Suggestions/UndecidedJune2006
This page is for suggestions that have 50% or more Keep votes vs Total Votes, but not more than 66% Keep votes, which would qualify them for Peer Reviewed page. These are good, but not quite good enough Suggestions that could (and probably should) be reworked, refined, and resubmitted by a willing, knowledgeable party. Before doing so, please perform the proper research; reading the votes and the associated Talk pages, and adjust your new submission. State on the submission that you are not duplicating, but have revised and are resubmitting for approval.
This is not the place to put new Suggestions. The Suggestions Page is the queue for new Suggestions to be voted on and suggested. Any Suggestions that have not been voted on will be removed from this page.
Notes for Editors
Those who are placing Suggestions on this page should do so under the following procedure:
- Take the entire template and paste it into this section.
- Remove the entire suggest_votes field.
- Add the field suggest_moved, and then timestamp it with ~~~~~.
- replace "suggestion" with "psuggestions".
- Please note under the suggestion, briefly, what the controversy was about. It would be good for people to know when revising suggestions and deciding whether to submit a new version of one of these. Because these are necessarily subjective, please sign these sections.
So, the new template should look like:
===Suggestion Name===
{{psuggestion|
suggest_time=Old Timestamp|
suggest_type=Original type|
suggest_scope=Original scope|
suggest_description=Original description|
suggest_moved=~~~~~ |
suggest_notes=Notes about the discussion about the skill. |
}}
Jun 4th, 2006
Crucifix
| Timestamp: | 00:54, 4 June 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | Minor change |
| Scope: | People with Crucifixes |
| Description: | Clicking on a crucifix in your inventory would cause you to hold it up. This would be seen as "You hold up a crucifix" other players would see this as "So n' So holds up a Crucifix" This would be strictly for RPing purposes,and would, of course, cost 1 AP. It wouldn't be any different from talking, other that the fact that the word "says" and quotation marks would be removed. |
| Notes: | 15/23 Keep/Total. See original votes for feedback. |
| Left Queue: | 01:59, 30 June 2006 (BST) |
Advanced Communication
| Timestamp: | 04:43, 4 June 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | Skill |
| Scope: | Zombies |
| Description: | This suggestion would create a new skill located under Death Rattle and accessible only to zombies of level 10+ (as with Headshot for humans).
It would allow zombies with the skill to speak without distortion to other zombies. Players would type text into their speech box, and all other currently zombified players, even if they themselves do not possess this skill, would see the resultant speech as clearly as if it had been written by a survivor, with (possibly, but not required) additional flavor text such as "Name groans <insert text here> sonorously." Humans, however, would still see speech from the skill-possessing zombie as if it had been run through the Death Rattle filter. The reason this is needed: First, zombies numbers are declining precipitously. This isn't even owing to them getting revived - they're just quitting. The number of players has dropped by somewhere in excess of 5000 people, and the bulk of that is zombies. Second, this is because playing a zombie just isn't as much fun - and in large part this is because playing a feral zombie is simply a much more isolated, alienating experience. A lot of attention is paid to the relative combat power of the two sides. What people pay less attention to, however, is that the survivors possess a virtual monopoly on communication. They can spraypaint static messages to one another that can be left for people who aren't even there right now to see. They can speak freely to one another. And with cellphones and, especially, the new radios, they can speak to one another clear across the city with very few restrictions. Zombies, on the other hand, have to purchase a skill just to enable them to grunt out more than half-unintelligible messages to one another and nearby survivors. As of right now, zombies - the race which is supposed to be highly skilled at hording together, rooting out hiding places, and finding and inevitably exploiting the weaknesses of their enemies - cannot communicate anything much more sophisticated than "Grab mah manbagz, harmanz!". For newbies especially, having nobody