Suggestion talk:20091111 Meatshielding Skills

Copied from Developing Suggestions

Interesting idea, but I'd use a level cap (5?) instead of specific skills. 22:18, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I think that version has been suggested before and was unpopular because too many characters would be affected. --Explodey 22:28, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

The only thing this does is harm newbie zombies. Also, there's already a sistem to prevent zerging--Orange Talk 22:21, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Not really. The most important thing to a newbie zombie is getting XP. Although they won't be able to help their group hold the ruin anymore, this will not deprive the bahbahz of food. And the existing anti-zerg mechanism is not perfect; Zerg-meatshielding does still happen. --Explodey 22:28, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

You'll allow people to free run into their building to headshot them rather than leaving safety and searching each ruin for them. It hurts the babahs. Don't suggest things that hurt the babahs. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 22:37, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I reckon they are less likely to get headshot, because the experienced zombie hunters will kill the zombies with MoL first then repair and cade. The babah will be killed, but there's more chance that it's by a low-level character such as a level-1 firefighter. --Explodey 23:07, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

A level one fire fighter that can't free run into the building? Was stupidity a slow onset? Or is it a sudden thing? -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 23:09, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Okay not necessarily a level 1 firefighter (though it could be - remember there's a horde outside bashing the cades.) There are plenty of characters out there with Free Running and a combat skill but not Headshot.--Explodey 23:19, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I like it. The skills that you chose make sense, but I think I might like it better if it was actually set up as a sub-skill of those skills, rather than a new capability for those skills. That said, the zombies would have a leg up with this change, since if my zed walked into a building, he either has the Ransack button or he doesn't, depending on if the survivors have Construction. There's no ambiguity or wasted AP. If my survivor was trying to stop a breach, however, he has the Barricade button regardless, and won't know whether or not the zombies coming in have Memories of Life. He'd either have to DNA extract them all or else take his chances with the barricade button. Even so, I'd be in favor of it, since it's a buff/nerf to each side, with a slight edge to the zombies where they could use it. —Aichon— 23:02, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

What do you know, an idea that has some serious gameplay merit. I like this idea, and doubt that newbie survivors/zombies are going to miss being able to interfere or change ruins. It will be a bit harder on survivors to determine if interference/ruin holding is in play for specific zombies, but if nothing else I'm sure they'll learn to deal with it. I'd rather have a zombie that may be able to block barricading then a zombie that can block barricading in my building any day. (and the same but flipped for my ruins) Lelouch vi Britannia is helping make Ridleybank green_ and gives Achievements 02:33, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. I'd vote this in. --Blake Firedancer ^{T E RNL? P.I.S.I.T.} 10:28, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

As Misanthropy. A level cap would be better. --Haliman - Talk 20:32, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I am torn over this suggestion as-is and so I am abstaining from casting a vote. As Lelouch pointed out, newbie zombies/survivors probably will not see much difference in gameplay immediately because they generally avoid meatshield tactics until they get more levels under their belt anyways. However, I do not think that Construction is an equal to Memories of Life as the skills for this suggestion. Construction is fine--most survivors grab it relatively quickly (~Lvl 3-4), but the same cannot be said for MoL. It should really be switched out for one of the combat skills (since I think most zombies grab Lurching Gait first)--I was thinking Tangling Grasp or Rend Flesh. Make that change, and you'll get my vote. --Maverick ^{Talk - OBR 404} 07:15, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Not all survivors get Construction that early. Trenchcoaters don't get it till around level 11 and although they don't intentionally meatshield, they (and the occasional death cultist) will account for some of the harman population in a mall, making it slightly easier to ruin. It's tricky to pick the right zombie skill for this, but I don't like LG because of Mrh Cows getting it early, and I don't like the idea of using a combat skill for this because it would be hard to explain flavour-wise. --Explodey 18:03, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Should the major travesty happen and Kevan actually put this into the game it should be dependent on Construction in survivors and Vigor Mortis in zombies. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 18:10, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

But Vigour Mortis is a starting skill, so that would destroy the anti-zerg advantage. --Explodey 18:24, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm guessing you're being facetious, since making it based on VM would defeat the whole anti-zerging aspect of the suggestion, given that every zombie starts with VM. Lurching Gait and Memories of Life are really the only two that make logical sense. Of those two, MoL makes the most logical sense, since it's related to dealing with doors already. And while I do believe in helping newbies, I believe that a few things make this acceptable:

1. If MoL has added value, it will naturally be picked up earlier, so we shouldn't be considering its current place in the order of skills.
2. Zombies get better long-term benefits from this suggestion, since they can, at no cost and no hassle, tell whether or not a building can be ruined simply by checking for the Ransack/Ruin button. Survivors, on the other hand, can't tell if interference is in play as easily, so they either need to take their chances with the barricade button or DNA extract the zombies inside the building to see their profiles.

While newbie zombies might not benefit as quickly as newbie survivors would, the end benefits outweigh the short-term advantage. Regardless, I think the short-term advantage is being overstated anyway. —Aichon— 18:25, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm certainly not being facetious. VM requires a starting zombie be selected, a singular character class that requires 2AP per move and doesn't get to flee behind barricades to avoid the AP drain of death. If I wanted to create zombie sentinels in the current game situation I'd make Scouts, they move fast and can get into buildings to jump and enter when they reach the building you want the squat. Remember it takes a member of the Corpse class 4 days to walk from one side of Malton to another. The only people that take the corpse class any more are real players wanting to play pure zombies.

Zergers may be cheating shits, but they have enough intelligence to get their zergs in fast when they want them there, rather than use a broken class to stay in one state. Why is it, do you think, that the majority of zergs play survivor? It's easier to play and faster to level.

