PR Skill New: Survivor: Civilian
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===Suggestion Name===
{{psuggestion|
suggest_time=Old Timestamp|
suggest_type=Original type|
suggest_scope=Original scope|
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suggest_notes=#/# Keep/Total. [Optional additional - see below]|
suggest_moved=~~~~~
}}
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Skill New: Survivor: Civilian
General
Barricade Watch (Witness Cade Attacks)
| Timestamp: | 20:27, 10 Jan 2006 (GMT) |
| Type: | Innate survivor ability |
| Scope: | Survivors inside barricaded buildings |
| Description: | As an innate ability, survivors are able to see other survivors inside their safehouses attacking the barricades. This would be displayed on screen as "_____ tears the barricade down to _____". This would not show each successful attack on the barricades from the insides, only when the barricade is brought down a full level (i.e. from VSB to QSB, etc.), and by whom. This would not show attacks on the barricade from outside of the safehouse, only those made from inside.
As a side note - If this is unpopular solely on the fact that it is an innate ability rather than a skill, I believe it would go extremely well with the peer reviewed suggestion Law Enforcement. However I am not aware of the correct way to present it in conjunction with that skill, unless the proper way would be to resubmit the Law Enforcement suggestion with this tagged on (?). Regardless, I have suggested it as an innate ability, because I believe it should be as such. |
| Notes: | 25/29 Keep/Total. Well accepted by all. Some people disliked it because they didn't see the usefulness of it and also because they belive that Zombie Spys are legitimate tactics.
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| Left Queue: | 07:00, 14 May 2006 (BST) |
Batting Practice (+10% Bat)
| Timestamp: | 02:58, 25 Jan 2006 (GMT) |
| Type: | Skill |
| Scope: | Survivors, mostly Roleplayer's |
| Description: | When I play my character, I like to use a baseball bat. There are many people who think the same. Here is a quote from the melee weapons section of the wiki. "It is better than fists, but still very poor. The inability to kill an enemy completely within 50 AP means that if trapped in a room with a zombie and a baseball bat as your only weapon, it is much better to flee. This is unfortunate, as one could imagine finishing off a zombie with a baseball bat would be a very satisfying RP experience." My suggestion to add a more satisfying rp experience to the game is to add batting practice. It would be a civilian skill, because anyone can train for baseball. The skill would add 10% hit probability to the baseball bat. It would give a baseball bat a 35% overall chance to do 2 dammage. It would not make the baseball bat better than an axe, or a pistol, or a shotgun. It doesn't unbalance the game. It simply adds a nice roleplaying experience to those who chose to buy the skill. |
| Notes: | 13/19 Keep/Total. Well accepted, however people disliked it as it was a "useless" skill.
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| Left Queue: | 07:34, 26 May 2006 (BST) |
Cell Phone Whiz (aka picture phone)
| Timestamp: | 02:13, 8 March 2007 (UTC) |
| Type: | Skill |
| Scope: | survivors with cell phones |
| Description: | This suggestion is inspired by the peer reviewed digital camera, and also by the fact that screen shots (as currently used) can be forged, and by the fact that cell phones are currently almost useless. It improves on that suggestion by not requiring a new item, by making a fairly useless item rather useful, by adding powerful new functionality, by eliminating the need for the server to store and serve the "pictures", and probably in other ways.
A survivor with this skill knows how to use advanced cell phone features, including (but potentially not limited to) the phone's camera. They gain the ability to "film" short clips of scenes they are at, if they have a cell phone, and send it to others, including "people outside the city". Filming a clip sends a copy of the descriptive text displayed on the current game screen to an email address of the players choice. This is not the full HTML or any forms, just the screen text that describes the scene and any events that have occurred, such as a player killing another player, or people saying things, etc. This email would originate from "character_name@urbandead.com" or some such, making it fairly convincing, though still vulnerable to spoofing. However, the clip's text would also be digitally signed, making such spoofing detectable, and also making it possible to verify forwarded / public posted copies of the e-mail. The signature would use PGP encryption or some such with a public key of urbandead.com. The text includes the sending characters name. This cell phone feature would function even in areas without cell towers, and is always available. It is assumed that the phone stores the "image" and sends it at some time when service is briefly available, or that this sort of data transfer has a longer range / lower bandwidth requirement than full duplex voice communications. |
| Notes: | 6/8 Keep/Total. Just few votes - level of reviewing isn't big. |
| Left Queue: | 17:48, 24 May 2007 (BST) |
Communication (Choose Who To Speak To)
| Timestamp: | 03:25, 1 April 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | Improvement |
| Scope: | Survivors/Zombies |
| Description: | A survivor with this skill is good at talking to people, and knows how to communicate effectively with friends and allies. This skill would create a drop down menu next to your text box for speech with three options, "General, Group, and "Contacts". "General" is the default and works exactly the way speech does now, delivering your message to the first 50 people present. "Group" would deliver the message to up to fifty people of your own group, and nobody but group members would get the message. "Contacts" would deliver the message to up to 50 of your contacts present, and nobody but your contacts would get the message. What's the purpose of this skill? It allows groups and aquaintances to operate more effectively. Instead of "Hello random people that hear me. Anyone want to come with me to the firestation in the next suburb?" I could say "Fellow allies whom I have worked with many times in the past, follow me to the firestation in the next suburb!" It would allow groups to communicate effectively, unless metagaming is used group membership isn't really a strategic partnership but more of a shared attachment to a specific location. Note that under scope I list this for Survivors and Zombies. I figure that this could be a crossover skill affecting Death Rattle, resulting in zombie with better communication skills like the zombie leader from Land of the Dead. It'll just makes groups, and allies who are contacts but not in the same group better able to cooperate, in both sides. |
| Notes: | 12/15 Keep/Total
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| Left Queue: | 16:26, 7 May 2006 (BST) |
Crushing Force (+5% blunt)
| Timestamp: | MrAushvitz  22:27, 11 April 2006 (BST)
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| Type: | New Civillian Skill (Again) |
| Scope: | A chance for double damage with some blunt weapons |
| Description: | Carefully modified as per several specific voter requests.
