Suggestion:20070715 Lie Down

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20070715 Lie Down

Insomniac By Choice 11:05, 15 July 2007 (BST)

Suggestion type
Skill

Suggestion scope
Zombies

Suggestion description
A skill costing 100 XP that allows zombies to lie down anywhere for 1 AP to do + 6 AP to rise + normal ?rise AP cost (ankle grabbers spend 8 AP, standing up with a maximum of 43 AP to use when they do; other zombies probably wouldn't consider it worth it to buy). This seemingly high AP cost is to prevent zombies using the skill simply to avoid getting killed/headshot, but not so much that they would stand up unable to be effective at all. While on the ground, zombies receive 1 HP per half hour, but this is mainly a thing of balance to make sure they can stand back up at full power if they've laid down long enough.

While on the ground, zombies appear to be dead bodies (or possibly funny smelling corpses to zombies with the Scent tree and survivors with Diagnosis, but if I had my druthers they'd just appear to be dead bodies). The main incentive for this skill should be obvious: it provides zombies with the tactic of complete and utter surprise.

Survivors currently don't pay a whole lot of attention to the number of dead bodies outside of their buildings except for the rare exception during a prolonged siege. However with this skill, every dead body is potentially a zombie purposefully lying in wait to stand up. And you may think this is already the case, but it's not so. As it is, a dead body is almost always the result of someone being killed. If a police department has sixty bodies outside, someone either killed a lot of zombies or zombies killed a lot of survivors and they have been tossed outside. In either case, the threat posed is already well-known. But with this skill, it might be a large horde traveled quickly and laid down all together to take the police department or a nearby mall completely unawares.

And what about bodies in buildings? Not just the leftovers from some battle, but possibly zombies waiting to ambush the people who come inside thinking it's safe. Note too that this means zombies make themselves vulnerable to survivors re-barricading a ransacked building and disposing of them easier, so it's not as though this tactic is without it's risks. However, especially outside it would have the tactical benefit of letting zombies "hide in plain sight" in alleyways and such, and force survivors traveling through them to pay attention to the dead bodies everywhere or pay the penalty when no one is on guard to stop the 100 zombies standing up and coming their way.

It is not, though, overpowered because there's a large AP penalty for it meaning it isn't practical just as a way for zombies to render themselves untouchable and grief survivors out of the XP from killing them. What it is is another weapon in the zombie repertoire for planning attacks and perhaps even more importantly, a way to make survivors paranoid every time they see a large number of dead bodies in any given square or squares; as it is, survivors are rarely afraid of zombies because zeds are so easy to keep track of. If they don't feel like they have certainty anymore, in terms of atmosphere the game would be improved immensely.

Finally, this is still "in genre" from movies like 28 Days Later (which I know wasn't technically a "zombie movie) where the infected spent much of their day voluntarily sleeping, and more typical films where it wasn't known whether dead bodies were potentially dangerous zombies or harmless dead bodies.

PS: thanks to karek for suggesting the AP cost equation for the skill.

Voting Section

Voting Rules

Votes must be numbered, justified, signed, and timestamped. # justification ~~~~ Votes that do not conform to the above may be struck by any user.

The only valid votes are Keep, Kill, Spam or Dupe. If you wish to abstain from voting, do not vote.

Keep Votes

1. Keep - In other words, it's basically a suicide skill for zombies. Seems fair to me. Crovie 12:09, 15 July 2007 (BST)
2. Keep - I agree with Crovie, I guess we could increase the AP to balance it out Heirware 13:30, 15 July 2007 (BST)
3. Keep - Sorry, but absolutely no legitimate argument has been made for why this is a bad idea, and in fact a few of the reasons why it has been voted kill are largely retarded, humans are almost completely unaffected by this change(healing and knifing anyone?) and zombies only have a handful of instances where using this would be beneficial, most of which involve improving zombie anonymity which is a good thing.--karek 04:51, 16 July 2007 (BST)

Kill Votes

1. Kill - 8AP isn't much for immortality while logged out. --Midianian 11:45, 15 July 2007 (BST)

   Yeah, what would this game be like if zombies could log out secure with the knowledge they could just stand up with full HP for a small AP cost when they logged back in?--Insomniac By Choice 11:49, 15 July 2007 (BST)

   Boring. --Midianian 11:54, 15 July 2007 (BST)

   Okay, because you missed the tone of the above statement, I'll say it plainly: as a zombie, deaths are unimportant because you're already immortal. AP is important, but not deaths. Any time you log out, you know when you log in again at worst you'll just have to stand up again with full HP so this is not a significant change in that respect.--Insomniac By Choice 12:04, 15 July 2007 (BST)

   RE'd on talk page. --Midianian 12:30, 15 July 2007 (BST)

2. Kill - i don't like the whole "healing" part. --Duke Garland_T^{LCD SSZ} 11:53, 15 July 2007 (BST)
3. Kill - Making sure that no-one can get you id you're logged off even if as you said it would not make any difference would still go againgst the tone of the game. Besides, where would humans be if all the zombies just dissappeared when the logged off? Stuck in an empty city is where, with no way for new players to earn XP. Oh, and it'd bugger up the stats page something rotten.--Seventythree 12:17, 15 July 2007 (BST)
4. Kill -If you factor in headshot it only costs 2AP. So a lot of people would pay that small amount to not only avoid a headshot but to withhold XP to survivors. And there have been whole groups who perfected the surprise attack. This would just eliminate difficulty and need to coordinate it. And zombies who are better at strategic planning then survivors by the mechanics of the game is simply against flavor. Zombies should have a lot difficulty coordinating this it.