And VM is the only skill of those suggested to work in flavour. Which of the following would stop you repairing a building? The zombie that walks really fast and then just stands there a bit clueless? The zombie lifting a cup to his mouth because he remembered when he used to enjoy espressos? Or the zombie that's flailing its claws and attempting to sink its teeth into anything in the vicinity? -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 18:35, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Regarding zergers, as you said, they can be intelligent, so why would they stop at creating one character? If I was zerging and needed a character in X location by tomorrow, I'd just keep creating characters until I got one close to there, rather than taking whatever I got and potentially having to move clear across Malton. I do understand your reasoning better than before, and now see some merit to what you're saying, but I still think the line of thought is flawed. Zergers will use whatever is easiest to use, and this would simply make Corpses the ideal choice, which is a negligible improvement, at best.

As for the skills and zombies, keep in mind that we're talking about barricading, not repairing, when it comes to what the zombies would be interfering with. Towards that end, I'd say that a zombie that understands what a door is, or a zombie that is capable of moving quickly enough to get in the way, rather than a zombie that simply flails better than the others, would be more likely to successfully block a survivor trying to move furniture to the door. If we were talking about repairs, you may very well be correct, but with barricades it's just a matter of blocking, not attacking. —Aichon— 18:52, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Creating multiples is fine if he just wants to do it once, ever, but for them to be successful permanently, they need to be fast (LG), durable (AG) and be immune to the 100% to hit weapon that survivors have by buying Brain Rot, and Flesh Rot to the same extent for durability. That's 4 skills on top of the starting skill, it's considerably faster to level and gain XP as a survivor. Zombie zergs are a nuisance and are rarely successful against even the most cursory forms of co-operation, survivor zergs are so common place and immediately successful there's an entire Liste to find and kill them.

Let me put it this way, there are two instances where there are a mass increase in new zombies (excluding the hypothetical zombie zerg army), a forum invasion (The Dead, The Many, LUE etc.) and the big events (Bashes, Mall Tours). All of these zombies are legal players, and you want to remove from the zombies an ability that was put in place to allow them to gain experience until they get more experience. It's a vicious circle you put them in, they need to get more experience to be able to get more experience.... the game will regress to two years ago where ferals and casual zombies will be starved out of the game and only the zergs and the crazy co-ordinated will be able to breach buildings. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 19:04, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

If the zergers we're talking about are willing to level up and gain several skills, then the argument becomes moot. Forcing them to choose either skill is beneficial then, since it costs them a bit more XP in order to be "successful permanently." The only form of zerger that this suggestion adequately addresses, I believe, is the level 1 or 2 variety, that is, zombies made for one-time or otherwise limited use. Outside that sphere, a zerger can't easily be told apart from a newbie based on skills, and this suggestion seems to make no real attempt to address them.

Regarding your second point, I don't see this as harming newbie zombies in that cyclical way. The only case where a zombie would lose out on a chance for XP as a result of this change is if they remained outside when a MoL zombie opened a door and was followed in by a group of non-MoL zombies. The result would be a lack of sufficient interference, resulting in the barricades eventually going back up and the non-MoL zombie losing a chance for XP. All of the zombies that went in would still have their chance for XP, and if only 1-2 non-MoL zombies enter, there would be little difference with the current situation since the interference wouldn't be sufficient to keep barricading from happening anyway.

Let's also not forget that a new avenue for XP is opening up in the form of buildings getting ruined underneath the feet of survivors. Those survivors lack Construction since they weren't able to meat shield, meaning that they aren't capable of repairing the building after it's ruined. Their only viable option then would be to flee. It should make for easy snacks for newbie zombies since more buildings will be ruined and more survivors will likely be in ruined buildings. —Aichon— 19:49, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Did you just make the argument that your way is fine because of the XP from ruin? For starters you can't gain XP from ruin, only from the initial ransack and there's a single XP available there that you need a 100XP skill for. These newbies that you think will be fine have got to find 100 buildings without barricades, closed doors and survivors without construction in order to break even.

Your, "the zombies that went in will get XP" argument is wrong on so many levels. The feral that's stuck outside really doesn't give a damn that others are eating, because he's chewing at cades again until he gets bored and stops playing zombie. As soon as the casual feral goes away we return to December 2007 when we had a split of 70/30 in the game. Also, you're assuming it's just a simple matter to 'step inside', it's not, back in BB2 and other events before the blocking update we could have 50 players hitting cades and be lucky to get 10 inside, that's the main reason we got this update, not only were ferals and newbies fucked, the most co-ordinated hordes could do nothing in certain cases, this was killing the game and then Kevan stepped in to make this an actual apocalypse again.

I approve of stopping cheats, but do it in a proactive way, not one that harms the most vulnerable, weakest class in the game, and the same class that we desperately need more of than any other. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 20:15, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I didn't make the argument they should level up off of ruins. I made the argument that ruined buildings make for easy pickings of the building's low-level survivor tenants since they can't barricade it back up.

Having leveled as a feral, I know how hard it is to feed off of scraps, and yeah, ferals get stuck outside, but I think that the difference in how often they'll get stuck outside because of this change is less than the difference in how often they'll get to go into easily-opened ruined buildings to eat leftovers. Either way, they rely on MoL zombies, but the extra ruins with easy snacks inside should make it easier to find snacks.

Plus, we're talking about the worst cases here, where we have only one MoL zombie present. In practice, there are more, especially so if we're making MoL a better skill or discussing organized groups. This suggestion will have no impact at all on organized groups, since they'll almost all have MoL, and should only have minimal impact on ferals, since they're dependent on MoL zombies either way to get in. If anything, the extra ability for MoL should encourage more ferals to pick it up earlier, completely negating any ill effects. —Aichon— 22:49, 12 November 2009 (UTC)