Developing Suggestions

Developing Suggestions

This page is for presenting and discussing suggestions which have not yet been submitted and are still being worked on.

Further Discussion

Discussion concerning this page takes place here. Discussion concerning the suggestions system in general (including policies about it) takes place here.

Nothing on this page will be archived.

Please Read Before Posting

• Be sure to check The Frequently Suggested List and the Suggestions Dos and Do Nots before you post your idea. There you can read about many idea's that have been suggested already, which users should be aware of before posting what could be a dupe, or a duplicate of an existing suggestion. These include Machine Guns and Sniper Rifles. There users can also get a handle of what an appropriate suggestion looks like.
• Users should be aware that this is a talk page, where other users are free to use their own point of view, and are not required to be neutral. While voting is based off of the merit of the suggestion, opinions are freely allowed here.
• It is recommended that users spend some time familiarizing themselves with this page before posting their own suggestions.
• With the advent of new game updates, users are requested to allow some time for the game and community to adjust to these changes before suggesting alterations.

How To Make a Suggestion

Format for Suggestions under development

Please use this template for discussion. Copy all the code in the box below, click [edit] to the right of the header "Suggestions", paste the copied text above the other suggestions, and replace the text shown here in red with the details of your suggestion.

===Suggestion===
{{suggestionNew
|suggest_time=~~~~
|suggest_type=Skill, balance change, improvement, etc.
|suggest_scope=Who or what it applies to.
|suggest_description=Full description. Check spelling and be descriptive.
|discussion=|}}
====Discussion (Suggestion Name)====
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Cycling Suggestions

Developing suggestions that appear to have been abandoned (i.e. two days or longer without any new edits) will be given a warning for deletion. If there are no new edits it will be deleted seven days following the last edit.

This page is prone to breaking when there are too many templates or the page is too long, so sometimes a suggestion still under strong discussion will be moved to the Overflow-page, where the discussion can continue between interested parties.

The following suggestions are currently on the Overflow page: No suggestions are currently in overflow.

If you are adding a comment to a suggestion that has the deletion warning template please remove the {{SNRV|X}} at the top of the discussion section. This will show that there is active conversation again.

Please add new suggestions to the top of the list.

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Suggestions

Hide in Darkness 3

Timestamp:	--Necrofeelinya 01:15, 6 April 2009 (BST)
Type:	Improvement
Scope:	Zombies and Humans
Description:	Not a skill, just a normal feature, always in effect. Survivors entering darkened buildings have a 25% chance per resident zombie of seeing a zombie in that building, otherwise the resident zombies are invisible like corpses currently are. For example: If there's 1 zombie in the building they might miss him on entering, so might want to search, let's say 2 times to have a total of 3 separate 25% chances of seeing a lone zombie in the dark, and those odds are pretty good at a cost of 2 extra AP. If there are 2 zombies in the building, they get a 25% chance for each zombie when they enter, then if they search they get an additional 25% for each zombie, so that by using 1 AP to search in addition to their chances upon entering, they've got 4 separate 25% chances to see at least 1 zombie. If there are 3 zombies in the building, they get 3 separate 25% chances to spot at least one upon entering, and if they use 1 AP to search, they get 3 separate additional 25% chances to spot at least 1 zombie, for a total of 6 whopping 25% chances to see that something's not right. Those are damn fine odds, and nothing to complain about. If two survivors enter a building with 1 zombie, each survivor gets a 25% chance to spot him, and can spend an additional AP for an additional chance. If one spots him, he can alert the other for 1 AP. If two survivors enter a building with 2 zombies, they each get 2 separate 25% chances to spot at least one, and can spend an additional XP for two additional 25% chances at a cost of 1 AP each, and either one can alert the other for the standard 1 AP. That's two separate 25% chances each, or a total of 8 separate 25% chances between the two of them of spotting at least one of the zombies. When survivor groups number 3 or more, or the number of zombies in the building number 3 or more, the number of chances to spot at least one start to get ridiculously high... it's a given that they'll be spotted. They might not see them all, but spotting even one lets them know there's a problem and that they need to either install a genny, get the hell out or get rid of the one or more they've spotted and just hope there aren't more in there. If the survivor installs a fueled genny, the zombies appear as usual, same as corpses would. Every day the survivor stays in the darkened building he gets another 25% chance to notice each resident zombie (noncumulative). Additionally, as a function of the search button the survivor can spend 1 AP for an additional 25% chance per resident zombie of spotting at least one zombie, and can do this as often as he likes. If a survivor enters a building where there are other survivors and notices a zombie they've missed, an "alert" button appears on his screen which, when pressed, makes the zombies he's seen appear to everyone in the room. Zombies he didn't notice remain hidden. Pressing the "alert" button costs 1 AP, just like talking, would be accompanied by a text window that would allow him to customize his alert, and others in the room would hear his alert as normal speech. Should a hidden zombie attack or groan, of course he appears to everyone in the room. Zombies entering a darkened building have a 25% chance per zombie to see each other in the room, as well as the 24 hour additional chance just like humans, but can't search for each other because they're too stupid. They could reveal themselves to one another by groans or attacking one they already see, but who doesn't see them. Yes, I know, skills that allow for hiding are generally instakills, but in this case I think the scope of it is so small as to make it acceptable, being restricted to just darkened buildings, of which there are few enough. Plus, it adds wicked badass mood to the game and promotes feral, new zombie and small zombie group play while not aiding megahordes at all. It doesn't really promote ambushes since zombies can already hide in darkened buildings as corpses under current rules, so it doesn't strike me as a gamebreaker. Basically, I believe this change does little more than encourage survivors to be a little cautious when exploring darkened buildings at minimal AP cost and adds to the overall mood of the game.

Discussion (Hunt in Darkness 3)

Specifically I'm looking this time for input on the way zombies percieve zombies in the dark, so I'd like to lump responses about that together here at the top. ----

Additionally, the question has been raised of whether survivors should also have the ability to hide this way. I think that, on top of the defensive asset of 'cading, the defensive bonus of darkness, and the fact that survivors always have the option of relocating and healing if they wake up before a zombie's managed to accumulate the AP to finalize his kill, any further enhancement of their already significant defensive capacity would just have a negative impact on playability. I could see it applied equally to humans if the defensive bonus of darkness is eliminated, though. If so inclined, please give an opinion on that in this section. ---

And for other input, whether it's just "this idea sucks" or "I'm likin' it", or actual constructive comments, please add it in this section.---

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Blood Scrawl

Timestamp:	Winton 08:37, 4 April 2009 (BST)
Type:	Zombie Skill
Scope:	Advanced Zombies
Description:	An advanced skill that will allow zombies to tag in blood. Cost: 1AP, No XP gain. 1.A subset of the Memories of Life skill tree, requiring all other Memories of Life skills as a prerequisite. 2.Requires a dead body at the location as a source of blood. 3.Scrawls are written in Zambese, as Rattle. Game play and game balance should be minimally affected. It could be used as an organization or information tool, but should be no more effective than Rattle or Gesture. Effective in-game zombie communication is virtually impossible, and this should not change that. I see it used primarily as Rattle is used, as a taunt or horde announcement. It would also allow zombies to scrawl over human tags in areas or buildings they control. However, the more dangerous the area to humans, the fewer opportunities will arise to use the skill. It could script as: A zombie has scrawled in blood "--------" on a wall. Follow up note: Very similar ideas have been suggested before. The primary criticism or feedback has been: A. Zombies can't write. The game has been set up, through the Memories of Life skill tree, to allow leveling-up zombies the ability to slowly accrue vague remembrances and use of prior human abilities. Are we absolutely set on the fact that zombies can never write? If so, then this will never fly. Or, can this skill be seen as a natural outgrowth and combination of the slightly increased mental capacity represented by Rattle and the slightly increased physical coordination represented by Gesture and Open Door? There are zombies singing and dancing in nightclubs; is it too far a stretch to imagine that same zombie scrawling something unintelligible on a wall? B. Good idea, but incomplete. This criticism resulted in weak kills, but the idea has never been overwhelmingly thrashed. If this is a good idea, can it be tweaked in such way as to make it more palatable? What I like about this idea is that it enhances zombie game play without increasing zombie power. Anything that can make the zombie character more appealing, yet no more powerful, is probably helpful, and more likely to gain player acceptance. Many zombie actions consist of trying to undo what humans have done, and this maintains and extends that slightly, while offering the zombie character one more frustratingly difficult way to attempt to express itself.

Discussion (Blood Scrawl)

I am almost certain that this is a dupe... its a good idea but I would suggest a search through previous suggestions before taking this further. --Honestmistake 11:54, 4 April 2009 (BST)

It really is. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 13:07, 4 April 2009 (BST)

I acknowledge dupe status on this suggestion, Honestmistake and Iscariot. I have attached a follow-up note to the suggestion.--Winton 19:32, 4 April 2009 (BST)

The problem with zombies writing is that it's hardly a staple of the genre, which is why it won't fly. Also, most of the people that will be complaining for 'balance' reasons will be whining trenchies who rightly know that zombie players are cleverer and funnier. The thing that will get is killed is the aforementioned lack of genre. This does give me an idea about the evolution of a previous PR suggestion that I may stick in for voting if I can be bothered. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 20:04, 4 April 2009 (BST)

Please be bothered then. The suggestions page needs something good on it for once.--Suicidal Angel, Help needed? 20:27, 4 April 2009 (BST)

When you get bothered to stop having one set of rules for certain people and other rules for certain other people and stop other sysops doing the same, then I will fix the suggestions system. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 21:21, 4 April 2009 (BST)

O_O. I wasn't even aware of having two sets of rules. You seemed fine with me before I was a sysop, then you suddenly went psyops jihad against me. To be frank, I try to adhere to the same standards I've always had, sometimes I deviate from them, but that's a rare occurrence. Other system operators though, I have no control over. I can prevent people from gaining the position, but I do it by the communities decision, not by some hidden idea on how the wiki should be run. If you can show me how I've treated some people differently than I do others, please do. This isn't the usual "I'mma sysops, show me I'm wrong or shut up!" scream you hear, I honestly want to know.--Suicidal Angel, Help needed? 00:30, 5 April 2009 (BST)

Also, yes, this is a good idea by the way. Just dupetastic.--Suicidal Angel, Help needed? 20:28, 4 April 2009 (BST)

Well, there is Blood Marks in Peer Review which could be argued is a dupe. The difference being this one allows you to "write in zombies" while the other leaves symbols (which would quickly be given meaning the way "Mrh?" has become "revive me"). Blood Smears makes more sense and, effectively, does the same thing since (and, I'd imagine, is easier to figure out with out a dictionary).--Pesatyel 20:39, 4 April 2009 (BST)

I'm not at all comfortable with zombies writing, even if it's in Zombese. I considered the idea of zombie grafitti as blood smears myself for a while, and could maybe see a system where zombies can place a few simple shapes and lines on a wall, maybe a half-dozen to a dozen, in the form of horizontal smears, vertical smears, diagonal smears, circular smears, etc., to which players would naturally end up ascribing their own meanings. I'd go along with that, but actual writing is a bit much for my tastes.--Necrofeelinya 00:50, 5 April 2009 (BST)

Gee, didn't even read Pesatyel's comment above... maybe I should go familiarize myself with Blood Marks. Might be interesting...--Necrofeelinya 02:22, 5 April 2009 (BST)

Personally, I like the suggestion, but I think that (as Iscariot noted) you'll probably get shot down for being out-of-genre (and dupe, but that's besides the point). --Maverick ^{Talk - OBR 404} 13:56, 5 April 2009 (BST)

I don't care if it's out of genre. It would be awesome as a survivor to come across some zombie graffiti and it would be awesome as a zombie to write - "HARHAR HARMANZ!" --Giles Sednik ^CAPDSWA 18:10, 5 April 2009 (BST)

Thing is, zombies having any sense of intelligence at all is "out-of-genre." UD Zeds are PCs, though, so that doesn't fly. --Bob Boberton ^{TF / DW} 18:53, 5 April 2009 (BST)

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Feeding Crawl

Timestamp:	Sir Topaz DR ♣ GR 19:39, 3 April 2009 (BST)
Type:	Zombie Skill
Scope:	Who or what it applies to.
Description:	100 XP. Comes after Feeding Groan. Zombies with this skill can toggle it on/ off at any time. When toggled on, the zombie will automatically move towards the next feeding groan it hears and stand outside the building, costing the normal AP for the distance travelled. The skill then toggles off. Exceedingly easy way for casual players to group up for feeding. OM NOM NOM.

Discussion (Feeding Crawl)

It's the epitome of Pied Piper, plus the fact that it's open to serious abuse from coordinated survivors attempting to sap feral AP. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 21:01, 3 April 2009 (BST)

"Hey GuyA, now that you're dead, wanna go randomly groan to lead these zombies away?"

"Sure GuyB, can do! Just give me a needle tomorrow and we'll be set!"

--Suicidal Angel, Help needed? 21:05, 3 April 2009 (BST)

OH GOD NO! Zombie tactics would go completely out the window when it's on and if thats the case there is little point in having it at all! --Ricci Bobby 09:41, 4 April 2009 (BST)

If this applied only to groans from a zombies own group it might have some merit but applying it to any other groans makes it very rubbish! --Honestmistake 01:08, 4 April 2009 (BST)

I don't like automatic actions. The player should have to perform the action themselves. --Giles Sednik ^CAPDSWA 18:11, 5 April 2009 (BST)

"Hey GuyA, now that you're dead, wanna go Change your group name to RRF and randomly groan to lead these zombies away?" --Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 18:56, 5 April 2009 (BST)

Chaps, it toggles off after one use. The worst you'll ever get is 6AP (or whatever it is) down. It's more aimed at the casual players who don't necessarily coordinate with groups. But, hell, go ahead! This game is only for hardcore players who spend their AP to the max, no? --Sir Topaz ^{DR ♣ GR} 00:15, 6 April 2009 (BST)

I congratulate you Mr. Vois. You have successfully made me realize I missed that last little bit. After reading your statement, I did not remember seeing it toggling off after one move set, and re-read your suggestion. I have been CNR!!!!!11!!!

