Medical treatment overhaul ideas (with illustration).

[LeoIvanov]

I seriously need to consider doing anything productive at times when I'm sleep deprived... For the past several months I've been dropping awesome ideas only when I was sleep deprived... Back to the point.

 

Medical treatment overhaul. Now I know that developers of the game have mentioned that they will be working on it, and that it will see it's light sometime soon. What I wanted to share were the ideas that stuck in my head and that I couldn't just keep to myself. Let's get it started.

 

- Wounds. Instead of our usual "Scratches", "Bites" and... "Wounds" (That seem to exist in the code but never implemented properly into the main game), now we can have a whole new variety of wounds :

 

Scratches, Human bites (Both from zombies and ACTUAL humans!), bruises, fractures, burns, dismemberment, concussions, splits.

 

- Severity of Wounds. EACH type of wound has a severity tied to it, depending on the strength of incoming attack :

Minor, Moderate, Severe, Lethal. 

 

 

Each open wound that has the blood rushing out of it has chance to get infected. The chance increases over time if the wound isn't bandaged, or bandaged with old/unprofessional bandages. To clean/disinfect the wound you need to pour some type of alcohol on the wound. Pouring the alcohol on the open wound launches the "Pain" moodle up. The more severe the wound, the harder the pain moodle shoots up.

 

- If the wound isn't properly treated and cleaned for a long period of time, it becomes "infected", at a later state turning into "rotting". When a wound reaches the "infected" state, you could still clean it out with a proper procedure, but a case is considered lost when your wound starts rotting. The only possible way to avoid dying from a rotting wound is a dismemberment of a wounded body part. 

 

- if the "pain" moodlet rises to the critical stage, a character has a chance to fall unconscious (treated as "sleep" on the spot), with potentially dying from your untreated wounds and/or lurking zombies over a period of time. So make sure you give your buddy painkillers before disinfecting their wounds.

 

- New skill opens up. "Medicine", with proper skill books and a new starting profession of a "medic". At low medic levels you get a negative multiplier to every medical treatment that you perform on yourself or your friends. For example, if you try to disinfect the wound with medicine level 0, your pain, instead of rising by +150 points, will rise up by +300. Or, if you bandage your wound with unclean bandages, you get a much higher chance of catching infection. If using clean, medical bandages, you still get a very small chance to get the infection, which dissapears completely once you reach higher medicine levels. Depending on your "medicine" level, you can reach different conclusions on how to treat your wound as shown on screenshot above. On low levels of medicine your "conclusion" to a moderate burn would be to apply cold water. On higher medicine levels you'd be able to craft an oil from nearby fauna/food supplies to apply to the burn, which will deal with the burn much faster. Also medical buildings can now spawn various disinfectants, sprays, etc to take care of your wounds.

 

- Basically, more medical items: Bandages, sprays, disinfectants, much more variety of pills (strong painkillers (For medical anesthesy), weak painkillers (from headaches and migrains)), all that jazz.

 

- Have a negative effect on gameplay when a particular body part is damaged : Slower movement speed if your legs are wounded. Decrease in effectiveness of melee weapons if your hands/arms are wounded, up to the point of inability of EQUIPPING items if the wounds are severe. Much quicker tiring out when chest or stomach are damaged. Lower visibility, strength, speed and coordination when head is damaged.

 

- Not directly related to medical system, but have an ability to target certain body spots or have a "random" hit detection, the same way it works right now. So basically - if you set your hits to direct "head", you have a smaller chance of hitting/pushing the zombie away/down, but a much bigger chance of critical strike/complete miss. Hitting zombie's hands decreases their chance of scratching you. Their legs to decrease their speed. Body to increase chance of knockback. 

 

When you fight humans - target head for increased chance of knocking the opponent out, crippling/heavily damaging them. Target legs to slow their movement. Target hands for a chance of them dropping their weapons. Target chest to knock the air out of their lungs, tiring them out. Target groin for a good critical strike with a chance of sending your opponent in high pain, probably dropping their weapons aswell. (Crits only work on males though.)

 

Targeting neck in a human vs human encounter is as valuable as targeting the head, since a little blunt hit to it and a fracture with a "severe" status, and the opponent is pretty much dead.. Not only will it knock the air out of them, it will also send them staggering on the ground gasping for air, unable to fight.

 

- Just like I briefly mentioned earlier - ability to craft medical items from flora, leaves, food and other stuff. The higher the medical knowledge, the more useful things you can create.

 

This is probably as much as I could think of right now, since the sleep deprivation is finally getting to me. Tell me what you guys think of these ideas.

