Talk:Suggestions/20th-Nov-2005

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Submachine Gun, Rifle, and Automatic Rifle

Look, Donggrip, I know the weapons sound cool (and would be if this was an FPS or something), but your ideas are terrible.

  • The weapons are too similar.
  • With the accuracy penalty for shooting into adjacent squares it would be much easier to just walk to the square and shoot the zombies directly. Besides, shooting into other squares isn't very popular around here.
  • Balance issues galore.

The thing that annoys me the most is, I had a great idea for a new firearm (Carbine), and wanted to post it at the start of the Nov 21 suggestion page, but I get ninjaed by this. -- KingRaptor 15:12, 20 Nov 2005 (GMT)

Rifle ideas are fair, but I just dont know how you can implement anything thats gas operated into this game. And by rifle, i mean lever action rifle like the Winchester (knew about the rifle waaaay before Shaun of the Dead, killer zombie movie btw), bolt action like the Mauser M1898 or pump action like the Coltsman. No damn Garands, AKs, or M-16s. NO SNIPERS EITHER! I DONT WANT TO LOG ON TO FIND SOMEONE NAILED ME IN THE HEAD WITH A .50 ROUND. AllStarZ 03:53, 21 Nov 2005 (GMT)

Bolt action rifles would be too similar to shotguns. Anyway, I have an idea for an assault rifle (aforementiond Carbine), but I didn't put it on the suggestion page because it would probably get killed before it was even posted. Heh. Anyway, I'd like feedback.

Carbine
A compact 5.56mm assault rifle.

Specifics are as follows:

  • Armory-exclusive (this one's a given), with a low chance of finding one
  • Base accuracy of 10%. Can be upgraded with Basic Firearms Training and Rifle Training (no Adv. Rifle Training for balance purposes).
  • Takes up 5 or 6 inventory slots due to its size.
  • Fires 3 shots at a time, with each shot doing 4 damage. Damage and accuracy for each shot is calculated independently, one at a time.
  • Clip holds 15 rounds (but due to it firing 3 round bursts, you can only fire 5 times)
  • Reloading takes 2 AP (complex reloading procedure)


What do you guys think? The main issue I see is the damage/AP (4.71/AP with Rifle Training, compared to 2.36/AP for the Pistol and 2.75/AP for the Shotgun with Pistol/Shotgun Training). I figure the rarity of ammunition and the amount of inventory slots it takes might balance it though.

Still, if necessary, the damage could be cut to 3/shot, resulting in 3.54 damage/AP. - KingRaptor 08:22, 21 Nov 2005 (GMT)

Dual Wielding

I like it. Lemme run a number crunch real quick. A fireaxe deals 4*30% = 1.2Dam/AP. This set has the follwoing chances: 9% of 4Dam, 42% of 2Dam, 49% of miss. This makes it 1.34Dam/AP, which makes it a bit better. Not a bad tradeoff of reliability if yo uask me ^^ - Skarmory 15:25, 21 Nov 2005 (GMT)

Your numbers are off. Fire axe is 3 * 40%, which is 1.2. As I mentioned above, this is 2*30% + 2*30%, which is exactly equivalent (2*30% = .6, times 2 = 1.2). As I said, the only difference is the variance (2-4 rather than 3) and overall chance to hit (51% rather than 40%). --RSquared 15:43, 21 Nov 2005 (GMT)
Never should you add up chances like in this case. I'm afraid it's your's calculations on the knives that are bad, though I admit to making a booboo on the axe. -- Skarmory 18:28, 21 Nov 2005 (GMT)
tsch, your math is still wrong. I just calculated it again to check my math. .3*.3 chance of hitting twice (4 damage). That's .09 * 4, or .36. (.7 * .3 = .21) + (.3 - .9 =.21) chance to hit with one of the two attacks, or .42 of hitting for 2 damage. .42 * 2 = .84. .84 + .36 = 1.2, precisely equal. So, yeah, you can add chances like that. ^_^ --RSquared 18:46, 21 Nov 2005 (GMT)
Point three times point seven is how much again? :D Skarmory 18:50, 21 Nov 2005 (GMT)
Another math error - double counted the .09 the second time. Numbers are fixed, I'm still right :P --RSquared 18:57, 21 Nov 2005 (GMT)
After a recount, I blame my calculator :D Props to you for spotting it. -Skarmory 19:02, 21 Nov 2005 (GMT)
No worries, you had me scared I'd screwed up my math for a bit there. --RSquared 19:27, 21 Nov 2005 (GMT)

Degrading Barricades

I like the spirit - fewer zombies would be out in the open, forcing survivors to sweep house-to-house to get their XP, for instance - but I disagree with the execution of the idea. As mentioned, a check on whether survivors were inside (theoretically "maintaining the barricade") would be server-intensive. Drop that part - if there are survivors inside, let them maintain the barrciades by using their construction skill! Updates, code-wise, could go either of two ways. One is to try to update everything while the IP server resets. This is 10,000 extra db hits, which is a significant number EACH DAY. However, if a timestamp marker was added to each barricade's db entry for when it was last 'touched', the code for the barricade could update when a characer 'sees' it - walks into the square. The script could compare timestamps and degrade the barricade according to whatever formula (say, 1 point of barricade strength per 24 hours) and give that to the user, updating the db info (timestamp, strength) if necessary. This avoids these extra 10k db hits per day.

