Suggestion talk:20080617 External Barricades

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External Barricades

Timestamp:	Midianian|T|T:S|C:RCS| 23:46, 11 June 2008 (BST)
Type:	Mechanics change
Scope:	Barricades
Description:	I was re-reading Barricade Bash: Version 2 when I had a sudden realization; if something is ridiculously easy for one side, the correct course of action is not to boost the other side. This just leads to zombies de-constructing the barricades in a couple of minutes, and survivors re-building them in another couple of minutes. The process repeats itself until on side runs out of AP. This rapid see-sawing back and forth is not very good for a game you're supposed to be able to play only about 5 minutes a day. IMO, the correct course of action is to nerf the ridiculous easiness. To do this, I suggest that all barricade levels above VSB would have to be constructed from the outside. Barricades could not be constructed from the outside at levels below VSB. If the barricades were at or above VSB, the button "Barricade the building" would also appear when outside the building. When barricading from outside, the items in the messages would include trash cans, bikes, traffic signs, benches and so on. Trying to add to the barricades from the inside when the barricades are at or above VSB+2 would give the following message: You try to add [X] to the barricade, but the building is too heavily barricaded. You cannot add to it from the inside anymore. While barricade construction chances would remain the same, this would have several less direct effects on barricading: Exiting and re-entering the building costs extra AP, especially as the building will be un-enterable after barricading Survivors barricading from the outside would be exposed to attacks from zombies Accidental overbarricading would be practically impossible

Discussion (External Barricades)

I like this idea and dislike it at the same time. Much better idea for balancing cades than making cades easier to break down by a single zombie. On one hand, could be useful to survivor groups trying to maintain cades across a burb, but there would probably be quite a few concerns about people running across a burb overcading everything without having to waste AP to go inside each building, making it easier to ruin barracade plans. --Tselita 23:57, 11 June 2008 (BST)

See? Even barricade-griefers would benefit from this! :D Seriously though, if you have Free Running, you don't have to spend AP entering and exiting buildings either, so it's a pretty small benefit. --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 00:03, 12 June 2008 (BST)

Another question - how would you explain (in-game) why, until recently, barracades were done entirely from the inside? Kevan tends to give in-game reasons for the updates... even if some of them are rather lame reasons (lichen). --Tselita

WanYao provides pretty good reasoning. Zombies would have either gotten rid of, or broken beyond repair a lot of the stuff that's being used for barricading. --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 10:40, 12 June 2008 (BST)

Not exactly foolproof reasoning, but then again it's much better reasoning than 'lichen'. I guess it all works pretty well - I'd probably vote keep (though still there's a concern about people running through a burb over-cading everything. Then again, they already do that (just spends a bit more AP) --Tselita 17:17, 12 June 2008 (BST)

What's wrong with the idea that in a closed city all those drinks dispensers and sofas that are just lying around have been trashed??? Whether by zombies or by survivors lugging them around to make barricades out of them? Sheesh, Tselita, sometimes I think you try to be contrary just for the sake of being contrary. Anyway, I was just wondering... Do any of these lichen mayhap possess hallucinogenic qualities, hmnnnnnnnnn... ;p --WanYao 17:58, 12 June 2008 (BST)

Um.. all I said was 'not exactly foolproof reasoning'. It's a questionable reason why survivors would only have the stuff outside after 3 years of zombies trashing the place (with the survivors never bringing stuff from the outside inside to use as barracades), but like I said it's significantly better reasoning than some of the stuff that Kevan has come up with to explain his updates. Eseentially I was saying that your reasoning is better than Kevans. Take it as a complement okay? --Tselita 22:52, 12 June 2008 (BST)

Nice try. Creative, definately. But it makes no sense at all. You can't make an impenetrable barricade from the outside -- not if you want to be to get back in! Nailing yourself outside? Typical dumbass survivor strategy, LOL!! It almost makes sense to do it the other way around: barricades up to VSB+2 can only be constructed from the outside. After this, you'd be reinforcing stuff, the finishing touches, etc. Also, you could totally justify this in-game: buildings have run out of junk to use for barricades and/or zombies have thrown that stuff all over the place, messy boys and girls that they are :) So you have to drag stuff inside from the street now. --WanYao 01:40, 12 June 2008 (BST)

I wouldn't see any reason not to reinforce the barricades from the outside if I knew of another way to get back in (a nearby entry-point & Free Running). --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 10:40, 12 June 2008 (BST)

Well that's the point... These zombies they can be cunning bastards. And persistent, too. Give 'em an inch, they take a mall!! Meaning, if there's a hole that you can climb through by a means other than free running, it won't take much for them to weasel their way inside. The suggestion as it stands would mean barricade plans would have to very strongly enforced or you'll have a lot of people stuck outside. Just for trying to make their resting places safer. Frankly, that makes life just too difficult for survivors... --WanYao 18:03, 12 June 2008 (BST)

People are going to learn after they get stuck outside a couple of times. Either they're going start making sure that there actually is an open entrypoint nearby before barricading, start maintaining an entry-point themselves, or just stop barricading over VSB. And if they won't learn, well, then it's their problem. --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 19:33, 12 June 2008 (BST)

