Suggestion:20080916 Headshots remove HP, not AP

20080916 Headshots remove HP, not AP

Aeon17x 01:49, 16 September 2008 (BST)

Suggestion type
Skill change

Suggestion scope
Survivors who have the Headshot skill, zombies who receive headshots

Suggestion description
Original title: 'A Fairer Headshot'

How about instead of headshots adding AP to the zombie's stand-up cost, they just stand up with less HP than usual? Like this -

• Headshot (If the player delivers a killing blow to a zombie, it stands up with 10HP less than its maximum HP.)

In removing the 5AP loss, we'll replace it with how headshotted zombies now start off with 10HP less (e.g. 40HP without body building, 50HP with body building). This should address the following issues:

• Survivors always complain that zombies have it better in total AP expenditure when standing up even if they Headshot them, since for 6AP they stand up with full HP. Now, by standing up with 10HP less, there's a bigger AP benefit for the survivors since the zombies are already damaged when the battle starts, and therefore easier to kill when evicting them from safehouses.
• At the same time, zombies won't be so annoyed about headshots now since they get to save their precious AP, at the cost of having lesser staying power within buildings. And it gives some use for Digestion, for those who are picky on having max HP all the time.
• Another benefit for zombies is that with more AP to spend per day, it gives them more playing time, therefore leading to a better gameplay experience for zombie players.

Some math stuff for those who want solid numbers:

• Consider this for a moment. With the reworked Headshot, the zombie stands up with a guaranteed 10HP damage, which saves around 3-4AP worth of pistol shots (or 1-2AP of shotgun blasts) not counting the AP needed to search and load them.
  • When it all comes down to it, it's really just like the old Headshot, with the AP costs shifted around from penalizing the zombie (by losing AP) to benefitting the survivor (by saving AP).
• Incidentally, the status quo is maintained if the zombie chooses to heal the 10HP deficit by digestion -- it'll take them 2-3 bites to recover 10HP, which would cost 5AP or more.

Possible issues with this suggestion:

• As Galaxy125 pointed out, with the absence of AP loss meatshielding would be a far more effective tactic than before. While I admit this will likely happen in siege situations particularly in resource buildings such as malls, I don't see it as that big of a deal since a major skill change as this one would have accompanying balance changes such as reducing zombie interference, especially since zombies would have more AP to spend now.
  • Then again, it might not even be necessary. It's not only zombies who have more AP to spare, the survivors do too. Personally I think it depends on which side is more dedicated in keeping control of their territory, as with this change both sides would die quicker due to the freed-up AP that zombies previously lose from Headshot, and survivors now save from having headshotted zombies start with less HP.
• The 10HP reduction is a totally subjective number -- Pesatyel recommended some adjustments to the HP loss such as only 5HP reduction for non-Ankle Grab zombies.
• More issues were brought up on the talk page.

And yeah, that's about it. Summary: instead of losing 5AP, headshotted zombies stand up with 10HP less.

--Private Mark 16:05, 16 September 2008 (BST)

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 - Fair, even, good suggestion in my opinion. It would help the zombie players who don't like having less playing time, (it can get very annoying) but at the same time makes it easier to kill the zombie. Same basic idea, make it easier to get the next kill. --User:John Kingston 2:20, 16 September, 2008 (GMT)
2. Keep - I normally despise heavy game changes like this... But really, on brief inspection I can't find a dupe, and yes, I can really see the benefit for my zombie keeping that AP at the expense of XP. I tried to hate this suggestion, but I couldn't. D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 07:18, 16 September 2008 (BST)
3. Keep - Author vote. --Aeon17x 10:12, 16 September 2008 (BST)
4. Keep, I find this funny. You have people saying it helps zombies too much, and people saying it helps survivors too much. Fact is, headshot is meant to nerf zombie. Problem is, is this nerf better or worse? Personally I feel zombie should get their days worth of AP. The downside to this is that buildings stay open for a slightly shorter while, and the barricades might be slightly higher because survivors use that extra AP that wasn't used for shooting a zombie to barricade a little more. So even though this might or might not make it worse for zombies, I want zombies to get their full days worth of AP. - User:Whitehouse 13:21, 16 September 2008 (BST)
5. Keep - Fair enough. --Private Mark 16:05, 16 September 2008 (BST)
6. Keep - Would probably make the game more fun for both sides, and also makes sense in that zombie hunters would (gasp) actually be better at killing zombies, rather than just causing zombie players grief. The game has evolved to be more about controlling territory, with zombies getting the most help there, and this aids survivors in fighting for territory, while also making active zombie attackers as much or more of a threat! Seems fun to me.  Swiers 17:38, 16 September 2008 (BST)
7. Keep - Ensures that nobody will ever have to pay 15AP stand up fees. --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 18:57, 16 September 2008 (BST)
8. Keep - Never really been a fan of AP draining skills because they take away people's playtime. --Toejam 18:58, 18 September 2008 (BST)
9. keep because headshot is not meant to "punish" players it is supposed to hurt zombies! Stealing another players AP is high on the do not suggest list for a reason but just in case some folks don't get that reason it is this: AP = gameplay and less AP = less gameplay. Given we play games for fun headshot currently steals another players fun.--Honestmistake 14:43, 19 September 2008 (BST)
10. Keep - Having had a low level zed alt in a trench-heavy area, I reckon I must have wasted at least a day's worth of AP every two weeks from AP penalties for the headshot. Anything that will change this is going to get a keep from me. --Target Practice 01:31, 22 September 2008 (BST)