to lead them or give them an idea of where they can go must be disheartening. This skill would go a long way towards fixing all that, without being unbalancing - it just gives the zombies a little taste of what the survivors have. I recognize I may be on shakier ground here as far as genre goes - most of my zombie knowledge comes from UD. However, I believe that this is the kind of thing that fits in with the zombie/monster movie theme. Often, the supposedly animalistic enemies display unexpected - and generally incomprehensible - intelligence. Examples would be the aliens in the Aliens movies, or "Big Daddy" in Land of the Dead. That last example, in particular, establishes a precedent for more advanced zombies having some form of communication. This isn't "magic zombies," or anything like that. It's just an example of emergent behavior on the part of a new "lifeform," namely the zombies. If voters don't like this version, I'd appreciate it if they would note what, if anything, I could do to fix/improve this suggestion in their votes. If I get enough input, I'll take this to Talk for a rewrite and then resubmit it. Edit: for all of you claiming that this would somehow make zombies the same as survivors, please go here for my rebuttal(s) so that I don't have to spam this page up reposting it. Further Edit (since people seemed to miss this as a comment): This is NOT a dupe. A dupe must have no viable differences from another suggestion. This has several. First, Grim's suggestion is a change to Death Rattle. Mine's a whole new skill. Grim's has no level req. Mine does. Further, (though this is very minor) Grim's has no suggested flavor text, and mine does (a little). Again, this is NOT a dupe. I'm guessing that what led Kevan not to implement Grim's idea is a concern that it would change the character of the game too much to enable very large numbers of zombies to talk to one another normally. I'm hoping the additional restrictions on my idea would address that. |
| Notes: | 13/21 Keep/Total. See original votes for feedback. |
| Left Queue: | 01:59, 30 June 2006 (BST) |
Jun 6th, 2006
Scent Death
| Timestamp: | 05:44, 6 June 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | Skill |
| Scope: | Zombies |
| Description: | Now that zombies have Ransack knowing whether or not a building is already occupied by zombies is an important tactical consideration for undead players. It can be difficult to check though since even in buildings known to be uninhabited it's quite likely someone will have set barricades up. Scent Death would be a subskill of Scent Blood that would allow zombies to smell the scent of fellow zombies that are inside buildings. When standing outside a structure the building's description would have this additional line if there are zombies inside:
"You smell the scent of rotting flesh from within." This skill would assist zombies in their attempts to ransack and hold territory by letting them know which buildings need a zombie presence. It does not allow them to detect the living (non-rotting flesh is less pungent). It's a small but useful skill and should be incredibly simple to implement. It'd also be useful for zombies in sieges since it'd let them know if the building was breached and then rebarricaded while they were gone. |
| Notes: | 7/13 Keep/Total. See original votes for feedback. |
| Left Queue: | 02:15, 30 June 2006 (BST) |
Jun 7th, 2006
Tear Throat
| Timestamp: | 17:40, 7 June 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | Skill |
| Scope: | Zombies |
| Description: | Prerequisite Skill: Tangling Grasp
Exp Cost: 100 How it works: Tear Throat would be a new attack option available to zombies. It is only usable after a zombie has successfully grabbed hold of a target via Tangling Grasp. Once a grapple has been achieved, the attack drop down menu will now feature the option to Tear Throat. When the zombie loses it’s hold on a target, the option to Tear Throat will disappear from the drop down menu until a hold is achieved again. What it does: Tear Throat has a base of 15% to hit, but since it will always be benefited by Tangling Grasp the true percent to hit is actually 25%. Tear Throat will inflict 6 points of damage on a successful attack and thus reward 6 exp to the attacking zombie and half for attacks on another zombie per normal rules. This damage is not subject to reduction by flak jackets (as I don’t know of any flak jackets that cover the neck). Tear Throat is not specifically a bite attack and will not cause Digestion/Infection to take effect.