No, really, I have, and I feel stupid. ^^. With it being toggled off after one use, it's a much more likable suggestion. But hey, you have to admit, if it was as I perceived it at first, my little hand puppet demonstration would be entirely true, no? And I actually save at least 5 ap no matter what. Rainy day fund when I periodically check in. :P --Mr. Angel, Help needed? 01:14, 6 April 2009 (BST)

Actually, the most it could cost is 27 AP: A non-lurching zombie (12 AP) who's then headshot (15 AP) in the intervening time between the auto-move and the player's next login. --Bob Boberton ^{TF / DW} 01:16, 6 April 2009 (BST)

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Hide In Darkness 2

Timestamp:	--01:46, 3 April 2009 (BST)Necrofeelinya
Type:	Improvement
Scope:	Zombies, Survivors
Description:	Not a skill, just a normal feature, always in effect. Survivors entering darkened buildings have a 25% chance per resident zombie of seeing a zombie in that building, otherwise the resident zombies are invisible like corpses currently are. If the survivor installs a fueled genny, the zombies appear as usual, same as corpses would. Every day the survivor stays in the darkened building he gets another 25% chance to notice each resident zombie (noncumulative). If a survivor enters a building where there are other survivors and notices a zombie they've missed, an "alert" button appears on his screen which, when pressed, makes the zombies he's seen appear to everyone in the room. Zombies he didn't notice remain hidden. Pressing the "alert" button costs 1 AP, just like talking would. The alert button would be accompanied by a text window that would allow him to customize his alert, and others in the room would hear his alert as normal speech. Should a hidden zombie attack or groan, of course he appears to everyone in the room. Yes, I know, skills that allow for hiding are generally instakills, but in this case I think the scope of it is so small as to make it acceptable, being restricted to just darkened buildings, of which there are few enough. Plus, it adds wicked badass mood to the game and promotes feral, new zombie and small zombie group play while not aiding megahordes at all. It doesn't really promote ambushes since zombies can already hide in darkened buildings as corpses under current rules, so it doesn't strike me as a gamebreaker.

Discussion (Hide In Darkness 2)

So if I just go in and out of the building a few times, I can just spot every zombie (theoretically, cursed RNG notwithstanding)? --Bob Boberton ^{TF / DW} 03:08, 3 April 2009 (BST)

Yep, if you want to waste the AP. After all, that indicates you're being exceptionally cautious, which takes time, so should cost AP. That lost AP for extreme caution should come with repeated chances to spot hidden zombies.--Necrofeelinya 03:21, 3 April 2009 (BST)

Come to think of it, the idea of a "check for zombies" button that appears when you're in darkened buildings and costs 1 AP for a 25% chance of spotting a hidden zombie isn't a bad idea, either. If you push it and find one, the zombie appears, but if you push it and don't find one, you get a message like "You check your surroundings to ensure your safety, but find nothing unusual". That doesn't mean there aren't zombies there, just that you haven't found them, so survivors might want to check more than once, costing them AP for extreme caution. Nobody's likely to check much more than 4 times, so it wouldn't be an extraordinary AP burden. And that way you wouldn't have to run inside and outside repeatedly at 1 AP each way to check the building in an effort to guarantee your safety.--Necrofeelinya 03:30, 3 April 2009 (BST)

I don't understand the "alert button".--Pesatyel 03:53, 3 April 2009 (BST)

Okay, here's how it would work: A human enters a darkened building where there are already one or more humans and notices a zombie hiding. He pushes the "alert" button on his screen, having personalized the text if he wishes as per normal speaking, and the zombie suddenly appears to everyone in the room. Any zombie he didn't see, he can't alert others to, so they remain hidden until someone notices them. It's a way for characters to alert one another to the existence of hidden zombies, and a trigger to make zombies become visible. If it's possible for Kevan to code a means for different characters to have different perceptions of the contents of a room based on a percentage chance when they enter, which is what I'm basing the notion of hidden zombies on, then the trigger to bring all the occupants' perceptions together is the "alert" button, which tells them all when something they've missed is there.--Necrofeelinya 04:21, 3 April 2009 (BST)

Why not ditch the alert button and let survivors warn each other verbally of the zombie? I mean you said it's the same as talking anyway...--xoxo 04:25, 3 April 2009 (BST)

Because it'd require a trigger to make the zombies visible to those who hadn't spotted them. When you hit the "alert" button, the zombies appear to everyone and the option appears on their list of possible attack targets to target the zombie. Otherwise, it's not possible to see or target them.--Necrofeelinya 05:31, 3 April 2009 (BST)

I think an extra 25% a day is just ridiculous. I think 25% an hour, if that. Its crazy to think that potentially you will be resting in a place that has 3 times more zombies than you realise. D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 04:31, 3 April 2009 (BST)

If you're resting in a place with ANY zombies, chances are you're in trouble. But I don't think 25% a day is too little. I think 25% per hour makes the change barely worth coding, if at all. Considering that the majority of U.D. users just log on, use their AP and log off, it might not make that much difference, but I think the option of adding a "search for zombies" button, or for that matter (and even better!) making searching for zombies in the dark a function of the current search button at the usual cost of 1 AP which gives another 25% chance for discovering hidden zombies more than adequately addresses your concern and engages the player more, making him potentially pay for carelessness while providing an inexpensive option for being cautious.--Necrofeelinya 05:31, 3 April 2009 (BST)

What I don't get is why you are biasing the suggested skill towards the zombies when you are missing the key thing about zombies - Zombies are rotting corpses that feed on flesh either dead or freshly killed. They don't bathe nor wash and the stench of death lingers heavily upon them. A survivor walks into a buiulding and smells the zombie just as easily as a zombie with scent death could, but then scent death is scenting the dead not the living. Currently there is a percentage chance to miss ina darkened building for both sides because regardless of the fact you can detect your target, there are other things inside a building that block lines of attack, eg, that crate you are standing behind - the attacking claw scratches against that - the over head piping catches your axe in itself as yous wing towards headshotting the zombie. The darkness balances boths ides of the equation. I get where you are coming from and am not going to bias the arguments saying you just want to screw those of us still alive in borehamwood or monroeville because those of us there know that the balance of the game has survivors either ina dark or a junkyard most of the time as extra protection or non ruinable. Both features balance the game for survivors when they have nowhere else to run but then survivors can't summon help like a feeding groan can. Zombies can statistically get more help then a survivor can ingame with a single feeding groan because the survivors have no way to summon help from random survivors around them. This appears to be going off track but hear me out. When looking at a game mechanic, you can't just examine one aspect, you have to examine the mechanic in the context of the WHOLE game. Darkness is good for both sides because it makes them harder to hit so survivors last longer and zombies don't have to waste precious AP standing up. Humans can negate these effects by finding both a generator and a fuel can but these both take alot of AP to find and makes both sides equally attackable. Pinata'ed darks is 1 zed cracking it stepping inside and groaning and the ferals move in enmass and it is all down to the survivor logging in first to survive the incoming hoards. Liek i said, I understand why youa re suggesting it but in the overall mechanics of the game I see no reason for it as you take away one of the few natural defenses the survivors get to make it harder for them to survive. Every buildinga round them in ruins except junkyards means if they don't have a toolbox they have nowhere safe to hide, a dark building increases the chances slightly but a single feeding groan destroys that safety net instantly and the the fact there is darkness is negated by the ferals nearby. As constructive feedbac towards the alert idea, you don't need a special button. ll you'd need do is make it a search mechanic: Search the building - did you find a zombie? No, try again to make sure. 1 AP per search, can search as much as you want not a walk in and have 1 chance at it walk out walk in walk out walk in, makes no sense. Walk in search, search again till you feel safe. Except that you can sense where the zombie is because you can smell that overwhelming stench of decay just as easily as the zombie can sense where its' next meal is standing. The suggested mechanic is not needed. It doesn't make sense as only one side of the arguemnet is examined from the story side NOT both as I've just highlighted. Apologies for the length of the response, this is why I tend not to post, lol. --Ram Rock Ed First 12:55, 4 April 2009 (AEST)

Crazy wall of text! So its a skill aimed at players hiding in dark buildings yes? As otherwise people would just add a genny and "Bingo" see zombies? --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 18:38, 3 April 2009 (BST)

Okay, that's a pretty big comment, so I'm going to try to take it piece by piece to try to clarify things.

1. "Zombies are rotting corpses that feed on flesh either dead or freshly killed. They don't bathe nor wash and the stench of death lingers heavily upon them. A survivor walks into a buiulding and smells the zombie just as easily as a zombie with scent death could, but then scent death is scenting the dead not the living."

Nothing in Malton, Monroeville or Borehamwood bathes. There aren't any facilities to accomodate that. The whole of each town would stink to high heaven, in every street, building, wherever. The reek from zombies crowding the streets might well be so immense as to make the reek from a nearby zombie indistinguishable, if only by effectively shutting down survivors' sense of smell as a merciful natural reaction to such overpowering odors. But I see your point, that rotting zombies would stink up the place. There are two problems with that.

First, Malton's full of fresh zombies that wouldn't stink any more than the survivors. A zombie doesn't necessarily have to stink. If he's fresh he wouldn't. Sure, if he's a rotter, he'd probably reek a bit, but even decay has its limitations and eventually he'd either leather up and stop stinking or rot away completely. But in Malton, with its ridiculous prevalence of revive needles, characters go from living to zombie and back again overnight, so there's no guarantee that many of them would get much chance to rot.

Second, the buildings in which characters hide are just that... buildings. Not single rooms, as they appear in game. Each building theoretically has innumerable hiding places where zombies could be lurking, whether by design or accident. They needn't even be in line of sight or scent range, perhaps being in another room or on another floor entirely. If we're going to take the concept of smell as a contributing factor to game realism, we should also take the concept of scenery that way.

2."Currently there is a percentage chance to miss ina darkened building for both sides because regardless of the fact you can detect your target, there are other things inside a building that block lines of attack, eg, that crate you are standing behind - the attacking claw scratches against that - the over head piping catches your axe in itself as yous wing towards headshotting the zombie. The darkness balances boths ides of the equation."

The darkness at present applies equal penalties, it does not balance both sides of the equation. Zombies in Urban Dead are effectively pursuers, survivors are pursued. Limiting the abilities of zombies to do damage in any scenario is highly detrimental to them, while for survivors fighting zombies is little more than XP farming, since the nature of the game allows zombies to immediately rise afterward while survivors must seek out a revive needle after death. To restrict the ability of zombies to inflict damage is to restrict their ability to fulfill their already limited purpose in the game. Survivors have many activities they can perform besides hunting. Zombies don't. But since this change doesn't take away your defensive bonus or provide greatly expanded opportunities for zombies to ambush, it seems to me that your concerns about unbalancing the game are unfounded. Please see the clarification at the bottom of my response for a better illustration of how it would work than I've perhaps previously given.

3."Zombies can statistically get more help then a survivor can ingame with a single feeding groan because the survivors have no way to summon help from random survivors around them."

As a zombie player, I can say that feeding groan is sometimes great, sometimes useless, sometimes even detrimental. First, unless the rules have changed since last I looked or used it (long ago), it only extends to about one square for every human encountered in the building, up to a limit of 6 or thereabouts. Second, it can be heard by humans as well, which means that as often as not what we're summoning isn't our fellow zombies but humans to come to the rescue, killing us, dumping the bodies and barricading the building again. It works great if there's nobody to come to the rescue, but if there is, we're sometimes better off using that 1 AP to take an extra swipe at a human instead. It all depends on who there's more of in the area, and who's checking their account more often. But let's also set that aside as not all that relevant to the present proposed change.

4. "Darkness is good for both sides because it makes them harder to hit so survivors last longer and zombies don't have to waste precious AP standing up."

As a zombie player, even as a new character, I could care less about the AP loss of standing up. The biggest frustration new zombies face isn't AP loss from standing, even if they're headshotted (though that's a biggie in its own right), it's the inability to inflict any damage. Until a zombie gets Vigour Mortis he's screwed, and even then he's barely a zombie. He needs Ankle Grab, Lurching Gait, Vigour Mortis and Memories of Life before he can be taken even a little seriously, and when starting a new zombie character I'll even skip Lurching Gait and Ankle Grab to focus on damage dealing skills instead, just to get past the useless stage. Again though, kind of an aside since it doesn't address the effects of the present change, but useful to illustrate that most of the benefits of darkness accrue to survivors.

5. "Liek i said, I understand why youa re suggesting it but in the overall mechanics of the game I see no reason for it as you take away one of the few natural defenses the survivors get to make it harder for them to survive."

I think you're referring to the other skill I proposed, which I've now largely changed my mind about... Hunt In Darkness. This skill, Hide In Darkness 2, doesn't change the way darkness affects attack percentages. It just changes the way zombies are perceived in the dark, and whether they're perceived in the dark. And it isn't a big deal, since under current rules I can already pack 500 zombies into a darkened room, have them all attack each other until they drop, and upon entering you won't be able to see jack until you install a genny and dump the bodies, while they'll all most decidedly be able to see YOU. So you don't lose your defensive bonus, and you're not really much more susceptible to ambush, because you're ALREADY susceptible to that kind of ambush, which hasn't brought a single complaint. It just encourages a little caution when entering a darkened building at a minimal AP cost.

6."As constructive feedbac towards the alert idea, you don't need a special button. ll you'd need do is make it a search mechanic: Search the building - did you find a zombie?"

Sorry, but the "alert" button would still be necessary. Using the current search button to hunt for zombies is a great idea, and I think that survivors should have the ability to use it at the usual 1 AP cost with each use providing a noncumulative 25% chance of discovering an undiscovered zombie along with the usual items. But merely searching for a zombie oneself doesn't alert others to its presence.

The "alert" button would be a means of triggering the appearance of unseen zombies to others in the room who may have missed them. Thus if anyone in the room discovers a zombie, the others don't have to if he chooses to alert them. But here's the issue... that player may not WANT to alert them. He may see a zombie and decide to exit the building himself while leaving others to their fate, especially if he's a PKer or Zombie Spy. The alert button serves not just as a trigger to alert everyone else in the room, making the zombies appear on their screens and as an available attack option, but it also provides the option of NOT alerting everyone else in the room. It would use 1 AP, same as talking, and would be accompanied by the text box normally used for speech, but on the other side, with the speech button still in its usual place to provide the option of speaking without alerting others. If you want to speak without revealing the hidden zombie or zombies, use the normal speech button. If you want to shout a warning to everyone in the room, use the "alert" button.

===The overall game effects I see from this proposed change are the following:===

1. Survivors have reason to be mildly cautious entering a darkened building. Not highly cautious, just mildly. This is because:

If there's 1 zombie in the building they might miss him on entering, so might want to search, let's say 2 times to have a total of 3 separate 25% chances of seeing a lone zombie in the dark, and those odds are pretty good at a cost of 2 extra AP.

If there are 2 zombies in the building, they get a 25% chance for each zombie when they enter, then if they search they get an additional 25% for each zombie, so that by using 1 AP to search in addition to their chances upon entering, they've got 4 separate 25% chances to see at least 1 zombie.

If there are 3 zombies in the building, they get 3 separate 25% chances to spot at least one upon entering, and if they use 1 AP to search, they get 3 separate additional 25% chances to spot at least 1 zombie, for a total of 6 whopping 25% chances to see that something's not right. Those are damn fine odds, and nothing to complain about.

If two survivors enter a building with 1 zombie, each survivor gets a 25% chance to spot him, and can spend an additional AP for an additional chance. If one spots him, he can alert the other for 1 AP.