Crushing Force Appears on Civillian skills tree, YES also benefits your zombie character. No additional prerequisites. Adds 5% to your hit chances with any blunt weapon. Your character can deliver horrifying trauma with blunt weapons at times. There is a 10% chance whenever you successfully hit with a blunt weapon that you deal double damage. When double damage occurs, message Reads: "Ohhh.. a bone crunching hit for 4 damage!"
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| Notes: | 17/19 Keep/Total. Well accepted as is.
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| Left Queue: | 11:53, 20 June 2006 (BST) |
Gossip (Get Recent Conversation)
| Timestamp: | 22:45, 16 Nov 2005 (GMT) |
| Type: | Skill |
| Scope: | Survivors |
| Description: | This is my first suggestion, so please just edit if I get some formalities wrong. The skill of Gossip would apply to survivors, and would give a character the ability (using the power of gossip) to hear the last 5 or 10 things that had been said within a building (assuming that there is already at least on person in that building with whom to gossip with). This skill isn't much of an advantage, but more of a social thing. You walk into a building and want to know what has been going on recently, so you hit gossip... it could be related (twinned with) to some of the zombie communication skills (death rattle). Finally, I like the idea of using a skill to find out what has been going on in a building. Like learning how to elbow your buddy and whisper 'dude! wsup?'. |
| Notes: | 7/9 Keep/Total.
This also makes it impossible to have private conversations between 2 individuals at the location. Possibly add a checkbox to "not gossip" a message.
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| Left Queue: | 16:13, 1 Dec 2005 (GMT) |
Law Enforcement (Witness Attacks)
| Timestamp: | 17:58, 11 Dec 2005 (GMT) |
| Type: | Skill |
| Scope: | Suvivors, Civilians |
| Description: | You have been trained as a police officer and do your best to maintain order even in the zombie apocalypse. You remain vigilant of gross crimes. Law Enforcement allows you to witness any attacks and kills a suvivor makes against another suvivor in the same square as you. I don't believe this would result in spam because ideally PKing isn't something that happens too often and hopefully this skill wouldn't be used every day. Plus getting rid of the messages takes a single click. It's important to see all the attacks made to determine whether a person just accidentally attacked someone once, or blasted away at them with a shotgun three times. I understand that many people think you should be able to witness conflict between others automatically, but assuming that never is implemented (which seems likely) this seems like a very useful skill for all suvivors and especially for people who want to play a police officer. |
| Notes: | 14/16 Keep/Total. Posiable problems with spam, these can be combated by having a new window for the messages. A question posed was why shouldn't players without this skill be able to notice the attacks.
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| Left Queue: | 09:03, 6 May 2006 (BST) |
Maintenance (Exact Fuel In Generator)
| Timestamp: | 09:40, 5 Feb 2006 (GMT) |
| Type: | Skill |
| Scope: | Survivors, Civilian |
| Description: | Every widely used item has a skill associated with it. Why not generators? Maintenance would be a subskill of Construction. It would let you see how much fuel a generator has left like so: "A generator has been set up here. It will keep running for 17 minutes." Survivors with this skill would also be able to refuel a generator even when it already running. This would just set a generator back to full fuel and use up the fuel canister, as normal. You'd get less time out of the fuel canister than you would if you refueled the generator when perfectly empty but if there's only 5 or 10 minutes of fuel left anyway it'd be worth using up your canister, getting 5 minutes less out of it, and not having to wait around for the generator to run out. It'd be useful for those that want to keep a generator going continuosly but aren't free to log in any time they want and can't be around to refuel in however long it'll take for the generator to stop. |
| Notes: | 11/16 Keep/Total. Well accepted as is.
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| Left Queue: | 06:19, 1 June 2006 (BST) |
Nursing (Take Revived Bodies Indoors)
| Timestamp: | Jon Pyre 03:21, 15 November 2006 (UTC) |
| Type: | Skill |
| Scope: | Survivors, Civilian |
| Description: | During the plague two groups of people treated the sick: the doctors, and the nurses. These nurses were often untrained volunteers, simply ordinary people that risked their lives and stayed behind to tend the sick, unwilling to abandon anyone.
