Suggestion:20090326 Plague

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	This suggestion has finished voting and has been moved to Peer Rejected.

20090326 Plague

A Big F'ing Dog 16:34, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion type
Skill

Suggestion scope
Infectious Bite skill tree

Suggestion description
I like the Necrotech skills but there's one thing that bothers me - they're too altruistic. I want there to be a choice between helping revive others and hoarding syringes for yourself.

Plague would be a zombie subskill of Infectious Bite. Biting an already infected survivor who has less than 25hp would make them plagued, a new condition.

The plague is a more potent version of the zombie infection that can linger in weak immune systems. A plagued survivor loses 1hp per turn just like infection, but only when they have less than 25HP. While a survivor can be infected and plagued at the same time the damage doesn't stack, even with both only 1hp is lost per turn.

Healing the survivor to 25HP or higher would stop the health drain, but they'd still have the plagued condition. When their health is reduced to 24 or lower it'll start draining their HP again. So FAKs are effective treatment, but they can only put plague into remission.

Only a revivification syringe would cure plague. Injecting a living human being (including yourself) would only cost 1AP, because they wouldn't struggle, but still use up the syringe. Being revived from the dead would also cure any plague you had while living.

Theoretically someone could live with plague forever, but you'd want to cure it to make yourself less vulnerable if you're ever injured. It'd give people a reason to be selfish with syringes, appropriate for the zombie apocalypse.

Implementation issues:

• Revivification syringes are labeled 10AP. To avoid confusion, there would need to be a separate button labeled 1AP to inject survivors with the cure. Perhaps just a single "Inject" button and drop down menu on top would be best to avoid clutter.
• Survivors should be able to see plague somehow, since plague is independent of health. People will heal an injured survivor who may not be infected. They won't risk a syringe on a survivor unless they KNOW they are plagued. Diagnosis should probably make plague visible somehow (but not infection of course).
• For fairness issues, perhaps even survivors without necrotech skills should be able to cure themselves with a syringe. They wouldn't be able to treat other people though.

Overall effects vs. Game balance issues:

• Makes getting reduced to low health more dangerous for survivors, because one FAK won't stop health drain if you can't heal to 25. However carrying two FAKs will probably get you to 25, and even one FAK will give you ten moves to find other survivors to ask for help. Or, just carry a single syringe for yourself.
• Potentially makes revive queues slower by making syringes rarer. But syringes aren't too hard to find. And survivors could always choose to live with plague and focus on reviving if there's a huge wait. The way I see it, forcing people to make tactical choices is always good for the game.

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 Makes it harder for survivors, but not too hard. This just makes carrying one syringe in case of plague the new carrying one FAK in case of infection. And I like that it gives survivors the choice of ignoring it, to their later peril, or treating it now but in doing so give up reviving someone. --A Big F'ing Dog 16:34, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
2. Keep I like it. This gives syringes another use and adds a little extra peril. The inject button would be best to avoid clutter. --Giles Sednik ^CAPDSWA 22:19, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Kill Votes

1. Kill - I just plain don't like this. --Midianian^{¦T¦DS¦SP¦} 16:58, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
2. Kill - I hardly ever have syringes to spare these days, and you want to add another reason for their use? If your going to do that might as well up search rates for it as well, only way I'll vote keep. Rogueboy 19:31, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
   • Re One of my characters in a dangerous neighborhood has had a lot of trouble getting syringes recently, true. But another one in a safe neighborhood easily stockpiled over a dozen syringes in two days. It really depends where you are. There's no reason syringe find rates couldn't be increased with this either. --A Big F'ing Dog 21:05, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
3. 'Kill - Survivors are selfish enough already, reviver's are one of the few that actually help others and help others enjoy the game... why hamper it? Besides, I always felt syringes should heal infections as standard not FAKS.--Kamikazie-Bunny 20:24, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
4. Kill - There are some very interesting concepts in there but I can't vouch for it. Its overly confusing for something that just acts as yet another infection variation. D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 21:44, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
5. Kill/Change - This seems interesting, but for balance, I suggest that it heals it self when the survivor is over 40 HP or so. --Mail2345 20:11, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
6. Kill - If there's a change in Infectious Bite, then this is the way to go. --Paddy Dignam^{IS DEAD} 22:29, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
7. Wait, so I lose 2 HP per action when I'm below 25 HP?--Pesatyel 04:34, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
   • Re No, you only lose 1HP even with both plague and infection. They do not stack. --A Big F'ing Dog 13:34, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
8. Kill - Its interesting but like DDR I think it could be overly complicated. -- Cheese 19:20, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
9. Kill - As DDR; it is interesting, but more complicated than it should be. --ZsL 03:43, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
10. Kill/Change - I quite like this as an idea to make it a bit harder for survivors but its a bit too easy to give someone the plague as this suggestion stands now. (What zombie wouldn't just bite everyone twice?) Would they still have plague if they died of it and were revived? Legion8 05:19, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
    • Re You can only infect someone when they are below 25hp. So the zombie method of biting everyone once to infect them and leaving them at 56hp wouldn't work with plague. You'd have to deal significant damage to a single survivor before biting them a second time. --A Big F'ing Dog 04:53, 29 March 2009 (BST)
11. Kill - I personally don't find how this would benefit the game at all. Plus, the system just seems too complicated. I understand it and everything, but there are just too many details to work out, and the infection skill is already irritating enough to add this on top of it. It's an interesting concept, but I just don't like it. Fujiko Mine 01:40, 30 March 2009 (BST)

Kill - Hmm. Don't think that this is a good idea. Also, syringes are only meant to be used on zombies, so let's keep it that way. Nemesis645 18:10, 13 April 2009 (BST) Vote made after voting closed struck. --Bob Boberton ^{TF / DW} 18:00, 19 April 2009 (BST)

Spam/Dupe Votes

1. Spam - Suggestion assumes that players want to play in a certain way. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 14:27, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
2. Spam - Would totally unbalance the game. Plus, KISS.3R 19:22, 28 March 2009 (UTC)