.--Bassander 21:10, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Whitehouse addressed that the user was a member of the game, and so he/she was completely innocent. My concern is users creating multiple accounts only to vote. If I wasn't clear, then I apologize. SuperMario24 21:17, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Snuffleuff is a well known member of the Feral Undead. But out of interestI must ask what are the rules concerning this issue. Is it against the wiki rules to sign up to just vote on a suggestion. I can understand that it might be annoying to have profiles floating round which haven't done anything but vote once but I don't think that it should be punished in any way. Can someone clarify for me please? Whitehouse 15:43, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

What's really worrying about the voting is that it's entirely unrepresentative. It's clear that many people are voting just on this single suggestion. It's meta-voting, essentially - being supported through word of mouth. I can understand wanting to alter the barricade dynamics, and there are already suggestions in Peer Reviewed that do just that - but nerfing them altogether is just stupid. It'll break the game. With ransack, one side has to achieve total control to swing the building around to their side. That's a game. That's a challenge. With this, it would just be a zombie free for all. You won't balance the scales by chucking them off a cliff. --Funt Solo 16:57, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Totally nerfing barricades would be removing them entirely. This isn't a total nerf, and I think you know it.--Gage 17:11, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a pretty damn significant nerf though. I have a zombie character that's been inside a struggling necrotech for about two days now, slowly whittling away the survivors inside. They don't have attack skills, most are newbies with nothing but science abilities. They have to keep the cades at VS so they can get in! Heck, only about two of them have...(grins evilly), had construction. Rather than breaking in repeatedly for a few days, and staying around for hours before a high level player came by, I would have busted in once and killed them with the first groan. Also judging by how many people seem to be brand new for just this suggestion it's pretty clear that there's been a major metagame effort somewhere to recruit people to sign up and vote just for this. Nothing against the rules, I've done that myself once or twice but it explains why none of them seem to understand that "this is a zombie apocalypse things should be hard" doesn't always work. Honestly I wouldn't worry about it. Kevan knows game balance and I would be more than surprised if he did anything like this. Unless he balanced it out with something extreme like...hmm...syringes having a 20% find rate and a 1AP use cost, or getting dumped out a window draining 20AP from the zombie, or tripling the amount of barricades a building can have. As I said, it would surprise me. --Jon Pyre 17:23, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Gage, you're putting words in my mouth - I never said it was a "total nerf" - in fact, I used exactly the same language you used, and called it a "nerf". Which it is. A stupid one. So stupid, that's it's not actually a Dupe - nobody's had the balls to suggest this before. Mind you, you've sparked an interesting debate. --Funt Solo 18:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry Funt, but your EXACT quote (Scroll up! Check it out!) is "nerfing them altogether". That's synonymous with "totally nerfing". Or does Scottish differ from English in the usage of the phrase "all together"? You're not going to semantically wiggle out of that one.--Bassander 21:15, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

We speak English in Scotland, smartarse. And whichever way you paint it (because semantics do matter in an argument), the suggestion is way overpowered. --Funt Solo 06:59, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Well I voted yes on this not because I think it will balance things (that wont happen until people want to be zombies) but because it will make it harder for survivors to be up and combat ready again. If half the population is panicking and running for the next barricaded building this would mean that it would be harder to get those revives. The point is, if a medium horde enters a suburb they would now have the capability to actually cause total havoc. Whitehouse 17:32, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