Working from this, what about if the server only grabs the timestamp when a player (zombie, human) attacks the barricade or attempts to reinforce it. When a player looks at the barricade (walks into the square), he sees the pre-degradation status. The degradation is applied before the attack, and the player could receive a message like "The barricade, though seemingly strong, falls easily away." When reinforcing, the degradation is applied before the reinforcement - with a message depending on how much damage - like "You shore up <some of the> weak points in the barricade caused by weathering." This might add an element of danger to being behind someone else's barricades, and encourage zombies to attack strong barricades to see whether they're really as strong as they appear. Note that because the degradation with this idea is only done when the barricades would change state anyway (attack/reinforce actions), there would be no increase in db hits except what the timestamps add (and those should be a small increase - less than 4KB to the total size of the db). Sorry for the long post on this one--RSquared 22:23, 20 Nov 2005 (GMT)

I like where you'r going with this. And it adds the possibility of an "inspect barricade" skill, possibly as a subset of construction. --Zeek 04:12, 21 Nov 2005 (GMT)
Neh, no need, just whack it once or try to reinforce it. Unless you mean a skill that shores up a barricade to the 'apparent' level for one AP...in which case, yeah, that'd be a cool skill. ^_^ --RSquared 06:07, 21 Nov 2005 (GMT)

Just to keep it on the talk page, so I don't get in trouble....

  • Keep - The server load will be fine, the same mechanism can be used that checks if a zombie has been tagged or not, and resets it accordingly. The buildings(zombies) will drop a level every 24 hours(Be taggable every 24) unless the have someone with construction in them (have not been tagged.)
    • Re: The zombie-tagging mechanism is most likely simply a yes/no flag in the zombie character's datafile, which gets checked only when the player tries to tag him. We're talking a lot of extra work for the barricade suggestion, because each individual building/barricade has to now have a timestamp and a program is going to have to run say, every minute or so, that checks every single building's timestamp and determines whether or not to degrade the barricades. Really, trust me, that's a great deal of work we're talking about. Bentley Foss 01:20, 21 Nov 2005 (GMT)
Uh, no? This is designed to affect abandoned barricades (that no one cares about) over days, so the server might have to check, say, every 6 hours at most. --LouisB3 03:58, 21 Nov 2005 (GMT)
Remember, of course, there are about 20,000 zombies active in the game. Adding 10,000 more database hits per day is NOT TRIVIAL. I'm describing a system that adds two database hits - get and put - for two actions - attack barricade and reinforce barricade - rather than adding a constant number of db hits per day. Unless you think that more than 10,000 barricade levels change, on average, over the course of every 24 hours? Also, set time for degradation encourages zombie mobbing at those times (like set time for zed reset encouraged mobs of necrotechs to get out there and tag). --RSquared 06:07, 21 Nov 2005 (GMT)

Just to codify and ask for improvements while I wait for two weeks to go by.--RSquared 23:58, 21 Nov 2005 (GMT)


Shortening things a bit...I read the above stuff and we agree on that so far.

My big question now is: why? To be honest, zombie hordes are pretty much unstoppable once they set their minds to something. They simply have the long-term AP advantage and the advantage of not switching sides and having to wait for a rez when they die. The only way survivors can really drive off a horde is to frustrate them. Barricades and Headshot are prime examples of this.

Seriously. Get 20 zombies to log in and assault a building at the same time. Even one or two low-level zombies can easily bring down the barricades (from my experience) and the rest can go snack on the people within. A horde of 200 zombies could probably systematically search and destroy half a suburb in one night, if they got reasonably lucky with the barricades.

I'd also like to say that, from my personal experience, most barricaded buildings I've gone through have had at least one survivor in them. So you have to look at the potential impact of this suggestion. Is it really going to change things that much? Is it going to be noticable enough to be worth implementing? So, there you go. Those are my qualms with this one. Bentley Foss 04:17, 22 Nov 2005 (GMT)

Re ^^ : This doesn't really change the fact that zombies assault buildings in hordes really well. As you say, they do that anyway - I don't think there's ANY reasonable play mechanic that lets survivors repel a 200 zombie horde. Remember that zombies need experience too - they're not just there for you to shoot and return to your little hidey-hole. Flavor-wise, I feel like survivors shouldn't be trying to hold ground for long periods of time - they should be hit-and-running, throwing up barricades and abandoning them a few days later. Making it harder for a survivor to set up shop and be invisible in a sea of VS/EH buildings seems like a worthwhile goal. I do think that ankle grab is a little overpowered in the AP advantage, and giving zombies a little more help in picking their targets would probably reduce the inevitable gnashing of teeth over a 5 AP stand up instead of a 1 AP one. --RSquared 05:00, 22 Nov 2005 (GMT)
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