The civilian skill Nursing would allow survivors to tell reviving bodies apart similar to Scent Death and drag them, one at a time into any building they are in front of as long as it is barricaded Very Strongly or less. This essentially works like a reversed form of Feeding Drag, and only applying to revived bodies. Once dragged into a building the person is visible to all not as a body but as part of "X unconcious patients are present." Patients could no longer be dumped outside. If a person is revivified inside a building they can still be seperated from any bodies present and marked as a patient, they just won't be moved. If dragged into a building suited for tending the sick, one with many beds, chairs or benches in close proximity the patient's individual names would be visible. These buildings would be hospitals, necrotech buildings, hotels, motels, stadiums, churches, cathedrals, railway stations, and mansions. Their names would be arranged in the following manner related to what's already visible:
Patient names would be profile links with their current health visible if you have Diagnosis. Their starting health would be, as it is currently for the just revived, half their maximum health. They can be targeted for healing or attacks by anyone, except they can't be reduced below half their maximum health. The syringe formula is still active in their bodies and restores their body too quickly for their health to drop below that point. If the building is ransacked any patients blend back with the bodies and can no longer be targeted, and they can be dumped outside. They retain whatever their health was at the time of the ransack. This skills is useful for bringing people indoors in case all entry points are barricaded up later, and lets everyone start healing them by spending FAKs. In return you'd have to keep weaker barricades on these buildings, and prevent them from being ransacked. Technically nursing isn't directly a healing skill, it's just the ability to recognize who's alive, bring them in, and point them out to others. This is pretty useful but doesn't give away anything for free. Letting people wake up from their comas indoors recalls the starting scene of 28 Days Later. |
| Notes: | 29/33 Keep/Total. Well accepted as is.
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| Left Queue: | 22:39, 7 December 2006 (UTC) |
Office Experience (Paper Graffiti)
| Timestamp: | 08:19, 9 July 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | Skill/Item |
| Scope: | Survivors |
| Description: | This is a revision of an idea from a few months back, to allow survivors to print and post messages. A survivor with the Civilian skill Office Experience knows how to use machines available in schools or libraries. To print they must first find paper, which could be found very easily in those buildings. Then for 1AP in a powered school or library they can print their message, which would could be up to twice the length of a spoken message. It would become an item in their inventory. Clicking on it for 1AP allows them to post their message anywhere. Everyone would then see a message in the room description "There are X notes stuck on the wall for people to read." Clicking on read would cost 1AP and display all the notices put up on that location, in order from most recent to oldest. There'd be a link next to each message "Remove" which would cost 1AP and allow you to tear off any single note of your choice. Attacking the notes successfully with any attack would randomly destroy a number of them equal to the damage you do. And finally in addition to these two methods of removal, ransacking a building would instantly eliminate all the messages posted within and you could not post in a ransacked building.
This ability is useful, could fufill a variety of purposes, and could even be used to make in-game message boards. It's balanced by the fact that the notes can be easily destroyed and that zombies can read them and find out all the important information survivors have been posting. And don't worry about STREETS. He'd need to spend an AP or two finding paper, another printing, and another posting. Considering that paper is a one-use item and a spraycan has multiple uses this wouldn't allow anyone to be overly prolific compared to graffiti. And this isn't redundant with spraypainting. Graffiti is highly visible and relatively durable, untouchable by zombies. This would be fragile, require people to seek it out, compete with other messages, but allow for multiple and longer messages.
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| Notes: | 22/30 Keep/Total. Well accepted as is.
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| Left Queue: | 03:30, 23 July 2006 (BST) |
Orator (Speak To Over 50)
| Timestamp: | 03:16, 27 March 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | Skill |
| Scope: | Survivors, Civilian |
| Description: | Next to the button to speak players with this skill would have a small text field you can enter up to two digits in. The AP cost of speaking becomes whatever the number is, and in return for every AP spent your message reaches 50 additional people. So if you entered 3 and then spoke you'd use 3AP but 150 people would receive your message as opposed to the normal 50. The default cost would be 1 AP.
The system was given a 50 person limit because one person could speak several times and each thing they said would have to be sent to potentially thousands of people. By raising the AP cost proportionally to the number of receivers this problem would be avoided. One person couldn't spend 1AP to reach 1000 people, they'd have to spend 20AP. This scaling cost would prevent the same problems as before but also allow people to talk to everyone like they used to. It shouldn't increase someone's potential to cause server load, after all I see little difference between saying something 10 times for 50 people or saying something once for 500. The same number of messages would be delivered. This provides an in-game limit to prevent server load while allowing people to communicate to more than the first fifty. Note that this skill could cross over and allow zombies to use it with Death Rattle. |
| Notes: | 16/22 Keep/Total. Well accepted as is.
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| Left Queue: | 08:36, 19 June 2006 (BST) |
Preach (Persistant Speech)
| Timestamp: | 01:26, 9 April 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | Skill |
| Scope: | Survivors/Zombies, Civilian |
| Description: | Some people are just better at talking than others. Most can only shout out their message, reaching 50 people. However the more charismatic and eloquent know how to get people to come and listen to them.