For a zombie with 4 skills: VM + DG + RF + TG 50 AP x .60 = 30 x 3 dmg = 90/50 AP = 1.8 Average Damage per AP. For a zombie with 3 skills: VM + NL + TG 50 AP x .40 = 20 x 4 dmg = 80/50 AP = 1.6 Average Damage per AP. For a zombie with: VM + DG + TG + Tear Throat 50 AP x .25 = 12.5 x 6 dmg = 75/50 = 1.5 Average Damage per AP. Granted these averages are skewed high because the TG bonus to hit isn‘t active on every strike, but it still demonstrates the relative effectiveness of each attack. Tear Throat is actually a little less effective than biting, but its advantage is providing a chance to inflict bigger damage. What this does provide is a more powerful attack option for zombies without overbalancing the game in their favor. These numbers could always be tweaked if they work better in a different way. And since the skill creates a brand new attack, it could always have an additional skill added on later to enhance it (say Improved Tear Throat does 1 more damage which using the above calculation would be 1.75 Average Damage per AP). If this is a dupe of another idea, please let me know! Thanks! |
| Notes: | 13/26 Keep/Total. See original votes for feedback. |
| Left Queue: | 02:19, 30 June 2006 (BST) |
Jun 8th, 2006
Scent Strength
| Timestamp: | 18:17, 8 June 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | Zombie skill |
| Scope: | Zombies |
| Description: | A simple zombie skill (located under Scent Death) to detect which human in the room has the highest level -- and therefore likely to be the most dangerous. Currently I check this out by clicking on everyone's profile, o the feature is more or less there anyway -- this would just make finding your guy a bit more convenient.
Highest-level human would show as PlayerName (!) on the map and in the character list. Skill would not function while in human state. In the case where more than one human has the highest level, only the most recently active would display the symbol. |
| Notes: | 10/16 Keep/Total. See original votes for feedback. |
| Left Queue: | 02:32, 30 June 2006 (BST) |
Jun 10th, 2006
Alteration of Medical Skill Tree
| Timestamp: | 21:59, 10 June 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | Skill alteration |
| Scope: | Players with Diagnosis and First Aid/Surgery |
| Description: | I propose that the First Aid skill tree is made to require Diagnosis as a prerequesite. At the moment Diagnosis is on its own, but it seems logical that it should be grouped with First Aid and Surgery, seeing as it is a medical skill. My justification for putting Diagnosis first in the skill tree would be that to treat somebody with a FAK you would be expected to be able to diagnose a problem - you don't just bandage somebody or give them drugs if you can't see anything wrong with them. This would leave the option open for putting in other new medical skills into the enlarged skill tree.
There is no way that this alteration would unbalance the game. Most people get Diagnosis before First Aid anyway, so it doesn't alter the way that most players would purchase skills. |
| Notes: | 9/15 Keep/Total. See original votes for feedback. |
| Left Queue: | 02:49, 30 June 2006 (BST) |
Jun 11th, 2006
Wirecutters as a weapons
| Timestamp: | --13:37, 11 June 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | Item usage |
| Scope: | Wirecutters |
| Description: | Wirecutters are, as we all know, completely useless at the moment. As we also all know, useless items are useless. What I am going to propose is using Wirecutters as a weapon.
Admittedly, wirecutters are not a particularly threatening weapon, but it would be more for fun than raw damaging power. They would work in a similar way to the punch attack, with 10% to hit without Hand to Hand combat, and 25% with it. It would deal 1 damage on sucessful use, and the following messages (open to alteration) could be used; Attacker Message When used on a zombie - "dodging between the zombie's (zombie name inserted here if it is in your contacts) flailing limbs, you ram your wirecutters into its face for 1 damage When used on a survivor - "Creeping up on (insert survivor name here), you quickly stab him in the eye with your wirecutters for 1 damge, and listen as he squeals in pain. Victim Message When used on a zombie - "You feel a sharp sting in your face. (insert attacker name here) stabbed you with his wirecutters for 1 damage" When used on a survivor - "You shriek in pain as (insert survivor name here) stabs you in the face with wirecutters for 1 damage" This would purely be for those who like to mess around, maybe those who enjoy killing others with a kitchen knife, and is not for all. However, it would give the wirecutters a use until someone came up with a real use for them. |
| Notes: | 13/25 Keep/Total. See original votes for feedback. |
| Left Queue: | 02:54, 30 June 2006 (BST) |
Jun 12th, 2006
Trail Scent
| Timestamp: | 01:09, 12 June 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | Skill |
| Scope: | Zombies |
| Description: | This is another idea for a zombie coordination skill. Trail Scent would be a subskill of Scent Death designed to let zombies lead each other to the suburb they are in by leaving a pungent trail of rot and slime. A zombie with this skill would have two new buttons on their interface and a drop-down menu. The first button would be "Leave Trail" or "End Trail". For 1AP you can switch this on or off, choosing whether to let other zombies track you. The drop-down menu allows you to select who to track from among your contacts. You do not need to be on their contact list however. The second button is "Track Scent", costing 1AP. This tells you directions to the suburb they are in. For instance if you were in Dartside and your subject was in Pimbank the message you'd receive would be "You catch their scent from a suburb 3NE 1N." If you track someone in the same suburb as yourself the message you receive is "You smell them nearby." If you track someone who either is not leaving a trail or is alive you get "You don't smell them."
