PR Skill New: Zombie: Scent Fear Tree

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Skill New: Zombie: Scent Fear Tree

Scent Blood

Enhanced Scent (Limited X-Ray Vision)

Timestamp: 11:30 AM 30 Nov 2005 EST
Type: Skill Prereq:Scent Blood
Scope: Zombies
Description: Allow zombies with Scent Fear and Scent Blood to 'smell' injured humans inside buildings from the outside. Not necessarily the number of humans, or the individual player, just that a building is occupied by one or more injured (and thus tasty targets) humans. Aids zombies ability to pick inhabited buildings over random smashing of barricades to see what's inside. Humans getting to building will leave a blood trail zombies can then follow.
Notes: 19/27 Keep/Total.
  • DISSENT: Ankle Grab working the way it does, zombies are unstoppable, and the only real way for humans to fight back is to waste a zombie's AP by barricading up uninhabited buildings. Maybe if the skill's strength diminished as the barricade's strength goes up (with heavy and stronger barricades allowing no scent), I'd reconsider this vote.
  • Split it into two skills where the first allows you to scent survivors with under 25HP and the next skill allows you to smell any wounded survivor.
  • Was "Enhanced Scent".
Left Queue: 16:40, 15 Dec 2005 (GMT)

Scent Infection

Timestamp: 04:00, 15 march 2006 (GMT)
Type: Zombie Skill
Scope: Zombies
Description: *Prerequisites: scent blood.
  • Story element:

The zombies sense's have become more accurate in detecting fresh and unspoiled blood. Now any infected human has the letter "I" next to their name.

  • What it does:

Simply put this allows zombies to detect fresh or uninfected humans from infected humans. This should hopefully then make infectious bite more useful and allow zombies to infect more humans with out biting previously bitten humans or allowing them to target infected humans for death. Infected humans are shown as "infected" in room descriptions, and have the letter "I" next to their name on the map.

  • clarification:

do you think this should cross over? i have no problem with it. also the "I" could be something else like italised letters. whatever would work best.

Notes: 23/23 Keep/Total. Well accepted as is. However opinions varied as to if it should be a crossover skill or not.
Left Queue: 12:33, 18 June 2006 (BST)

Scent Death

Scent Known Zombies (Detect Contacts)

Timestamp: 20:37, 29 August 2006 (BST)
Type: New Skill
Scope: Zombies with contacts
Description: This is basically a revamp of Kalir's suggestion; all credit should go to him.

Scent Known Zombies is a new 100xp zombie skill with Scent Death as a prerequisite.

A zombie with this skill may Scent Known Zombies for 2 AP.

All players on the zombie's contact list, who are currently zombies and are within the Scent Death radius have their locations listed.

Ex., You detect the familiar scent of JoeZambah 1 block east and 2 blocks north.

Players who are currently human or dead are not detected.

Notes: 16/20 Keep/Total. Well accepted as is. Some felt that 2AP was too high a cost.
  • Was "Scent Known Zombies".
Left Queue: 20:30, 10 October 2006 (BST)

Scent Fear

Scent Exhaustion (Mark Survivor <10HP)

Timestamp: 00:42, 14 April 2006 (BST)
Type: New skill
Scope: Zombies
Description: A skill under Scent Fear, it marks any survivor with less that 10 AP with a circumflex (^) on the mini-map. It would be somewhat akin to knowing if a survivor is asleep or not. Since only the characters that have been idle longest (and thus have recharged more AP) would be visible on the map, this is more useful for a zombie who is chasing an active human outdoors. This skill's effects would not carry over once the player is revived.
Notes: 24/29 Keep/Total. Well accepted as is. However some people felt this would unfairly make people who play at certain times greater targets.
  • Was "Scent Exhaustion".
Left Queue: 12:28, 20 June 2006 (BST)

Scent Life (Limited X-Ray Vision)

Timestamp: 08:19, 15 Dec 2005 (GMT)
Type: Zombie Skill
Scope: Zombies
Description: The idea behind this skill for zombies is that it allows the zombies to detect survivors inside a building. The problems with previous similar suggestions are:
  • If there were N survivors inside, success was automatic, and impossible below that threshold, which would encourage PKing if a new person inside went over the limit.
  • Versions based on a random chance of success rapidly become near-certain chances if a group of zombies are present. 50% success for one check would become over 90% if 4 checks are made (1 zombie making 4 checks, or 4 zombies sweeping as a team).
  • Flavour levels of success ignore the point that the practical difference between no survivors detected and one is far greater than the difference between 1 detected and 100 detected. This system's random component also ensures that beyond 'none' and 'one or more', the zombies don't have any certain idea of how many survivors are inside.

This proposed system is a passive skill for zombies, under the scenting skill tree. It can only be used once per half-hour in any given block. This time limit is based on the block, not the zombie. To facilitate this, each block will have a two new, hidden, attributes. The first is a timestamp to indicate when the scent life skill was last used. The second is a record of what the last result returned for a sniff action was, a value from 0 (fail) to 6. The pseudo-code is as follows:

When a zombie with this skill performs any action:

  • if zombie is inside building (end) Zombie can see them, so no need to use scent.
  • if survivors are outdoors with zombie (end) The scent of the closer survivors overpowers any possible scent of anyone indoors.
  • if (block's scented timestamp) is < 30 minutes ago (return last sniff result) This prevents a single zombie doing repeated searches on one block by refreshing, and prevents near-auto succcess for groups. By returning the last result if a recent sniff was made, it prevents false negatives from being reported.
  • set (block's scented timestamp) to (now)
  • check for level 1 success (3 x survivors) % present
  • if level 1 passed, check for level 2 success (3 x survivors) - 15 %
  • if level 2 passed, check for level 3 success (3 x survivors) - 30 %
  • if level 3 passed, check for level 4 success (3 x survivors) - 45 %
  • if level 4 passed, check for level 5 success (3 x survivors) - 60 %
  • Set (last sniff result) data field to the success level returned.