   Also this isn't in-genre as 28 days later not only isn't a zombie film as you noted. But doesn't even feature this skill. Hordes attacked with a simple full-out attack. They didn't fake death to use it for tactical advantage. They simply feel asleep when there weren't any survivors around. Probably because they were tired or had nothing to attack. That mechanic is already mimicked in the game by timing out. And the danger of a single zombie surprise attack by rising from the dead is already in the game as well, as there are no "safe" dead people in game. Each and every one can rise to attack you at any given moment.-- Vista  +1  12:44, 15 July 2007 (BST)

5. Kill - It's not a terrible suggestion, but it's a buff for the organised zombie besiegers (probably the only zombies who could do with a nerf rather than a buff) and is also out of genre. --The Hierophant 14:37, 15 July 2007 (BST)
6. Kill - I don't dislike this suggestion, but overall I think it'd be bad for the game.--Jiangyingzi 00:06, 16 July 2007 (BST)
7. Change - Raise the AP cost. By a lot. The HP thing seems pretty good though. It's not every day someone just decide to use an FAK on a zombie. --Heavy DDR 00:24, 16 July 2007 (BST)
8. Kill - The new Military characters need XP too. --Perne 02:27, 16 July 2007 (BST)
9. Kill - This is only going to hurt new survivors while not really being that useful to zeds Sanpedro 03:25, 16 July 2007 (BST)
10. Strong Kill - Survivors with guns need love too. --Ryiis 03:26, 16 July 2007 (BST)
11. Kill - San Pedro got it - not useful for zeds except that it starves survivors of XP. The game would stop being so fun for them. 'arm. 04:56, 16 July 2007 (BST)
12. Kill -- How does this not work? Let me count the ways:
    1. . THERE IS NO SAFE PLACE IN MALTON FOR SURVIVORS OR ZEDS! Part of what makes the game fun is the fact that there is always the risk, no matter how small, that disaster will strike whilst one is offline and unable to respond.
    2. . It has no tactical value:
       1. . Outdoor ambush tactics: As most people don't stand still outside, practically all prospective victims will have moved away by the time any zeds playing dead notice them and stand up.
       2. . Indoor ambush tactics: Some unholy-huge percentage of all attacks -- whether zed on survivor, or survivor on zed -- occur while the other player is offline because an online player can negate the attack by leaving. It is impossible to force a confrontation with an online character.
       3. . External siege tactics: The sudden appearance of 150 dead bodies is just as big a giveaway as the sudden appearance of 150 zeds.
       4. . Internal siege tactics: Once a zed lies down, it is no different than a dead body. Not only does it run the risk of being dumped, but AP not spent on killing it is AP the survivors can use to barricade the building, heal survivors, and shoot its zethren. Current zed tactics are considerably more effective.
    3. . It has no practical value. The only thing zed HP does is tell you how long until it needs to ?rise again. Why spend 8 (or 17) AP to lie down, wait a few hours, then ?rise with full HP when one can ?rise immediately for, at the most, 6 (or 15) AP? --Firemanrik 09:31, 16 July 2007 (BST)
13. Kill I agree with what Firemanrik said. --I AM TARA 00:29, 26 July 2007 (BST)

Spam/Dupe Votes

1. SPAM sorry but there is no merit to this at all. This has 2 uses, first it starves survivors of XP but second, and most important, it makes the zombie immune to any but combat revives thus making brain rot virtualy pointless!--Honestmistake 10:25, 16 July 2007 (BST)
2. SPAM As above but it will also put ankle grab in the "redundant" skills --Bank1 15:30, 16 July 2007 (GMT)
3. Spam - Ninja zombies! Also see above. Might be acceptable (but wouldn't be) if survivors were given a skill to climb up a lamp post, where no one could attack them, to balance this. --Saluton 17:55, 16 July 2007 (BST)
4. No no no no no! This allows zombies to form ambush groups! That's a big no no!!! --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 18:22, 16 July 2007 (BST)
5. Spam - Why? Because dead bodies already ARE 'potential zombies'! Or did you forget that everyone, even zombies, rise as zombies when they rise from dead? No, this suggestion is pretty bad and totally pointless; well thought out! But totally impractical. --Aguyuno 23:24, 16 July 2007 (BST)