A player with the skill Preaching would have an additional alternate dialogue box titled "Preach". Preaching costs 3AP but instead of simply saying your message once it is assumed that the survivor continually repeats their message during the day, in between doing the other things it's assumed characters do flavor-wise, such as getting food, sleeping, and using the bathroom. The survivor would continue preaching until they perform any action, until they are killed, or until they idle out and go into hiding. On the location's description would be a new status message if someone is preaching: "X people are speaking to whoever will listen. Clicking on listen would take you to a new page containing all the messages of the people currently preaching at that location, looking like:
etc...
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| Notes: | 26/28 Keep/Total. Well accepted as is. Some people wanted the AP cost to preach to be larger.
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| Left Queue: | 11:45, 20 June 2006 (BST) |
Signaling v1 (Flare Angle Variety)
| Timestamp: | 05:55, 18 February 2006 (GMT) |
| Type: | Skill |
| Scope: | Survivors, Civilian |
| Description: | Flare guns currently are worthless as signaling devices. They can be fired at will for any reason, and usually for no reason. It's not worth traveling across a suburb to check out a flare that likely was fired for fun. Here's a skill to make flare guns more useful for communication.
A player with the skill Signaling is adept at using flare guns. They can fire them in ways other than straight in the air, and when seen will appear differently. The purpose of this is to allowing flares to convey different meanings depending how they are fired. You would select which method you would want to use by selecting from a few options in a drop down window. The default would be the current flare message and in the drop down menu would be "Up". Here would be the other options and how they'd appear:
Now obviously what these different methods would mean is up to interpretation but the same way "Mrh?" eventually became a revive request I'm certain these would get meanings attached to them even with no set guidelines. Perhaps "Bright" could be used to signal a huge crowd of zombies, "Diagonal" could mean "Reinforcements Needed" etc. They would get a meaning over time and give flares a useful purpose. |
| Notes: | 14/21 Keep/Total. Well accepted as is as it makes flares more useful and interesting.
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| Left Queue: | 05:23, 5 June 2006 (BST) |
Signaling v2 (Flare Angle Variety)
| Timestamp: | 18:03, 19 February 2006 (GMT) |
| Type: | Skill, Civilian |
| Scope: | Survivors |
| Description: | You are skilled at using flares to signal others and can fire them in ways other than straight up. Next to the flare guns in your inventory there would be a small text box you could enter the angle you're firing the flare at. It would look like this:
You would be able to enter any angle between 25 (because that's probably the lowest you could fire and have it be visible) and 90 degrees (straight up). The difference in angle would only be visible to survivors with Signaling. Everyone else would see flares the way they are now. Here's how the flare I used as an example would appear to someone with the skill:
If multiple flares where fired from the same location here's how the additional messages would appear: ...and again (65°)(02-18 02:35 GMT)...and again (38°) What would this do? It would allow groups to send coded signals, attaching a different meaning to whatever angle they wanted. It would be unlikely for someone else to accidentally spam your message because of the large amount of numbers to select (25-90!). Also it would be even more unlikely if groups tied different signals to different locations (example: the hospital is 5n 1e. A flare fired at 36 degrees from that location only means "More than 10 Zombies inside!" A useful skill that allows coordinated survivors the ability to use flares for more than spam. |
| Notes: | 7/10 Keep/Total. Well accepted as is as it makes flares more useful.
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| Left Queue: | 10:21, 5 June 2006 (BST) |
Specific Search (Search Bonus)
| Timestamp: | 22:35, 6 Nov 2005 (GMT) |
| Type: | Skill |
| Scope: | Survivor |
| Description: | When searching a building, a survivor can specify (by selecting the item from a drop-down list of items that can be found in the area) a certain item to search for. When using a Specific Search, the item that the survivor is searching for gains a 1.5x chance of being found over other items. This DOES NOT add to the overall chance to find an item. Example: let's say searching a building has a 10% chance of finding a first-aid kit, 10% to find a newspaper, and 10% to find a spray can (70% of finding nothing). A Specific Search for a first-aid kit would result in a 15% chance of finding a first-aid kit, 7.5% to find a newspaper, and 7.5% to find a spray can (still with a 70% chance of finding nothing). |
| Notes: | 10/19 Keep/Total. Complaints regarding potential complexity of implementation.
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| Left Queue: | 17:36, 20 Nov 2005 (GMT) |
Stamina (Extra AP)
| Timestamp: | 09:18, 28 June 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | Skill |
| Scope: | Messing with AP |
| Description: | First things first:
Suggestions that alter the AP system, other player's inventories, or other player's skills will not be accepted. - Urban Dead Dos and Do Nots However: There may eventually be character skills which modify the maximum AP and its recharge rate - Kevan, Urban Dead Faq So please, vote on the merits of this instead of a knee-jerk "Spam/Kill - No messing with AP". That said: On to the actual suggestion A skill, civilian. Brings your maximum AP to 60, but every AP after your 50th only recharges on the hour instead of the half hour. So where you would normally have been able to use 20 ap, followed by 50 ap ten hours later, you can use 60 ap all at once
If you want the multiply by a million test figures: A million zombies (brainrotter + recently revived friend + necrotech building = civilian skill of your choice) would be able to do 60million attacks in one push instead of 50million, but the day beforehand they would have done 20million less attacks, which is (some million) less ap that needs to be spent on repairing barricades, healing, reviving, and searching for FAKS and syringes. Also, the massive lull in zombie activity the day before would give survivors ample warning. On the other side: A millon trenchcoaters can now fire 60million bullets in one day instead of 50million, but at the cost of 10million ap not spent the day before searching for ammo, faks, syringes, or spraypainting "STREETS IS WATCHING" on walls. The people who would probably benefit most are weekend warriors who only log in infrequently, feral zombies, and survivors wanting to relocate across the map. Ok, I'm done. Enjoy the flamefest |
| Notes: | 25/34 Keep/Total. Well accepted as is.
