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Anxiety, Depression... Here they come.


Hilrof

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Hey guys ! I got a suggestion for you, so thanks for reading and give feedback, every idea need improvement !

 

Every time i play, i always notice as the character go through the apocalypse so ... Serenely. I mean, if the average Joe get in this situation, we always know that every day will be stressfull, fill with dark minds and horror visions.

 

That why i think that every day could be a malus depression. It will make the depression a thing you must fight every day. Not a huge malus, something like -5 or -10 per day, but wich make the depression distinct after a week without anything your character like. Eating a chocolate bar will make you feel better, but three or four days later, it will come back...

 

I really like to see the moral system improve, because actually it have no effect at all on our survivors life.

 

Give me feedback, i like to know what you think about !

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It is not exactly working in a way you suggested, but this mechanic is somewhat already in the game, if only slightly indirect. At the beginning when you start up everything is fresh and bearable, but if you manage to survive for at least a month with electricity and water dead, the boredom and depression get to you through having to eat older foods and I'm not 100% sure if it is the case, but the older the world you are in, the more like the world is to respawn rotten food as well, so longer you go along, the more effort you need to put into getting satisfying food.

 

Furthermore, honestly I think the depression would settle in only the first few weeks of survival, even an average person will adapt and get used to very stressful and depressing environment (people will simply stop giving a f*** about bashing a used-to-be-person's brains out all over the wall).

 

I mean in one of my survival maps my survivor made it so far 3 months and massacred 1500 zeds, so honestly I think she reached a zombie-hunter status, can walk up to a zed and splatter it all over the road instead of running away hiding and crying.

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Yeah, depression is a relative situation.

With enough meaningful activity, enough good food, a purpose - depression doesn't necessarily need to occur.
The one thing that the system doesn't really account for is human contact. This would be a huge depression-problem for many people early in the game.

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Indeed, it has been proven that without human contact, a regular person will indeed go insane and I believe once NPCs are re-implemented, that will be taken into account in some way, again though the game offers plenty of ways to relieve depression somewhat well, even having anti-depressants, one thing I could think to make it a bit more impactful to the game as it stands would be making the "easy" methods of relieving it have a negative side to them, reducing the reduction on books and/or probably making the pills make you sick if you take too many over certain time period, since right now, you can literally never sleep and fuel your survivor on vitamins if you find enough of them, a.k.a. raid the pharmacies as they provide enough meds for 30 people.

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Well, I think there may be a buried mechanic in the sadness/depression stat already that accounts for "human contact" as at moderate levels of sadness the moodle says: "Seek out human contact." I can only assume that is NPC contact. I'm curious if that accounts for human PCs in multiplayer.

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I always play with "8 month after" settings, love this one, but with high level of zombies, not insane.

 

And i find enough ways to keep depression away for months, simply by cooking birds or fish on a campfire. I really agree with the fact that a warm meal is good for your moral, but on the other way i think there aren't enough "malus" for the moral. I mean, it would just have a small but significant impact, that way all the things you'll do to boost your moral will be more felt as a success against the dark world surrounding you.

 

I'm sorry i really don't find my words in english to explain that !

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