Well... no... It's not their problem. It's my problem. And the problem of all the poor newblets and general players who don't overbarricade... Let's face it, the majority of survivors are going to overbarricade, just like they're going to sleep in resource buildings and kill zombies in the streets. I don't wanna exacerbate that problem needlessly. --WanYao 05:47, 13 June 2008 (BST)

I really can't see how this would make overbarricading any more a problem than what it is now. In fact, I'm pretty sure overbarricading would become less of a problem, as the player who overbarricades is the first one to feel its consequences. Overbarricading, from what I've seen, is done mostly for selfish reasons. You're just sitting inside, barricading everyone else out. Whereas in this, you're also barricading yourself out, and have to find another way in. If nothing else, it makes sure you've got a couple of AP less for the actual overbarricading. --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 10:05, 13 June 2008 (BST)

Wow, ManYao! You sure have it tough being a survivor! Sounds hard! I wonder how you guys can keep the zombie population down to like 30%! Boy, that's tough all over! - Grant (talk) 10:59, 13 June 2008 (BST)

I would give this a Keep, should it come to voting. --BoboTalkClown 14:22, 12 June 2008 (BST)

Making barricades less insane is a good idea but you are making one mistake. Things being easy is, in fact, a good thing for a game, as long as they aren't ridiculously so. Barricades are generally considered the central tenant of lazy player defenses and as such seeing little effect of actually barricading would be much equivalent to taking the sucky part of playing a zombie and adding it to being a survivor instead of just fixing the sucky part of being a zombie(you never actually see anything happen, very discouraging to the player when you're so useless what you do never has an effect unless everyone else is doing it to).--Karek^maps?! 01:47, 12 June 2008 (BST)

I'm not against making things easier for zombies, but I think reducing the ridiculous easiness is more important. And you would (or at least could) see results. Once you've attacked the barricades, a little while afterwards a survivor is likely to come out of the building and barricade it back up, instead of just fixing it up from the inside. You might even get to claw or bite them while they're fixing it. As for survivors, barricade construction is currently very dull. Making you go outside to do it might add some danger to it, as you could be attacked at any moment. You'd also see what kind of horde you're keeping out with your efforts. --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 09:59, 12 June 2008 (BST)

Point, I don't want survivors coming out I want to get in.--Karek^maps?! 16:49, 12 June 2008 (BST)

Now as for the actual suggestion, seems like a strange way to solve the problem, barricades being constructed from outside? A better option might be to work out a scalable level system for them, the flavor currently works perfectly for it and it was actually how I assumed it was done when I first got the barricade skill years ago. It's not an overly complicated idea, just take a points system and assign a score to each level, like so;

• Loosely - 1
• Lightly - 2
• QSB - 3
• VSB - 4
• HB - 5
• VHB - 6
• EHB - 7

The number represents how many successes are required to get a +1 sublevel, so to get Loosely you need one success, Lightly+2 you need to have gotten 7 success, QSB+2 you need 16 success and so on. Makes barricades still good at blocking and serving their purpose but it makes VSB more common and EHB rare. Least that's my take on how it should be done if the goal is to make barricading harder instead of making destroying them easier. This current idea just seems forced and horribly impractical due to the free running restrictions.--Karek^maps?! 01:55, 12 June 2008 (BST)

Actually, I think that's more like what you said above than mine is; taking the sucky part of playing a zombie and adding it to being a survivor. If I understood that correctly, it would make barricading from no barricades up to VSB about 2.5 times more costly than what it currently is. There's no way you'd get something like that implemented without a tremendous whinge-storm from survivors. Part of the idea was to make barricading more difficult without actually changing the construction percentages (and thus potentially avoid a large part of the whinging). As for Free Running restrictions, I don't see how those come into play other than in forts. Could you explain what you meant with that? --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 14:07, 12 June 2008 (BST)

I think this would seriously hurt fort/trench pubbies. -- LABIA on the INTERNET ^{Dunell Hills Corpseman} #24 - |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ^TMG 02:02, 12 June 2008 (BST)

It would certainly be interesting to see what this would do to the status of armouries and gatehouses, since you couldn't get back inside after barricading them. They should probably be excluded from this, as you can't really barricade those kind of buildings from the outside anyway. --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 09:59, 12 June 2008 (BST)

Yeah I have to agree with Midianian - a gatehouse is a peculiar type of building, it should probably be excluded from this, since the inside and outside are essentially the same, barracading-wise (unlike other buildings). Same for armories because of the particular nature of it's inability to free-run to it. --Tselita 17:14, 12 June 2008 (BST)

Hell yes - this is the best barricade suggestion I've seen. I read the title and thought "oh noes, another barricade nerf/buff suggestion", but this is genuinely intriguing. Keep vote from me, and I'm sure I can muster up support + keep votes on the Hub forums/ RedRum IRC. --Karloth Vois ^{DR News} 14:48, 12 June 2008 (BST)