If two survivors enter a building with 2 zombies, they each get 2 separate 25% chances to spot at least one, and can spend an additional XP for two additional 25% chances at a cost of 1 AP each, and each can alert the other for the standard 1 AP. That's two separate 25% chances each, or a total of 8 separate 25% chances between the two of them of spotting at least one of the zombies.

When survivor groups number 3 or more, or the number of zombies in the building number 3 or more, the number of chances to spot at least one start to get ridiculously high... it's a given that they'll be spotted. They might not see them all, but spotting even one lets them know there's a problem and that they need to either install a genny, get the hell out or get rid of the one or more they've spotted and just hope there aren't more in there. In this regard it encourages lone survivors to save at least one or two AP to search a darkened building before taking refuge in it, which isn't much to ask and makes perfect sense, and it provides mood to the game, and it provides an encouraging option for ferals, new zombies and very small zombie groups to do something besides follow a megahorde around. And I contend it does it without shifting game balance, certainly not in Malton anyway, in any considerable fashion. I will concede that it could be problematic for Borehamwood or Monroeville, but not in any majorly inconveniencing way, since the remaining zombies in those towns aren't putting up much of a concerted effort anyway. After all, at this point in Borehamwood I can't keep up with the number of buildings being reconstructed. I just ran into at least 5 more today. So I think survivors in those towns'll be just fine.

2. Individual zombies would be able to somewhat more stealthily approach, though not breach, survivor strongholds, and even this is a minimal impact since by throwing an extra AP or two into nearby darkened buildings, survivors will have a good chance of finding anyone there.

===SUMMARY===

Basically, I believe this change does little more than encourage survivors to be a little cautious when exploring darkened buildings at minimal AP cost and adds to the overall mood of the game.

Oh, and a crazy wall of text deserves a crazy wall of text response. I do try to be thorough, and I hope I addressed all of your concerns.--Necrofeelinya 02:36, 4 April 2009 (BST)

If I may place my 2 cents on this...AUTO SPAM and AUTO DUPE. Hiding is a big no no. ANd it was proven by many suggestions in the past. I'll find 'em for you, but this is only my, what? 3rd day back on this wiki after running AWOL? I don't even know where anything is now... --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 03:00, 4 April 2009 (BST)

Perhaps you might reconsider, given that the hiding aspect is already part of the current rules, since corpses are already invisible in darkness and can already ambush. Or perhaps you'd like to have the darkness feature removed from the game. And please... and I don't mean to imply that you didn't read the suggestion, but please read it carefully before deciding. With all these notes and responses things may seem a bit garbled, but I assure you I've thought this one out pretty well. It seems to be communicating its actual effect on gameplay that's the biggest challenge.--Necrofeelinya 03:08, 4 April 2009 (BST)

Holy cow, Kevan implemented hiding? What else did I miss in the past, like, 4 months I've been AWOL??!? Damn kids...Why can't they keep it "old school"? So much better... --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 03:12, 4 April 2009 (BST)

Yeah, the ability to hide as a corpse in a darkened building pretty much creates ambush possibilities, but as far as I'm aware it's not used much, if at all. I think it was meant to counter the defensive bonuses that humans get from hiding in darkened buildings, but it really hasn't in my opinion, mainly perhaps because zombies can't lie down and aren't patient about sitting still when they suspect there's prey to be had. And usually, from my experience anyway, survivors clear, install and fuel a genny, 'cade and let the genny run out of fuel. Then they've got a 'caded, darkened building to hide in for solid defense. Either that or they spend the extra AP to 'cade it as is, and if a corpse pops up they hope the defensive bonus saves them. Not too many people sit in those buildings at a time, but they're great if a siege is coming and you can't log in often, because they can buy you time during an assault. I've seen and used that strategy in both Borehamwood and Monroeville to good effect as a survivor, which is something I haven't played in a while.--Necrofeelinya 03:33, 4 April 2009 (BST)

Your countering your own argument. Your saying that survivors gain the most benefit by the dark when zombies can ACTUALLY hide. Yes, it requires being a corpse, but that's not that difficult to achieve. Also, I like how you ignore my genre arguments.--Pesatyel 20:26, 4 April 2009 (BST)

Yes, zombies can hide as corpses. But zombies can't lie down, and due to the nature of the game (played for 5 to 10 minutes per day, as you noted below), zombie players don't really want to be bothered arranging to be knocked down, then sitting in a darkened building for days, possibly weeks or longer not using their AP, waiting for survivors to enter and hoping they're careless enough to not install a genny and dump the body, just so they can spring up and get a single day's worth of AP to attack a survivor who's got a significant defensive bonus just for being in the dark. It's not even the fact that they have to arrange to be knocked down in the right place, it's that zombies don't want to waste AP just checking in each day to see if anyone's stepped into their trap. They want to go knock down 'cades and break into buildings. That's why ambushes don't happen this way often. Yes, the change I'm proposing would make it easier for lone zombies to stage such ambushes because they wouldn't have to arrange to be knocked down (not that difficult already, as you said), but it wouldn't make zombie players want to stand around waiting any more than usual, so there still wouldn't be a surge in ambushes in my opinion. Plus, the system of discovery gives good enough odds that when there's more than 1 zombie in a building or more than 1 survivor enters it they're highly likely to see something and know something's wrong. Even if it's just 1 zombie and one survivor entering, using 1 or 2 AP, which is negligible, would give great odds of finding anyone there. As far as your genre argument, I didn't respond to it because I don't entirely understand your objection. You said "SURVIVORS actively attempt to hide, not zombies. Zombies don't have the cognitive reasoning to do so, especially if survivors are present. The immediately attack, not hide. If a zombie is 'hidden' its because of chance cirucmstance or becuase something the living did. But THAT is standard zombie genre and Urban Dead is NOT 'standard' zombie genre", but that doesn't really make sense in the context of the game, where zombies use a rough form of speech, organize, coordinate attacks, form groups, stake out territories, and sometimes even decide to go vegetarian and side with humans! Zombies definitely have the cognition in Urban Dead to hide, and the entire argument that darkness helps zombies at all is largely based on the notion that they "hide" in darkened buildings for the defensive bonus, to avoid being knocked down at low level (a fairly bogus argument if ever I've heard one). You also said (in the discussion in Hide In Darkness 1 after I decided to reword it and resubmit it in a clearer, modified form, which may be why I didn't notice until now) "WHY would a zombie hide in a building with a survivor when LUNCH is standing right there. Zombies ATTACK survivors. They DON'T hide. They exist for one reason, to eat the living. Survivors are more likely to hide so they don't get eaten. But, of course, UD zombies aren't 'standard' zombies. But, from what I read in the suggestion coupled with zombie genre, I don't understand the logic or realism element of this. And why can't SURVIVORS do the same thing?" The reason a zombie would hide instead of attack is because the zombie player isn't logged on, obviously. Unless, of course, you'd like to add an auto-attack feature so that any time a human enters a building all the zombies get to take a swipe at him, but that's a bit ridiculous and takes gameplay out of the hands of zombie players, don't you think? As to the second part of your question, "Why can't survivors do this?", you have a valid point, but there's also a problem with that. First, you'd need to add a search button to allow zombies to hunt in the dark. Second, it's yet another defensive advantage for survivors, on top of 'cades (which many argue is too strong in itself) and the darkness defensive bonus (which is definitely too strongly in their favor), and that really WOULD skew the game. Zombies are immortal, yes (which is arguably compromised by the one-shot "kill" ability of a revive needle), but apart from that have absolutely no defense. All other defensive features of the game apply exclusively to survivors. But I can see a solution to it. Implement this for both zombies and survivors, but totally eliminate the defensive bonus accrued by darkness. Then I could see it applying equally to humans as well, and not unduly affecting game balance.--Necrofeelinya 02:07, 5 April 2009 (BST)

Oh, and as regards zombies ability to see zombies in darkness, I don't see why this same effect wouldn't apply to them, though they can't search the room for one another. Maybe Scent Death could allow them to see one another in a room without penalty, maybe not, depending on how accomodating you want to be to pro-human zombie scouts.--Necrofeelinya 03:22, 4 April 2009 (BST)

I think you also ignore the fact that the game is played for roughly 5 to 10 minutes EVERY 24 HOURS. That is a LOT of time between sessions and is a significant factor to many suggestions, like this one.--Pesatyel 20:49, 4 April 2009 (BST)

I presume your concern relates to survivors' ability to use HIPS tactics? Not really certain what you mean. If a zombie's hiding, he's almost certainly logged off, so survivors will come and go and nothing will happen unless he wakes up (the player logs on) while they're in the room with him. The only concern I can imagine is that a survivor hiding in a ruined building wakes up with a zombie having discovered him and hidden inside with him while he regenerates AP to attack. That's easily dealt with by spending between 2 and 4 AP to search the place, giving between 2 and 4 25% chances to spot any zombie there. Plus, there's already a zombie tactic of spotting a survivor and hiding in a nearby building (but far enough to escape detection by a perimeter patrol) to regenerate AP. It was used to kill Tedd E Bear in Borehamwood. If the darkened building's 'caded, you have little to worry about unless the 'cades are breached, which you'll notice when you log in, then you can search. Unless you're worried about low-HP humans parachuting into 'caded darkened buildings, then getting an assist from a PKer so they can rise as a zombie and attack, but they can do that now as is, and you still won't be able to dump the body unless you install a genny. Under any circumstances, time spent playing in a 24 hour period isn't really that relevant, because your AP remains the same, and your ability to log in multiple times if you so choose remains the same, for both the zombie and the human players. A concern that you just weren't careful enough while hanging out in the dark is just the type of effect this change is meant to have, while costing very little AP to exhibit a proper sense of caution for humans. Not everyone's going to feel like searching fully all the time, and when they get lazy while alone they may pay for it, but when in groups of more than 3 or 4 the odds of discovery should make the revealing of zombies pretty much automatic.--Necrofeelinya 02:07, 5 April 2009 (BST)

What I mean is there is no "inactive" status for a character unless the 5 day time out is applied. All characters are considered "active" at all times. Your suggestion says nothing about searching. Finding a zombie in the room is an automatic thing. So, theoretically, I can go in and out to to get an automatic "search" and then alert everyone. And then everyone kills the "hidden" zombie and all this happens while the zombie's player isn't even there, thinking his character is "hidden". And your response, just now, pretty much says "why bother with this?"--Pesatyel 09:56, 5 April 2009 (BST)

We're not understanding one another. I'll clearly need to rewrite the suggestion to include making searching the room part of the normal search button function, which we discussed previously above. But that's why we're on the development page... I just want to flesh the idea out before submitting a final form, and I hope the next rewrite is the last before that happens. I know characters are "active" at all times, and zombies expect to be found and killed in the game, and will be when hidden as well, but what I mean when I say that the reason a zombie would hide instead of attack is that the reason he CAN'T attack is because the user is logged off. That's the same whether or not he's hidden. And with this change, it's actually very difficult to hide successfully. Any survivor who shows any degree of caution can find you easily. It's the lazy loner who takes for granted that he's safe in the dark that can get stung by it, and who deserves to for having an unrealistic sense of comfort in a darkened building with zombies rampaging through the town. That's what I mean when I say it isn't a game breaker, isn't going to rob survivors of the benefits of darkness, and doesn't shift the balance of the game in favor of zombies. It may sound complicated at the moment, but it's actually a subtle change that should add some realism to the game while giving loner zombies a little more playability in the game.--Necrofeelinya 00:22, 6 April 2009 (BST)

TL;DR the massive novel of text, but I like the idea. Maybe flesh it out a little more to answer the specific questions and concerns that I'm sure I glossed over. --Maverick ^{Talk - OBR 404} 13:46, 5 April 2009 (BST)

Okay, thanks for the input, I'm rewriting it and putting it up for just a few specifics and input from anyone who might want to add anything else at the top as Hide In Darkness 3. Closing this one out.--Necrofeelinya 01:22, 6 April 2009 (BST)

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Artwork Recognition

We are having some technical difficulties, this program has been retracted to be remade.

Head Shot And Brain Rot

Timestamp:	James bodkin10:32,29 March 2009 (UTC)
Type:	Skill effects change and possibly new ones
Scope:	Zombies and Survivors
Description:	My idea is to make it so zombies with brain rot would have a 50% chance of avoiding the effect of head shot but zombies without brain rot would still suffer its effects 100% of the time. This could be justified by the brain being hit with a bullet in the rotted area would not have an effect if the brain was already damaged, however zombies without a rotted brain would still be damaged by the bullet.This could lead to a new zombie hunter skill that increases the chance of a successful head shot.

Discussion (Head Shot And Brain Rot)

Nice and all, but zombies with Brain Rot have accepted being headshot every day. The pain of headshot isn't against those with BR, it's against those at level one who lose a third of their AP per day. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 09:11, 2 April 2009 (BST)

Well, it DOES promote buying Brain Rot. I don't understand your argument. Are you against this idea?--Pesatyel 03:51, 3 April 2009 (BST)

I agree with Iscariot after creating my first zombie character I cant wait to get the 1AP stand up skill. Rogueboy 22:40, 2 April 2009 (BST)

5AP to stand up ain't all that bad. If anything, headshot should be buffed.--3R 00:09, 3 April 2009 (BST)

Have you ever actually PLAYED a zombie? Especially one without Ankle Grab....--Pesatyel 03:51, 3 April 2009 (BST)

I like this. Makes brainrot a more viable second skill for zombies, 'ey iscariot. --xoxo 04:27, 3 April 2009 (BST)

I'm with Iscariot. This suggestion isn't that necessary, maxed Zeds laugh at headshot. D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 04:43, 3 April 2009 (BST)

For horde zombies this would make a pretty small difference but for Ferals like me those extra 5AP can result in a significant improvement in my fun! --Honestmistake 16:03, 3 April 2009 (BST) For horde zombies this would make a pretty small difference but for Ferals like me those extra 5AP can result in a significant improvement in my fun! --Honestmistake 16:03, 3 April 2009 (BST)

My feral agrees. And I think it would also make a difference to a horde: if you've got coordinated zombies trying to crack an NT, and 20 of them stand up with only 1 AP each, that's an extra 100 AP. Also, what J3D said. How about making rotters impervious to headshot 100% of the time? I'd vote for that. --Paddy Dignam^{IS DEAD} 21:25, 3 April 2009 (BST)

Ditto Iscariot and similar sentiments. --Maverick ^{Talk - OBR 404} 13:43, 5 April 2009 (BST)

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Hunt in Darkness

Timestamp:	--01:45, 2 April 2009 (BST)Necrofeelinya
Type:	Skill
Scope:	Zombies
Description:	Addressing the issue of darkness, when a zombie has Scent Fear it can smell its victims and tell what the state of their health is. Yet it can't find them in the dark? Darkness should be an asset to zombies. I suggest Hunt in Darkness as a zombie skill, costing 100 XP with a prerequisite of Scent Fear, which negates defensive bonuses from darkness for humans. It just means you can track 'em by scent in the dark, and it just makes sense.