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| Left Queue: | 09:35, 12 July 2006 (BST) |
Texting (Message Without Mast)
| Timestamp: | 01:03, 5 March 2006 (GMT) |
| Type: | Skill |
| Scope: | Survivors, Civilian |
| Description: | You've gotten proficient at using the nicer features your cell phone came with, such as direct peer to peer wireless texting. This function of the mobile phone doesn't relay a message through phone masts, instead it sends off a short range wireless signal like the one a laptop would use to communicate with a router. While you don't need a working phone mast to use this feature the range is extremely short. The signal only carries 1 space away (doesn't matter if they are inside or outside). It's useful if you want to relay a message to a specific person and though you know the general area they'd be in you don't know their exact location. And it could also be used to talk to people in the same building as you that you can't reach because of the 50 person limit on speech. You'd still want to keep the phone mast powered as this would only let you reach people next door, hardly using the phone at it's full potential. But it'd make the phones not be total junk most of the time. A realistic function many phones have today, if I was looting a phone I'd steal a nice one. |
| Notes: | 8/8 Keep/Total. Well accepted as is.
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| Left Queue: | 06:27, 13 June 2006 (BST) |
Untroubled Sleep (Extra AP)
| Timestamp: | John Ember 21:04, 13 March 2006 (GMT) |
| Type: | Civilian Skill |
| Scope: | Survivors |
| Description: | Summary: Survivors with the skill "Untroubled Sleep" may regain AP beyond the 50 AP limit if resting in a building which is 1) powered by a generator and 2) barricaded to Quite Strongly or less.
Background: Engineers trapped in Malton have begun repairing the city's climate control systems. As long as there is a generator to power them, certain buildings' HVAC mechanisms can provide a relatively comfortable environment. Barricading a building too heavily obstructs the ventilation systems. Thus, only the bravest of hardened survivors will feel comfortable enough to rest up inside such attractive targets. Sleepable Buildings: No limitations. All buildings are sleepable if the requisite criteria are met. Mechanics: AP regenerates at the normal rate. If the building conditions are met -- running generator, barricades no stronger than Quite Strongly -- a survivor with Untroubled Sleep can regain up to 55 AP maximum. However, as soon as the generator is destroyed/runs out of fuel, the barricades are strengthened beyond Quite Strongly, or the player leaves the building, the bonus AP regain ceases. If the survivor has more than 50 AP at that point, he will not regain any further AP until his AP drops below 50 or he re-enters the requisite Untroubled Sleep conditions. Awareness: Players with Untroubled Sleep will see messages regarding a building's suitability for rest upon entering the building or logging in. If all requisite conditions are met: "This looks like a comfortable place to rest." If the barricades are too strong: "This would be a comfortable place to rest, if the debris could be cleared away from the air vents." If there is no running generator: "This would be a comfortable place to rest, if the climate control system could be turned on." Questions and Answers Q: "Zombies are already at an AP disadvantage!"
Q: "Won't survivors just sleep in a Quite Strongly building to build up 55 AP, and then retreat one block away to an Extremely Heavily Barricaded building?"
Q: "What happens if the barricade level goes up, or the generator shuts down, while I'm inside resting?"
Q: "What if zombies enter while I'm sleeping?"
Q: "Should this be a high-level skill?"
Q: "This raises the survivor AP limit higher than that for zombies."
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| Notes: | 7/10 Keep/Total. Well accepted as is, some people disliked survivors being able to get 55AP, however it makes it easier on Zombies as they don't have to destroy as many barricade levels, thus saving valuable AP.
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| Left Queue: | 04:45, 18 June 2006 (BST) |
Urbanite (Location Name of Distant Events)
| Timestamp: | 02:09, 23 Dec 2005 (GMT) |
| Type: | Skill |
| Scope: | Suvivors and Zombies that took the skill when alive, Civilian |
| Description: | Malton is your home. You know the city like the back of your hand. When you see a flare or hear a groan you'd also know the place it is coming from, for instance seeing "A flare was fired 9 blocks to the east and 7 blocks to the north at St. Andrew's Church". This would be useful in prioritizing responses to flare-type messages. If one was launched from a police station I might be more inclined to respond than had it been launched from the street. Also if I hear a feeding groan coming from an important place I'll head over there to help protect it! True one can check the map and count spaces to determine where the message is coming from but that requires extra time, which becomes considerable if you are trying to pinpoint the origin of several beacons. This would also make it easier for groups to signal each other: "Wait until you see a flare from the Blakely Building, that's the sign to enter the mall!" This skill could make flares more than the spam they are for the most part now.
