Suggestion talk:20090201 Scent Enemy

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Scent Enemy

Timestamp:	. . <== DDR Approved Editor 11:47, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Type:	Skill
Scope:	Career zombies, non-metagamers
Description:	After years of pestering by this suggestions process, Kevan finally gave career zombies an equivalent to Body Building and Flak Jackets in the form of Flesh Rot. This legitimises career zombie (i.e. a zombie that never seeks or needs to be revivified) play. This suggestion is the completion of the career zombie skill set. Scent Enemy is a sub-skill of Scent Fear (analogous to Scent Blood, Scent Death and Scent Trail), it is a second tier skill and will cost 100 experience points. Scent Enemy is identical in its mechanics to Necrotech Employment, except that it does not allow the operation of DNA Extractors. The skill allows the zombie to recognise Necrotech Buildings, they are marked on the map in the same way as they are through Necrotech Employment. The 'flavour reasoning' is that the zombie has developed their olfactory perceptions to the point where they can recognise the smell of the fluid contained within Revivification Syringes, as Necrotech Buildings manufacture this substance they can be differentiated from other buildings via smell. Revivification Syringes themselves cannot be detected (say to target a character carrying syringes over one without) as the syringes in question are hermetically sealed and do not allow the odour to permeate into the air. Therefore this is only of use in identifying buildings that produce syringes (or where they can be found in the context of game mechanics). The skill is not 'trans-mortal', a zombie that is revived will no longer be able to identify Necrotech Buildings (unless they have also or subsequently purchased Necrotech Employment). There is precedent in the current flavour (Scent Death) that the revive drug causes characters injected with it to smell differently, this merely expands it to those buildings where the chemical is present in its raw form. This is not overpowered in any way as the skill is available (as was Body Building and Flak Jackets) if a zombie gains a revive and the location of Necrotech Buildings is hardly a heavily guarded secret. This suggestion seeks to complete the career zombie's skill set for a complete set of mechanics and to reduce the need of zombies to metagame, even in the simplest form of referencing the wiki.

Discussion (Scent Enemy)

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-- Linkthewindow  Talk  01:24, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Tear apart at will. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 11:47, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd prefer maybe an upgrade to Scent Death instead. Perhaps it should also color in squares with reviving bodies (I don't think it does this now right?). Then zombies could infer where necrotechs are since those are usually adjacent to or very close to revive points. --A Big F'ing Dog 16:52, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Adding more colour to the map is problematic, we had no end of problems getting Scent Death to work for the colourblind. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 09:43, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

you made scent death work for the colourblind??? How, i never use it cos i can't make sense of of it :(--Honestmistake 00:28, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Originally the shades of colour used were too similar if view greyscale (representing colourblindness) they were altered to make them clearer even when viewed this way. Swiers wrote a decoding Scent Death piece somewhere that explains about the display. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 00:34, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Limiting it to zombies is inconsistent as Scent Death's strangely smelling bodies do carry over to survivors. If it's the same fluid you can recognize from the corpses in small amounts, you should definitely be able to recognize it in the huge amounts an NT building would have. What's the point of making it zombies-only? It's not like getting this skill instead of NT Employment would be sensible for survivors as this is more expensive (2nd tier) and less useful (no DNA extracting, must buy NT Employment anyway if you want the subskills). --Midianian ^{Big Brother Diary Room: [518,09]} 18:45, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Very true, that sentence was there to stop trenchies whining, I never saw it as a problem if it was trans-mortal, but you have to consider your audience. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 09:43, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Surprisingly, I can't find a dupe. What Midianian said has a point though, and limiting this to zombies would be inconsistent (should NT Employment's bonuses be limited to survivors, then?) Unlike Dog, however, I would just prefer it to branch off the "Scent" tree like other zombie skills. Linkthewindow  Talk  20:18, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

You can't find a dupe of something I've brought to this page? Colour me shocked and amazed :P -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 09:43, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree that zombies should be able to recognize NT buildings. I'm not sure why you want this skill not to be "trans-mortal" though, since zombies with the NT Employment can identify the NT's. --Janus ^talk 20:34, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

The lack of trans-mortal application was purely to stop trenchies whining. The downside is the lack of Extractor use IMO, as it doesn't seem to be a sticking point I'll remove the section about it not being trans-mortal on the revised text. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 09:43, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Meh. I appreciate what you'e trying to do, but I really don't think this is skill-worthy. As you said, the locations of NT buildings are hardly secret. Also, it's currently entirely possible to identify a suspected NT building ingame without NecroTech Employment or any metagame resources: if a building has a high number of zombies outside and a large number of revived bodies outside or adjacent blocks, it's likely, and can be confirmed by breaking in and seeing whether it has the NecroTech logo inside. Heck, even the fact of meeting a defense makes it likely to be an NT, because normal buildings are virtually worthless. ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 22:41, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think Graffitti is skill worthy, but that's a whole different rant about useless survivor skills. The difference is that anyone who's been revived probably has NT Employment, and thus there are no 'suspected' NT buildings to them, this just allows players wanting to be exclusively zombie to gain the same benefit. It's a skill because the survivor analogue is also a skill. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 09:43, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