Exact numbers can be manipulated for balance. The important point is that even a decent sized group of humans should be able to hide. Note that although these numbers may seem high, the 30 minute cooldown between repeated searches on the same block ensures that this does not become an X-ray vision skill for hordes - this skill is just as effective whether the zombie is a feral or in a group.

Note that the above calculations are invisible to the player. Depending on the level of success achieved, various bits of flavour text will be seen:

 No success: No special text.
 Level 1: You detect a faint smell of life inside.
 Level 2: You detect the smell of life inside.
 Level 3: You detect a strong smell of life inside.
 Level 4: You detect a very strong smell of life inside.
 Level 5: You detect an overpowering stench of life inside.

Counterpoint to dummy barricading counter: Using the numbers above (which can be changed for balance) it would take 17 survivors inside a building to allow the zombies a 50% chance to detect survivors inside, and that check could only be made once per half hour, no matter how many zombies pass by. Since survivors generally don't hide in such large numbers in building types that would be dummy barricaded, the odds of detection are even lower. Although it is no longer a sure way to hide, dummy barricading is not nerfed by this skill.

Nb: Both the exact % chances of success and the time delay between repeat checks on a block could be changed for balance.

Notes: 32 Keeps / 5 Kills
  • Was "Scent Life".
Left Queue: 10:39, 2 Jan 2006 (GMT)

Scent Trail

Scent Prey (Track Victim)

Timestamp: 07:02, 1 March 2006 (GMT)
Type: Skill
Scope: Zombies
Description: Subskill of Scent Trail. The zombie can use its keen sense of smell to track prey. Whereas Scent Trail is in reponse to being attacked, allowing you to see the position of people who attacked you when you first log in, Scent Prey would be designed for you to see the position of those you attack and pursue them over a few days. A zombie with this skill has a "Track [Name of Last Player zombie attacked]" button they can press for 1AP. Doing so tells them the current position of the last person they attacked. This is useful to find survivors that run away from you. Each time the zombie tracks there is a 10% chance they'll lose the trail, getting no information and no longer be able to track that person. This way a zombie could stalk someone over a few days but not be able to grief the target by hunting the same one person eternally. The trail would also go cold if they do not track for more than 24 hours, so they would need to track at least once per day to follow someone, you couldn't attack and then track someone three months later when they don't expect it. The trail would also go cold if the target is killed, zombies just smell differently. This would add a thrill of fear to the game, after running from a zombie they might be stalking you for up to a week.

You could only stalk one prey at a time. If you attack someone else then they replace the current person you are tracking. If you are tracking nobody currently the Track button would not appear. This skill would add fun for zombies, and horror flavor for survivors. It also isn't overpowering as the stalked survivor would still be safetly behind barricades.

Notes: 8/9 Keep/Total. Well accepted as is.
  • Was "Scent Prey".
Left Queue: 11:13, 11 June 2006 (BST)

Improved Scent Trail (Contact Not Required)

Timestamp: 18:23, 1 August 2006 (BST)
Type: Skill
Scope: Zombies
Description: Currently, Scent Trail only works when someone personally interacts with you. This makes sense- they have to get very close to you for you to pick up their scent. Improved Scent Trail would allow you to, very rarely, pick up the scent of Survivors who passed you, but did not actually touch you.

Each time a Survivor leaves a square containing Zombies (either through map or enter/exit building (or jumping from a window), there is a 1% chance that every Zombie in that square with Improved Scent Tail will get the message "<name> ran a bit too close to you. (Current Location of Name)."


  • Q: Why every zombie?
  • A: Because it's easier on the server to roll once per square, and alert all IST Zombies, than rolling once per Zombie. Also, it means that chances of detection is based on the number of Survivors in an area, not the number of Zombies in a stack. If it was based on the number of Zombies, any Zombie run Suburb would become completely and utterly off limits.


Survivor POV:

  • Q: 1% is too high! that means that for every 69 stacks of zombies that contain at least one IST I pass, there is a 50% chance that I will have been noticed and tracked as long as it was within 10 squares of my final destination, and nobody killed the Zombie in the meanwhile!
  • A: Good maths! The moral is: Run past less Zombies. And reread what you just said.


Zombie POV:

  • Q: 1%? That's very low...
  • A: Yes, it is, and the chances of you noticing an individual survivor is not very high. But if you were located on an entry point, or to a revive point, or anywhere where there would be a lot of traffic passing you, you'll probably snag at least one.
  • Q: 1% is WAY too high then! I will be Spammed to Doom!
  • A: Not really, you would get about 1 message for every 100 Survivors to pass you by, with that ratio becoming more solid the higher the number (Yay normal probability distributions). So even if 1000 people passed you by, you will probably see 10. My Zombie alts get more GroanSpam than that.

-edit: ffs, learn to proofread, me --Gene Splicer 18:27, 1 August 2006 (BST)

Notes: 21/22 Keep/Total. Well accepted as is.
  • Was "Improved Scent Trail".
Left Queue: 07:58, 23 August 2006 (BST)