Suggestion:20071126 Zombie Horde Detection

	Spam!
	This suggestion was voted as spam and closed for voting, with 4 keep, 10 kill, and 7 spam votes.

20071126 Zombie Horde Detection

Jon Pyre 17:00, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion type
Skill

Suggestion scope
Scent Death Subskill

Suggestion description
I noticed my zombie's area was mostly ruined when it had been survivor held just a few days prior. I realized "Oh, this must be the Big Bash my survivor heard rumors about". Isn't it a bit silly that the only way I knew what was going on with my zombie is thanks to conversations heard by my survivor alt?

I suggest a Scent Death subskill, Scent Horde. All this skill would do is improve Scent Death to provide an additional piece of information: the five zombie groups operating with the most members within 10 blocks of your position and and an estimate of how many members are nearby. This would not violate zombie anonymity because it does not identify any specific players. It would just provide general information about the combat situation in a wide area centered on you.

This is useful info - unless a zombie from one of the groups utters some gibberish how else is a player to know? And even a zombie saw a zed speak and checked their profile that doesn't let you know how prevalent their group is, just that one of their members is nearby.

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. Pretty useful small improvement that reduces the need for zombies to metagame to understand what the heck is going on. I suppose this could just be an improvement to Scent Death but I'm generally in favor of new features requiring skills just to provide a method of using up xp. --Jon Pyre 17:02, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
2. Nice. I'm unsure on the exact numbers, but it seems OK. I suspect survivor groups would usually be among (or even a majority of) the 5 "hordes" you detect, but that ALSO is useful information (hmm, the area is mostly Mrh Cows, time to move on...)  Swiers 17:07, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
3. sounds hefty fine --~~~~ [talk] 17:58, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
4. Keep - Spiffy! UCFSD 17:32, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Kill Votes

1. Kill - I don't buy it at all. How would a zombie be able to get the names of 5 groups they might not ever have come across simply through smell? Illustration: a zombie sniffs the air, and various scents are slowly processed by its decaying brain. "Hmm..." it thinks "that smells like a group of zombies that I've never met before. I imagine they'd call themselves 'the Zombie Doom Squad of Death'." A useful idea, but the mechanics and flavour are way off. --Pavluk ^{A! E!} 17:17, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
   • Re Well, for that matter how can you tell the group affiliation of someone just by looking at them? Or by analyzing their DNA? If zombies can identify their group by groan why not others by smell? I'm sure plenty of animals species in nature can identify strangers by scent. --Jon Pyre 17:27, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
2. Kill - You can't really justify unrealistic things in a zombie apocalypse. But meh, too much info.--  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 18:38, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
3. Kill As above--Seventythree^Talk 18:50, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
4. Kill - Is this really needed, or even wanted? From what I remember from my zed character, Scent Death already does this. It tells you where the largest group of zombies are at, and where to find them, which then means that this ability would be superfulous. I think you also need to explain the mechanics of how this would work - I mean, you can recognize people you have meet before - and for survivors you can recognize the group that they belong by what they wear. It could be the same for zombies - you recognize them by their smell (as in Scent Death), and different groups have different smells. There needs to be a lot more explanation regarding what you are trying to do here - and I need a reason why this skill would be better and why it shouldn't just replace a skill which it replicates (Scent Death). Edit: Oh, and Funt brings up several good points as well. --Ryiis 18:57, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
5. Kill - Asking the game engine to do what your should be doing with in-game communications / scouting or metagaming. It is an absurd and unneeded buff to Scent Death. --WanYao 20:47, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
   • Re Zombies don't often communicate to each other because they figure Death Rattle isn't worth the AP. A zombie can't see what groups other zombies belong to by scouting. And while there's nothing wrong with metagaming I don't think it should be necessary either. --Jon Pyre 21:36, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
6. Changes needed - I like where you're going and I would definitely want this. BUT, it needs to be tweaked a bit first. Please move this to discussion. --Uncle Bill 03:38, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
7. Just have it detect the largest concentration of standing zombies. And at a lesser range (say 6).--Pesatyel 05:39, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
8. Kill - its like a zombie saying "i'll just pull out my zombie binoculars and WOW theres a huge horde of zombie 52 blocks to the west, belonging to the *sniff sniff* death cult of zeds group, i'll go join them" How really could a zombie see farther than a couple blocks and smell information about them, unless every group has its own group scent powder, good idea though Anti Gorefest5 --anti gorefest5 06:15, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
9. Kill - As Pavluk. --Midianian|T|T:S|C:RCS| 10:19, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
10. Read above and below votes. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 10:48, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Spam/Dupe Votes

1. Cackapoopoo - this isn't Scent Horde, it's Scent Group - and at a MASSIVE range. Way overpowered, and too specific. I swear you've suggested similar uber-group-detection skills in the past, but I'm not trawling Peer Rejected to find them. Also, this just begs the use of survivor-spies playing zom to track the larger groups. No zombie group would want that kind of power tracking them and playing river tactics, would they? --Funt Solo ^QT 18:55, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
   • Re Survivors can already check group affiliation of hordes just by scanning through them with DNA Extractors. As I said, survivors have no problem figuring out who is attacking them but a zombie that does not metagame can have trouble who they're fighting with. The massive range actually weakens the skill rather than strengthens it. You can't tell what group 20 zombies in front of you belong to. Now that lends itself to abuse. This would let you know "Oh, the Vinetown Barhah Gang are in the area". --Jon Pyre 21:36, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

   Re - BKM points out the worst problem of all - there's no distinction between zombie or survivor groups - so you're talking a group detection skill, not a Zombie Horde Detection skill, which is what the title pretends this is. Scanning with DNA extractors is somewhat different to complete X-Ray group detection, so that argument's pure cackapoopoo. Much like this suggestion. --Funt Solo ^QT 22:19, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

2. Spam- No. There already is a skill that reveals the largest nearby horde, so instead of being lazy look up whatever group is rolling through suburbs and join them. This would provide X-Ray vision, survivors believe it or not can be a part of zombie groups. I understand implementation is a poor excuse to spam/kill but this is ridiculous... some people vary their group name slightly so what would happen there? The answer is nothing, you would get unreliable or misleading numbers. Not only that but this would require metagame analysis, otherwise you expect Kevan to know whether a group is zombie or not. There are new groups popping up all the time and groups are gaining and losing members all the time too so how would it determine the 5 largest groups? How, then, could this process be automated? Nice try(not) but this would require constant revisions of the content to be accurate.-- BKM 19:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
3. Spam - We don't need zombie skills that are only useful to survivors.--Karek^maps?! 01:49, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
4. Das Crock Of Shit - Useless. --Cap'n Silly ^T/W/P/C 06:07, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
5. Spam - -- dǝǝɥs oʇ ɯɐds: sʎɐʍ1ɐ! 01:46, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
6. Spam - Kill it with fire. --Cyberbob ^{DORIS CGR U!} 12:18, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
7. Spam - As BKM. --Karlsbad 20:15, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

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