Talk:Guides:Pillaging

The Guides:Zombie_Metagame page has for a long time been about several things at once. Some of the more useful material had only hazy connections to the UD idea of "metagaming," and can stand on its own.--Ragged Robin 02:02, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Great idea- there really needs to be a (or several) zombie tactical and strategic guides. I added a few bits, and slightly changed the "targets of choice". There's really no reason to single out people who have headshot any more; it only takes 1 AP from a survivor with headshot (finished of a weakened zombie) for the skill to have full effect. On the other hand, killing off people with Diagnosis and First Aid significantly weakens an areas defenses and recovery efforts. --S.Wiers ^X:00 16:14, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Yeah, I'd like to see continued improvement in the organization of zombie tactical information. I like your changes, and agree about headshot - as far as I know that was a relic from the days when it depleted XP, and I had thought of deleting it myself. (OTOH, while it only costs humans 1, it costs a zombie 5. Those absolute values are small, but that's a very decent ratio for a single action.) And I agree about the significance of Diagnosis. --Ragged Robin 17:20, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

The point I make with headshot is not that its not (somewhat) helpful to survivors (it certainly is) but that there is really no way for zombies to avoid it, even if they DO target zombie hunters above all others. Even if you kill off all the hunters you find, the hunters can stand up as zombies, munch you down to 4 or fewer HP, and let another zombie hunter come in and finish the job for 1 AP. This actually happens to my MotA zombie quite often in areas with an organized survivor presence. Targeting those with other skills has a (much) better chance of actually paying off for the zombie population as a whole, and even for the individual zombie, and certainly does more harm to the survivor population. --S.Wiers ^X:00 18:03, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you were saying. In a sense this is academic, since we agree that it's sound for this guide to de-emphasize Headshot in favour of more strategically important skills. Also I believe that attaching probabilities and priorities rapidly gets very speculative as you start layering on details of scenarios. I've seen the tactic you describe, for example, but IMO any hunter who has the zombie skills to make munching other zombies worthwhile is highly likely to have also had Diagnosis. So... what's the priority for advising, basically, "de-emphasize targets who against all probability (and common sense, since Diagnosis is indispensable) have Headshot and a boatload of claw skills, but zero medical skills." I mean, it's not wrong, but I'm not sure it's a crucial point. (One could also argue that if you're facing truly organized survivors, the benefit of Diagnosis is just as easily "distributed" as Headshot.)

Anyway, not trying to be argumentative here. But ideally I would like to see the page offer sound, relatively objective advice with the widest possible generality. Perhaps the best approach is to try to identify general principles, like, "preferentially kill survivors with the most useful skills." Qualified discussion of "most useful" would then follow. Which I think is the direction the page is already taking. --Ragged Robin 18:59, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

True, it is somewhat academic, as most folks with headshot already have diagnoses; its hard to make 9th level as a survivor without that skill, just because it is so useful for earning xp's. I happen to be in a group that uses a computerized table to sort target priorities, so the EXACT weighting of such things is maybe a bit more important to me. And even we ignore the table half the time, and just munch on whoever has the dumb names. ;)

However, the idea of having general advice, followed by some qualified discussion (maybe in bullet points, signed by people with different opinions) seems like a great idea! Zombies players and groups tend to be much more varied in their tactical approaches, and often focus as much on style as function, so it seems worth preserving those iconoclastic voices. --S.Wiers ^X:00 21:28, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Barricades %s

Swiers, have you got some data to support the 17.5% figure for a zombie with VM? I really don't like to see statistics about game behaviour promulgated without citing some.--Ragged Robin 14:41, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Only theoretic and annecdotal evidence, no data. Its pretty well agreed in theory that barricade hits = 1/2 claw attack. The claw attack with just VM is 35%, so 1/2 that is 17.5%. Anecdotally, brand new zombies (VM only) do seem to do better against barricades than a freshly dead survivor who lacks VM, although (given the minor difference) it would take a fair bit of data to "prove" this beyond the limit of statistical variation. If you like, I'll run 50 APs of each a day for a while, and post the results here. Probably worth the effort anyhow.S.Wiers ^X:00_{x-mas tree dead pool} 16:59, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds good. I'll dust off my old data and also look at getting some new stuff. I think it's even worthwhile just to update things, since Kevan makes no promises about the constancy of hidden values.

(I'm not especially protective of any conclusions I've drawn, but I do get stubborn on the issue of presenting data. Anecdotes aren't worth much, and there's no such thing as theoretic evidence. In one of the old forums it was "pretty well agreed in theory" among the vast majority of experienced zombie players that the collapse rate was 1 in 5, not 1 in 4, which was correct even then.)

Also, it occurs to me that once we straighten out and reference the Barricades section, there's no good reason to keep it here. It should be moved to the Destruction section of the Barricades page, and we can just link directly to that section. (In fact, it would be kind of nice to have a Destruction stats project page, kind of like the Search Odds one. But I'm not prepared for that much work at the moment.)--Ragged Robin 22:47, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I've now added nearly all of my old data, except some stuff for which I didn't have adequate record of the conditions. I'm coming around to the "half of your hit %" thesis. Partly it was that I'd forgotten about that VM+RF sample I took, which is really too low if the population proportion were 0.250. But also you can see my problem with the pre-Feb 2 No Skills and VM data. In relation to the 0.5*hitrate theory, one is a little too high, the other a little too low, making it seem that they're from the same population. --Ragged Robin 02:00, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Barricade Attack Data

No Skills

(25% to hit)

Attempts	Collapses	Sig
40	4	S.Wiers 18:23, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Total	Total	Success Rate
40	4	0.100

(20% to hit - prior to 2 Feb 2006 update)

Attempts	Collapses	Sig
170	21	Ragged Robin 03:51, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Total	Total	Success Rate
170	21	0.124

Vigor Mortis Only

(35% to hit)

Attempts	Collapses	Sig
35	4	S.WiersctdpNTmapx:oo 18:20, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
25	5	S.WiersctdpNTmapx:oo 18:31, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
40	10	S.WiersctdpNTmapx:oo 18:39, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
40	4	S.WiersctdpNTmapx:oo 18:59, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Total	Total	Success Rate
140	23	0.164

(30% to hit - prior to 2 Feb 2006 update)

Attempts	Collapses	Sig
844	112	Ragged Robin 01:54, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Total	Total	Success Rate
844	112	0.133

Vigor Mortis and Rend Flesh

(35% to hit)

Attempts	Collapses	Sig
245	46	Ragged Robin 05:33, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Total	Total	Success Rate
245	46	0.188

Vigor Mortis and Death Grip

(50% to hit)

Attempts	Collapses	Sig
290	69	Ragged Robin 05:27, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
15	4	S.WiersctdpNTmapx:oo 01:24, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Total	Total	Success Rate
305	73	0.239

Vigor Mortis, Death Grip, and Rend Flesh

(50% to hit)

Attempts	Collapses	Sig
2229	554	Ragged Robin 03:41, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Total	Total	Success Rate
2229	554	0.249