Talk:Suggestions/18th-Dec-2006

Headshot upkeep

Timestamp:	Whitehouse 22:58, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Type:	Balance change.
Scope:	Survivors with headshot.
Description:	Ok, once you hit max level you begin to gain a lot of extra XP which can't really be used for anything. And because headshot is a an AP draining skill I feel it should have a counterbalance. What I suggest is that once every month, if a player wishes to keep headshot he/she must pay a certain amount of XP as an upkeep (say 500 XP? I dont know what number yet). This is fair as zombies keep losing AP to a bunch of survivors who don't suffer a penalty. Also in terms of realism it does make some sense as a zombie hunter would have to keep practising to keep his skills up and hence the require to gain more XP to pay for the next payment for the upkeep. Well, thats all, flame away, I am simply trying to find a use for all the extra AP and maybe limit the amount of zombie hunters to make a zombies life easier.

Discussion

I don't know. On the one hand, the flavour's good, and headshot is a good choice of skill, since losing it would be no great loss. And it won't drain newbie player's xp, because headshot isn't available to players under level 10.

On the other hand, imagine you're a relatively new player, new enough not to have much xp to play with, and you just bought headshot. Then, you find out that the headshot skill is going to be taken away from you because you don't can't afford to pay the XP upkeep. It'd be very disheartening.

If you made a new skill with an upkeep cost, and everyone knew the cost from day one, I think it would have more support, or alternatively (maybe this is too complicated) you could gradually increase the upkeep cost for headshot, so it doesn't come as a surprise. --Toejam 00:26, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think zombie lives are easy enough as they are. Have you ever heard of Ankle Grab? -Mark 00:52, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Don't touch my XP! I'll spend my XP the way I want to spend it, none of this maitenance crap. Headshot removes Zombie AP because it used to remove their XP. So it should not happen ot humans. No skill should not up any further XP after you've bought it. XP is for BUYING skills, not keeping them Kaylee Hans 03:00, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

No. If your going to argue "realism" (and, no I WON'T get into the tired old "zombies aren't real" crap), then it would "make sense" that a person would have to keep up on ALL their skills, lest they forget them. Headshot is pretty powerful, but so are Ankle Grab, Free Running and Brain Rot. Should THEY have upkeep costs as well? I agree with Toejam in that if a new skill (a powerful one) were introduced WITH an inherent upkeep cost, while I doubt it would make it to Peer Review, it would certainly do better than this idea.--Pesatyel 05:49, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, so far I have had a lot of criticism. And it is good criticism, I can't think of a way to counter it. As pointed out if this was for realism then the other skills should also have an upkeep, at least the powerful ones, the reason I chose headshot was that I felt that it was an unfair skill, the fact that one has to play a while to get it and that I would like some sort of way of lowering the amount of spare XP. But again as pointed out some people would like to keep their XP. I will leave this up for a little longer inhope for some ways of improving it, or ideas for a similar solution that might be mre acceptable. -- Whitehouse 12:09, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

It still takes more AP to kill the zombie though. Headshot's just a minor penalty to make dying marginally worse than not. --Jon Pyre 13:39, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

You're assuming that the AP lost to the zombie is an unfair advantage to the survivor with Headshot. I would argue contrary to that, which is why I'd vote against this suggestion. --Funt Solo 13:40, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Argh... time for me to rant...

When a player who likes playing a human and has all human skills dies, by any means, even murdered by another human, they stand up as a zombie (10 AP). Then they need to find a revive point (using double AP to travel there). Oftentimes the player has to go sign up on a revive list obviously maintained by twelve year olds who think cool websites involve so much animation and music that any computer not bought second hand from the RAND corporation crashes. The unwilling zombie hangs around a cemetary and is very, very vulnerable while standing there Mrh-ing, as wandering ferals attack them, often causing them to spend AP to stand again. They hope that someone has invested the AP into making or finding syringes. They hope that that reviver is willing to blow the 1 AP on scanning them, then the 10 AP on reviving them (waiting for brain rotters in the way to get cleared). The human then spends 10 AP to stand up again (remember this is a human, who likely does not have ankle grab). Then the human has to find their way to a safehouse, often while suffering from an infection, which requires searched FAKs (more AP to search it and use it) to get rid of. That all adds up to many, many, many AP... probably in the neighborhood of 70 or 80 AP, from themselves and fellow survivors. (Plus the lost XP while on this little expedition.) That's what it costs to go from a body about to hit the ground back to the human's preferred class.

Now, if a player who likes playing a zombie and has all zombie skills dies, he spends either 1 or 6 AP, and he is his favored class again.

