Suggestion:20070606 Veteran AP Reward/Incentive

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20070606 Veteran AP Reward/Incentive

DonTickles 18:00, 6 June 2007 (BST)

Suggestion type
New Skill(s)

Suggestion scope
Veteran Players

Suggestion description
Kevan states 'There may eventually be character skills which modify the maximum AP and its recharge rate, but the basic starting-character settings will remain the same.'

There is currently only one thing I know of keeping veteran players playing UD. That is the meta game. I suggest rewarding those that have stuck with UD long enough to amass a lot of XP by giving them an in game incentive. A new skill "tree" would be added that can be accessed by both humans and zombies. By spending 1000XP you will gain 1 additional AP to use, at which time an additional skill appears mirroring the first, to a maximum of 50. Technically speaking it would be 50 levels of one skill, but can be implemented in any way deemed fit. I have yet to see anyone reach 50,000XP, so such an accomplishment would be quite rare and deserves a reward. As both humans and zombies can access this it will not effect game balance much. In fact, even with the maximum of 50 extra AP an individual only works with the efficiency of 2 characters, not a big deal in the grand scheme of the game. Considering that there are currently only a small handful of active players that have even reached 20,000XP it works out perfectly. It gives everyone something to look forward to, to work towards, something for which we are currently lacking in this game. As a technical note this would be available to everyone at level 1, but would probably not be used until a player had maxed their chosen survivor or zombie skill trees due to the 1000XP cost.

As an example, one of my characters currently has 2000+ spare XP. I spend it on AP upgrade level 1 and AP upgrade level 2. I wait 25 hours. I now have 52 AP. AP regen rates would adjust slightly so max AP is reached in 25 hours, just as it is now.

I understand that everyone is hesitant to mess with AP at all, but I personally believe this is so underpowered and fair to everyone that it can be an effective reward for long time veterans and newly maxed players as well.

Voting Section

Voting Rules

Votes must be numbered, justified, signed, and timestamped. # justification ~~~~ Votes that do not conform to the above may be struck by any user.

The only valid votes are Keep, Kill, Spam or Dupe. If you wish to abstain from voting, do not vote.

Keep Votes

1. Keep Thats a great idea, it most certainly should pass peer review! I'm glad you thought of it! --DonTickles 18:04, 6 June 2007 (BST)
2. Keep -- Murray Jay Suskind 18:19, 6 June 2007 (BST)
3. Keep/Change - Sounds good execept the AP cap should be 70 or so...100 is just way too much. --Hhal 18:57, 6 June 2007 (BST)

   The reason I picked 50(100 total) is to give people something to work for continuously. It will literally take a normal player years to collect 50,000XP. Isn't that worth the efficiency of two characters? We can certainly scale it down if that is what is agreed upon, it is just my opinion that 50 works the best to provide players something to look forward to for a long time to come without making anyone completely overpowering. --DonTickles 19:20, 6 June 2007 (BST)