This can really make things more interesting. Though it's hard to see how that will work in reality. In case of few zombies vs few survivors differences can be not that big. But in sieges - what is a life expectancy of a survivor on a cell with 200 zombies? What if 20 of them are active at the moment (during designated attack time, for example)? Will that lead to using zergers for barricading/soaking active zombie attacks? Leon Clinton 16:35, 12 June 2008 (BST)

It's hard to say what would happen in sieges. There's a good chance that you could get killed in a couple of minutes outside, but that might encourage people to keep the barricades below HB, which is much more cost-effective than above HB. So, zombies might get inside easier due to lower barricades, but survivors might have more AP to get rid of them and re-barricade. Well, hmmm, we'll see if this gets implemented. In the case of meatshielding with zergs, I hope the zombies would be smart enough to check the survivors' skills and prioritize their attacks on those with Construction. I doubt barricading with zergs would be any bigger a problem than what it currently is. --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 18:11, 12 June 2008 (BST)

I think this might actually BEAT zergs. Before, zergs could be barricaders and meatsheilds at the same time. Now, you have to choose one, and the barricade zerg will probably die a lot faster. --BoboTalkClown 17:33, 14 June 2008 (BST)

Clever. Good suggestion. Would vote keep. - Grant (talk) 04:20, 13 June 2008 (BST)

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Sir Bob Fortune's Vote

Change - I want to be able to lock people in the Forts. --Sir Bob Fortune ^RR 22:20, 17 June 2008 (BST)

Re: Even if this was applicable in forts, you wouldn't be locking people inside, you'd be locking yourself out. --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 23:02, 17 June 2008 (BST)

Re:Re Barricading an armoury or gatehouse above VSB prevents people outside from coming in, but also people inside from leaving. Yes, I'd be outside the Fort, but the people inside couldn't get out. Combined with a large-scale parachute attack, the results would be hilarious. --Sir Bob Fortune ^RR 23:49, 17 June 2008 (BST)

Nope, unless that's been changed since I tried it. This also agrees with me. --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 00:07, 18 June 2008 (BST)

Well, at least it agrees on the armoury part. I still think the armoury and the gatehouse work the same way. I practiced some overbarricading with one of my alts some time ago, and I'm pretty sure I left the fort while the gatehouse was over VSB+2. --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 00:17, 18 June 2008 (BST)

OK, the gatehouse does prevent you from leaving if it's over VSB. --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 08:14, 18 June 2008 (BST)

WanYao's Vote

Spam - As I said in Development, this doesn't make sense and basically absurd. On so many levels. For one thing, why the fuck would I be going outside to bolt up doors and windows, the point of which is to keep stuff out. Logistically, that is totally illogical. People are pushing stuff up against holes, hammering planks to keep doors from being opened, etc. etc. This is done to barricade themselves inside and to keep bad d00dz and big nasties outside. And why the fuck would I be outside, building a barricade that I know is going to trap me outside on the street where I will die, wow, how smart!!! No, this is a ridiculous suggestion. It's a nice and very creative attempt to address the barricade thing, I credit you on that -- but it's still ridiculous. I did comment that it might make sense, and be more playable, if you had to go outside for the initial stages of barricading, i.e. up to VSB++. But you didn't like that idea. And I don't like this one, sorry. --WanYao 22:38, 17 June 2008 (BST)

Re: It's called altruism. You know, doing something that might not be beneficial to you, but is so for the large amount of people inside. Is that really so ridiculous? --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 23:02, 17 June 2008 (BST)

Altruisim isn't ridiculous at all. It's what keeps society together IRL, and in the fantasy world of UD, too. No one gives you a pat on the back for fixing barricades, because it's anonymous. Or for clearing that building of the couple of zombies inside and fixing it up, cuz no one else was around. Even those people you revived at the cemetery, odds are you'll never see them again, and you didn't spend 10 AP or more on the rewzz for a pat on the back and a thank you. No. But this suggestion just doesn't make sense to me on too many levels. Both the way it functions (it makes little sense to be barricading from the outside) and the fact that it goes too far in effectively "legislating" that altruism we've been talking about. Admittedly, I was harsh and used strong wording... but I *do* think it's something an absurd idea, and I've explained why... Sorry, I know this is your suggestion... and it's not meant to be a personal jab at all... it's about the suggestion --WanYao 00:20, 18 June 2008 (BST)

Maybe altruism wasn't the right word. What I meant was that you put yourself in danger in order to protect a large amount of other people, not just helping others without expectation of reward. One person takes the heat while many stay protected. Overall, you're still coming out on the positive side.

As for the functioning; currently the barricades are also hard to dismantle from the inside. It's slightly easier (with claw and punch attacks) than from the outside, but not much. Similarly, the external barricades would be difficult to dismantle from the outside. Like I said to Pesatyel, if this gets implemented I'll probably suggest the same slight easiness to apply also to attacking barricades over VSB+2 from the outside.

Oh, and I've learnt to disassociate myself from my suggestions a long time ago. I know it's nothing personal. --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 01:11, 18 June 2008 (BST)