Talk:Suggestions/26th-Nov-2005

Brain Rot Vs. Revive

How can any of you actually be voting keep on this? Consider: I play a secondary character, a devoted revivor, who is currently doing nothing but searching for revive syringes. Usually he finds.. oh.. four a day. If left unmolested and given a couple of weeks or so, he can single-handedly walk into a mob of about fifty zombies and personally dispatch the whole mob. Brain Rot is not that common; I'll take a wild guess and say that three quarters of the Z's will get up as humans. About half of them probably don't have Ankle Grab, either. About a dozen well-equipped NTs could have ground to a halt the siege of Caiger Mall. We need the Brain Rotters on the stack to prevent this. Slicer 04:01, 26 Nov 2005 (GMT)

Agreed. --RSquared 05:32, 26 Nov 2005 (GMT)

The problem is that the Brain Rot anti-revive tactic doesn't make a lick of sense. A way of retargeting when your revive fails is a far more elegant solution, though. Ben Tucker

Heh - I'd bet the proportion of brain-rotted zombies to regular varies by suburb. I do agree with you, though - simply making uber-easy revives is a pretty distorted game. --LouisB3 15:04, 26 Nov 2005 (GMT)

I always saw brain rot as a way to prevent yourself from being turned, not as a way to keep others from being revived, also, i guess i always thought of revive syringes to bring survivors back, not as a "siege stopper". I dont think it would stop a siege, since as soon as the server resets, im sure all those bodies will pop right back up, problem being you wouldnt be able to actually headshot any of them while they are lying on the ground. --Jon Hawk 23:59, 26 Nov 2005 (GMT)

I dunno, I've always wanted to be able to grab 30-40 syringes, then walk into a zomb-infested square with my scientist and level it :p. But in all seriousness, although I don't want to make it completely unfair against the zombs, I honestly think that it could work, given that tweak that was suggested about just knocking the zomb down instead of killing it if it's Brain-Rotted. Yes, I suppose that some zomb hordes rely on a Brain-Rotted amongst their ranks to keep them safe from those evil syringes, but I still think it would be easier on revivers, and survivors that have been killed, if Brain-Rotted zombs couldn't halt the revival process. --Lord Kelvin 20:26, 26 Nov 2005 (CST)

As has been said before, a devoted zombie will just stand there and let him/herself be killed by the rest of the zombies, so it takes between two and twenty AP, and benefits your side overall. When there's a brain rotted zombie, people who want to be revived can't be. Don't you want people playing zombies because they want to play zombies, not because they can't manage to get a revive, so spend their AP attacking other zombies? Seriously, if I had a bunch of lab mice (just going for something real world that probably isn't particularly distinguishable) I wanted to test for something and forgot to mark them while testing, I sure as hell wouldn't end up picking the same one up every single time for every single test. Make it random if you must so that more revives are wasted, but it doesn't make sense that I pick up the same lab rat every time, and it doesn't make sense that I just keep sticking the same zombie every time, thinking that maybe this syringe will work on it. --Shadowstar 02:43, 27 Nov 2005 (GMT)

Faith

I think Priest would make a good character class, and really broaden the feel of the game. Faith would obviously be his equivalent to a scientist reading a book for XP. I don't know how the skill tree for the class would work, though; it would probably need to be a new tree, so it would need a few more skills. The difficulty there would be in avoiding skills like Turning Undead, which would be really out of place. I think the greatest obstacle will be the "keep religion out of UD" contingent; we do already have churches and cathedrals, though, so a priest/clergy class doesn't seem out of place to me. --Dickie Fux 15:53, 26 Nov 2005 (GMT)

Forts

From the "Forts" suggestion:

Maybe ability to barricade the fort spaces? Then the glitch where they are treated like different buildings (like malls) will occur. Once that is fixed maybe that will work. Also, Don't let armories get barricaded or just a little. Maybe then forts will be better. Also, armories could be a place where weapons are fixed to the armory or fort itself, allowing you to search the armory for ammo, and filling the fort up. Also, thefixed can shoot up to one block away, but not into buildings. Last of all, add rubble. Depending on the number of barricades torn down, the more rubble. Like building barricades, it takes one AP to clear a piece of rubble and rubble can only be cleared from the outside, sofort will need a large group(s) to man. Only after there is no more rubble, can you repair the barricades. Complex, but I think it will do it. And one space can be the gate, only barricadable up to very strongly. Armory should be very strongly or less.

If this is somebody being funny, it's hilarious. It's a combo of four or five different bad and/or spammed ideas. It just needs a new Zombie Hunter skill you can earn inside. --Dickie Fux 18:45, 26 Nov 2005 (GMT)

Aberration

(moved from Suggestion Page)

• RE: Ooo! Yeah! let me edit this...
  • RE:(change vote) Still not sure, maybe not as complicated, maybe if it just added +1 to either bite or claw at random to make a more unique zombie. What the hell. Your revised idea was pretty decent. Definately keep. Andrew McM 18:46, 26 Nov 2005 (GMT)
    • RE: Note that +1 to bite would make it do 5 damage, and thus be subject to the damage reduction granted by the Flak Jacket. --ThunderClaw 21:16, 26 Nov 2005 (GMT)
      • RE: -Yessss! Woooo! Finally a way to make flak jackets more balanced. This has so definately got my vote. Andrew McM
        • RE: Yay! I knew this would work better when tweaked Giltwist

(end of moved section)

As requested, here are some modifications that could potentially go into a resubmit.