You're forgetting that NecroTech Employment is required to use a DNA Extractor, an excellent source of easy XP and useful source of intel. Identifying NTs is pretty much a minor side benefit. ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 13:16, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Can they smell someone who is carrying needles? - tylerisfat 22:51, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

No. As is mentioned in the suggestion text, syringes are sealed, zombies with Scent Enemy will not be able to distinguish between survivors with and without needles using this skill. This only allows the identification of NT buildings using similar flavour to Scent Death and the mechanics of NT Employment. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 09:43, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah, missed that somehow. Late night. - tylerisfat 02:10, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

udtoolbar or whatever shows them differently, it's a nice touch and i wouldn't oppose it, but i don't really see the need.--xoxo 23:25, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

It's all about giving career zombie players equal abilities in the game mechanics without forcing them to play outside their chosen (and genre true) play style. Yes they could use plug ins, but people constantly go on about plug ins not working on different browsers (although personally, anyone who doesn't use Firefox is a Philistine and should be shot), also it should not be required for any player to use a single plug in. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 09:43, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I can appreciate giving career zombies equal abilities, but I don't think that necessarily implies identical abilities (with all due regard to Brown v. Board of Education). Zombies' scent abilities tend to allow zombies to know extra information about their current map location, and (with AP expenditure), extra information about their surrounding area. I would make this suggestion with this paradigm in mind: Scent Enemy should allow zombies to determine NT if they're outside it, and should place an asterisk within NT locations on the Scent Death mini-map. -- Galaxy125 19:47, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

This fits better under Memories of Life. --WanYao 10:48, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

They don't remember the NT buildings, they smell the chemicals, hence Scent tree. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 11:00, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Makes sense. Just as zombies shouldn't have to become human to get 60 HP and a flack jacket, zombies shouldn't have to become human to get the NT-identifying ability. Also, the more information provided IN-game (vs. having to look in the metagame for it) the better. And no one should be forced to use plug-ins. --Jen 14:59, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I'll vote for this when survivors get their own version of ankle grab for standing up after a revive, and when they get their own version of scent death for identifying reviving bodies. Personally I don't wish to encourage playing for one side only. - User:Whitehouse 20:02, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I like it. It further validates the career zombies, and there's no reason I can think of to not vote for it. --William Told 07:13, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

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Discussion above the line is from Talk:Suggestions and is no longer active.

Discussion on Voting

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Discussion on the suggestion page

Also fitting that it's a scent skill. That tree is full of shit like this that's not worth the cost of buying the skill. --Karek^maps?! 23:21, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Re Spam

Nonauthor or additional Res go under here

Spam - We don't need anymore skills for the "Career Zombie", they deserve the same amount of treatment as survivors do when they die and buy ankle grab, scent fear and the works, but you don't see anyone bitching for a scent fear survivor skill do you? --Diablor1 02:20, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm quite bored, so respond I shall.

A quick search of the suggestion namespace for "Ankle Grab" doesn't find a suggestion for a survivor version. Why? Possibly because it's not needed. Survivors die. It's a given. If you've spent longer then a month in Malton, you will die. Which, doesn't actually matter, because unless you are in a ghost town, then getting revives is hideously easy. So, having a copy of those skills for survivors is a tad redundant-although it's not something I'm explicitly against. In short-there's a good chance that you'll be dead at least once a month, bimonthly if you are lucky. Buy those skills then.

It's a lot easier to die as a survivor (and hence get useful zombie skills,) then it is to get revived as a zombie:

1. Combat revives happen, but they aren't common. Many groups don't support combat reviving (a real shame-it's the best weapon in-game if used smartly.)
2. Random revives happen, but not as often, and even then they are random.
3. Waiting at a revive point? No thanks, hence the wording "carrier zombie".

That's not factoring Brain Rot into the mix. Getting rot revives isn't impossible, but the "carrier zombie" factor comes back into this (not to mention rot revivers are usually a tad smarter then non-rot revivers.)

So, to sum up, as a survivor, you'll die. Lots. Get the skills then. A zombie becoming living is quite a bit more uncommon, hence while skills like this, Flesh Rot, and Scent Blood are needed. Linkthewindow  Talk  07:09, 3 February 2009 (UTC)