Suggestion:20070604 Acid Throw

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

20070604 Acid Throw

Magentaine 01:41, 4 June 2007 (BST)

Suggestion type
New Science Skill

Suggestion scope
Survivors who buy the skill, zombies attacked by it.

Suggestion description
Acid Throw would be a new Science skill permitting a basic form of attack. It would be a separate skill and have no prerequisites.

Why do scientists need to attack? They're support players.
Ask yourself a question; why do trenchcoaters exist? Because kicking ass, an effective strategy or not, is fun. Searching buildings for FAKs and syringes is not very fun, if you think about it. Players who start as scientists have to wait a long time before they can be even remotely useful in combat, due to the high price of Military skills for scientists. This skill is mostly to make playing a scientist a little more fun and noob-friendly, and to give scientists something to do during sieges other than search for FAKs and syringes and make their rounds to the revive points. It also provides a small amount of experience, say, 5XP, helping newb scientists buy other skills faster, considering they have to level up more than any other class.

But if you let scientists attack, what's the point of people playing military?
Well, obviously, they wouldn't be as good, nor would they even be able to directly attack. When a scientist throws a flask of acid at another player (usually a zombie), he has a 50% chance of hitting. If it hits, then it doesn't even do any immediate damage. What it does is it gives the player an "infection"-like status effect for the next 10 moves the player makes as the acid slowly erodes their flesh. That's it; ten damage, and only gradually. It's impossible to directly kill a player this way; all it can do is help a military unit take him down more easily later. And that's exactly what a scientist is for--support. If a scientist nails a player who is already suffering from acid burn, all it does is bring the total turns remaining back up to 10. For example, if a scientist hits a zombie twice in a row, the second doesn't have any effect. If a scientist hits a zombie who has two turns of acid burn left, throwing another flask will only add eight more turns of acid burn.

Ten damage? That's as good as a shotgun!
In the amount of damage alone, yes. But damaging a zombie alone is worthless, and it's impossible to kill someone with it. The point of a shotgun to is kill a zombie quickly and dump it so you can begin barricading. This skill does nothing to help in that regard. Also, a zombie suffering from acid burn can easily bite someone during a siege to regain that health before their 50AP are spent, so by the time someone attacks them the acid's effects are long past. As you can see, it being as good as a shotgun isn't every good at ll.

Does it stack with Infection?
I really don't see PKers using this, but still, no. Acid burn cures an infection. It makes sense, too, if you think about it. If you're infected and you get hit with acid, the chemical also kills the bacteria. If you have acid on you and you get bit, the acid already there will prevent you from contracting one. As such, acid burn is one very low-tech way to cure an infection if you're desperate.

So how do you get flasks of acid, anyway?
As scientists are not intended to be combat oriented, it wouldn't be terrible if flasks were found on a single-shot basis. However, since it's not the most effective form of attack, it wouldn't be game breaking if flasks of acid were found in sets of four or so. Flasks could probably be found in logical locations, like hospitals, NT buildings, power stations, repair shops, factories, or warehouses. If the suggestion get implemented, that's up to Kevan.

Playing as a starting scientist is difficult and not very fun, seeing as it is difficult to be useful in a siege whether you start as NT Employee or Doctor. This gives a way for scientists to at least be a little useful, which makes the class more fun and more accessible for new players so they're not as likely to become trenchcoaters. It also provides another way to get XP for the class that's going to need the most of it, and a way to damage opponents without buying multiple military skills and 150 a pop before they can be even remotely useful on the battlefield. However, neither will it greatly affect the balance of the game. Once scientist newbies buy this and start using it, they'll earn xp more quickly and buy the other science skills, which will permit them to use FAKs and syringes effectively, causing them to mature into strategically effective survivors and good players rather than growing frustrated ans starting over as military and becoming a trenchcoater.