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| Notes: | 22/24 Keep/Total. Most people liked the idea, however they thought the name could do with improvement. Some people killed because their brain rot Zombies couldn't get the skill. However as the change for revives has been implemented this should no longer be an issue.
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| Left Queue: | 15:03, 12 May 2006 (BST) |
20070504 Who's Packing / "Size Up" Skill
Seb_Wiers VeM 01:57, 4 May 2007 (BST)
Suggestion type
Skill
Suggestion scope
Survivors
Suggestion 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, and you can let them live for now.
Anyhow, to the mechanics.
On every character's setting page, there would be a list of all the character's inventory items that have an encumbrance of less than 10%. Next to each would be two radio button options- "concealed" and "displayed". By default, all these items would be "concealed". Items with an encumbrance of 10% or more are always considered "revealed" for reasons that will become clear later, and because they are simply to bulky to conceal.
- Alternately, there could be two new drop menues on the main game play page, similar to the "drop item" menu. One would be to "reveal item" and the other to "conceal item". These two methods are functionally identical, and so which you prefer should not affect voting.
Characters with the "Size Up" skill would have an action button with a drop menu of targets. Valid 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 valid 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 heavy lifting- the maths bit.
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); this final total (with an obvious 100% max) is the chance that the item in question is noticed. For example, if you were concealing a total of 30% encumbrance, each shotgun you tried to conceal would have a 51% chance of being noticed. If you were instead concealing a total of 60% encumbrance (which would mean most of your inventory was concealed), that would go up to 66%.
- As there is no point in ever trying to conceal any item with an encumbrance of 10% or more, it's not allowed, to stop you from accidentally making other things easier to see
Notes: 10/14 Keep/Total. Individual kill votes voiced concern that this element of the unknown is important, or that the skill would fuel paranoia.
Left Queue: 03:45, 20 May 2007 (BST)
Zerg-Free Trading
| Timestamp: | Jon Pyre 06:11, 8 March 2007 (UTC) |
| Type: | Improvement, Skill |
| Scope: | Survivors |
| Description: | The encumbrance nerf prevents a survivor from stocking up with everything they could possibly ever need, example: 15 shotguns a generator and 8 FAKS in one inventory. Now that you can't carry everything on your own it makes sense that survivors should be able to exchange items with each other as the need arises.
I suggest introducing a Shopping subskill called Trading. The only problem with trading, as previously imagined, is zerging. One character could make a dozen slave characters to find them items and then have the zergs hand them all over to the real character. To avoid this each item will have a value assigned to it based on its rarity, and you can only receive something from another character by giving them items of equal value that they have requested. Items could be valued in categories like worthless (books, newspapers for instance), common (first-aid), limited (shotgun shell), scare (syringes), and rare (generators). So perhaps you could trade two first aid kits for a shotgun shell, three first-aid kits for a syringe, or 1 first-aid kit and 1 shotgun shell for a syringe, or a syringe for 1 shotgun shell, etc. The value of each item is something that will require thought but it should balance between the AP cost of finding it and the demand for it. For instance an axe is harder to find AP wise than a first-aid kit but since axes are infinite use and nobody needs more than one perhaps they'd share the same value. Some items could be more or less valuable depending on circumstance, for instance pistol (0) might be common, pistol (5) could be limited. To avoid confusion it might be best to bar trading of partially loaded guns. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the old trading screen in Oregon Trail. A similar mechanic might work here. You'd have a new link next to wiki and profile links: "Trading". It would bring up your trading preference screen. On the left would have a list of every item in the game coupled with a checkbox for each. You would check off the items you are willing to receive. In the middle would be a listing every item you have, individually with a checkbox, so you could choose what you would be willing to part with. On the right side there would be a drop down menu "Trade for", also listing every item in the game. Clicking "trade for" would bring up the first person in the room with that item willing to trade it. You'd see the desire item on the right, and all your items that person is willing to accept each with a checkbox. Check off the items you want. As long as the value is equal the trade will go through. There'd also be "Trade away" which would bring up a random offer for the item of yours you put away. You could then choose whether or not to accept it. Upon logging back in the person who was traded with while they were away would see a message like this: MaltonGuy traded 3 first-aid kits to you in exchange for a revivification syringe (4 hours ago). Trading would cost the person initiating the trade 1AP. The person traded with suffers no cost since it'd all occur while they're logged away. So this should prevent zergers from gaining by this system. Sure a zerger could give one character the other's guns in exchange for the other's first-aid, but they don't gain anything more than if they just used the characters without swapping inventories to heal and defend the other. The zerg flag would of course prevent characters from trading items just in case, even though it wouldn't be worth a zerger's time and AP. |
| Notes: | 13/19 Keep/Total. Kill concernes are that with right balance, everything of equal value (regarding the cost to find), there's no point in trading, while otherwise, this isn't zerg-free at all. Also, the complexity of implementation may mean that only meta-gamers can trade efficiently. |
| Left Queue: | 17:54, 24 May 2007 (BST) |
Body Building
Fireman's Carry (Bring 12HP Survivor Indoors)
| Timestamp: | 13:56, 9 November 2006 (UTC) |
| Type: | new skill |
| Scope: | survivors |
| Description: | A survivor with this skill can help a wounded comrade back inside the barricades.
