Suggestion talk:20070820 Searching for XP

Alternate Ideas

Several posters have supported the suggestions goal, but not its method. I figure this is a good place to discuss alternate methods.  Swiers 17:14, 21 August 2007 (BST)

Morgan Blair

I support the suggestion's goal! But not the method. Quite frankly, I'd recently created some Consumer alts, to gather data for the Search Odds, and quickly realized that starting a serious character with this class had no benefit beyond of Role Playing purposes, as their "advantage" is effectively nerfed by the (in my opinion) over-barricading of every Mall. While the Consumer class does require the least XP to max the survivor skill tree, this is not significant enough to impact early gameplay. So I would suggest buffing Shopping in some other way, for example by letting those with the skill enter Malls regardless of the strength of the barricade (but only while alive). --Morgan Blair 15:42, 21 August 2007 (BST)

Hmm, not all bad. The problem I can see is that most "advanced" survivors buy the shopping skill. Which just means that every mall would stay at EHB and also not need any VSB buildings nearby as entry points. Sure, those without shopping would still need the entry points, but really- who goes to a Mall if the do NOT have shopping? BTW, firefighters and cops max out with the same number of XP that consumers do, and are clearly much more potent starting characters.  Swiers 17:14, 21 August 2007 (BST)

Ah, I meant "Civilian". --Morgan Blair 17:26, 21 August 2007 (BST)

Swiers

After looking at the above, here's my idea. Change Malls so that if the barricades are VSB, the success rate to build drops to 0%, just as it normally does for EHB. Yep, that means they couldn't even reach VSB++. Thus, Mall barricades would only have a grand total of 8 levels, rather than the usual 17. To compensate for this, when attacking barricades at a mall, your hit rate would be 50% of what it is vs normal barricades. Build rate %'s in Malls would also be halved, so that if you wanted to build even a loose barricade, it would fail half the time. In effect, malls just have 8 "doubled" levels of barricades, rather than the usual 17 "single" levels.
This almost makes sense when you consider that malls have many large doors and windows (hard to seal up completley) but also have a fairly ample supply (if only as indicated by search rates) of quality items to barricade with- including toolboxes, so that you can nail a barricade in place!
The net effect is that all survivors could enter any mall despite barricades, as they would always be VSB or lower. The barricades would provide effectively the same protection as before- half as many levels, each elvel twice as hard to demolish and build = same protection. This also has the side effect of being a potential kick in the nuts to zergers, as they would be unable to build even a loose barricade when affected by zerg flags.  Swiers 17:14, 21 August 2007 (BST)

Clever, I'll agree, but I still think it falls short of our mutual intended effect, in that, while it eliminates Consumer restriction to Malls, it significantly lowers the potential barrier regardless of character class, and also reduces the value of Free Running for non-Consumers, to some extent. So then what? (see the next heading) --Morgan Blair 17:30, 21 August 2007 (BST)

I think Ild rather allow all folks (or just all folks with shopping, which is the only real difference between the above two ideas) free access to the mall than get into class specific boosts. See the frequently suggested (bad) ideas page for my argument on why class boosts are bad for the game. (Short but technical version- The current system makes "crossing over" from survivor to zombie and vice versa as good as starting that way. Such "crossover" ability is fundamental to the genre, and should never be dis-incentived by granting a bonus that can't be learned after cross-over.)  Swiers 18:49, 21 August 2007 (BST)

Well, I agree with your point, but not the application, as this is not a class "boost", rather, a class-specific perk to a survivor-specific skill. This skill "perk" isn't going to motivate a player to remain a survivor unless Shopping was already enough to do so. Sure, there's still the argument that someone new to the game shouldn't have to make a big decision before they know what it will impact, but they have to do that anyway (and any new player who chooses a Consumer probably has no idea that the likely hood that they'll be able to access a mall early on is slim-to-none). Actually, all this analysis and so-on is making me more inclined to think that, even WITH unrestricted access to malls, Shopping—in my opinion—isn't as advantageous to a new character as at least most of the other classes starting skills. They'd really be better served by Construction, but then they wouldn't be "consumers", would they?