Discussion (Hunt In Darkness)

I really like the idea of this, and it makes perfect sense, but it seems a little unbalancing. How about this: a darkened building doesn't impede a zombie's attack %, but if the building is ruined, the mildew etc. interferes with their sense of smell and they suffer the same penalty as survivors.--Giles Sednik ^CAPDSWA 02:53, 2 April 2009 (BST)

I don't know about negating the darkness penalty against zombies. What about, instead, just -25% instead of -50%. Something like that.--Pesatyel 04:15, 2 April 2009 (BST)

I think darkness already unbalances the game in favor of humans. They crowd into darkened buildings for the defensive benefit piled on top of the benefits of 'cading, which is a LOT of defense. For high-level zombies it's annoying, for low-level zombies it kills their interest in the game. They already have it hard enough, they don't need to deal with any more obstacles. Also, I think that since this only affects darkened buildings, its effect is minimal. While it would force a change in survivor defense tactics, that doesn't necessarily unbalance the game. For purposes of game mechanics, let's remember who's chasing and who's being chased, here. Realistically, humans get almost all the benefits of darkness, which isn't how it should be. Ideally, I'd like to come up with skills that ease the path for young zombies without overly benefitting higher level zombies, but that's a tough challenge. And while I think it's reasonable to suggest lessening the darkness penalty against zombies, I wonder if that would be enough of an effect for people to bother buying it as a skill; sure, they would eventually, after everything else and when they were glutted with XP, but by then if you made head lice a zombie skill everyone would buy it. If it's just a reduction in penalty, which I could see, then I'd say change it from a skill to a standard and make it apply to all zombies from birth, with it constantly in effect. That would benefit the new zombies as well, which would be good.--Necrofeelinya 05:02, 2 April 2009 (BST)

I'm aware of all that. I'm saying you'll have an easier time "selling" the idea in a weaker form. The majority of wiki patrons are militantly pro-survivor (or at least used to be, it may have changed) and, ultimately, its up to Kevan to decide just how much of a percentage to allow. I'm not saying I don't like the idea, I do, I'm saying its going to be hard sell.--Pesatyel 05:05, 2 April 2009 (BST)

What if I were to suggest the idea in two forms, one as a skill as I suggested pretty much as is, and the other with the lesser percentage modification you suggested, which makes it milder, but changing it from an acquired skill to a zombie norm from birth, which is more helpful to new zombies than making it just something else they need to buy before they can start having fun? I could treat it as two separate suggestions, and people could choose which, if either, they prefer. Or is that frowned upon, with it being better to put up one suggestion and then resubmit its modified form later if it's rejected?--Necrofeelinya 05:39, 2 April 2009 (BST)

You never give options. When you post a suggestion for voting, it must be strictly constructed. If you suggest and it fails, if you make siginficant enough changes, you can resubmit it.--Pesatyel 03:43, 3 April 2009 (BST)

I'm sure we've heard a zombie scent skill to negate darkness, did it ever go to voting? Anyone? -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 09:12, 2 April 2009 (BST)

I think the trenchies whined so much that it didn't get past discussion... Oh and the "hide in plain sight" lot were not happy either. --Honestmistake 12:22, 2 April 2009 (BST)

Suggestion:20080530 Life Sight Seems similar enough. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 19:31, 2 April 2009 (BST)

Not really. That was rejected for being supernatural, too soon after implementation of darkness, and just plain weird.--Necrofeelinya 20:21, 2 April 2009 (BST)

Suggestion:20081205 In The Dark Maybe? Both similar in a way. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 19:35, 2 April 2009 (BST)

Yeah, okay. You're right about this one.--Necrofeelinya 20:21, 2 April 2009 (BST)

I think the hiding one has more real merit. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 20:22, 2 April 2009 (BST)

I was initially in favor of this idea, but you're kind of talking me out of it. As to survivors crowding into heavily caded darkened buildings I don't think that really happens. Remember darkness gives a penalty to barricading. Zombies laying siege to a bank should hold off on killing the generator until they've eaten the occupants. I like the tactical consideration of that so now I disagree with this suggestion. --Giles Sednik ^CAPDSWA 20:29, 2 April 2009 (BST)

Well frankly if we're going to go with a zombie skill that negates darkness why not create a human skill or item that would negate the darkness for them as well? This way no one could call it unbalanced and would make the playing field seem slightly more even for zombies. I would suggest a flashlight or something but I can see how easy it would be shot down if it doesn't boost search rates. Mind you must've spent over 100AP looking for a fuel can haven't found it, I tend to skip over dark spaced with my low level zed however you can drag survivors out of dark spaced with the other skill (don't remember any skill names if someone hasn't caught that yet) Rogueboy 22:44, 2 April 2009 (BST)

"shot down if it doesn't boost search rates?" What are you on about? Dark buildings aren't for searching in - there are always better places. Flashlights are shot down for other reasons, too - complex and unbalancing. And where the heck are you looking for fuel cans, unlit clubs? --Bob Boberton ^{TF / DW} 23:10, 2 April 2009 (BST)

I look in lit factories, I'm pointing out that it would be stupid for zombies to get to see in the dark and survivors to not have a skill to balance it. Flashlights get repeatedly shot down because of the ability to toggle between lit and unlit would be an issue for zeds looking for food, additionally it would completely nerf gennys. Rogueboy 18:40, 3 April 2009 (BST)

Survivors can smell you're dead/feeding blood drenched wounded zombie selves already, hence why they know you are in a building. A Zombie smells a survivor and knows he is there, hence why they know where you are already. Darkness acts to represent all the stuff in the way inside of a darkened building that a survivor or zombie can't see nor detect that gets in the way when you make an attack - Hunt in Darkness implies night vision, but you've already got the equivalent in knowing a survivor is there. Crack a feeding groan and you have several zombie friends swarm the place. Survivors don't have the ability to summon help ingame in a darkened building and no, flares don't help at all. The zombies actually have more of an advantage in darkened buildings then survivors. Why change a mechanic that already covers what you are suggesting needs changing? Ram Rock Ed First 01:19, 4 April 2009 (AEST)

Okay, dropping this suggestion, but not for most of the reasons mentioned. I'm becoming convinced that the two suggestions I've made, this and Hunt In Darkness 2, would be overkill if applied simultaneously. Also, this one seems to diminish the darkness modification, lessening its value while the other in my opinion just enhances it. And Ross is right that it's similar to In The Dark, and the fact that 'cading is more difficult in darkened buildings was something I hadn't considered. I disagree that it would "nerf" gennies (if I'm interpreting that term right), since the main purpose of those has always been to facilitate searches, aid in surgery, and power NT buildings and the argument that "Hunt in Darkness implies night vision, but you've already got the equivalent in knowing a survivor is there" simply highlights the value of my other suggestion, since the current ability of survivors to automatically see zombies in a darkened building similarly equates to having night vision. I also feel that "Crack a feeding groan and you have several zombie friends swarm the place" doesn't really work, particularly if the zombie doesn't have feeding groan or other survivors hear the groan first and come to aid the survivors by clearing and barricading. And I certainly disagree with the notion that "The zombies actually have more of an advantage in darkened buildings then survivors", since I've never seen zombies relying on darkened buildings for anything, but I've seen and played as a survivor who relied on them to provide extra security from approaching hordes with good success. Basically, dropping this to pursue what I believe is the better suggestion and not too drastically affect game play, but could resurrect a similar suggestion at a later date depending on whether the other suggestion is implemented and if so, the degree to which it affects game play.--Necrofeelinya 04:38, 4 April 2009 (BST)

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Hide in Darkness

Timestamp:	--01:45, 2 April 2009 (BST)Necrofeelinya
Type:	Improvement
Scope:	Zombies
Description:	Zombies naturally hide in darkness. It's one of their chief assets, but it doesn't work in the game unless they're a prone corpse in a darkened building. At the moment, humans get as much advantage from darkness, in fact more, than zombies, despite the Scent Fear and Scent Death skills available to zombies. This makes no sense. Zombies should be nearly invisible in darkness, with humans having perhaps a 25% or less chance of seeing a zombie in a darkened building, corpse or not. I just think this should be a given, not a skill. Yes, I know, skills that allow for hiding are generally instakills, but in this case I think the scope of it is so small as to make it acceptable, being restricted to just darkened buildings, of which there are few enough.

Discussion (Hide In Darkness)

I agree that zombies tend to hide in darkness, but that's usually against survivor noobs who are trying to negotiate a fresh outbreak. In urban dead everyone is a hardened badass who knows to look in the shadows for danger. Also this would be unbalancing, those banks, clubs, etc. occupy some critical free running spots. --Giles Sednik ^CAPDSWA 02:56, 2 April 2009 (BST)

I wouldn't really characterize everyone in Urban Dead as a hardened badass. Newbies just don't fit the image, and they usually know it. And even hardened badasses are at extreme risk when exploring a darkened building. My suggestion is, if you want to explore a building safely, install a genny. It's much safer than groping around in the dark. And it doesn't affect free running that much, except if you free run into a darkened building to sleep. The nature of the game doesn't allow much interference from zombies if you're just passing through, unless they ruin the building, and that's something else entirely which is already implemented. If you sleep in a darkened building without fully exploring it first, you deserve what you get, and the game already allows for corpses to be invisible in the dark, so zombies can already ambush that way... it's just an impractical and implausible scenario so it doesn't happen often.--Necrofeelinya 05:26, 2 April 2009 (BST)

Actually, I think it is the reverse. SURVIVORS actively attempt to hide, not zombies. Zombies don't have the cognitive reasoning to do so, especially if survivors are present. The immediately attack, not hide. If a zombie is "hidden" its because of chance cirucmstance or becuase something the living did. But THAT is standard zombie genre and Urban Dead is NOT "standard" zombie genre. Nobody must be on otherwise you would have gotten a LOT of, shall we say, negative feedback about "hiding". Suffice to say, its not a good idea. Urban Dead is overly simplistic and it wouldn't, really, be fair for one group to not be able to deal with the other, especially if your at "half chance" to hit.--Pesatyel 04:21, 2 April 2009 (BST)

Again, I think the impact is actually minimal. The odds of humans being locked in a 'caded and darkened building with a zombie are slight. If it happens, it's because the human didn't install a genny and clear the place properly. And it can already happen that way if the zombie is just a corpse, having not gotten up after being killed by a human or fellow zombie. In fact, I'd argue that there's more chance of a zombie timing out and then logging back on in a building survivors had reclaimed than of humans getting locked in with zombies who "hide" in the dark. Plus, the way I've suggested it, humans get a 25% chance of spotting the zombie in the dark, meaning that odds are if there are 4 zombies or 4 humans in the building, someone is likely to see him. 2 zombies and 2 humans in there? Each human has a 50% chance of spotting a zombie. There's nothing this change accomplishes that can't be done already, except for one thing... active zombies can approach survivor strongholds more stealthily by hiding in darkened buildings to gain an element of surprise. That's minor, but useful for zombies and doesn't unbalance the game. And even with that, it accords humans a good enough chance of spotting them coming as long as they explore their area. No horde could approach this way undetected, so don't worry about the Mall Tours appearing out of nowhere. This change is not a game breaker by any stretch of the imagination.--Necrofeelinya 05:26, 2 April 2009 (BST)

As far as I know, zombies that idle out inside a building will appear outside it when starting to play again. However, it's quite easy to end up with a zombie in a caded dark building if a zombie breaks in and the surivors don't see him (though there can't be many of them) and then cade back up. That simple. --Midianian^{¦T¦DS¦SP¦} 09:11, 2 April 2009 (BST)

Or if someone enters a darkened building, 'cades it up and doesn't install a genny to search for corpses, which are already invisible in the darkness. That kind of ambush is already possible in the game and hasn't broken anything; that's why I don't understand this fear that it'll create massive loads of ambushes... those ambushes are already possible and nobody's complaining.--Necrofeelinya 19:18, 2 April 2009 (BST)

Actually, that's NOT what your suggestion says. It says a survivor has a 25% chance of seeing a zombie. I read that as irrespective of how many zombies are actually in the room. And you completely, IMO, ignored what I said. WHY would a zombie hide in a building with a survivor when LUNCH is standing right there. Zombies ATTACK survivors. They DON'T hide. They exist for one reason, to eat the living. Survivors are more likely to hide so they don't get eaten. But, of course, UD zombies aren't "standard" zombies. But, from what I read in the suggestion coupled with zombie genre, I don't understand the logic or realism element of this. And why can't SURVIVORS do the same thing?--Pesatyel 03:33, 3 April 2009 (BST)

What exactly do you mean with 25% chance? How often is it? Is it every time you refresh the page? Every time you enter the building? Once a day? --Midianian^{¦T¦DS¦SP¦} 09:11, 2 April 2009 (BST)

Now that's a reasonable question. In honesty, I hadn't thought about that angle, but I'd suggest every time you enter the building. Every time you refresh would seem like overkill, if it were a 25% chance with every refresh it would pretty much negate its influence almost immediately. I could see an automatic once a day as well, though. That would make sense.--Necrofeelinya 19:14, 2 April 2009 (BST)

Let's not turn clubs in trenchie ranches. Also if you don't think a horde could use this to approach undetected, you've never seen the discipline of some of the MOB teams. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 09:15, 2 April 2009 (BST)

CNR. --Midianian^{¦T¦DS¦SP¦} 09:21, 2 April 2009 (BST)

Clubs = dark. Check. Suggestor said in commentary "No horde could approach this way undetected, so don't worry about the Mall Tours appearing out of nowhere." Check. Which bit have you caught me not reading again? -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 09:25, 2 April 2009 (BST)

"Zombies should be nearly invisible in darkness, with humans having perhaps a 25% or less chance of seeing a zombie in a darkened building, corpse or not."