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| Notes: | 22/26 Keep Well accepted as is.
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| Left Queue: | 14:39, 24 November 2006 (UTC) |
Sprinting (0AP to Enter Street)
| Timestamp: | Jon Pyre 08:06, 3 November 2006 (UTC) |
| Type: | Skill |
| Scope: | Survivor/Zombie |
| Description: | Sprinting would be a subskill of Bodybuilding to allow you to cross flat open ground faster. There would be no AP cost to enter a street square. Leaving the street would cost the normal 1AP, even if you move into another street square. This would make streets valuable strategic elements. By planning your route to intersect a few of them you might be able to knock a few AP off a long trip. This would be a **crossover skill**, benefitting both human and zombie players that take the effort to chart their trips.
In case any missed it above, this does not allow for infinite free movement. Once you're in the street moving to another street costs the normal 1AP. To use this ability you'd have to move from street square to building square and back. This is a powerful ability but not unbalancing as both sides would gain access to it. And I like the idea of street squares, the completely empty worthless to everyone squares, having a strategic role in gameplay. |
| Notes: | 7/10 Keep/Total (70%). Concerns about zombies sprinting.
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| Left Queue: | 09:29, 18 November 2006 (UTC) |
Construction
Radio Operation
Smooth Operator (Voice Recognition)
| Timestamp: | 06:26, 18 June 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | Improvement |
| Scope: | Zombies and humans |
| Description: | This is a skill idea for radios designed to make them more useful, and to counteract some of the spam created by their addition. Advanced Radio Operation would be a subskill of Radio Operation. The player is an expert at radio communication. This provides two abilities:
1. The player has mastered the art of annunciation and can speak clearly and distinctly. The Broadcast text box would have a check box next to it. When checked the player speaks in a manner that allows people who have them listed on their contacts to recognize their voice. When not checked the broadcast would remain anonymous. It'd look like this: Jon Pyre 27.55 MHz: "Avoid the mall. The only thing on sale there is death." 2. The player has an ear for interference and radio static and can infer the relative distance of the broadcaster based on whether the signal is clear or spotty.
The message itself would not be altered in any way, and it doesn't tell you which way the signal is coming from or the position of the broadcaster. Note that this skill would be a crossover ability useable by zombies carrying a radio. This would be a useful ability allowing players to identify themselves over the air, and to know how close to them a broadcast was made. Players could sift through spam by looking for messages from contacts, and judge a message's relevance based on the distance of the broadcaster. |
| Notes: | 12/16 Keep/Total. Well accepted as is.
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| Left Queue: | 02:08, 2 July 2006 (BST) |
Shopping
Stockpile
| Timestamp: | Jon Pyre 15:26, 17 March 2007 (UTC) |
| Type: | Skill |
| Scope: | Survivors |
| Description: | Now that the heavy hammer of logic has fallen and survivors can no longer carry eight generators while leaping from building to building I suggest carrying this logic further and letting people store items too heavy for them to carry in buildings to be picked up later as needed.
Stockpile would be a Bargain Hunting subskill, the third tier skill to crown the consumer tree. After looting items your survivor is cunning enough to hide them away safetly, from zombie and human alike. In any unransacked building the character would have a drop down menu labeled "Hide" beneath their inventory listing each item in their inventory as an option. Clicking that would cost 1AP and move the item into their stockpile, a second section of items located beneath the Hide button. At the bottom of the Stockpile section would be a drop-down menu labeled take, listing every item in your stockpile as an option. Clicking it would cost 1AP and move that item into your inventory, space permitting. If your inventory was full it'd give you a generic message about being too encumbered to take that item. Stockpiles would also have a size limitation based on how much you can hide in limited space, only allowing you to store items equivalent to 50% of your normal inventory's maximum encumbrance. You can't use items that are in your stockpile, only in your inventory. And obviously you can only take items from or hide items in a building when you are in that building. Additionally you may only have 1 stockpile at a time. If you try to hide an object in a building when you have your stockpile set up elsewhere you will receive a warning message: "You can't keep track of that many hiding places. If you hide an object here you will lose any items hidden elsewhere. [Don't Hide] [Hide Item]". So that's stockpiling for you. A single hiding place of your choosing to keep a number of items in reserve equal in encumbrance to up to 50% of your normal inventory's size. Oh and one last detail that's pretty crucial: If a building is ransacked all stockpiles inside are destroyed. So yeah, it'd be pretty funny for a survivor to hide twenty first aid kits in a building only to lose them all the next day during a zombie assault. So that's something for the survivor to consider when picking where to keep their things. Being mobile, able to free run from building to building and hide anywhere is the survivor's main tactic for safety now that zombie numbers are high. While keeping a stockpile lets you store items in reserve it also severely limits the survivor's ability to say "Hey, twenty zombies outside. I think I'll move a few blocks", because they'll either need to abandon their items or withdraw them at 1AP apiece.