Class specific perk for starting skill

This is a VERY rough concept, so handle with care...

Essentially, every character class would have a unique, class-dependant "perk" related to either their starting skill, one or more of their initial items, or both. The goal would be to equalize the value of each character class in a way that would not have a substantial impact on long-term balance.

First, the Consumer: They start with Shopping, a Mobile Phone, and a random, improvised weapon.

The Perk: Consumer Marketing.

Intent: Consumers would have access to mall search rates outside of the mall, with enough limitations so as not to exceed the advantages of actually shopping at an actual mall.

Effect: For the new character, this perk would mitigate the restrictions on mall access. In the long term, it would give them minor advantage in areas with no malls, or where malls have fallen to zombie attacks.

Mechanics: Well, a simply allowing the Consumer access to the mall as a perk would get nerfed in the long run, as it would be redundant as soon as they learned Free Running. So, how about solving the problem in a different way? Call it Consumer Marketing. The consumer uses their Mobile Phone to send a text message to the local mall's "Outlet Store", picks a department, and then receives an automated reply indicating where that department's "outlet" location is. This location would be a semi-randomly selected non-NT "Building", and the character would receive an item called a "Coupon Code" or something to that effect, with the department type and location indicated. Upon locating and entering this building, the Consumer would have search rates equal to that of a specific store within the mall, by using this special item instead of a standard Search (this item could have a set or semi-random number of uses, deactivate after leaving the building—or be replaced by calling the mall again—or have some other form of limitation, such as the number of items found using it). Normal skill (Bargain Hunting) and building condition modifiers would still apply to search rates (the system would only select un-overbarricaded, lit—or if unavailable, un-ransacked—locations at the time of access). The caller would need to be in a location with active mobile phone service, and would only be able to call malls with at least one block under power (this list would be kept very short, based on character proximity to any given mall), and regardless of the character's location, the "outlet" location designated would be within a specific radius of the particular mall being called. Ack, there needs to be a simpler way to explain this...

Yeah, complex. And whats to say the location given to the consumer won't be heavily barricaded, or ransacked, when they get there? Or that it won't just be to far away to be worth the trouble? Anyhow, this looks a bitch to code for... something simpler (both to explain and implement) is needed.  Swiers 18:40, 21 August 2007 (BST)

Well, if the building gets barricaded or ransacked in the time it takes to get there, it's just odd luck, because (as I described in Mechanics), the system would likely pick a location that is fairly close to the Consumer at the time of use (I didn't state any specifics, 'cause some additional analysis would be required to fine-tune this, so as to be both useful, but not unbalancing). As for coding, well, that's never a barrier to suggestions, per the Guide, and I actually don't think it would be too difficult, as each mall would have a non-variable list of appropriate buildings (essentially, all non-NT "generic" buildings), for which the current status list is easily available, and determining the appropriate mall to use would be simple enough (there's a user-created map that can do "find nearest" searches). But again, this was a rough "first draft". --Morgan Blair 18:53, 21 August 2007 (BST)

Being able to make a phone call to some mysterious entity (in essence an omniscient NPC) and find out where nearby VSB or lower non-ransacked buildings are strikes me as the sort of "solution" that will likely create new problems. At the very least, its a bit unbelievable.  Swiers 22:29, 21 August 2007 (BST)

Not mysterious! It's just automated! But I'd scratch the entire thing, not because I don't think the system would be believable (or functional), rather, it's far too dependent on local conditions, and so doesn't meet the intended purpose of making Consumers starting with Shopping a functional character choice. In fact, after you read this, why don't you go ahead and archive this heading, as further discussion is not going to get us closer to this page's goal... --Morgan Blair 03:47, 22 August 2007 (BST)

Next, coming soon...

--Morgan Blair 18:30, 21 August 2007 (BST)