[migulao]

Overall, I like it, but:

 

-there is already a wound stat: minor, normal, severe, critical.

 

-I think in the lore the game is following the zombie virus can only infect via saliva or blood contact.

 

-Amputation, already suggested http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/192-commonly-suggested-suggestions-read-before-posting-unofficial/

 

-Agony makes you unconcious, I'm in a weird position with this, because you can't go to sleep with agony, but you can fall unconcious? It's kinda hard to find a place where this fits.

 

-Medicine skill, love it! I say the medic profession should have a lower chance of the wound getting infected, and alcohol causing less pain, but I don't like starting already with a skillpoint in medicine  (I know you didn't say that, I was just saying what I think).

 

-Debuff related to wounds, already stated in a mondoid, you should keep up with current events, it's quite fun reading them.

 

-Limb targeting. why would you target anything else other than the head? blowing a hole in their chest wont stop them, taking their arms off wont stop them, even if you completely disemember them, they will still crawl towards you, plus, it's way easier to just cut through the brain. Also, how could you possibly miss with a melee weapon? the zombie is literally taking up most of your vision, it's hard NOT to hit them.

 

-Make medicine, level 3 medicine, that's all I have to say.

 

 

Here's a suggestion, write the suggestion while you are deprived of sleep, but go to bed afterwards and polish them more during the day. *thumbs up* 

 

Also, a human biting? I doubt anyone would do that, especially in the neck, ''Project Vampoid''

[LeoIvanov]

Overall, I like it, but:

 

-there is already a wound stat: minor, normal, severe, critical.

 

-I think in the lore the game is following the zombie virus can only infect via saliva or blood contact.

 

-Amputation, already suggested http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/192-commonly-suggested-suggestions-read-before-posting-unofficial/

 

-Agony makes you unconcious, I'm in a weird position with this, because you can't go to sleep with agony, but you can fall unconcious? It's kinda hard to find a place where this fits.

 

-Medicine skill, love it! I say the medic profession should have a lower chance of the wound getting infected, and alcohol causing less pain, but I don't like starting already with a skillpoint in medicine  (I know you didn't say that, I was just saying what I think).

 

-Debuff related to wounds, already stated in a mondoid, you should keep up with current events, it's quite fun reading them.

 

-Limb targeting. why would you target anything else other than the head? blowing a hole in their chest wont stop them, taking their arms off wont stop them, even if you completely disemember them, they will still crawl towards you, plus, it's way easier to just cut through the brain. Also, how could you possibly miss with a melee weapon? the zombie is literally taking up most of your vision, it's hard NOT to hit them.

 

-Make medicine, level 3 medicine, that's all I have to say.

 

 

Here's a suggestion, write the suggestion while you are deprived of sleep, but go to bed afterwards and polish them more during the day. *thumbs up* 

 

- The "wound stat" applies to your whole body status in general. Right now it is dependant on amount of damage + wounds you have on your body, and your health. What I'm suggesting is adding a stat to each WOUND Like a "Severe Bite, Moderate Bite" instead of just "bite".

 

- As much as I know that in the lore infection goes through saliva contact, I gotta say that there are a lot more ways a wound can get infected with beside the "zombie infection". Try to cut your arm and then rub it in the ground, see if it's any different in a week (Don't.. actually do that)

 

- I know that amputation is suggested, I just blended it along with other wound stats, because I mentioned it later as a backup plan when your wound starts rotting because of lack of treatment.

 

- When you are in extreme pain, just "going to sleep" isn't working, because you can't go to sleep with pain. However, extreme and sudden agony WILL make you loose consciousness and black out from the shock.

 

- As I said, I'm sleep deprived, I don't exactly remember much of what I've read in the latest mondoid. Plus, as I've warned in the beginning, I know that they've mentioned doing the medical revamp, all of this is just a merely my idea that I've spit out while the sudden rush of creativity got me. It was just flowing out of me and I had to keep up with writing what was on my mind at the time

 

- Limp targeting - mainly for human vs human melee. But in the human vs zombie case - hitting a head gives you a chance to miss. When you panic and attempt to place a hit on a zombie that's lunging towards you, it's pretty easy to miss if you SPECIFICALLY target the head Much easier to sling at it's knees, make it fall down and then bash it's brains while it's on the ground, than taking risks trying to hit the head and get bitten in the elbow before you could recover.

 

- As of "medicine", starting out with "plus one skill" is mainly for "medic" profession Just like with recently added marksmanship and the new difficulty of aiming, starting out as policeman makes it much easier to level up your aiming, while shooting with complete ZERO knowledge makes you miss a ton of shots I came up with "medic" idea purely pushing from that.