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 Author vote. --Magentaine 01:42, 4 June 2007 (BST)
2. Keep - I like it. If I were a scientist, and were being attacked,... I'd throw acid at my attacker if I had it. And it makes since for acid to be in laboratories. --Poodle of doom 02:52, 4 June 2007 (BST)
3. Keep - I like it too. It gives scientists a taste of combat without making them anywhere near as effective as the characters dedicated to battling. --Toejam 13:20, 4 June 2007 (BST)
4. Keep - A pretty good, well thought out suggestion. --Saluton 14:33, 4 June 2007 (BST)
5. Keep - I'm a scientist and from experience IT WAS VERY HARD to gain 250XP (Lab experience and Free Running) just to get to reviving others and I really suggest something to boost XP gaining other than Scanning Zombies and sometimes even Scanning tagged ones already --SBC 6:52, 5 June 2007 (BST)
6. Keep - Frankly, I'm a fairly calm, smart man. But even I can't resist humanity's inbred bloodlust at some points. Scientists have these urges too. Nalikill 21:07, 5 June 2007 (BST)
7. Keep - Well, probably noob scientists should have a bit more muscle... If acid doesn't deal too much damage, and can't be stocked, why not? --CrazyArcher 22:47, 19 June 2007 (BST)
8. All right then. I get most people's worries about having trenchcoater scientists, and I get most people's reasons that playing a starting scientist won't be much fun. I disagree with both of those, but that won't stop me from voting what I think, and what I think is that I like this is a nifty skill. Kalir FTW! _{Z/S UD Potato Words} 19:52, 20 June 2007 (BST)

Kill Votes

1. Kill - You know, the reason why Scientists don't start out with attack options is because there already is a class with them. Giving a Scientist an attack would suppress the amount of new players choosing combat oriented classes like a Police person. That'll mean more new survivors with attacks that aren't good, yet still useful as support characters. Which is what starting scientists are SUPPOSED to be good for, supporting the combat characters that are SUPPOSED to be on the front lines fighting. Honestly not too useful of a suggestion. A dǝǝɥs oʇ ɯɐds: sʎɐʍ1ɐ! 01:57, 4 June 2007 (BST)

   Re Causing a status effect generally falls under the category of "support". Acid Throw would a supplement to main-line fighters, not a replacement. If a hundred scientists all threw acid at a zombie, it would take ten turns, receive ten damage, and survive. Military players would still be necessary, and, as far as I can see, survivors have no shortage of them. --Magentaine 03:22, 4 June 2007 (BST)

   RE - I personally think that how you use an ability or item is what classifies it as support or not. Any way, we have no shortage of military players now, but lets say this skill is implemented. Imagine a siege of a mall, seeing as thats where I've seen most new players gravitate to, that recently suffered a severe break-in. The zombies also took out a large portion of the survivors there. Now there are a few Military kids left, but most of who's left are Scientists with no actual Scientist skills, or maybe the most basic Scientist skills. That mall would be effectively lost because the survivors who are there wouldn't be able to put up an effectiev resistance, other than one giant trenchcoating response. The military guys would be more combat oriented, like they are supposed to, but the Scientists would be too, therefore no one would get healed and no one would get revived. The resistance would slowly be shot down because all that was really left was a bunch of trenchcoating Scientists. I think the reason why Kevan didn't give Scientists much in the way of attacking, is so they don't really develop that silly "kill everything before you do anything" attitude that a lot of new players (the combat oriented class pickers) develop early in the game. In short, there will be one giant Cluster-Fu$% of weak attacking scientists, and no one to heal or revive. If you find any of this hard to follow, I'm sorry. I'm really tired at the moment, and I think I will finally go to bed. A dǝǝɥs oʇ ɯɐds: sʎɐʍ1ɐ! 19:06, 4 June 2007 (BST)

2. Kill - This suggestion makes no sense. It gives scientists (the non-combat class of the game) one skill with a single attack as effective as shotguns with two military skills, supposedly to make them more effective in combat, and easier to gain XP. However it is useful only against something that has less than 10 hp left and can't heal before dying, and the scientist can simply take a DNA sample from a zombie, getting the same XP using much less AP and being somewhat safer. He can also heal survivors with FAKs, for the same XP, less AP and absolute safety. --Nikitis 03:52, 4 June 2007 (BST)