Yeah, you're right! Those zombies really do get the shaft, we need to make it easier for them right now! --Nosimplehiway 14:14, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Hehe, feel free to rant, I don't mind. I will however point out that zombies have to smash their way through barricades to get to the humans, more that often using all of their AP and only just getting inside. Then they get shot and thrown out, and to add insult to injury they have to use extra AP to stand up. Also 5 AP might seem like nothing but it is actually quite a lot, 10% of a full AP bar. I can think of quite a few suggestions where those extra AP could be usefull. Anyway, zombies are having a hard time, looked at the survivor/zombie ratio lately? It doesn't look to good for the zombies, it sure as hell isn't the apocalypse. But I guess increasing their fun as many have tried is better than just making the game easier for them. Though that is a factor as a game isn't fun unless you get achieve something once in a while. Like getting into a building full of humans with a lot of AP left. --Whitehouse 20:57, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Zombies have ALWAYS had a hard time. That tiny spike when the zombies where dominant was only temporary. Zombies are harder to play. Simple as that. One time, before I picked up Ankle Grab (was actually the last zombie skill I picked up), I got into a live combat. They guy killed me. I stood up fought him some more and died. I STOOD UP AGAIN and nearly killed him (got him down to less then 10 HP and managed to hit with a lot of bites). But the fact I lost 20 AP straight off from the dying did not deter me from almost killing him. But I digress. Nerfing headshot isn't going to make zombies "more fun to play." Making ZOMBIES MORE FUN TO PLAY will, which is an entirely different concept.--Pesatyel 00:30, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Fewer people sign up to be zombies because in the usual zombie genre being dead means you have failed and your existence is now more boring than the movie's lead, who still breathes. They are boring to play because that is what a zombie is. An eternity of mindless rotting and shambling about until you are so rotted you can't even move. Even then you might still be semi-conscious. Think of the various zombie heads that still slaver and shriek from the movies. Does existing as a disembodied head full of mindless rage and insatiable hunger sound like fun? In most of the better zombie films (Shaun, Dawn, etc.) the zombies are a symbol for the way most people go through life anesthetized by their own ennui. Zombies don't talk. Zombies don't dance. Zombies don't feel. Zombies don't make complex plans. Zombies have all the emotion of a lizard. The real tragedy in zombie films is that they don't even care that they don't care. They just exist. A mindless, shambling horde. If playing a zombie is really fun (beyond the joy of sheer combat) then folks aren't playing zombies anymore. Revenants, ghouls, vampires, the hungry dead, I don't know what all. But if it's FUN to be one of them, then they aren't zombies, and they are out of genre. I very, very much appreciate their desire to portray what is essentially a supporting character (it's absolutely vital to the game), but understand, please, in a literary sense, in this genre that is what they are: supporting characters. --Nosimplehiway 04:24, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

WTF? Your saying zombies SHOULDN'T be more fun to play because the movies say they are "supporting characters?" What the HELL are you talking about? While Urban Dead is BASED on standard zombie genre, it ISN'T standard zombie genre. It can't be. This has got to be one of the most retard concepts regarding Urban Dead I have ever read. EVERY thing you mention that zombies SHOULDN'T be doing is exactly what they do in Urban Dead. It's "vital" to the game that half the players not have fun playing their characters? Given your "definition" we should get rid of "player" zombies and replace them with bots. It would be the same thing. And you do realize there ARE other zombie movies besides Romero's, right?--Pesatyel 05:03, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

My point is not that zombies should be those things, necessarily. My point is that the vast majority of folks who sign up to play in a zombie game bring with them the literary baggage of what the stock character "zombie horde" is. You can't make that baggage disapear just by wishing it so. Those new folks will not include in their definition of success "becoming a shambling brainless feral beast". Now, that might not be the creatures represented here, but if they are not, then it needs to be made clear to newcomers that there is more to it than that. Take a look at the numbers of survivor characters versus zombie characters.. not current status, but actual character class... among first level characters (newbies) the ratio of human to zombie is 4646 to 1336. This is a pretty good indication that new players do not perceive zombies as fun to play and have a natural preference for playing survivors, gained from the breadth of zombie media. I believe that once a player develops a pattern for playing they will stick with it (develop brand loyalty), especially among the sort of casual newbie who barely knows this discussion exists. If they begin the game playing humans, they will continue to do so, because that is what their view of the game is. If we want to increase zombie player numbers (and I want to be very, very clear that I think this will help the game, and is a goal of mine) we need to communicate to our newest, most casual players that playing a zombie can be fun, challenging, interesting and sometimes even a silly experience. But you don't do that with infectious bite. A human player stuck playing a zombie for a few days is just an annoyed player who feels like he has lost the game, not a zombie player. A zombie player gets that playing the undead can be fun in this setting. That is what needs to be communicated to the absolute newest people on the very first screen. And no amount of comparing APs or making XP easier to get or fancy advanced zombie skills will achieve that, because their choice is made before they get Nifty New Zombie Skill Number 23. And punishing the players who prefer to play human (as this suggestion does) won't do it either.

As with most pro-zombie suggestions, this one tries to sell the product after the purchase has been made.--Nosimplehiway 05:50, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Skills are the "plateaus of accomplishment" in Urban Dead. They shouldn't be taken away. You buy a skill, it's yours; you shouldn't have to keep paying XP to keep it. Besides, headshot serves a vital function: making death mean something for zombies. I too once saw headshot as nothing more than griefing, but I eventually came to realize that it exists as a balance to ankle grab. Without headshot, death means almost nothing to zombies. What zombie really cares about their HP? What they care about is their AP, because it's when that reaches 0 that they really "lose". --Reaper with no name ^TJ! 19:30, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

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