This skill would be a useful way to have your allies come to you from across the city. The reason there is no requirement that your trackers be mutual contacts is so the leaders of large zombie hordes can have all their followers track them. The potential for griefing is limited as this does not give you their specific location and you can switch off your trail at any time. This would reduce the need for metagaming. You would no longer need to go on a forum and read your group leader's post: "Everyone attack X Mall in X Suburb!" With this skill you could just find the suburb they're in, head over, and then follow the feeding groans. |
| Notes: | 6/12 Keep/Total. See original votes for feedback. |
| Left Queue: | 02:56, 30 June 2006 (BST) |
Jun 15th, 2006
Gnaw Flesh
| Timestamp: | 10:34 AM, 15 June 2006 (MST) |
| Type: | Skill, improvement |
| Scope: | Zombies |
| Description: | Add another skill to the Vigour Mortis skill tree. Gnaw Flesh is similar to the skill Rend flesh. The skill Gnaw Flesh (Bite attacks deal an extra 1 damage.)
EDIT- CLARIFICATION- According to Merriam Webster Online Dictionary a Flak Jacket is defined as Main Entry: flak jacket Function: noun
Using this as the true meaning behind how the Flak Jacket works in game I do not think a Flak Jacket would protect against bite damage since the elements of a bullet differ greatly from how a bite works. --Drban 4:00PM 28 June 2006 (MST) |
| Notes: | 20/32 Keep/Total. See original votes for feedback. |
| Left Queue: | 03:21, 30 June 2006 (BST) |
Horde Aggravation
| Timestamp: | 18:10, 15 June 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | Balance Change |
| Scope: | Hordes |
| Description: | I read the concerns of the general public. It seems most people want balance in numbers, so that Urban Dead is a balanced game, without classes, skill breaking, or massive spam or zerg attacks. But they also want zombies to follow the golden Zombie Commandments, so no guns or nothing. So without further ado, I suggest that
|
| Notes: | 16/28 Keep/Total. See original votes for feedback. |
| Left Queue: | 03:21, 30 June 2006 (BST) |
Jun 17th, 2006
Switching Sides (revised)
| Timestamp: | 01:13, 17 June 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | Improvement |
| Scope: | Zombies and humans |
| Description: | Starting an Urban Dead character can be quite hard at first, but with one starting skill you at least have a chance at leveling up. What about when you switch your character class? You have no skill to begin with (maybe fresh zombies have a couple of survivor skills, but doesn't give a lot of help) and collecting XP can be tricky. "You could always collect XP in one character class, change to another class and use your XP there." Think from the newbies side. It's quite possible that they don't have a 100 XP to spend when they switch sides. If the change was unwanted one, they might still want to try living on the other side.
My suggestion, with advice taken from other users: when a player switches side for the very first time, he/she is granted a reduced first skill cost of 50 XP. After gaining the skill, skill costs return to normal. In the event of the player's first revivification/death a message would be displayed, which would contain at least the following:
This would give newbies some incentive to explore the other side. Already existing player's skill trees could be checked: if they don't have skills for one side, the reduced skill cost would be given the next time they are revived/killed. |
| Notes: | 12/20 Keep/Total. See original votes for feedback. |
| Left Queue: | 01:11, 1 July 2006 (BST) |
Jun 19th, 2006
Zombie Barricade Awareness
| Timestamp: | 03:18, 19 June 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | Game change |
| Scope: | Zombies (buff) |
| Description: | This suggestion is pretty simple, inspired by the failure of the suggestion immediately above.