That, or I'm completely misunderstanding what you mean with "trenchie ranches". --Midianian^{¦T¦DS¦SP¦} 09:36, 2 April 2009 (BST)

I feel compelled to quote Karek from the talk page of the pejorative term you attempted to ascribe to me: "Should probably be mentioned that when people use this they usually are the ones not reading, it's essentially self proclaimed stupidity. At least that's how I've always seen it, no way to lose an argument faster than accusing the other person of being CNR.--Karekmaps?! 21:42, 4 December 2007 (UTC)" -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 09:49, 2 April 2009 (BST)

So, care to explain what you actually mean with the term instead of just going "ha, you lose!"? --Midianian^{¦T¦DS¦SP¦} 09:55, 2 April 2009 (BST)

You pretty much summed it up there, Midianian. --Thadeous Oakley 12:19, 2 April 2009 (BST)

I have no idea what a "trenchie" is, so I find it hard to respond, but It seems like St Iscariot is under the impression that mere discipline would allow hordes to approach this way... not a chance. The 25% chance to see a zombie in darkness when applied to the number of zombies in a horde would automatically reveal to survivors that a large group is approaching. They wouldn't see them all, but they'd see enough to know that something is up. That's why I like this suggestion, it helps ferals, tiny groups and new zombies while doing nothing for large groups and megahordes. Just the kind of changes the game needs.--Necrofeelinya 19:25, 2 April 2009 (BST)

Hiding in any form has pretty much been ruled out by voters in the past for many, many reasons (some of them even quite good!) However I do think there is some potential for not seeing corpses in dark rooms. zombies and survivors both move about and thus could be heard... corpses don't do much of anything so it would be reasonable fair to say they are not visable in a dark room unless you search for them (1 search reveals all?) Not particularly useful but it would add a new twist to hiding in plain sight etc... --Honestmistake 12:28, 2 April 2009 (BST)

This appears silly. Surely the fact that zombies are biting you lets you know they are there? --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 19:27, 2 April 2009 (BST)

Not sure I understand, Ross, but yes, once zombies attack they would obviously be revealed. Until then, they'd be invisible like corpses are under the current rules, but with a 25% chance of being spotted by humans upon entering and a 25% chance every 24 hours of being spotted by those residing in the building. I don't see that ambushes are a big concern, since corpses can already do everything that standing zombies can under these conditions, but it would make stealth approaches mildly easier for ferals, new zombies and small groups. Honestly, not how I envisioned it when I proposed it, but after thinking about it that seems to be how it would work, and I like it even more after consideration.--Necrofeelinya 20:00, 2 April 2009 (BST)

Oh, and no, I didn't propose this to screw survivors in Borehamwood and Monroeville, though I realize after some consideration that it would potentially be highly detrimental for your character there. I don't think that's enough of a reason to reject it, given the overall benefit for promoting feral, new zombie and small group play. I'm sure you and the rest of the survivors there will find ways to adapt, you always do.--Necrofeelinya 20:07, 2 April 2009 (BST)

OOPSIE! Just thought of a major improvement to this suggestion that may make it more palatable for human players. Thanks to everyone for the suggestions, but I'm dropping this one and resubmitting it at the top as Hide In Darkness 2. Please take a gander at that puppy and see what you think of the new, sleeker, sexier Hide In Darkness.--Necrofeelinya 01:40, 3 April 2009 (BST)

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Major Repairs Unlock Part of Building Description

Timestamp:	Saburai 02:10, 1 April 2009 (BST)
Type:	Flavor
Scope:	Survivors
Description:	Hello, all. I don't edit Wikis much, so pardon any formatting errors. Also, there's no need for hostility; if you think this is a bad idea, just say so and I'll take my medicine without regret. There's been a lot of discussion about how it's unfair that a 3 AP repair and a 40 AP repair have the same XP reward. I don't think those complaints have much merit; I've done dozens of suicide repairs, in Borehamwood no less, and I'm not complaining. But I do think it would be fun if, after completing a sufficiently mammoth repair job, you could edit part of the building description. It would work like a graffiti window. The minimum unlocking job could be, say, 50 AP (a true suicide repair), which frankly seems to represent a complete remodeling of the structure. The basic text descriptions we all know and love would remain (i.e. "You are standing outside Ruggevale Walk Police Dept, a large concrete building with arched windows") followed by "Someone has constructed... " The subsequent text could be anything from "a skylight shaped like a pentagram" to "an additional wing south of the hospital with Spanish Tile and working fountains." Make it around the same length limit as a graffiti message. Let me extend this idea to one more level of complexity: 50 AP repairs buy you the chance to add flavor text to the inside. 70 AP and higher repairs let you add a description to the inside and a different one for the outside. When the building is ruined, the new flavor text disappears forever. I think that would encourage more suicide repairs, shut up some of the whining about them, and lead to more colorful interiors and exteriors for everyone. Has this been proposed before? Is there a reason it will never work? I considered the possibility of spammers typing in things like "Someone has constructed a giant statue of your mom" or "Someone has constructed ____/\____\o/___" and other silliness. Yes, that will happen, but this isn't a 1 AP spray-can action. Given how rarely a player will have the opportunity to do this, and how much it will cost (often it will be the last thing they do before getting killed), I think most players will put some effort into their descriptions. To be clear, this change would have no effect on game mechanics whatsoever. It's just an opportunity to let user-generated content add flavor through a realistic application of the current game model. Cheers.

Discussion (Major Repairs Unlock Part of Building Description)

Interesting idea, I think its temporary nature makes it a really possible plan. It would really add to Ruin Repair bragging rights. D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 02:42, 1 April 2009 (BST)

Thanks for bringing up the ruin repair bragging rights. I didn't mention this in the write up, but that's a major part of it for me (except more on the zed side). Other than Borehamwood, I generally play brain-rotted zeds, and nothing pleases me more than trashing a perfectly decorated, powered, awesome building. I can imagine groups of survivors getting very attached to their buildings' flavor additions, and zeds taking obscene pleasure in destroying them. Thus, it encourages both sides. If I submit this formally, I'll have to play the bragging rights up.--Saburai 06:37, 1 April 2009 (BST)

Certainly an interesting idea, but i think it would make suburbs that periodically have every building past the 50ap point looking really trashy. And as the only way to remove someones description that may be a false PK report or a link to goatse or whatever is to reruin the building, we'd end up with a whole suburb with poor taste graffiti that no one can remove. I think people should suicide repair because they enjoy it or for the overarching benefits, not so they can post novelty supergraffiti. Props on thinking outside the square though.--xoxo 04:31, 1 April 2009 (BST)

I dunno, the fact that it needs to be >50 to be useable implies that the suburb is an unused and undisputed suburb. I think it would add to the bragging rights outside of the metagame scene. D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 04:47, 1 April 2009 (BST)

I obviously agree with DDR. Any suburb with several 50AP repair buildings is going to be mostly ruined, which means NO flavor descriptions (they'd all be destroyed). The only buildings that would be "stuck" looking "trashy" would be the ones in very well-maintained neighborhoods where no zeds come through to "clean up the decorations". And in a neighborhood like that, it wouldn't be too hard for the local survivors group to arrange to have a friendly zed ruin the building to clear the objectionable material. This idea is very hard to do (wait for a building to get totally ruined >50AP, taking several weeks, then spend 50+AP repairing it), but very easy to undo (one zed, 5AP to ransack and ruin in five minutes). That also makes it a high value target for pride players like me (survivor and zed).--Saburai 06:37, 1 April 2009 (BST)

I think that I would like it more if hyperlinks were filtered out, the description wasn't permanent (time limit of 3 months or next suicide repair), and the level of decay was higher (75+ ap). Either those 3 or give the repairer a drop down menu of a bunch of options for what to install. Really cool sounding idea and very far outside of the box! --Johnny Bass 06:02, 1 April 2009 (BST)

If blocking hyperlinks is easy to do, that seems like a good idea. I'm not coding it, after all. The flavor text WOULD be filtered out by the next suicide repair. As I said, and this may bear repeating, the descriptions are cleared when the building is ruined. By the time you go to repair it, it must have been cleared by the zed who left the building in need of repairs. In most cases, this would be much less than 3 months. It's very, very easy to undo. That's part of the charm; it adds to the challenge. You arrive in a 80AP-repair schoolhouse. Obviously, you're in a dangerous neighborhood, otherwise why did the building remain vacant so long? You want to rebuild it to look like YOUR high school, with an red-and-white brick Edwardian facade and an oak grove yard. But if you do the repair and a zed finds you, he'll kill you and ruin the building, deleting your work. What do you do? How do you protect it? If you succeed, you now have a building that's uniquely yours. Would that change your play style? Would you stick around defending it? Would zeds try harder to break in? That's what I want to find out. I don't like the idea of a drop down menu because standard, repetitive descriptions are exactly what I'm trying to change! I want to make Malton look like something. I want an outlet for my creativity. I want to surprise and entertain players, not give them another rote text block to ignore.--Saburai 06:37, 1 April 2009 (BST)

Having a player interface that allows limited customization of buildings would be a really good idea but I think you might be underestimating some peoples willingness to abuse it for the sake of annoying folk. Sure it is pretty easy to undo but I think it is a valid concern and I am not sure Kevan would be happy reverting the inevitable obscenities on demand. Perhaps limiting the ability to donation accounts would make it feasible for the server to keep track of who is doing the redesigns and thus ban anyone abusing them? --Honestmistake 09:06, 1 April 2009 (BST)

That's a valid point, but wouldn't that argument also apply against graffiti? People DO use graffiti for annoying other players and for griefing, sometimes. They also use it for serious things, and for fun things. Graffiti is very easy to do (around 5-10 AP to find a spray can, 1 AP to write with it), and about as easy to undo (ditto). My proposition is VERY hard to do (wait 20 days for building to fall into sufficient ruin, with no one repairing it, 50 or more AP to do repair), and fairly easy to undo (once a zed gets inside, 6 AP). Whatever work Kevan has to do reverting constructed obscenities would pale in comparison to his daily graffiti duty (the cans currently block profanity, right?). Actually, I wasn't aware he took any such action; I see cleverly obscene graffiti all the time.

Anyway, if, at enormous AP expense, someone puts up an irritating construction, 1) that's at least something interesting to go do in Urban Dead, and no one HAS to read the flavor text; 2) it will motivate other players to undo it, probably just by having a zed ruin the building. Remember, that offending building won't even be eligible for a new facade for several weeks.

Weigh that occasional inconvenience against the additional interest of having customized headquarters for various factions, AND a reason for zeds NOT to ruin temples crafted by death cultists in red/gray zones. All in-game; no metagaming required. If anything, I think the flaw in my proposal is that it's TOO easy to undo the construction. Only a handful of buildings would fall into sufficient ruin for remodeling and simultaneously remain safe from ransacking zeds for any length of time. That's why they would be prized, and a tremendous incentive not to waste the remodel. Let me ask you this: Are the kinds of people who like to spraypaint "...a picture of your sister naked" the same kind of people who like to do suicide repairs? In my experience, those are two diametrically opposed personalities. --Saburai 09:32, 1 April 2009 (BST)

I am not even considering stuff like "your sister naked" as that's harmless... I was thinking more like people posting real or wiki user names and abuse or even phone numbers. People would be willing to make throwaway zergs to post stuff like that and while it wouldn't be too hard to remove if you had the will it should be avoided in the first place if at all possible. --Honestmistake 10:20, 1 April 2009 (BST)

A "throwaway zerg" with construction, a toolbox, 50 AP, and a totally ruined building in safe neighborhood or working with a team to immediately barricade-in (to avoid immediate re-ruin and deletion of the construction project)? Again, I think you're arguing against graffiti, not my proposal.

It is indeed very easy to create a zerg, find a spray can, spray something obnoxious like my name and social security number, abandon the character and disappear. If you spray it up in Ridleybank, it WILL stay on the wall until Kevan deletes it. My proposal would require such a troublemaker to have almost a perverse dedication; it would take days of playing the zerg finding the necessary equipment, skills, and location, preparing for the "prank". How often could that possibly happen? And if Kevan can keep the world from ending with graffiti going up every minute, surely he can spot the 1-5 abusive suicide repairs a year. I'm just not seeing the danger here. Can you be a bit more specific on what such an evil player could do to game this system, that he COULDN'T do much more easily with a spraycan? Or, alternatively, can you suggest some ways such abuse could be prevented? --Saburai 15:00, 1 April 2009 (BST)

I think it's brilliant. I'm not so much worried about the occasional obscenity or listing of phone numbers, but some asshole(s) could ruin this for everybody, right? Create groups of both zeds and survivors. The zeds squat in a building (or several) until it requires a 50AP repair. Survivors roll in (while zeds move on to a different building), do the repair, then squat to protect their very own personalized building. I want the idea to work, but isn't it a zerg's wet dream? --Paddy Dignam^{IS DEAD} 18:25, 1 April 2009 (BST)

I don't see how it's a "zerg's wet dream", any more than any other mass behavior could be. Remember, newly spawned zeds can't ransack (and so can't ruin a building to prep it for your hypothetical strike team), and newly spawned survivors can't barricade or repair (and so can't remodel a building or hold it against zeds). Even if the zerg team was high-level, the survivors you hypothesize can only protect one building at a time, unless you're imagining some ne'er-do-well spawning infinitely many zergs to stake out a huge chunk of Malton. If someone wanted to do that, why haven't they done it already? How is this idea more prone to zerg abuse than heavily barricading entry points, dropping zeds in dark buildings to block repair, or any number of other existing mechanics that haven't broken Urban Dead?

Nevertheless, I respect your concerns. I've been thinking a lot about how the dynamics of this would play out. What it comes down to is this: holding onto a flavor building would be very hard. Once the zeds found out about it and decided to destroy it, there would be almost no way to stop them, even if it was deep in green territory. Unlike other kinds of sieges, where humans can sidestep a zombie attack by hiding next door while the zeds exhaust themselves on barricades, in the case of protecting a flavor building, there's no way to escape. Once the zeds break in, the addition gets trashed, quickly, and there's no easy way to rebuild it, except by leaving the building in ruin and somehow keeping survivors from repairing it prematurely. Similarly, zeds could not hold onto an "evil cathedral" (for example), because an uncooperative zed could waltz in and ruin it. In every case, high visibility remodeled buildings would become targets and would not last for long. Which is fine: I think the transient nature of the improvement is part of the charm and prestige of accomplishing it. Holding onto a flavor building would have intrinsic merit, not for zergers, but for any group that likes their customized headquarters.

Just to sum up, everything about this plan seems to lean toward making it rare and difficult to do, even rarer and more difficult to make stick, and very easy (and desirable!) to undo by zeds, who naturally love to destroy survivors' most prized possessions. I don't know how it could become a regular suburb-wide phenomena; the dynamics just don't favor it. But it will create the possibility for interesting new play mechanics and plot lines, in game. It will do so without unbalancing ANYTHING, although the new behaviors, if they catch on, could reveal or highlight existing imbalances in the current rules.--Saburai 19:18, 1 April 2009 (BST)

I like this. But. Make it an option from a drag down list. 10 or 11 different options to choose from, removes the spamness of the ability. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 19:25, 1 April 2009 (BST)

Hey, Rosslessness. I respect your opinion, and I suppose a drop down list is better than nothing, but another level of predictable text is not what I'm trying to achieve. I don't think that 10 or 11 text options will lead to the sense of attachment that will encourage people to act on this feature. It might still marginally increase the prestige of a suicide repair, but it really misses the creative outlet I'm going for. Also, wouldn't you need 10 different options for each building type? The options for a school house would be very different from those for a factory. That would make the implementation MUCH more time consuming (hey, unless Kevan is looking for work to do...).

