Suggestion talk:20070609 Post-Necrotic Psycology

Before I vote (although it looks like it's been killed already) I have a few things: I've now voted, but my summary still stands.

My summary is as follows:

Friendly/Passive

Never leave stack when it comes to DNA scanning.

This makes it easier for survivors to identify anonymous Mrh? cows, so a survivor can revive them even with a Brain Rotted zombie in the stack. So you nerf that zombie tactic with respect to Revive Points and NTs - VERY LARGE Survivor buff

True, its a bigger buff than I'd realized. Though I do think its silly that once you scan a rotter, you can;t scan anybody else if all the others have been scanned- which is what this is designed to get around. --Seb_Wiers Imagine 12:46, 11 June 2007 (BST)

Brain Rot 50% less effective at stopping a DNA scan.

Doesn't seem too unreasonable. Presumably it'd be easier to get a better DNA sample with a docile zombie - small Survivor Buff

Neutral

no effects

Aggressive

Top of stack when a group being attacked

Again, makes sense that the most aggressive zombies would move closer the survivors quickest over the more docile ones. Perhaps group neutral and aggressive zombies together in this group? - medium Survivor buff

Combat Revives are less effective on zombies, only wasted 1 AP of the survivor if not successful

This allows zombies without Brain Rot to resist CRs if they want to (although CRing a zombie is a bad tactic for survivors, so I don't seen why zombies would want to resist them. Only zombies wanting to Seige/squat an NT would want to resist CRs. Also, a 'missed' CR only costs 1AP. That isn't going to really affect the number of CRed zombies much. It should cost at least 5 AP, to represent the effort put in. - negligible Zombie buff

armareum 23:02, 10 June 2007 (BST)

Its mostly for flavor, and to make combat revives less predictable- don't underestimate the psychological impact of having an auto-attack fail. Currently (assuming I know they are not rotters, or am in a powered NT) You can be sure of CRing a zombie with 10AP, making planning your attack very simple. Loosing an extra 3 or so AP at random would worry most people. I'd rather see the percent adjusted than make it cost more AP; putting it at 80% resistance would make the cost, on average, an extra 5 AP. --Seb_Wiers Imagine 12:46, 11 June 2007 (BST)

---

So basically you've buffed up survivors, with nothing for zombies. Also, this bit doesn't make sense:

In outdoors locations, the aggressive zombie is picked at random from all the aggressive zombies present, rather than in the normal manner. This effect is negated indoors, where choke-points prevent zombies from "mobbing up", but the aggressive zombies are still "favored targets" over others. (emphasis mine)

Is the effect negated or not? armareum 23:02, 10 June 2007 (BST)

That is the buff for aggressive zombies, as attacks made outdoors are spread out over the entire group of aggressive zombies, meaning they almost never get killed (take headshots) out doors, and then can rapidly regain the lost HPs using "digestion" later on. Indoors, the "top of the attack stack" would still be occupied by aggressive zombies (when possible) but the "mob effect" of spreading out the damage would no apply. In a way, this also helps zombies because in a zombie strike team, you could have ONLY the zombies who have "ankle grab" use the aggressive mode. They get killed much faster, which gives them more chances to use the ?rise tactic. Most zombie players LIKE being killed, especially if they can control when / where it will happen. I play zombies almost exclusively, and would be VERY happy with the "aggressive" mode as written.
Thanks for the feedback! --Seb_Wiers Imagine 12:46, 11 June 2007 (BST)

Okay, I understand what you meant now. It wasn't completely clear to me from what you originally wrote. So: being aggressive spreads out survivor attacks amongst all aggressive zombies in the group. I can see this potentially being used to shield none ankle-grab zombie newbies when siege-ing. So being aggressive is possibly a slightly larger zombie buff than originally thought. But it still doesn't compare to the survivor buffs you've gifted.

To talk more generally now, there are many things in this game which don't quite make 'logical' sense. However they are in place to make the game balanced, and keep it fun for both sides. If we went through and 'fixed' all these anomalies, you'd break the game. As silly as it sounds, we can't make the game better just by making the game more logical in certain aspects. If a suggestion is going to change the balance of the game it ideally needs to explain why it needs changing, and why it makes things better. armareum 21:35, 11 June 2007 (BST)

That, or it just gets voted down. Which is fine by me- I don't take it personally, not after having made dozens of them. I guess the "friendly" name was both bad, and perhaps to generous an effect. Odd that some people also expressed the concern that there was no way to ensure you can trust a friendly zombie. One person says its to good, another says its not reliable enough... meh, whatever. BTW, the basic concept behind "aggressive" is totally swiped from Suggestion:20070517 Hordes 2.0, which just BARELY didn't pass; the majority of the (small) opposition felt it was to powerful. --Seb_Wiers Imagine 23:13, 11 June 2007 (BST)

It is odd that people were concerned that you couldn't trust a 'friendly' zombie. You can't necessarily trust other survivors not to be PKers, the anonymous radio messages, or even some revive tags!

Hmm, the Suggestion:20070517 Hordes 2.0 was an interesting one. In some ways it buffed survivors, due to it being more likely that zombies weren't at full strength when they finally entered the building. Zombies would then be more likely to bite, to regain HP, which would result in less HP loss for survivors. They'd want to FAK themselves more immediately, rather than killing zombies first. It seems rather balanced to me; I really like that suggestion, though possibly with a 5AP cost to join the horde, and leaving the horde when going inside, and 1AP cost for leaving horde voluntarily. Perhaps I'll tell ShadowScope. armareum 11:56, 12 June 2007 (BST)

When playing high level zombies (which is the majority of the ones who attack survivors), I don't view being at low HP (when active) as purely a disadvantage. It gives me the option to either bite (which is more effective than most people expect) or to be more likely to get killed- meaning I do not have to hit the ?rise button as many times if that's what I want to do. The decease in headshots outside would more than make up for the extra kills inside in my mind. I often spend my last AP on a feeding drag anyhow, with the aim of leaving the building to avoid a headshot- this would make such "strike and retreat" tactics that much more effective. --Seb_Wiers Imagine 13:32, 12 June 2007 (BST)