 

As of the last suggestion, I guess that can work out. The problem is when I'm fully awake I'm lazy to do anything productive majority of the time, so if I was to do what you suggested me to do, it'd probably lay among a full folder of other text files that I can't get my hands on finishing off, forgotten.

[migulao]

 

 

As of the last suggestion, I guess that can work out. The problem is when I'm fully awake I'm lazy to do anything productive majority of the time, so if I was to do what you suggested me to do, it'd probably lay among a full folder of other text files that I can't get my hands on finishing off, forgotten.

 

Lol, we are not so diferent then 

[LeoIvanov]

 

 

Also, a human biting? I doubt anyone would do that, especially in the neck, ''Project Vampoid''

 

 

Spoiler from 4th season of TWD (TV show).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNzgDgdmRK4

[migulao]

I will make no comments.

[Footmuffin]

This is a really great outline, Leo, especially that illustration! I do have a couple of nuances and additional details I think would be constructive to discuss, though.

Perhaps text- or elective-audio-represented expressions of pain like whimpering, crying, screaming, etc. when hurt could further tie survivors into the rest of the world? Survivors currently take pain totally mute, and I think it would suit the gameplay if when someone got hit during a fight a chat alert would pop up with an "Aaghk!," "Shit!," or "Oof!" somewhere so they further discourage fights and give everyone interested somewhere to go help if their friend is getting (b)eaten.

And before somebody who understands the nature of backyard-amputations better than me tries to address it, amputation should come just after a last resort. I would probably try to take my chances holding a festering wound on my arm instead of having Bob from down the street hack it off, after thinking about the chances of surviving the blood loss, shock, further infections attacking my weakened immune system, and injury from poorly managed bone exposure. Maybe still available as a dead-end option for panicking, under-informed survivors with sharp tools and saws?

I would also love to see the option to bite other survivors as well. Maybe if in very close, unarmed or bladed combat with safety off, there could be a scuffle-y scene, (separate from controlled brawling in any iterations,) with more severe wounds and actions like bit, stabbed, slashed, or contused (by opponent or world.) From contused, players also risk fractures and splits, and even potentially permanent head injuries if the head is struck.

[ElBugbeeto]

 I like it. I'm not sure how easy a targeting system would be; it would have to be able to target one zombie in a specific body part and also be able to target a mob of zombies. Maybe just having an increased crii chance that would simulate a headshot? But as to implementing more specifics, like damaging the legs, seems tricky for this game right now.

 

.I know people get defensive about posting ideas that already have threads, but this thread wasn't just about amputation or just about wounds. It was a medical overhaul thread that included the previously mentioned topics. Excluding those ideas just because they've been discussed before would have left detracted from his overall point. To paint a full picture he needed to mention these ideas to be mentioned, as well. That and trying to find old threads can be difficult (although the mandoids are quite easily accessible).

 

I also like the idea of biting people; that's something I haven't seen yet in terms of biting someone BEFORE you turn. I think that's a unique and unexplored means of transmission and would certainly make trust that much more of a commodity.

[raymond]

I have a few things to say:

- For antiseptics, there should be more than just alcohol, like hydrogen peroxide, soap, medical spirit solutions/ different chemicals or even spices or vinegar (not sure if it'd do much for wound desinfection, but it's how they used to keep things fresh)

-I think shooting a person in places like solar plexus would IRL at least knock them out of the fight, eventually kill them. So, to make the game more realistic, they'd have to make bodyshots almost always fatal, for rare exception, be it a quick death or a slow painful one.(Edit: not sure if there's a reason to implement a heavy medical system, which would include things like treating a pneumothorax with plastic bags, falling out bowels with wet dish towels, or other torso injuries, but that'd be educational for gamer guys like me out there )))) )

-I'd also mention, there are vein, capillary and artery bleedigs, so you can have bandages to stop the first two, but you MUST HAVE a tourniquet to deal with the third. And if it's a neck injury with artery, you're 90% dead unless you're lucky and apply the tourniquet properly.

-Still, those are some facts from first aid studies, which do not require high medical education, so I think it should have some perk books including first aid to help you deal with such thing ingame.

That's it, hope I wasn't too much of a drag

P.S. Это вы перевели игру, Лео? )))))))

[Serrate Bloodrage]

I ask you all to pretty please NEVER apply a torniquet to your neck. Anyone who offers to do that for you just wants to see you dead.

Arterial haemmorhage can be controlled by a correctly applied torniquet, however, a combine should be the first thing you try.

Im really enjoying peoples enthusiasm in this thread!