4. Keep -- Almost balanced, but not sure how not. So I like it, I suppose it is balanced ENOUGH, And it compensates for the major problems of the other AP modifying suggestions too... --Lord Evans 21:21, 6 June 2007 (BST)
5. Keep - That is a lot of experience. --karek 22:47, 6 June 2007 (BST)
6. Keep - Seriously, lets say there are 5 people per suburb who have this (probably an overestimation). Now, for various reasons- inventory, real-time, etc.- people with maxed AP will be slightly less effective than two people, so the effects will be basically like about 4.5 maxed out characters entering your suburb, which isn't even as much as it sounds because the veterans on either side will mostly cancel each other out. Sure they'll be awsome from their P.O.V. but do you think the newbs, even, like, consumers who haven't even picked up any extra items yet, will even notice, apart from "since your last turn" messages which really don't effect them? c'mon... --AlexanderRM 23:08, 6 June 2007 (BST)
7. Keep - I like it. --Nikitis 00:06, 7 June 2007 (BST)
8. Keep - Love the idea. It's balanced, because AP is universal and helps zeds and survivors. And it doesn't affect newbies at all- PKers will have a VERY hard time at half XP benefiting much, and zeds don't care about death. --Leeksoup 06:08, 7 June 2007 (BST)
9. Change - there are concerns, thaat Seventythree enlightened on disscussion page, and it would be good to cap the maximum APs that may be given at 5 or 10. Other than this, it's a good suggestion --Duke Garland_T^{LCD SSZ} 08:56, 7 June 2007 (BST)
10. Change - Yeah s much smaller cap seems more reasonable. Imagine a survivor walks outside during a siege with 100 ap (did I read everything right?) and annihilates half the damn zombie army. That much of an AP increase would give that player way too big of an advantage. A dǝǝɥs oʇ ɯɐds: sʎɐʍ1ɐ! 09:29, 7 June 2007 (BST)
11. Keep/Change - I think AP recharge should stay the same. 1AP/half hour. Otherwise it's too confusing for some people that like to know exactly when they're going to regain one more AP. I also agree with some of the others that want a smaller cap. Otherwise I like this idea a lot. --Porcelina 17:15, 7 June 2007 (BST)
12. Keep - I doubt anyone has the exp to make this overpowered. --Ropponmatsu 17:23, 7 June 2007 (BST)
13. Keep - I like. Blinkin the Gremlin _{RRF AU10 T} ^{RR GC} 18:01, 7 June 2007 (BST)
14. Change Same as above. --Casthewiz-- 18:22, 7 June 2007 BST
15. Keep - I was going to vote against this at first, due to the accelerated AP regen. However reading your response to the Spam vote by ShadowScope, I'm now for it. Maybe you should include some of that argument in your suggestion! I actually like the idea of having some super-zeds and survivors around. armareum 06:09, 8 June 2007 (BST)
16. Keepish - Not that this specific implementation is my fave, but it really would not do harm. The worst that could ever happen is somebody who earns 50,000 xp is now as effective as TWO maxed out characters. Whoopie. How hard is it to get two characters to co-operate, really? I do however suspect that increasing max AP only would be much easier to program than increasing the re-charge rate on a constantly sliding basis; right now, everybody gains an AP at the same time, probably set up as a cronjob. Adjusting that so certain individuals can get an AP every 27.27 minutes (which is required for folks who buy 5 levels of this) and all sorts of other values would (that I can see) be a bloody nightmare.
    Maybe it could be modified so there is a 2% chance per level of the "skill" that you regain 1 extra AP at a given 30 minutes "AP refresh" (for a total of 2 AP) instead of just getting the normal 1 AP per 30 minutes (which you would always get, regardless). That would mean (on average) you always would recharge fully in 50 hours, whether you had 1 level of the "skill" or 50. --Seb_Wiers Imagine 14:25, 12 June 2007 (BST)
17. Keep - I could use this..... well.... my main could.... --Bruce Torbaron 01:57, 20 June 2007 (BST)
18. Keep/Change Individual refreshing rates will sooner or later cripple the server, either we just expand the ap depot which would lower the significance of this skill and works to people being more absent OR you got additional AP per turn. Then it would make sense to make one skill expanding AP by lets say 5 or 10 and have additional regenerate times each hour (every 10 or 5 rounds). The rest is okay. I have played for 1 1/2 years now and would only gain 11 extra AP. With a max of 60 its okay. Still i dont see how this will keep newbies from playing. Its not that people except tranchcoaters rip of kills. We have more revives, healing and dragging (more chances to XP) Are UD players so anti-social?.--Zawa o' Draugr 19:22, 20 June 2007 (BST)

Kill Votes

1. Change Keep the normal AP recharge rate. Otherwise, great idea! The best AP boosting idea I've heard yet! --Secruss 21:58, 6 June 2007 (BST)
2. Kill - as much as I like this type of idea, this isn't the way to go. 100 AP is absurd, even 60 AP is pushing it. If you really wanted to go with some sort of AP improvement. I've always thought adding useless, but still neat things for high level would be ok. e.g. a bit more characters allowed in profile, special clothes etc. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 19:39, 6 June 2007 (BST)