Kill Votes

1. Kill/Change - Reduce effectiveness (increase HP loss) and make it a zombie skill in the Brain Rot tree, and I'll consider it. But currently (as I said before) makes meatshielding far more effective. -- Galaxy125 07:13, 16 September 2008 (BST)
2. Kill/Change - Makes meatsheilding more effective in siege situations-too effective. Linkthewindow 07:44, 16 September 2008 (BST)
3. kill Uber survivor nerf. headshot, ankle grab up for one, get killed while not doing any action, stand up for one, rinse repeat, survivor in the safehouse runs out of ap, and you kill them. you spend all in all probably about what, 10-20 less ap? let's see, shotgun takes a long time to find shells, and assuming your average survivor with full gun skills has three or four of them, you'll make them waste more ap. And I'm really tired of yao crying spam/kill cause people didn't listen to him. Padfu-Zomfu 17:00, 16 September 2008 (BST)
4. Kill - Zombies are pretty much impossible to stop. The best you can do is slow them down and decrease their effectiveness, removing the AP hit from headshot is therefore bad. A loss in HP instead does very little to slow down zombies, if at all. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 18:34, 16 September 2008 (BST)
5. Kill - not many of the youngins remember what the game was like with the old headshot skill so changing it seems pretty stupid to me. --Lt.G Deathnut | TheStayPuftMan 01:35, 19 September 2008 (BST)
6. Kill - I play both sides, and I can safely say I am not annoyed by the way headshot is for either in the slightest, nor have I run into anyone who feels that way. It's fine the way it is. --Howard Bentley 16:25, 20 September 2008 (BST)

Spam/Dupe Votes

1. Spam - You didn't listen to any of the critiques in Talk:Suggestions. Those critiques are my justification: I really don't wanna repeat myself, or others. --WanYao 06:38, 16 September 2008 (BST) I give in. The is a spam-o-fucking-licious zombie nerf because it whittles away zombies' HP in a siege situation, making buildings easier to clear and defend. And regaining HP via Digestion is absurdly AP-wasteful and thus in no way makes up for this nerf, i.e. it takes about 8-10 AP to fix the damage done by this nerf, not 5 AP (10 AP = 3 hits @ 30% * 4 HP damage each = 12 HP). Your math is pathetic. And this is zombie nerf. --WanYao 07:25, 16 September 2008 (BST)

   Huh. I thought the meatshielding issue and the whittling-away-at-zombie-HP-in-a-siege-situation issue would balance each other. I guess sometimes you just don't see the counterweight on the other side to see that overall, this will still be a better alternative to the AP loss.

   By the way, statistics is your friend. At 30% hit rate for bites, there's an approximately 15.6% chance that you'll get three of them in to heal the HP deficit within five to nine AP. I just didn't write out the equations since I didn't expect you will actually challenge them. :P --Aeon17x 10:11, 16 September 2008 (BST)

   Have you played as a zombie much? Do you know how hard landing a bite is in actual practice? Didn't think so... See also Funt Solo, below. This is spam-o-licious. Deal. Also, your statistics actually prove my point: only a 15.6% chance of regaining the lost HP via biting? Exactly: this is spam-o-fucking-licious survivor buff. --WanYao 17:46, 16 September 2008 (BST)

   Discussion continued in the talk page. --Aeon17x 01:18, 17 September 2008 (BST)

2. Spam - less HP is not a punishment for a zombie, whereas less AP is. The only reason any zombie should even fear a loss of HP is because of the loss of AP associated with headshot. Otherwise death is simply a minor inconvenience, or sometimes a tactical one, if you end up dumped outside of a 'cade. In short: don't nerf ma headshot. --Funt Solo ^QT 16:17, 16 September 2008 (BST)

   Zombies... fearing? And the undead not looking forward to dying all over again? That sounds just wrong, and to be frank, out of genre in a zombie apocalypse. Zombies should be the ones who scare survivors, not the other way around! --Aeon17x 01:41, 17 September 2008 (BST)

   Replace my mention of "zombie" with "zombie player". Glory be! --Funt Solo ^QT 04:56, 17 September 2008 (BST)

3. Sorry, Macampos. But I'm with Wan and Funt on this one. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 22:39, 16 September 2008 (BST)
4. Spam - As Funt. Don't get me wrong, I don't like headshot as is, but this is not the fix that I am looking for.  Billy Club Thorton  T!  RR  01:51, 17 September 2008 (BST)
5. Spam - As Funt. Zombies being closer to 0 HP just means they're closer to 50 or 60 HP when they stand up again for 1 AP. Headshots taking AP is a minor inconvenience at 6 AP, and a bit more of an actual inconvenience at 15AP. 10HP loss is nothing. --Tselita 20:36, 17 September 2008 (BST)
6. Dupe? - I know this has at least been disgussed on the Talk page in the past, and I don't think anything came of it due to it believed to be too overpowered against invading zombies.--Kolechovski 20:12, 18 September 2008 (BST)
7. SUPER-SIZED CAN OF SPAM ON FIRE – Rewards trenchcoating behaviour (shooting zombies outside for XP) by making it easier to shoot zombies outside for XP, in addition to other concerns. ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 06:01, 19 September 2008 (BST)

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