When inside a building, zombies should be notified when the barricade is strengthened. For example: Joe Survivor added an item to the barricade (7 minutes ago)... and again... and again. (1 minute ago). Zombies already notice when someone attacks them, when someone speaks near them, or even when the radio in their building receives transmissions. They should notice when someone adds to the cades... especially when they just spent half an hour breaking through them. The message would not give the level of the barricade or anything fancy, nor inform you when someone tries to add to the cades and fails. This would not require much to code, and it would not add much to spam, as zombies breakins are pretty rare events, and of short duration too. :P Survivors would never see any message, and zombies would see it only when INSIDE the building. It's impossible to deny that this is a major boost to zombies. "Barricader anonymity" really helps when defending during a breakin, in a mall etc. As such, I don't think it's fair to implement this alone. It should be packaged with something new that helps survivors a bit. Keep that in mind when voting with respect to the suggestion's balance. |
| Notes: | 11/21 Keep/Total. See original votes for feedback. |
| Left Queue: | 08:50, 3 July 2006 (BST) |
GPS Upgrade(improved)
| Timestamp: | 16:15, 19 June 2006 (EST) |
| Type: | Improvement |
| Scope: | GPS improvement |
| Description: | This is supposed to make the GPS more useful. What this does is, when you click the GPS it "saves" a location for 1 (or 2, depending on what Kevan makes it) AP. Then when you click the GPS in a location that you have already saved, it brings an overhead view of the suburb, showing all of the areas you saved as visible and all the places you didn't save are just black. Possibly you could even have a "marker" you put over a discovered suburb if that suburb's building is a designated safehouse, revive point, etc. This improvement is meant to make the playing experience better for Newbies who got lost yet found a safehouse, and even for experienced players who want to keep the shortest distance to their groups' (if they have any) HQ. This does NOT show the # of survivors or zombies, and now this new suggestion makes it so that you can't look at the barricade level when using the GPS. |
| Notes: | 4/8 Keep/Total. See original votes for feedback. |
| Left Queue: | 08:50, 3 July 2006 (BST) |
Jun 21st, 2006
Triage: A Time Saving Skill for Doctors
| Timestamp: | 04:20, 21 June 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | Skill, Improvement |
| Scope: | Survivors |
| Description: | It can be hard to find injured people to heal in a crowded building, even in smaller safehouses with less than 50 people. This is an idea to help locate these people more quickly.
Triage would be a subskill of Diagnosis. A doctor with this skill is better at singling out those in need of medical assistance. When in a room with one or more injured suvivors their interface would have a new "Heal" button next to a drop-down menu displaying only those survivors that are injured along with their health. It'd look like this. MaltonDude(46) Clicking heal would use up one first-aid kit in your inventory and target the selected survivor. If you don't have a first-aid kit and heal you'd lose an AP and get a message "You have nothing to heal them with." This skill would simply exist to increase the convenience of the player. It doesn't unbalance the game because it doesn't save the player AP or allow them to heal more. It just means less minutes poring through lists of names, letting you finish up your turns and enjoy the outside. This would be a welcome improvement and save thousands of players a great deal of time. |
| Notes: | 22/36 Keep/Total. See original votes for feedback. |
| Left Queue: | 09:04, 5 July 2006 (BST) |
Alphabetized Drop Menu
| Timestamp: | 23:44, 21 June 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | User interface improvement |
| Scope: | Everyone |
| Description: | The "Drop" popup menu should be alphabetized. This would make it much easier to find empty guns, newspapers, and other useless items.
For example, if your inventory appeared before as:
It would now appear as:
(This is not a dupe of Drop items: Usability improvement). |
| Notes: | 4/8 Keep/Total. See original votes for feedback. |
| Left Queue: | 09:04, 5 July 2006 (BST) |
Jun 22nd, 2006
Additional Anti Zerg Measure
| Timestamp: | 10:10, 22 June 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | Protection |
| Scope: | Zergers, people interested in fair play. |
| Description: | Zerging is pandemic in the game, especially in seiges, and honest players are suffering because there are individuals out there who play to win at all costs, untilising holes in the current anti zerg code to create and run barricade zergs, or multiple characters to attack multiple buildings in a small area.