   Re I'm confused. You start off by arguing it's too overpowered, then you proceed to argue it's useless. Sure, he can heal, revive, and scan--if other scientsts haven't already cleared all the revive queues in the area, if the few survivors who get hurt during a siege and don't die haven't already been healed, and if all the zombies in a siege haven't already been scanned (remember, they can't be acanned again until they move.) This is just one more way to get experience, to supplement the other methods. --Magentaine 18:15, 4 June 2007 (BST)

   Re I'm equally confused by this suggestion. If you look at it as a single attack, it's overpowered, especially for the non-combat class. However with your restrictions it ends up being little more than an annoyance for zombies, much less effective for XP gathering than any existing science skill, and with the same drawbacks, since each zombies can be acid-sprayed once, unless they're active and the scientist is in trouble. --Nikitis 19:45, 4 June 2007 (BST)

3. Kill - Each class has a purpose and the science class' purpose is to heal survivors and provide revives. Therefore, attack skills should stay in the military class. --Sonofagun18 07:18, 4 June 2007 (BST)
4. Kill For most of the reasons above.--Seventythree 07:56, 4 June 2007 (BST)
5. Kill - As above. --JudeMaverick ^{W! TJ! Talk Zzz... P! Nuts!} 08:54, 4 June 2007 (BST)
6. Read above votes. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 13:12, 4 June 2007 (BST)
7. Kill - All of above...--Charley C. 16:39, 4 June 2007 (BST)
8. Kill -What Nikitis and Sonofagun18 said. --Ktut 17:23, 4 June 2007 (BST)
9. Kill - I don't really find the science class to be boring at all. Although chucking a vial of acid at somebody would be a very "mad scientist" thing to do, I don't think it's really needed. --Uncle Bill 03:23, 5 June 2007 (BST)
10. Kill - as above, sorry. --Duke Garland_T^{LCD SSZ} 07:07, 5 June 2007 (BST)
11. Kill - Everything has allready been said. - BzAli 13:21, 5 June 2007 (BST)
12. Kill - Why would it be a science skill? It's a form of grenade. Anyway, as the rest.-- Vista  +1  20:19, 5 June 2007 (BST)
13. Kill - and it has indeed all been said. Well done with putting a lot of thought into the idea though, and presenting it well. armareum 15:04, 8 June 2007 (BST)
14. Kill - Scientist may need a way to attack better than an axe, but this isn't it. --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 03:09, 10 June 2007 (BST)
15. Kill - Acid takes wayyy too long to eat through something to be an effective weapon.--Priz 12:48, 15 June 2007 (BST)
16. Kill - As per Suicidalangel. --Anotherpongo 17:58, 15 June 2007 (BST)

Spam/Dupe Votes

1. Strong Kill -Okay. #1: NT workers and, once they get diagnosis, doctors already have about the best XP source of any class. Acid throw would be basically useless unless there was a shortage of survivors to heal/zombies to DNA extract, in which case they would be uttely overpowered.

   2: in addition to being useless for XP gain, this would also be useless for fighting zombies, since it would have no effect on clearing a building and a zombie even in a dangrous (for survivors) suburb would generally be killed before they woke up, and if they live in a VD 'burb and survie they will usually have over 10HP, so even on zombies with our digestion or AG this would be ineffective either way.

   3: thus the only thing this would be good for was greifing survivors. assuming that this would be uncureable by FAK (please, don't clarify it that way- you'll gain more kills on "the acid would just eat through the bandages" than you would lose them) you could basically have a PKer with enough acids do 10 damage each to 40 people for 40 AP, after finding 10 groups of acid beckers, an this would still earn them XP- probably more than with weapons- so... If these were found at NT's, I'd consider it pro-survivor to smash the generator and lower the 'cades in hopes that the zombies breack in and ransack it. --AlexanderRM 02:17, 6 June 2007 (BST)