If this ability just two zombies could cause havoc pretty much anywhere. Barricades are deliberately easy to set up compared to the ability to remove them because they're the only defense survivors have when they're logged off. A building with 15 survivors inside might only see one of them logging on every two hours. Or even longer gaps considering they won't be averagely spread out, they'll all be playing before/after work/school. Now 2 zombies bust in, groan letting dozens of zombies know there's a breach instead of just 15, the building gets flooded. Just the fact that a zombie could walk back in after being shot is ridiculous. --Jon Pyre 17:43, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Well that was my only worry, that it might be to easy. But then there are alternatives. Such as a human to survivor ratio in the building, say 4 survivors and one zombie would mean that the survivors couldn't barricade, while if it was 5 survivors to 1 zombie they could. That would mean that it wouldn't be entirely ridiculous as when in a mall siege 100 survivors would be able to barricade with one zombie inside. Anyway.. I would like to see something like this implemented, and currently this is the only thing that is close to what I think would make survivors more nomadic. Whitehouse 17:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Why not just slap something along the lines, 5 or less zombies in all normal buildings (Non-large) and you can cade, and 25 or less in a large building and you can as well. It would apply that the buildings are very large and they could be cading on another part of the building. Needless to say, I still wouldn't vote keep, but it would be reasonable. On a side note, there are an awful lot of people who either haven't been active and voted or who joined then voted as their first or second objective, mostly in the keep section. Either way, it will probably be put in peer undecided. SuperMario24 18:41, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

what would be the point of barricading the backdoor when the zombie broke the front door and is stood next to it chewing the guy who was on watch?--Honestmistake 17:42, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think that it should have a minimum of 5 zeds before the barricading option is removed. Because think about it, in the suggestion Gage is basing this off of the fact it would be hard to barricade when there are zeds inside. What if there is only one zed? given a zombies speed/dexterity it would be like dodging Helen Keller, so I think 5 zeds should be the minimum.--Canuhearmenow ^Hunt! 20:46, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Survivors can go to other means to "defend" against zombies if this were implemented. How about not crowding into one building so much? Feeding groan's range is dependent upon how many survivors are found inside of a building. If you've got 10 or 15 survivors in a building, yes, a lot of zombies are going to potentially show up because the range. But if you are keeping a better distribution? If places like museums and train stations were more than just pathways to free-run along? Well, you have 2 or 3 survivors in each building, with each having barricades that must be torn down, and zombies going different directions to follow different groans. Sure, this would require a different tactic than "Meatshield up and wear 'em down!" but I'd think changing things up would be fun. Obviously, many disagree.--Bassander 21:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm seeing the potential for zed spy tactics. I know that during the Shacknews Sieges, they would send in some spies that they infected. The spies just walked around the mall till they died then stood up and destroyed Generators, Radios then people. If this suggestion is enacted, all zeds would need to do would be to send in one spy, then blow away the barricades while the survivors are getting their act together. I do believe the zeds need help to be more fun to play, but it's been said many times to leave the barricades alone, they really are the only hope for a survivor.--Tirak McAlister 23:44, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

It's called Parachuting.--Lachryma^☭ 04:36, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

In all this discussion, there STILL haven't been any "pro-suggestion" people counter thing zerging argument. Not to mention FREE RUNNING.--Pesatyel 05:01, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Zerging issues can easily be solved by survivors being able to barricade when zombies trip the zerg flag. Zerging pervades this game. Please, don't be stupid like this. Kevan doesn't do enough to prevent it as is. I think you have to assume that any future change to the game could potentially be abused by zergers. And what is this about free running? This suggestion in no way affects free running.--Gage 05:14, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