As I've said above, game dynamics would make these flavor buildings rare and short lived. Do you think having a police station briefly described with "Someone constructed an attached covered patio/Someone constructed a bell tower/Someone constructed a horse stable [CHOOSE ONE]" would really make the game any more interesting? I can't imagine any 10 flavor text bits that would be interesting enough to take the time to read, but generic enough to go on any building in any situation. That's what the buildings have now, after all. The only way to make this a worthwhile addition is to open it up to user content, with the unpredictability and messiness that entails. If it's unworkable, it's unworkable, but I'd rather have it be unworkable than be predictable. --Saburai 19:54, 1 April 2009 (BST)

I always get confused by people who read feedback and respond in a reasonable manner. Yep. I did mean 10 for each building type. Hmm. In fairness I guess people doing suicide repairs aren't all that trenchy, and may add reasonable things. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 20:25, 1 April 2009 (BST)

Since this is just the discussion section, let me brainstorm for a moment. I'm wondering whether there's a simple, user-driven mechanism for quality/spam control that allows complete creativity and rewards good work. I'm not changing my proposal, just speculating. Hear me out. Let's talk about interiors, for example. What if a 50+AP repair gave you a window like this: "You totally renovate the ruined building. In addition to the original interior structure, you add [text entry panel, 100 characters]." When a player does this, the description of the building interior changes to "<normal description>. Portions of the interior are covered by tarps, indicating heavy construction." Ok, now the magic happens when the building is re-ruined and repaired (at ANY AP value). The person who does the next repair gets this message: "You repair the building damage. Under the tarps, you find [suicide repair person's name] has constructed [previous repair work description]. Do you wish to remove the tarp (0 AP), or dismantle [player name's] work (5 AP + 1 XP)?" If they remove the tarp, the change becomes a part of the building description until the building is ruined (at which time it is lost; no second tarp). If they destroy it, the building becomes a regular repaired building. If someone attempts to remove his/her OWN tarp, he gets a message saying "You repair the building damage, but decide your renovations need more work before revealing them." That way, two players have to concur that the remodeled building adds something. That would make it much harder for spammers to use this improvement. I think this system is a little too complicated for my taste, but it resolves the spam worry. What do you think about that, Rosslessness? --Saburai 21:17, 1 April 2009 (BST)

It might be simpler to include a mechanism for survivors to ruin/repair the improvement almost as if it were a generator. Perhaps require a toolbox and 10 actions to demolish and show the names of anyone vandalizing the feature. --Honestmistake 11:18, 2 April 2009 (BST)

That's an interesting compromise. There's obviously a few ways this could work.--Saburai 17:13, 2 April 2009 (BST)

OK, thanks for the feedback everyone. I'm going to mull it over and submit it back to this queue in a few days in some modified, hopefully improved form. After that: Peer Review! The general sense I get here is that people think this would be fun, but want a mechanism to control abuse, which is perfectly reasonable. I think we can find a way to make this practical. --Saburai 17:13, 2 April 2009 (BST)

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Direction With Most Group Groans (revised)

Timestamp:	A Big F'ing Dog 21:58, 31 March 2009 (BST)
Type:	Skill
Scope:	Feral zombies
Description:	This is an idea to help zombies follow their group better without using metagaming. Could be introduced either by a new skill or a feeding groan improvement. Upon logging in zombies would get a message telling them which adjacent suburb (the entire 10x10 area) had the most groans overall from members of their group in the past 24 hours. This includes groans out of the normal 6 block feeding groan hearing range, ones that are too far to pinpoint the origin of, but close enough to faintly detect. It might look like this: You heard multiple groans from your group to the west.

Discussion (Suggestion Name)

"This is an idea to help feral zombies follow their group better" - Basic logic, please learn it before suggesting anything again. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 22:22, 31 March 2009 (BST)

Correction, non-metagaming zombies. You read the last version, you know what I meant. --A Big F'ing Dog 05:22, 1 April 2009 (BST)

Revised means something has changed. You pick, I can either comment on the first change I saw or I'll just paste over my commentary on the last one? Because according to you, reading the last one means I know what this one's supposed to be... -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 07:38, 1 April 2009 (BST)

Once again, you limited it to your group. And once again, it's not useful. Feral zombies are unaffliated, so this wouldn't affect them anyway. Secondly, listening on where the most groans from your group came from is very misleading. The biggest feral group would be the Feral Undead, and they have 158 members. Out of those, perhaps 20 would groan in the time you're logged off. Many of them are in different areas. What this means is that if 4 zombies groan from NE, 3 from W, 1 from E and the other six directions have 2 groans each, you'll go NE. You have no idea what suburb those groans even came from, and the chances of coming across your group members are rather slim. If you were to make it so that you could pick up on the most groans from anyone, you'd have a general idea of which direction has the most brains for you to munch on. But even then, it has its problems: if a groan comes from 2 suburbs to the west and 1 to the north, is that NW or just W? If you answer W, then the span of west is far too wide for this system to be a good guide to brains. --LaosOman 11:13, 1 April 2009 (BST)

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Contagious Bite

Timestamp:	--Honestmistake 09:46, 30 March 2009 (BST)
Type:	Skill
Scope:	Infectious bite subskill which helps newly turned zombies.
Description:	So virulently infected is this vile specimen of zombiehood that their bite is not only infectious but that infection has become contagious. Should an already infected target be affected by a contagious bite they will be considered to have the Infectious Bite skill until they are cured! Obviously this is going to have little effect on survivors who are not killed as they don't bite people and tend to get cured pretty damn fast anyway. On the other hand a survivor who is killed while contagious may find that the option to infect people is enough of a boost to their attacks that they are happy to remain a zombie for a while instead of rolling up to the nearest revive point? Rather than making it possible to get revived/infected/killed and thus gain the skill for free I would think a natural recovery would be essential and would suggest that the chance of recovery should be something like 25% checked each time the 'carrier' stands up.

Discussion (Contagious Bite)

Put simply this skill does nothing for the zombie who buys it and no additional harm to the survivor who is bitten, if the bitten survivor stands up as a zombie while infected he or she will have a very good chance of having the chance to infect others with their bite even if they do not have the infectious bite skill... the more often said zombie dies though the more chance that they will lose this ability unless they buy it properly. --Honestmistake 09:57, 30 March 2009 (BST)

On a related note, I know that it is possible for zombies and survivors to use some of each others actions via the Url and if bite is one of those it should benefit from this for no better reason that it would be funny to do and scare the crap out of any poor sod it happened too ;)

Zergers could very easily abuse this: Get one contagious zed, bite a bunch of low-levels zergs and get them killed to trigger the effect (25% is pretty big), and voila! Easy infecting zergs. Anyway, if a survivor is killed and becomes contagious, chances are they're going to still just shamble to a revive point and get a revive. They won't have many other zombie skills (unless they're high-level and have infectious bite already), so they won't be able to do much anyway. --Bob Boberton ^{TF / DW} 18:16, 30 March 2009 (BST)

Zergers can make use of pretty much anything so that always needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. In this case the zerger needs to start a new zed, get revived, get the double infection and die. Having done all that they then have a level one zed with temporary infectious bite at base (20%?) until they die a few times... thats a lot of effort for so little gain--Honestmistake 19:53, 30 March 2009 (BST)

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Freerunning: 2AP, toggle

Timestamp:	Swiers 16:50, 29 March 2009 (BST)
Type:	revision
Scope:	freerunning skill
Description:	As title says. Freerunning could be toggled on and off, say via radio buttons immediately below the minimap. Moving with Freerunning would cost 2AP. Moving without would cost 1AP, as it does now. Obviously this addresses both complaints that free-running is overpowered, and that it forces survivors to risk falling from ruins.

Discussion (Freerunning: 2AP, toggle)

Probably one of those duptastic ideas that is to controversial / major a change to ever pass voting, eh?  Swiers 16:50, 29 March 2009 (BST)

Meh. Toggling would be annoying. Especially if you forget it on/off in the wrong situation. --Midianian^{¦T¦DS¦SP¦} 18:20, 29 March 2009 (BST)

True. How about when you are inside, neighboring buildings have TWO buttons on the mini-map, one for free-run movement and one for normal ("unskilled") movement? Ruins would not have the free-run movement button, because you can't free-run into them.  Swiers 21:38, 29 March 2009 (BST)

In a manner of speaking, that is already part of the game. You have the "leave" button.--Pesatyel 01:02, 30 March 2009 (BST)

Not even vaugely similar, given its limits and mechanics. The "leave" button would still have the same use (or lack there-of) as it does now.  Swiers 04:37, 30 March 2009 (BST)

Sure, the leave button puts you outside the current building while free running moves you inside another. This suggestion, free running moves you inside another building and the "toggle" would put you outside the other building. But the mechanics are, basically, in place already, just that the "toggle" puts you outside your current building instead of the next one over.--Pesatyel 08:41, 30 March 2009 (BST)

You can't leave from a building that's over VSB (at least not if you have free running). --Midianian^{¦T¦DS¦SP¦} 09:30, 30 March 2009 (BST)

What he said. The "leave" button only allows you to leave your building if it is VSB or less, regardless of what skills you have, and costs 1 AP. Moving without free running (either because you lack the skill or because there is a toggle) puts you outside an adjacent location for 1 AP. Moving with free-running puts you inside an adjacent location. So if your goal is to end up outside, having free running currently both limits your options, and costs more AP. The "leave" button does NOT solve this problem; it typically either costs more AP (1 to leave, 1-move), or is totally useless (if you are not in a sub-vsb building).  Swiers 20:02, 1 April 2009 (BST)

I would vote for this... Freerunning is way too cheap as it stands but increasing its cost without allowing it to be turned off would be too much. --Honestmistake 23:27, 29 March 2009 (BST)

This is a dupe, however since this stipulates a toggle button, that gives it an inherent disadvantage, namely a player could forget or hit it accidentally and be trapped outside. I would probably neglect to find the dupe link if this went to voting in its current form. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 09:18, 2 April 2009 (BST)

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Plague (revised)

Timestamp:	A Big F'ing Dog 06:42, 29 March 2009 (BST)
Type:	Skill
Scope:	Infectious bite subskill
Description:	There are several good comments about my current suggestion Plague (too overpowered and KISS among others) and this is my stab at a better version. Comments are welcome. Plague would be an infectious bite subskill, a more severe form of the zombie disease that can linger in weak immune systems. If a zombie with the skill bites an already infected survivor with less than 25HP the survivor would become plagued. You can be plagued and infected simultaneously, but even with both a person only loses 1HP per turn with no other ill effect. It does not stack with infection. An FAK will always cure infection, but not so with plague. If you have plague and infection and cure your infection, you can still be plagued. Plague will only drain health if you are below 25hp though. A plagued survivor with 25+HP will keep the plagued condition but have no ill effect. If they are ever reduced to 24HP or lower though, the health drain will resume. If they healed back to 25HP the drain will stop, etc. You can theoretically play forever with untreated plague, it just makes you more vulnerable to health drain if you're ever injured. There would be three ways to be cured of plague: Revivification syringe injection while living. This would spend the syringe but only cost 1AP, used on yourself or other survivors. Being treated with a FAK in a powered hospital, utilizing the superior environment for healing. The surgery skill would not be necessary. You could still use a FAK to cure plague even when people are at full health. If infected and plagued, getting healed in a powered hospital would cure both simultaneously. Dying. Unlike infection plague would not continue after being revived.

Discussion (Plague revision)

The previous version, when put up for voting, just wasn't clear. You might want to allow those with Surgery to do it in an unpowered (but undamaged) hospital maybe. I don't think Surgery is a skill most people REALLY use. A lot of players heal for the XP and its more economical to NOT take First Aid and Surgery (especially because of all the latter's restrictions), so this might make the skill more useful. The whole idea of using a syringe to heal it kinda bugs me. It seems like it would make NT buildings even MORE a focal point then they already are, and I don't think that is a good idea.--Pesatyel 09:24, 29 March 2009 (BST)

I want new survivors without necrotech skills or surgery to be able to heal their plague somehow though. --A Big F'ing Dog 15:00, 29 March 2009 (BST)

Of course, hence the being able to do it in hospitals without skills but with power. But what if the hospital doesn't HAVE power? At least if the character has Surgery, they can still do it.--Pesatyel 20:46, 29 March 2009 (BST)

This won't make the game more fun for zombies because of the indirect nature. It will just end up as a additional annoyance for survivors.--Thadeous Oakley 13:35, 29 March 2009 (BST)

It gives zombies a way of prying survivors from defended structures like a mall or fort by forcing them to either leave to the nearest powered hospital or use up a syringe. And it gives zombies additional strategies. Right now its either infect as many as possible, or focus on killing one. --A Big F'ing Dog 13:54, 29 March 2009 (BST)

It cuts down on the "mall/nt-centric" gameplay. Survivors hang out in those two locations cause that is where all the good stuff is. Sure it makes it easier for zombies to "know" where the survivors are, but it also means theres like a couple of hundred survivors there too, which doesn't exactly make it easy either.--Pesatyel 01:06, 30 March 2009 (BST)

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Reading Improvements

Timestamp:	Kite 12:07, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Type:	Improvement
Scope:	Survivors
Description:	The book's usefulness needs to be improved, plain and simple. It's very hard for a survivor to gain XP by reading book since it only gives you 1 XP for any other class than a Scientist which gives you 2 XP, Scientists who, unlike Civilians, more specifically, Consumers don't have, and that reading a book usually DOESN'T give you XP, since, for some reason, the chance of you learning from a book is roughly 10%. This is bad for classes such as Consumers who have very few other ways of gaining XP. Some may argue that people with most weapons without training you'll get about the same ammount of XP out of roughly the same ammount of hits/readings. while this is true to an extant, it's also misleading, since most people don't need to be trained to read a book. It is obvious that books need to be improved, but how? Well, the most obvious choice is to improve the likely hood of earning XP from a book, maybe to 20% that you'll gain XP. Will this be unbalancing to the game? No, contrary to the idea that libraries then would become more important to survivors would be true, but the idea that they would make all other forms of XP gathering obsolete would be a great assumption, since, as XP is learned and other opportunities would be openned up, using books for XP would be the thing becoming obsolete. Really, in every sense books are for newbies who have no other ways of earning XP, a back up plan, and should be made much more useful for their purpose. A few other ways of balancing book reading is by making the likely hood of earning XP much higher and the likely hood of the book being used to be thrown away after use, this would more realistic and less of a lottery ticket for one XP and more of an exchange of one AP to one, possible XP, it still wouldn't be an absolute sure fire way of earning XP but would make reading more rewarding and less frustrating for beginners.