What i propose is simple: That any person attacking a person who has a zerg flag set upon them gets 100% to hit and instakills the zerger. Notifications of such kills would be clearly marked as a peacekeeping action, such as: Gorbonzo killed Zerger1, a Zerger. (However many minutes ago) The only problem that can be seen with this is the issue of false positives, but honestly, zerging is such a huge problem, especially in seiges, that i can honestly say "fuck em". There are 9,999 other blocks in the game to go play in. They can go and play in them instead. |
| Notes: | 21/36 Keep/Total. See original votes for feedback. |
| Left Queue: | 09:22, 6 July 2006 (BST) |
Dark Forms in the Window
| Timestamp: | Canuhearmenow 16:14, 22 June 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | Change |
| Scope: | New Player, especially new zombies |
| Description: | This would change the text outside of a building with people inside, for example: "You are outside buiding so and so, you see Dark forms moving about inside.". This could help not only new survivors looking for a safehouse with people inside, but it could also help starting out zombies so they can find the location of "food" without resorting to ZKing. This can even add an element of suspense, are those survivors in that building, or zombies laying a trap? |
| Notes: | 6/11 Keep/Total. See original votes for feedback. |
| Left Queue: | 09:22, 6 July 2006 (BST) |
Newbie Quickstart
| Timestamp: | 19:42, 22 June 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | Improvement |
| Scope: | Newly created characters |
| Description: | Reviewing the Stat-tracking page, I stumbled across a disturbing fact: about 50% of all level 1 players quit before reaching level 2, and about 50% of those players quit before reaching level 3 (at which point it levels off). In other words, about 75% of all new players in the game quit almost immediately - something that undoubtedly contributes to the crashing total number of players of this game, which has recently dropped by more than 5000 players. Why shouldn't be hard to decipher: as of right now, playing a newbie sucks almost unbearably. You can't do anything very well, and you're ignorant enough to be very easy prey. So, I thought I'd come up with a suggestion to try and at least partially remedy this without unbalancing the game.
My suggestion is simple: all characters should be created with 100 XP. This wouldn't affect any existing characters. It would simply permit new players to immediately purchase any available skill (skills under skills they don't have would, of course, be off-limits) of their choice upon starting the game, enabling a bit of customization, and helping them through the steepest part of the learning curve for the game. The skills of Construction, Lab Experience, and Radio Operation, however, would not be purchasable with this XP, in order to dissuade zergers/spammers from abusing this. These skills could still be purchased normally after the new character has earned another 100 XP, however. As before, if voters don't like this version, I'd appreciate it if they would note what, if anything, I could do to fix/improve this suggestion in their votes. If I get enough input, I'll take this to Talk for a rewrite and then resubmit it. |
| Notes: | 10/16 Keep/Total. See original votes for feedback. |
| Left Queue: | 09:22, 6 July 2006 (BST) |
Jun 27th, 2006
| Timestamp: | 18:37, 27 June 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | User Interface. |
| Scope: | Survivors. |
| Description: | This is almost like the first suggestion, only this one would remove the generator from the first aid dropdown menu. This is mean't for the same reasons that the first suggestion on this page was for, for people who think that because the generator is in the dropdown menu it can be "fixed." Sorry for this appearing to be a dupe, it was insprired by the first suggestion. |
| Notes: | 13/21 Keep/Total. See original votes for feedback. |
| Left Queue: | 13:31, 11 July 2006 (BST) |
Jun 30th, 2006
Speech Targeting
| Timestamp: | 06:17, 30 June 2006 (BST) |
| Type: | Improvement |
| Scope: | Survivors |
| Description: | Right now if cell power is offline it's impossible to talk to someone who is beyond the first fifty people in the building list. Also cell phones cost more AP and it seems silly to have to call someone who is standing right in front of you.
I suggest a drop-down menu next to the speech text box listing all present. You can choose the person you want to speak to. That person will receive your message along with the first 49 people who would normally get it if you hadn't picked a target. Essentially you're just swapping out the fiftieth person to reach your friend instead. This way you can say hi to an ally, or deliver a message, but it doesn't allow for secret messages. It's just a way of including a friend in the fifty people you can reach. |
| Notes: | 14/22 Keep/Total. See original votes for feedback. |
| Left Queue: | 09:00, 14 July 2006 (BST) |