[raymond]

It's not like you have to tighten the tourniquet on your neck lol, you'd just choke. I was taught that if you have a bleeding on the side of the neck, you can rise and bend your arm, and apply it that way so it stays around the bleeding side and the arm. It's really tiring for some people to hold their arm like that for a long time, but personally I wouldn't mind tireness in that situation

Btw, could you tell me about the combine?

[Serrate Bloodrage]

A combine dressing is a cotton pad that is used to control haemorrhage.

The military version is often called a 'shell dressing' (contains no actual shells). The most common shell dressing used today is called the Israeli Battle Dressing, which is by far, superior to anything that has come before it.

Im moving houses at the moment, however, once Im settled in Ill endeavour to make a short video to show their use/application.

Atleast this hotel has free wifi

[LeoIvanov]

I have a few things to say:

- For antiseptics, there should be more than just alcohol, like hydrogen peroxide, soap, medical spirit solutions/ different chemicals or even spices or vinegar (not sure if it'd do much for wound desinfection, but it's how they used to keep things fresh)

-I think shooting a person in places like solar plexus would IRL at least knock them out of the fight, eventually kill them. So, to make the game more realistic, they'd have to make bodyshots almost always fatal, for rare exception, be it a quick death or a slow painful one.(Edit: not sure if there's a reason to implement a heavy medical system, which would include things like treating a pneumothorax with plastic bags, falling out bowels with wet dish towels, or other torso injuries, but that'd be educational for gamer guys like me out there )))) )

-I'd also mention, there are vein, capillary and artery bleedigs, so you can have bandages to stop the first two, but you MUST HAVE a tourniquet to deal with the third. And if it's a neck injury with artery, you're 90% dead unless you're lucky and apply the tourniquet properly.

-Still, those are some facts from first aid studies, which do not require high medical education, so I think it should have some perk books including first aid to help you deal with such thing ingame.

That's it, hope I wasn't too much of a drag

P.S. Это вы перевели игру, Лео? )))))))

 

- For sure! Cleaning Alcohol was the only thing on my mind at the time of writing this post. (Nothing to do with me being Russian )

 

- Yeah, getting shot is never as easy taken as most videogames show us. The problem with it is that if the game was to follow realism this closely, multiplayer shootouts would not be fun, taking in consideration the game's graphics style and engine. All you'd need is literally 2 bullets in a gun to deal with a person, person who have probably spent IRL days gathering his stuff.. (Imagine Arma 2's DayZ with ACE/ACRE mod on Project Zomboid engine.... Yeah). But nerfing down + implementing body-part specific target shooting along with this new medical system should add some fuel to the fire and make shootouts more interesting to deal with (and  some more ways to die). Everything should be balanced so it isn't EXTREMELY complicated to play I've learnt my ways with previous suggestions and how over-complicated they were.

 

- Yep. As I said, stages of bleeding. In your example the bleeding may aswell take the last stage - critical/fatal bleeding. In that case in my illustration above (given you have enough medical knowledge) you'd be adviced to use splint immediately.

 

- And Yep again. Skill books I think I've mentioned above. The higher level you are in medicine skill, the better you are at taking care of the injuries. As long as it's not overly complicated and can be simplified for a regular person to be able to understand it, I'm all for it.

 

Да. С незаменимой и ОЧЕНЬ полезной помощью моих напарников по переводу. )) http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/1401-russian-translation/

[doucheasarus]

I would argue that in most cases there is no reason NOT to apply a tourniquet first. It immediately controls blood loss, and you can then apply an Israeli dressing or whatever else you like at your leisure. 

[Serrate Bloodrage]

I would argue that in most cases there is no reason NOT to apply a tourniquet first. It immediately controls blood loss, and you can then apply an Israeli dressing or whatever else you like at your leisure.

I thoroughly agree with you that a torniquet applied to a limb for initial control of catastophic haemorrhage is the best course of action.

There is figures showing that it IS the best thing to do, based off of the use of the CAT. I will mention though that there is also significant numbers of surgical limb removal from people applying makeshift torniquet's

[doucheasarus]

 

I would argue that in most cases there is no reason NOT to apply a tourniquet first. It immediately controls blood loss, and you can then apply an Israeli dressing or whatever else you like at your leisure.

I thoroughly agree with you that a torniquet applied to a limb for initial control of catastophic haemorrhage is the best course of action.

There is figures showing that it IS the best thing to do, based off of the use of the CAT. I will mention though that there is also significant numbers of surgical limb removal from people applying makeshift torniquet's

 

I think this would play excellently into the game. At level 1 medicine your (homemade) tourniquet's have a 40% of doing more harm than good, diminishing to something like 3% at level 5.