Discussion (Reading Improvements)

This is a logical idea, and my only complaint is how long you take to explain it. Tell me if I've done your concept an injustice by condensing it to: "In my mind, books aren't useful enough. How about we up the odds - just a little, say to 20%, from 10 - that you actually learn something from reading?" -CaptainVideo 06:10, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

You shouldn't be using books as any kind of serious source of XP. This is a zombie apocalypse, not a librarian apocalypse. --Midianian^{¦T¦DS¦SP¦} 11:36, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Which would be quieter.--Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 11:37, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

So much quieter... Anyway I like this idea, I'm all for it.--Super Nweb 21:14, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

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Crucifix Uses

Timestamp:	Super Nweb 03:09, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Type:	Improvement
Scope:	Humans
Description:	Crucifixes as we know have no uses. When I immagine this I am thinking of a large crucifix, something about a foot long by 6in wide, like this. Not one you wear on a necklace. You could attack with a crucifix with these accuracies. Without Hand To Hand Combat - 10% Chance to hit, 1dmg Hand To Hand Combat - 25% Chance to hit, 1dmg When you hit someone with the crucifix it would say one of these "You hit -Player Name- on the head with a crucifix dealing 1dmg" "You randomly swing a crucifix at -Player Name- with little result" If you are hit it would say "-Player Name- whacked you on the head with their crucifix doing 1dmg"

Discussion (Crucifix Uses)

... So, exactly like punches, except it takes an item. Naw. --Bob Boberton ^{TF / DW} 03:11, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

It's mostly for the flavor, the only useful melee weapons are Fire Axes, and Knifes. The others could all be compiled into one, since they (Excluding the crowbar and the pool cue), are the same.--Super Nweb 03:37, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

The game already has baseball bats, tennis rackets, hockey sticks, pool cues, cricket bats, fencing foils, crowbars, golf clubs and ski poles. What do they have in common? Nobody uses them. The game doesn't need more melee weapons.--Pesatyel 03:42, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok how does another melee weapon hurt the game? It just adds flavor for users, it is in no way going to harm your gameplay so why strike it down?--Super Nweb 04:29, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Spam, primarily. Flavour's nice, but not more of the same flavour. --Bob Boberton ^{TF / DW} 04:54, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Because it doesn't really IMPROVE the game in anyway.--Pesatyel 05:04, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Crucifixes should be useless in the game, just like they are in real life. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 05:48, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes they serve no magical purpose against the undead, but getting hit with a 1 foot long block of wood would still hurt.--Super Nweb 21:09, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

As would it hurt getting hit with a generator, yet you still can't attack with one. --Midianian^{¦T¦DS¦SP¦} 21:12, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

That's a bit harder to swing, I mean you can attack with a toolbox!--Super Nweb 20:20, 30 March 2009 (BST)

Crucifixes aren't weapons for a reason: they fail too much. --3R 19:25, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

This is a dupe. --Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 22:08, 2 April 2009 (BST)

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More ways for zombies to gain XP

This one is up for voting now. Thanks for the input. --LaosOman 23:17, 4 April 2009 (BST)

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NecroTech Training

Having taken your suggestions into account, "NecroTech Training" is now up for review at Suggestions (please check the modifications I've made before voting). The other two ideas I had - Facility Access and Memories of Employment - have been allowed to die, since people considered them too unbalanced. -CaptainVideo 06:04, 29 March 2009 (BST)

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True Dual Nature

Timestamp:	--Vissarion Belinski 00:48, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
Type:	Balance, roleplay, maybe for next Monroeville
Scope:	Everyione
Description:	I'm not a good writer in English, but I'll try to describe the idea. Maybe it's just my naive phantasy. But please say whad do you think, and how it may affect the game. It's developing suggestons page anyway You know what Dual Nature is about. It's roleplaying, which also makes the game more difficult for the rest of survivors, who do not follow the Dual Nature Idea. Survivors usually go straight to revive point after death. But Dual Nature, Roleplaying and Realism (if there is any=) vote for random revive, and true flesh eating zombies - you die, you rise, you bite your own ex-friends, making them your friends again. I'd like to share with you some thoughts how to make the game more interesting, funny and difficult, especially for survivors. And maybe use ideas for the next Monroeville, Borehamwood or Manchester (with some NT infrastucture), as they change the game very strong. Or maybe this can be used in Malton. So they are: 1. Zombies can't see survivor names. They can see only HPs, and they can't see if an attacked survivor is their friend/ group member. 2. Zombies can't see Building name. It's just Building/ Park/ Street. 3. No GPS, wiki, map and other navigation for zombies. And no suburb name. 4. Zombie, if there is no meat nearby, makes one random movement once in, say, 6 hours, for no AP cost. Numbers 2,3,4 makes it impossible to organize revive points. Only combat revive - survivor sees his friends and tries to revive them. And this will not harm zombies. 5. Make feeding groans louder. Or add some kind of "gather the horde" groans. To make zombies easier to find each other. There is one problem. It makes zombie life absolutely stupid, and I don't know if it'll be interesing being "somewhere in Malton". The general idea is to make revive difficult and random.

Discussion (True Dual Nature)

Problem is, the mechanics that prevent organizing revive points would also prevent organizing strike teams. Plus, you can always make the revive point "outside the building you were defending". The proposals are also un-implmentable. How do you prevent metagmaing? Location co-ordinates are (and pretty much need to be) coded into the game pages, so how do you block extension that allow players to know where they are?
Anyhow, forcing all zombies to play as ferals isn't "enforce dual nature" (as players could still choose not to attack survivors / barricades", its "make zombies stupid" and "prevent zombie players from co-operating". Yuck.  Swiers 02:01, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

What do you think about making zeds just stalk pointlessly? Every few hours a zombie moves in a random direction if there is no feedeing groans and no fresh meet in current location. Or maybe move to nearest groaning. That should prevent waiting in the revive point --Vissarion Belinski 02:09, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that making survivors anonymous to zombies is interesting (maybe give the ability back when Memories of Life is purchased?), but I agree with Swiers, it's really not workable in UD. In a whole new city, maybe, and you pointed that out yourself. It might also be neat to connect one or more of these "stupidities" to Brain Rot-- like failing to recognize survivors, or losing the ability to read graffiti, something like that. ~ extropymine ^{Talk | NW | 4Corners} 02:30, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I kind alike the first idea about just seeing hit points (I'd suggest being able to see the full name if the person is a contact). I just think the author is a little flawed in his reasoning about "dual natures". It sounds, as I read it, like he is arguing the only way a "true" dual nature would be revived is if it was a combat revive. But I digress. How about a TOGGLE for some of the these? For example, you can toggle off and on your ability to see building names. Volunatarily make it "harder" on yourself.--Pesatyel 02:38, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

The others may be interested in debating with you, but I am not. It is beneath me even to acknowledge the 'thinking' which lurks behind these kinds of suggestions. I'm only going to say this: Fuck you.

• Fuck you on behalf of every new zombie player who has ever stood up with almost half their playing time gone because some arsehole got bored and went outside to masturbate with their guns.
• Fuck you on behalf of every new zombie player who has had to spend two action points per step in probably the worst example of game unbalancing 'realism' ever conceived and which means that every day there are new zombies who are making just seventeen moves whilst new survivors make forty-eight.
• Fuck you on behalf of every zombie player who ever went days, sometimes weeks, without attacking a survivor because the barricades have just a 12.5% chance of success.
• Fuck you on behalf of every zombie player who earned their claw skills only to find that the barricades still only go down at a rate of one-in-four, and that only if they are lucky with the truly abominable RNG.
• Fuck you on behalf of every zombie player who has taken on the barricades alone, broken them open and been unable to get in more than a few swipes at a survivor before being headshot, dumped and all their work undone by just a single survivor.
• Fuck you on behalf of every zombie player who has discovered the metagame and learned that the only way to actually make a difference in this game as a zombie is to coordinate with other zombie players.
• Fuck you on behalf of every zombie player who works hard to help other players by arranging hordes, group activities, massed attacks, mini-games and tours.
• Fuck you on behalf of the ferals.
• Fuck you on behalf of the strike teams.
• Fuck you on behalf of the hordes.
• Fuck you to everyone who ever suggests game ruining, zombie nerfing shit in the name of 'realism', 'believability or 'balance'.
• Fuck you to every player who takes the easy way out and does not have a zombie character because they'd rather spend every IP hit they have searching for ammunition.
• Fuck you to every player who treats zombies as though they are non-player characters, with no human being behind them trying to have fun.
• Just fuck you.

TL;DR? Fuck you. --Papa Moloch 03:45, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to have to back that up with a Fuck you¹² (I don't agree with the RNG ones and am generally against meta-gaming). --Kamikazie-Bunny 13:50, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

As Moloch said. Oh, and pass me some of whatever you smoked before writing this. --Johnny Bass 04:07, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

and i would like to add a "steaming cup of shut the fuck up" with your retarded suggestions. how long have been playing this game anyway?----Sexualharrison 13:58, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Zombies are not NPCs. If they were, maybe in another city, your stuff would already be implemented. Also Moloch is my hero. --Bob Boberton ^{TF / DW} 18:50, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

As an unassociated bystander wandering through the area, I'm going to say this has veered from the path of productivity, and perhaps contains excessive use of bold. Just throwing that in there. Carry on. -CaptainVideo 02:46, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

It was entirely needed. --Johnny Bass 15:18, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

The suggestion sucks, but the person making it is clearly new. This aggression will not stand, dude. --Paddy Dignam^{IS DEAD} 16:32, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Watch out Moloch, here comes the A/VB "pattern of abuse" case!--Suicidal Angel, Help needed? 01:38, 3 April 2009 (BST)

That carpet really tied the room together, man. --Johnny Bass 16:36, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Say what you will about the tenets of national socialism, Johnny. At least it's an ethos! --Paddy Dignam^{IS DEAD} 16:40, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

God damn you Paddy! You fuckin' asshole! Everything's a fuckin' travesty with you, man! And what was all that shit about Vietnam? What the FUCK, has anything got to do with Vietnam? What the fuck are you talking about? --Johnny Bass 16:55, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Shut the fuck up, Johnny. (The name even rhymes!) --Paddy Dignam^{IS DEAD} 17:03, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Paddy, you're out of your element! Dude, the Chinaman is not the issue here! --Johnny Bass 17:09, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I have a more succinct answer to this than even Papa Moloch: No. --Private Mark 07:16, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

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Limited Give

Timestamp:	Kamikazie-Bunny 14:49, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Type:	Survivor Trading
Scope:	Survivors
Description:	'Give' allows players to give items to another survivor. It consists of a box similar to the attack box and consists of a 'Give' button, drop down list of survivors and a drop down list of items. The cost to give an item is 1AP. When a survivor is given an item they receive the message "Player X gave you an item." In order to prevent zerg abuse the give item function is limited: Survivors are only capable of giving Infinite-use items excluding pistols and shotguns! The only consumable items available to give are: Beer Wine Books (inc. poetry) Decorative Items These items are available to give primarily for role-play purposes. If a player attempts to give an item to someone who is over 100% Enc. they receive the message "Player X is carrying too much already." This allows for survivors to give items to fellow survivors but helps to reduce zerg abuse because they cannot be used as "search farms" effectively.

Discussion (LimitedGive)

-1 Morality point if you read the name and went 'gah' without reading the content--Kamikazie-Bunny 14:49, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

+1 Troll point for the generic and inaccurate name, +1 Self-Righteousness point for pre-emptive moralization. --Midianian^{¦T¦DS¦SP¦} 15:11, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think I qualify for the troll point or inaccurate name, generic yes... But I'll gladly take the SRppem... oh +1 point for knowing the point game. --Kamikazie-Bunny 17:42, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

This is quite a limited "Give" suggestion. It's inaccurate the same way as saying "9/11 was orchestrated by a group of simians". It's technically true (humans are simians), but the majority are going to interpret it incorrectly. Using such an inaccurate and generic name is just inviting people to go "Gah" when they see the name and quite possibly ignore the actual content (hence the Troll). Actually, it's not until the fourth paragraph where you explain that no, it's not the regular completely retarded "Give" suggestion. So yeah, call it "Limited Give" or something and people might pay attention to it. --Midianian^{¦T¦DS¦SP¦} 22:11, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough, name changed. --Kamikazie-Bunny 14:39, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

It'd be nice to see people be able to give each other the flavor items and whatnot, but I doubt it will happen. Kevan did say in the past that he was working on some kind of workable way of doing this and explains why it isn't in the game here. --Johnny Bass 14:58, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Scientists level quite effectively from reading. This is a zergers slow burning dream. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 04:02, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why it would be an issue, 10AP a day for zergs is not exactly going to break the game and I'm pretty sure the 'professional' zergers out there have a more effective strategy such as FAKPunching in hospitals, good point though but I just don't see a significant risk of Zerg abuse. --Kamikazie-Bunny 14:39, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I attempted something similar to this a long time ago:

http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php/Suggestions/21st-Aug-2006

That was as good as I could get it. I don't fancy your chances, but have a look at that and see if it gives you any thought's. The Mad Axeman 14:32, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I think our suggestions are opposite ends of the spectrum, Mine gives useless items, yours does not. The biggest difference is mine drastically reduces the zergabusility by preventing consumables being transferred. Having read it though an idea for transferring consumables has come to mind... you can only give items to a player if they do not have one in their inventory... But I'll see how this one goes and might expanded it to include that pending on feed back or voting results (people give a lot more feedback there). --Kamikazie-Bunny 14:50, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the "jerk" factor here is wildly underestimated. You could just shove thirty useless items into some guy's hands just to be obnoxious. Not that that would necessarily be a bad thing - assuming it costs AP to give, but not drop. It could be fun, in a petulant sort of way. -CaptainVideo 03:41, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I think this is probably the biggest problem. There WILL be assholes who will do that, whether it costs AP or not.--Pesatyel 04:37, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

So I suppose that, should this be implemented, a "accept/deny gift" option is in order? --Private Mark 07:56, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps, but then no "giving" would REALLY get done because of the 10 minute game window.--Pesatyel 10:12, 29 March 2009 (BST)

The jerk factor is mostly negated by the 0AP to drop function, the only other concern would be IP limits from dropping which is rarely an issue for most players. Jerk loaders would spend 50AP to offload their contents (assuming their entire inventory consisted of books and beer) on to someone else but cost 0AP to drop. An obvious solution (which I missed) would be to prevent givving of items to someone over 100%Enc, which I will add now. --Kamikazie-Bunny 19:21, 30 March 2009 (BST)

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Let's make some difference between classes

I know it's too complex, but I think it is interesting. I'd like to develop skill and make classes differ from each other. The following skill suggestion is just a try. And excuse me for my bad English.