   To each their own, but there are currently less than .7% of the original 888,673 registered users playing maxed out characters. For a game thats been around for 2 years where it takes 4 - 6 months average to max, that's pretty sad to me. It tells me that people get bored and leave when they have played a maxed character for a while. New clothes were fun for about 20 minutes, but that kind of stuff doesn't keep people coming back. Something needs to be done to keep veterans interested or they'll just keep leaving in droves. --DonTickles 20:23, 6 June 2007 (BST)

   The problem is, with 100 AP, I can find an arsenal of weapons and kill at the most, 4 zombies in the same day. Thats incredible. Now if you got a small group of about 3 together, all with inflated AP (doesn't necessarily have to be 100) imagine the possibilities. You could scoop out a hospital in one go! --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 20:47, 6 June 2007 (BST)

   Back before inventory restrictions were tightened it was a regular sight to see a survivor take down 3 and sometimes 4 zombies in one go. Having that much AP would certainly help people do this again, but the inventory restrictions are still there preventing ridiculous attacks from happening. In my opinion, if you've been around long enough, and contributed so much time to your character that you've gained 50,000XP, more power to you. You can headshot me and my 3 friends and I won't complain. You've earned it. --DonTickles 21:15, 6 June 2007 (BST)

   Sorry for the double post, edited above math to correct for decimal place in my reply. Changes are bold. --DonTickles 21:31, 6 June 2007 (BST)

   Alright, lets go to the talk page before a cranky moderator sees this. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 22:40, 6 June 2007 (BST)

3. Kill - 100 AP? That's more than enough to break into an extremely heavily barricaded building. Combine that with feeding groan and you have some sort of zombie commando.--Bluish wolf 20:02, 6 June 2007 (BST)

   True, but you also have veteran survivors there to even it out. It takes an average of 68 AP to break down EHB buildings. With the current state of the game you find the majority of buildings at EHB. Feral zombies are left out in this game right now and it's no fun at all to play one, beginner or veteran. Why shouldn't a zombie be able to break in once in a while without meta gaming? It's a Zombie Apocalypse Game! Where's the apocalypse at? This also only changes things for a small portion of Maltons population on both sides. Rare may not equal balance, but in this case it helps. --DonTickles 20:23, 6 June 2007 (BST)

4. Kill You make good points, the suggestion itself is well thought out with major points of dispute worked through. However, the reason that I must, unfortunately vote kill on this is that the boost given to some of the veteren survivors wil make it harder than it is now (which is pretty damn hard) for a brand new player to get past the learning curve.--Seventythree 20:43, 6 June 2007 (BST)

   I'm not sure I follow. You're saying it'll make it harder for new zombie players? It certainly would if there is a high volume of veteran survivors in one spot. However most of the time that happens there is an opposing force of veteran zombie players to counteract it. I think if you war game various common situations in your head you will find little difference in most areas of the game with this update. I ask that you please think about it. Let me know if you have some specific situations that I may not have thought about that need to be addressed. --DonTickles 21:06, 6 June 2007 (BST)

   Of course. The concerns I have are a bit lengthy to go into here, so I am opening up the discussion section of this page.--Seventythree 22:09, 6 June 2007 (BST)

5. Kill I agree with seventythree. In neverending games, newbies can easily quit in disgust, since they will allways be second to the players who were active form day one. UD has a potential to catch the super-über-veterans; namely that there's a limit to how cool you can be. Don't change that! - BzAli 21:34, 6 June 2007 (BST)

   So you would prefer to trade newbies for veterans. Thats understandable, even admirable. Maybe there is a middle ground that can help retention of both. --DonTickles 21:55, 6 June 2007 (BST)