What about the argument that the zombies themselves could just stand up outside and walk back in? That's overpowered just in and of itself. --Jon Pyre 06:35, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Zombies don't have to do anything but be present, thus no zerge trip. And just because zerging "pervades" the game and we have to "assume any future ideas can be abused by it" doesn't, in any way, mean you don't have to deal with it in the suggestion now. YOu didn't even BOTHER to try at all. Let Kevan deal with it, right? Sheesh. As for the Free Running, there have been several barricade related suggestions. I guess I got mixed up on them. And, honestly, how can you not see this is overpowered? Zerging or no, just place one zombie minimum in every building...no more barricades. Especially if you consider the 1 body per AP dumping. Before that, this idea could, possibly, have some merit, but now?--Pesatyel 08:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Survivors are not supposed to be able to survive in a siege, simply because zombies can't die. Survivors are supposed to be nomads. If they can sit around and hope to survive, then zombies are underpowered. If all things are equal (intelligence, numbers, metagaming, etc), it is virtually impossible for zombies to breach a safehouse, because survivors can build cades twice as fast as zombies can destroy them and for half the AP cost. This difference is even larger at lower barricade levels (where the survivors are 4x as fast/efficient as zombies) due to barricade odds being dependent on barricade level. Sure, the zombies could just attack when the survivors aren't on, but we can apply the same logic to survivors trying to re-take a ransacked building. If one side is on and the other isn't, then the first side has a huge advantage. For any meaningful comparison we have to assume that there are as many active zombies as active survivors. And in that case, it costs 68 AP per zombie to overcome the cades; more than they can even store. So then why do they win? Because this scenario of an "equal battle" almost never occurs. Zombies are always better meta-gamers and make sure to attack when survivors aren't on. But those factors are independent of game balance. If survivors got off their asses and started meta-gaming half as well as the zombies do, I guarantee that there would never again be a zombie mall victory. --Reaper with no name ^TJ! 16:42, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Who ever said zombies are supposed to win every time? This is a zombie apocalypse but one of the highlights of the zombie genre are besieged survivors facing down hordes and living in their makeshift communities for months before the zombies break in. That's the genre. If 10 zombies face off 10 survivors it should more or less balance out. Barricades are hard to break through because it's hard to revive dead survivors. That's the balance there. If you want to nerf barricades you have to buff revives. --Jon Pyre 17:48, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The reason there's little problem, in my opinion, with sieges is that while the total number of survivors in the game is higher than the total number of zombies, the survivors are spread out. Zombies can still, whenever they please, establish local superiority in numbers, and win a siege.--J Muller 00:10, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

This is a particularly weak argument. Zombies have the upper hand if they are organized. Barricades only stop the first two zombies, the rest of them go in without any opposition. The larger the number of organized zombies, the less important are the barriacades. Zombies get to pick the time and place of the attack, and survivors can't do anything about it. Perhaps you should be rememberd of a certain horde that recently took down survivor strongholds with 2-3 times the population than its numbers. With ease and grace. Bluetigers 05:44, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, the simple fact is barricades must go up BEFORE killing zombies because the only thing that prevents the killed zombies from coming back in are those barricades. Why even bother to attack a zombie if it won't actually serve any defensive purpose? If barricades are going to be gutted like this then headshot will need to put down the zombie for a while so they can't stroll back in the second you kill them. Something like "a dumped zombie cannot stand up for 24 hours" would be necessary at the least. And that would screw over zombies trying to maintain ransack. The only way to counteract a ridiculous extreme measure like this is to put in another extreme measure with plenty of unpleasant side effects. --Jon Pyre 07:13, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Barricades only stop the first two zombies if no one is rebuilding them. Like I said before, the only way to make a meaningful comparison is if the zombies and survivors are on at the same time. Otherwise, whoever is on has the advantage. And it is a LOT easier to revive a survivor than it is to destroy barricades in this scenario. the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM AP for a zombie to kill a survivor behind EHB is 32 (17 successful barricade attacks in a row plus 15 successful bites in a row). But the AVERAGE cost to revive a survivor is only about 20 (8 to find a syringe, 1 to scan, 10 to inject, and 1 to stand). And one could argue that there is no such thing as a zombie victory, only territory changing hands. Sure, the zombies might take a mall, but in the meantime 2 other suburbs (the horde's members had to come from somewhere) are no relatively zombie-free. Even if all the buildings are ransacked, can we really say that the zombies own a suburb if there are few to no zombies in it? Zombies need hordes to take any building, because the only way they can get through barricades is to all attack at once when survivors aren't on. If the survivors were on and were good metagamers like the zombies, then the battle's result would be the same as 1 survivor vs 1 zombie. And survivors always win those. Zombies don't get any buffs from being in hordes other than the benefit of more people to fight. 1 plus 1 equals 2 for zombies, not 3. Hordes are no stronger than the sum of their members, and the same is true of survivors. This is why game balance always comes down to one on one fights; because in a fair fight everything else in the equation cancels out. --Reaper with no name ^TJ! 21:13, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

This is a the most stupid suggestion I've ever seen. The survivors can do nothing but Trench-coat and combat revive to beat a siege. Which wouldn't work. Tryce of Thunder 03:09, 17 February 2007 (UTC)