Agreed about no combat skills. The way you get better at combat is already implemented... you just get better at combat! :P The largest pitfalls of combat are bad positioning and bad timing, skills which are learned simply by playing the game enough, and couldn't be affected by an in game mechanic anyway. Unless you want to put in little markers for where to stand based on enemy position, and a little timer telling you when to poke out and fire based on whether the enemy is likely reloading or not. Which I very much doubt ANYBODY wants!

Quick idea, When a character dies, you should have the option to put a gravestone on the main menu screen behind the current character, or perhaps a separate screen if people would rather have the current slideshow background. Clicking on a gravestone will show the statistics of that character. Players killed, zombies killed, hours survived, what server they were on, etc, etc.

Cool, glad my contribution helped (: Because I really do like the idea. It just needed a less steep risk and reward, as with everything when trying to translate realistic mechanics into fun. The power players who want to make sure they are maxed up at all times can go for it, but you won't be taken all the way back to the beginning if you don't.

Interesting ideas, like others here have already mentioned, I feel this would make maintaining your skill level a bit of a chore. Dailies were very often the worst thing about MMOs like WoW. Dailies in which you actually lose something you have already gained if you don't complete them sounds like a nightmare to me. HOWEVER, a simple solution would be to limit the decay, so that it's not a huge deal if you miss a few days, or a few weeks. If the max is 50, make it decay down to 30, as an example. So once you reach max, its more a matter of keeping the ones you are using at that time maintained, and you can let the others decay knowing that it won't be taking you all the way back down to 0. I think that's pretty reasonable in terms of realism too, I know I have returned to activities after months without practice, and yeah, I'm rusty, but there's a baseline level of skill there which will take a long time to lose.

Really? I think it wouldn't be too bad, you can add ways to break open doors, and people won't crowd the middle of a city because of the amount of players that will constantly be roaming around. I cant imagine anyone doing it in downtown Chern. If people can barricade windows and lock doors, but other players can break down those doors or window barricades with say an axe, then I think the natural self organizing chaos of the whole thing would lead to certain specific instances where it is beneficial. Say you find a cabin in the woods, or a house on the edge of a small town. Or in the example I gave, if you have a group of players willing to work together they could take over a smaller settlement, but boarding up a house in Chern or Elektro would be suicidal.

So I was thinking that something that would go a long way towards making a building really feel like your own would be the ability to board up all the windows, and set up some lanterns/candles inside. Ahaha originally I thought of just the candles but quickly realized how problematic that would be considering how easily your house would be to pick out from the others! Not that boarded up windows wouldn't also give it away from up close. But if something very simple like window boarding or towel/blanket blinds of some kind combined with the ability to set up your own permanent or semi permanent light sources inside of buildings could have a really big impact on gameplay. Groups of people could take over entire small towns and convert them into strongholds with buildings that actually feel lived in and resettled. Combined with locks on doors and all sorts of traps and barricades already in the game. Or one lone wolf could take a home or barn in a remote village instead of having to build their own base from scratch in the wilderness.

Basically, the ability to "sprint" while crawling. Which would have the same amount of noise generation as crouch running, lessening its value in sneaking past infected, but would be of great benefit in a fight with a player/being pinned down by snipers. A sort of shambling across the ground on all fours as low to the ground as possible, to be used when dodging sniper fire and getting past low cover.

Just a quick idea that just popped into my head. Mind you I haven't really thought of the implications but I imagined I should make a topic just to get the discussion going. When player infection is added, there should be a tiny, tiny chance of being immune to the infection when creating a new character. Just to add a little bit more rogue-like randomness to the game. Perhaps even blood transfusions from a player with the immunity to others of the same blood type could transfer it to their friends? O Negatives could sell their bloodbags for a hefty price. Just a thought.