• Random Element: There are two options here, a free attack or a free point of damage. Given some comments made, I think the resubmit will be to have a +1 randomly applied at something like 5% of the time to all melee attacks. This helps out the whole flak jacket thing as was already mentioned.
• Visually: I would say it should look like this: "There is a horde of zombies here, some of them barely look human." or "There is a zombie here that barely looks human."
• XP Gain: Since I'm leaning toward the extra point of damage, I'd say do XP as normal with the +1 thanks to the Aberration status. On the other hand, if we went with the free attack, I'd want something like half XP on the extra attack.
• Realism: How many zombie movies have some mad scientist playing god? There's even the famous zombie Bub that remembers how to salute, play a tape recorder, shoot a gun, etc. While I'm not suggesting we go that terribly far, I would like to see a mad scientist element.

-- Giltwist 16:51 EST, 11/26/05

Re: Man, this is such a neat idea. I think the idea of NecroTech experiments coming to light as containment in their facilities corrodes makes total sense for the setting.

I did the math for the two variations (see the chart on my user page for details), and I think the one bonus point would be overly powerful; you would actually do more damage with it overall than with the second attack variation. I probably need someone to check the formulas, I may not have designed them right. If I am right, the +1 bonus variation increases overall Damage/AP by as much as 25%, whereas the second attack variation never exceeds 10%.

In either case, I think the second attack would be much easier to implement, because all the server has to do is calculate the chance to attack again, and if it hits, process a new attack. The target would recieve two notifications at once, indicating both attacks. For the +1 bonus point variation, the server would have to run the chance to add the point, then set a temporary condition, which I understand is more difficult; I'm no programmer, so I may be wrong.

Another benefit of the second attack variation is that the computer could put a different, more flavorful text description in the second attack. So, the target would see the regular "A zombie attacked you for 3 damage," followed by the bonus attack description, which could be something like "You stagger momentarily as a misshapen aberration rakes you with his third claw. You take 3 damage." This would mean that you could leave the flavor text out of the building room description, which is also (I believe) less wear on the server.

I even think you could make this into a new class; allow a new character to start with Aberration, but without Brainrot, which is normally a prerequisite, as you said. The starting character class would be Aberration, rather than Corpse, so there would finally be some variety.

I would say a second bite attack shouldn't activate Digestion or Infectious Bite, just so the whole chain of events isn't too long or too powerful.

So, after all that, I look forward to seeing what you do with it. Use anything you want out of those three or four paragraphs. --Dickie Fux 00:22, 27 Nov 2005 (GMT)

RE:Wow! Thanks for putting so much time and effort into this! I forgot to mention digestions and infectious bite, but I totally agree that only the FIRST attack should deal that sort of damage. I definately like the idea of this actually being a zombie class. Except you NEED brain rot because you simply couldn't revive one of these things. They are too patchwork, you know? --Giltwist - 19:51 EST 11/26/05

RE - That's a good point. There are trade-offs to starting with Brain Rot (no Flak Jacket or Body Building), so you may be able to get away with having both. Plus, a monstrosity like this couldn't wear a Flak Jacket, so it makes sense to prevent it.

And, I wanted some practice before I write any suggestions of my own, so I didn't mind doing a little work. --Dickie Fux 01:09, 27 Nov 2005 (GMT)

RE - Now just gotta wait two weeks weeks to resubmit, right? Giltwist 03:06, 27 Nov 2005 (GMT)

Re - I think you can take down your own any time, then re-submit on a new day. Might not hurt to leave it up for a day or two, see if anyone else comes up with any ideas, but you don't have to. Whenever you want, just remove what's up on the suggestion page, with a "Removed by Author for Re-Submission" note. --Dickie Fux 03:24, 27 Nov 2005 (GMT)

Edit - You might want to start typing it up on your user page, and work on it there until you have a good final version. --Dickie Fux 16:10, 27 Nov 2005 (GMT)

Re -Don't forget, it was me who suggested the extra damage instead of extra health. I demand some respect. Or a pet Zombie. Ah, the hell with it, just give me the pet zombie. I shall call him.... Zomby. Andrew McM 11:48, 27 Nov 2005 (GMT)

• Here is where I'm making revisions. Giltwist 19:48, 27 Nov 2005 (GMT)

AI controlled gangsters

To those who are telling us it isn't fair to vote spam on this. 10,000 computer controlled gangsters that move and attack, and have inventories? Come on. This falls into the realm of the ridiculous. You go ahead and vote kill if you want. --Zaruthustra 00:20, 27 Nov 2005 (GMT)