Timestamp:	--Vissarion Belinski 00:05, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
Type:	Skills
Scope:	All players
Description:	UD has 4 starting classes. There are three survivor classes (Civilian, Military, Scientist) and Zombie class, which you recieve after death. Starting as a Zombie and getting revived makes you Civilian. So there are three classes. Civilian<->Zed; Military<->Zed and Scientist<->. And VERY slight difference between them. So slight, that we feel it only two starting months (if we really feel). That slight difference makes me say that there is only one class for 30000 active players. We need some difference! Every class should have one (or few maybe) unique skill, and if you take Zombie unique skill, you can't take survivor unique skill. That would make the game much more interesting. Let's discuss and develop it. Military Skill or skills may be: Improved Headshot, making zombies spend 10, not 5 AP to stand up. Professional [firearm] training, which adds further +10% to hit chance. That's more balanced, as it can be used by PKers and Z-spies, not only by Hunters. Science NecroTech put smart english word here. You need to spend just 5 AP to revive zombie and just 10 to manufacture syringe. Civilian Treasure Hunting, adds +10% bonus to find something when searching any building. Zombie And to balance all that survivor skills let's make zombies more powerfull with special zombie skill. I don't know how to call it, but I know how it should work, not making zeds too powerfull. When zombie attacks a survivor and if the survivor HP drop to 25 or lower (wounded), zombie starts to feel hunger and rage, making all attacks stronger. That's just like feedeng drag, but adding +1 bite attack. Getting skills To take special survivor skill you must have all other survivor skills of your class. All Science skills -> NT something skill etc. Zombies must complete Vigour Mortis tree.

Discussion (Let's make difference between classes)

It's very clear to me you have no understanding about balance in this game at all. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 00:53, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Second. --Bob Boberton ^{TF / DW} 00:57, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

ya i agree with iscariot. --User:Ricci Bobby 16:54, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

And do you think that all balance is about 50 APs? I really don't know about the numbers, chances, rates and calculations in UD. Or do you say that whole idea is shit? --Vissarion Belinski 01:02, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

What these ideas do is cripple the zombie side by overpowering survivors. Survivors are already winning the AP race due to their superior ability to bank AP and the soak of barricades. The best rule of thumb in buffing everything is to use the 'Times by a million' rule. Compare the damage that your suggestion could do with the current status quo and the overkill of this should be startlingly apparent. Just a guess, but I'm thinking you've never played a pure zombie. Go create one and try and level it on your own and see how crippling headshot is in its current form and then try and imagine how nasty it would be to just implement your headshot section. In short, yes, the whole thing is shit. However, start to look through the numbers and try to see why we're saying this rather than get offended and disappear. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 01:16, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Might I suggest you move this suggestion to the Humorous section? No one's going to take this seriously. It's severely unbalancing. --Bob Boberton ^{TF / DW} 01:11, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Might I suggest you be quiet? The notion of the rules against humour in the suggestions system do not, have not, and will never apply to Talk:Suggestions. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 01:16, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I suggest the move because it is genuinely funny (to a vet, at least... the ignorance is astounding) and because my trollsense is tingling. --Bob Boberton ^{TF / DW} 01:22, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

"In short, yes, the whole thing is shit." And what about the whole idea of making them different? Also I played (and play) pure zombie, and I really do not think headshot so crippling as you say. Maybe others have different opninion.--Vissarion Belinski 01:29, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Why should they be different? I like the fact that there are no practical differences between the classes after reaching a certain level. --Midianian^{¦T¦DS¦SP¦} 07:25, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I concur. What Midinian says also factorises in realism. After months in a zombie apocalypse, all survivors would be acting the same way. --Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 07:42, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't reckon that would be true, people react differently to the same situation, the length of time people have been in Malton will yield some variance even if the overall mentality is the same (survive)... Take a look at the game at the moment, we have long term players Killing survivors, zombies and mechanical equipment, people obsessed with certain 'strongholds' and people touring the city, running to and running from the fight... does that sound like they're all acting the same? Back to the suggestion though, you (Midianian) make like every character being the same when they've maxed out and I can see the appeal, but personally I would like to see at least a little variance nothing game breaking but something which allows people to play to their strengths rather than being another Mr Generic. --Kamikazie-Bunny 20:36, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say I want everyone to be the same. I want everyone to be capable of doing the same things. Your inventory and how you use it is what makes you different from anyone else. Class specific skills are a bad way of differentiating anyway, since they force you to make a choice in the beginning of the game when you don't yet know what's useful. --Midianian^{¦T¦DS¦SP¦} 09:55, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Then why bother having "classes" at all? Why not just have "Survivors" and "Zombies". Survivors can start with whatever skill they want and, in their profiles, can put whatever the hell they want for "class"?--Pesatyel 01:18, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Because class also effects what you start with, and the ability to pick ANY skill would be far too dangerous for multi-abuse. --Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 07:23, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

With certain limitations of course. And starting equipment is minimal when one can easily search.--Pesatyel 02:02, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I've got to disagree about starting equipment. Newbies starting survivor characters need to be performing some survivor actions the VERY FIRST MOMENT they start playing the game, lest they get "over it" and leave. Thus, we have characters start with guns'n'ammo, axe, DNA extractor, etc. Personally, when I first tried this game a couple years ago, I left after I ran out of ammo because I didn't know how to search for more pistol clips. It wasn't until I got bored and read the wiki about two years later that I found out I could search for ammo in PD's. I might be running the less bright side of the newbie gamut, but given new players' lack of commitment when trying any new game, I believe that having to spend even a few minutes searching for equipment would be too taxing on newbies' attention spans. --Idly Hummingbird 08:34, 29 March 2009 (BST)

So all "survivors" start with a knife, a FAK and a GPS or something.--Pesatyel 10:11, 29 March 2009 (BST)

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Shotgun Shells Stacking

Timestamp:	=ScaredPlayer 23:59, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
Type:	Improvement
Scope:	Survivors
Description:	I'm pretty new to UD, and I looked in the frequently suggested area for something that might be similar to this, and I didn't really find anything. As we all know, pistol ammo comes in the form of a clip - a cartridge that holds six bullets. Shotgun ammunition comes in the form of shells, single shots that are found individually. I think that changing the interface to stack shotgun shells would be a great improvement to UD. My reasoning for this is that if you are carrying a lot of shotgun shells, your inventory area will be filled up with buttons that say "shotgun shell". I propose, to fix this problem of filling up that space with repeat names for the same item, it be changed to "Shotgun shells (x)", where x is the number of shells currently in your inventory. Reloading would be the same - clicking on the button would reduce x by 1, and fill up your next empty shotgun, just as it is now. I can anticipate some arguments against this, such as "If this is implemented, how will you drop individual shotgun shells?" As it is now, you must drop items one at a time from the dropdown menu. If this change were implemented, the same thing would still apply; you would see simply "Drop: Shotgun shell". When you do that, the number of shells is decreased by one at no AP cost, exactly the same as it is now. As well, some people might find this to be "useless", as I can see from other suggestions that have been deemed "useless" as well (which is many). I would argue that this isn't in fact useless - it solves the problem of having an inventory full of white boxes labelled "shotgun shells", and rather consolidates all of those annoying buttons into one button; thus simplifying the task of looking through your potentially huge inventory for that next shotgun shell.

Discussion (Shotgun Shells Stacking)

This is a good idea but there is already something close to that but you would have to download mozilla firefox and one of the add-ons for UD has that User:Close to death 4:43pm 24 March 2009 (EPT)

http://www.adzone.org/UDTool/ --Bob Boberton ^{TF / DW} 13:50, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

not everyone can use Firefox or add-ons so as an improvement to the basic interface this would certainly merit a keep from me, especially if it were to includes FAKs and Syringes too. --Honestmistake 14:49, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

It'd be nice if at least ammo and items that don't get a target drop down box got stacked. I'd imagine that those would be the easiest to set up. I'd love to see a udtool type inventory organization be readily available to everyone that didn't want the add ons or firefox. --Johnny Bass 14:56, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, something like this has been suggested at least as early as 2005 (and fairly regularly after that). If Kevan was going to implement it, it would've been implemented already. --Midianian^{¦T¦DS¦SP¦} 15:04, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah whoops. Spam it is then... --Johnny Bass 15:05, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not Spam. Spam is for LaZoRs, chainsaw nunchucks and other ridiculous ideas, this actually a sensible suggestion, the fact that it's been suggested before would class it as a DUPE. Having said that if it went to voting I'd vote keep, I want it... --Kamikazie-Bunny 20:24, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

If done, there should also be FAK stacking, Needle stacking, clip staking, newspaper stacking, gps stacking, DNA scanner... basically stacking for anything that doesn't have an ammo capacity, frequency setting, or other character that makes it potentially different from similar items. Which seems easy enough, given that so many extensions / scripts do this for yah. The extra server work would likely be offset by the work the server does NOT do; currently each FAK, needle, and weapon has / is a potentially HUGE form with a long drop list of who to use it on. Condensing FAKS and Needles (and scanners) would reduce the numbers of forms a fair bit, and thus the amount of HTML the server needs to send out.  Swiers 19:23, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah thanks for bringing that up - the drop down list of things to drop is HUGE and ANNOYING to look through. Having just one of each item in that list would make things soooo much easier and neater for the rest of us. --ScaredPlayer 23:17, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't care if this is a dupe, I'd vote keep.--Idly Hummingbird 08:36, 29 March 2009 (BST)

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Advanced Rot

Suugestion now up for voting (May Grud have mercy!)--Honestmistake 10:45, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Sign Up Bonus

Suggestion up for voting, discussion moved to here.--Kamikazie-Bunny 19:51, 30 March 2009 (BST)

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Bellow

Suggestion up for voting, comments moved to suggestion talk page.  Swiers 18:53, 19 March 2009 (UTC) (sorry about that accidentally replaced it) --Kamikazie-Bunny 19:55, 30 March 2009 (BST)

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Multiple Infection Strains

This suggestion has been moved to voting. The suggestion itself is located here and the discussion is located on the suggestion's talk page. --Bob Boberton ^{TF / DW} 05:48, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

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Advanced Diagnosis

Timestamp:	--Giles Sednik CAPDSWA 22:37, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Type:	Skill, balance change
Scope:	Survivors and Zombies
Description:	This skill would allow survivors to distinguish infected survivors from the uninfected. Infected survivors' HP would be shown in light green with this skill. Conversely, zombies could use this skill, in the same way that they can currently use diagnosis. Because undead physiology is different from the living, this skill could not be used to diagnose an infection in a zombie. Realism - It makes sense that survivors with a background in medicine (diagnosis) could pick out a survivor suffering from a zombie infection. In movies and literature infected survivors show signs of their impending demise in the form of cold sweats, palid complexion, shaking, etc. Even laypeople can spot a cold in a total stranger. If survivors and zombies can detect a 5HP loss in someone who slipped and fell in a ruined building they should also be able to spot the signature zombie bite and symptoms of an infection with the added experience of having basic diagnosis skills and witnessing their comrades die of infections. Game Balance - Just as Flesh Rot provided zombies with 2 advantages long enjoyed by survivors (Flak Jacket and Body Building), Advanced Diagnosis would provide survivors with the zombie advantage of being able to identify an infectection. Also it's a crossover skill so zombie players can make use of it. Furthermore, it would even out the number of survivor and zombie skills without having to introduce a new gameplay element. Implementation - This would go in the Scientific Skill tree as a 2nd level skill of diagnosis. However since Advanced Diagnosis would make it easier for survivors to heal infections, I could see introducing this new skill coupled with a boost to Infectious Bite, causing a 2HP loss for every 1AP spent.

Discussion (Advanced Diagnosis)

Make it a skill that is REQUIRED to cure infections, and make infections 2HP per AP, and you might get some traction. Sure, its "genre appropriate" that skilled doctors can detect infections, but its similarly appropriate that ONLY skilled doctors can cure them (not any shmoe with a first aid kit) and that they kill yah pretty quick.  Swiers 02:22, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I second Swiers. These are two ideas that have been offered up separately a couple (dozen) times, maybe together they would work. --Zombie Lord 03:22, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Prognosis.--Pesatyel 03:38, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

How about the Swiers combo idea. That a dupe too?--Zombie Lord 04:06, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Hey I kinda like the idea of advanced diagnosis being required to treat infections. Anyone with a FAK could still heal damage, but the infection itself could only be cured by someone with advanced diagnosis. With advanced diagnosis you would get the message - You restore 10HP to JoeJoe, using your medical training to cure the infection. Though maybe the name would have to change if it was used for treating and not just diagnosing. Like Advanced Medicine , dunno --Giles Sednik ^CAPDSWA 15:25, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

By the time you locate somebody who can cure you, you'll have perished... Whether the zombie ran out of AP or you just got revivified, you'll probably have 25 HP or less, meaning that you can take only 13 steps before dying of infection. I think survivors should still be able to recognise and cure their own infections: it's really not difficult. --LaosOman 16:10, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Since when could you NOT cure your own infection? That is the primary reason Infectious Bite is considered "underpowered".--Pesatyel 03:28, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Requiring an additional skill in order to cure infection wouldn't really do much I don't think. It would just make it harder on newbies. If I can't cure myself, I'm screwed until I can find someone who can cure me.--Pesatyel 03:28, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

So let's set aside the notion of a boost to infectious bite (either by doubling the damage or requiring a new skill to treat it). Lets take the suggestion 1 proposition at a time. How do you feel about a new skill called Advanced Diagnosis that would allow survivors to see who is infected? --Giles Sednik ^CAPDSWA 20:16, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Prognosis.--Pesatyel 03:38, 17 March 2009 (UTC)--Pesatyel 02:48, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Advanced Diagnosis sounds good. Just don't make it a requirement for curing infection. --LaosOman 17:25, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

You did a good job outlining this skill. I'm surprised Prognosis wasn't implemented. Admittedly I've enjoyed the guessing game survivors have of predicting which survivors need infections cured, but this skill makes sense. I also like how you suggest it being paired with an update of a more intense infection. --Fiffy 03:39, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

So it seems there is no real objection to the idea of advanced diagnosis as stated? Or perhaps this suggestion has been lost in the clutter? --Giles Sednik ^CAPDSWA 22:12, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

As stated, this is exactly like Prognosis.--Pesatyel 02:40, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe this is exactly like prognosis. For instance, prognosis has the following stipulation, "The maximum HP level of the survivor is also displayed next to their name." Advanced diagnosis does not. Also I've stated that it could not be used to diagnose an infection in a zombie, whereas the prognosis proposal doesn't appear to specify. Furthermore, this skill would be a cross over that zombies could also use, and I see nothing to that effect in the prognosis link you've sited. --Giles Sednik ^CAPDSWA 23:14, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Fine, go for it, but the basic idea is the same and zombies don't NEED another cross over skill when they can already sense infection (and HP) with Scent Blood. And a dupe doesn't have to be EXACTLY like to be a dupe.--Pesatyel 10:02, 29 March 2009 (BST)

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