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| Notes: | 18/21 Keep/Total. Well accepted as is. Kill votes were discussing limitations to stockpiles |
| Left Queue: | 18:09, 26 May 2007 (BST) |
Looting (Bonus for Risky Tactics)
| Timestamp: | Jon Pyre 16:22, 7 April 2007 (BST) |
| Type: | Skill |
| Scope: | Survivors, Consumer |
| Description: | It doesn't make much sense tactically to hang around an overrun neighborhood. In fact survivors would probably do best if they all crammed into a single mall and necrotech. But playing in small groups, in areas where zombies outnumber humans, where ransacked buildings abound is more fun for both sides and more appropriate for the zombie genre. I suggest adding a new skill to the Consumer tree to encourage the living to stay in areas where any mall is bound to be ransacked.
Looting would be a Shopping Subskill that allows the survivor greater ease in finding items when there are no zombies, bodies, or other humans to distract them or stand in the way of where they want to search. Additionally the building must be situated so it's easy to search every drawer and shelf, hard to do when furniture is toppled or pushed against the door. So: In any unransacked, unbarricaded building, with no other survivors or zombies the looting survivor gets to search a few times with a 90% chance of finding something. Not necessarily something good, but they have a low chance of coming up empty handed. Each time they search there's a twenty percent chance of the building getting the looted status, visible in its description. This prevents the looting skill from being used there until new items are revealed by moving furniture around and revealing previously covered shelves and drawers, mixing up the layout, namely until the building gets barricaded up to heavy. That'll remove the looted status but of course nobody will be able to loot the building until it is unbarricaded again. So here's a hypothetical scenario how looting would work, step by step:
So essentially it's a "hey you retook a building" bonus for the survivor that barricades up again. And if the first survivor with Looting in the building doesn't have Construction, well, in that case this reward suggestion would instead be a "help newbie in overrun suburb" suggestion. Despite provided a benefit to survivors in survivorless unbarricaded buildings this would not promote Pking or infighting among humans. To get a search bonus just a handful of times a human raider would have to spend enough AP to kill every survivor present, dump all the bodies, and destroy the barricades. This makes it hard if not impossible, and definitely inefficient, for a survivor to make their own looting bonus by bumping off people. |
| Notes: | 12/18 Keep/Total. The idea of bonus been only in non-barricaded buildings isn't well accepted as it might inspire survivors to destroy low barricades. |
| Left Queue: | 22:23, 29 May 2007 (BST) |
Tagging
Graffiti Artist (Link To Profile)
| Timestamp: | 06:05, 17 Feb 2006 (GMT) |
| Type: | Skill |
| Scope: | Survivors |
| Description: | Subskill of tagging. You are skilled at leaving messages in spraypaint and can sign your messages without taking up significant space. Next to the text box for entering Graffiti a survivor with this skill would have a small box they could check. If they check this box and write a message on the wall the message they leave is a link to the author's profile. If they do not check the box their message remains normal text. A useful skill that provides the option of letting people see the name and profile of the author, if the author chooses. |
| Notes: | 22/24 Keep/Total. Well accepted as is. One person disliked it as it removes "the spooky feal". Another person disliked it as it doesn't make sense from a role playing perspective as other skilled artists would be able to replicate the signature.
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| Left Queue: | 08:26, 4 June 2006 (BST) |
The "Looter" Skill
| Timestamp: | MrAushvitz 23:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
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| Type: | You be a lootin'! |
| Scope: | Thou shalt not steal... unless thy ass is about to be bitten |
| Description: | Looter
Appears on civilian skills tree as a sub-skill of Tagging. Adds no benefits to your zombie character. You have learned how to search more quickly in certain buildings, and carry even more of certain items. Basically your character is a bit of a bum/theif/less than heroic survivalist this is not a respectable skill, but it has it's uses. Let's just say anyone can learn this skill, you just grab everything you can when noone is looking, really.
This skill is useful to a variety of character genres: (Military) Scouts & Sniper & Communications specialists, vandals and street thugs/gang members, any survivors who have perhaps an alcohol problem since the outbreak.. etc. Even SWAT police might enjoy this, or those who really want to use the flare gun more often without empowering it too much. This skill is an an all encompassing little something that makes a lot of things easier to carry, and searching in what is not normally your "best" resource buildings, more useful, or an option! This skill can be a decent back-up for scouts in completely zombie controlled suburbs, and for using a tactic of having non-powered safehouses in certain buildings, so zombies can't see people live there! (Ex. Junkyard, an "abandoned" church, etc.) It also allows your character skill choices to be something different from mall-centric play, if that's what you'd like! (For the free running, tag-a-mania characters. I still reserve the right to headshot, specific said "streets" personnel.) Makes tagging actually useful, as it is a pre-requisite to get this skill. Some starting survivors may buy this once they get a number of their combat skills down pat, in order to allow for the possibility of more "mobile defensive" gameplay. ie. "I'm not staying in this one safehouse forever, man." |
| Notes: | 5/7 Keep/Total. This suggestion pushed it's way through without much feedback. Review of it is utterly low. |
| Left Queue: | 19:02, 24 May 2007 (BST) |