6. Kill - first your argument of active users vrs total accounts is silly, Most people make an account and decide that the game isn't for them. second users have multiple accounts. I've started about 10 myself. Third, the most cited reason for leaving the game is boredom. This suggestion would solve nothing as it doesn't introduce any new mechanic. The reason why I vote against is that the AP recharge rate shouldn't be linked to the AP limit. One or the other is powerfull enough.-- Vista  +1  13:15, 7 June 2007 (BST)
7. Kill - Too powerful, and the more extra AP you've bought, the faster you can buy your way up to 100! I admit I would enjoy having extra AP to use, but think about how much you can accomplish with just 25 extra AP. This is crazy talk. --Uncle Bill 19:09, 7 June 2007 (BST)
8. Kill - Rare doesn't mean balanced, costly doesn't mean balanced. And what happens to a scientist that has a lot more of time playing that a combat oriented guy, but yet he hasn't so many thousands XP because his style of playing? Shame on all those that voted keep only thinking on personal gain. You hear me? Shame on you!! --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 03:23, 10 June 2007 (BST)
9. Kill - Expensive doesn't mean balanced. 100AP max? I say 60AP max, but even that is pushing it a little. And I also think recharge rates should remain the same. Oh, and lower the price to around 500XP. --Anotherpongo 18:11, 15 June 2007 (BST)
10. Kill/Change - Don't mess with the recharge rates. Storing more AP is fine, but letting people get AP faster is not. --Saluton 02:57, 19 June 2007 (BST)

Spam/Dupe Votes

1. Spam because the AP rates adjust slightly so that you get full AP within 25 hours, wheter it is 50 AP, 70 AP or 100 AP. This turns Trenchcoaters into Super-Trenchcoaters, and Zombies into Mega-Powerful Zeds who can tear through buildings. Rare does not exactly equal balance. Now, this can be fun. This will be fun. Of course, it would also ruin the game. Change it to have AP recharge rates stay the same, and change it so that the skill cost 100 XP rather than 1000 XP (why bother messing with how much XP one skill cost...it cost 100 XP per skill, why should this be different), and you got yourself a Keep. Still, there are lots of other better AP skills, both in Peer Rejected and Peer Reviewed.--ShadowScope 19:23, 6 June 2007 (BST)

   I think you overestimate the effect this would have on the game. Given 100XP per 1AP skill it very well may ruin the game. When the game is broken down to numbers this is a game of AP, so the adding of additional AP must be given out carefully. That is why we should charge 1000XP per 1 AP. "Rare does not equal balance" but this is not balanced because it is rare, it is balanced because it is available to everyone in small quantities over a long period of time of hard work. It is balanced because a super trenchcoater can still only carry so much ammunition. It is balanced because a super zombie still has to break through barricades. A lone zombie breaking down VS cades rarely has enough ap now to do more than infect one inhabitant. Now a player that has spent 2 years playing that character can break down VS cades and might just kill someone. A super mall defender is balanced when watching the cades because there is still an IP/charater hit limit. I can go on and on about balance. This is an attempt to reward veterans and give them something to look forward to in game. It's not a question of being rare, it's a question of rewarding hard work and loyalty to the game. This is not a rocket launcher that you can only get at an armory with a 1% search probability. Now making the change to be a simple up in AP max without a regen increase would work, but wouldn't really be an attractive thing to spend 1000 XP on. I only get extra AP if I take a day off? That's kinda crappy if you ask me --DonTickles 19:55, 6 June 2007 (BST)

2. Spending extra XP for an AP is bad in my books. Really, I perfer to see those extra XP be used to buy skills that increases your level by 1, but that has been suggested before, and is in undecided... --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 23:08, 6 June 2007 (BST)
3. Spam - XP for AP is not a good idea, especially, when you can buy 50 additional AP! Also, as ShadowScope said, I don't think we need super soldiers/zeds running around. --Sonofagun18 08:32, 7 June 2007 (BST)
4. Spam - Rare =! Balanced. Deal with it. --Saluton 14:39, 7 June 2007 (BST)