Memory

[Sickle]

Hello!

 

This is my first time here, and I had a few ideas while playing 2.9.9.16.

 

Imagine ourselves into the situation of the survivor. So you are surrounded by zombies, and when you turn to face some of them, the others you just saw "disappear", because they are not in your LoS.

 

However you still remember that they were there, this way you can more correctly asses the situation, and plan escape routes.

 

What I am talking about is some kind of indicator in your blind spot about a zombie what you saw a few seconds ago. It could be a shadow image of the zombie, stationary of course, and a bit transparent or having a shifted color hue (same texture and everything, just a bit reddish).

 

Or it could be just a red dot, or X, or a zombie symbol.

 

When you look at these markers, they disappear, and if the zombie moved when you turned away your sight, then it wouldn't be at the exact spot (since you only remembered, where it was, and not actually tracked it).

 

Sleeping or day changing, may or may not clear memory (depending on how much lag memory cause). Exhaustion or lack of sleep could also prevent remembering spots.

 

-----

 

Two traits could govern memory:

 

poor memory: completely disables this feature

hyperthymesia: memory spots stay for a long time

[TinnedEpic]

We hear and see zombies according to real life limitations, however we the players are the brain behind it all processing the information and reacting accordingly. While I can see your point this is sort of part of the immersement value of the game putting you in your characters shoes so to speak. As you said when zombies are not in your LoS they disappear however it's not so much that your character forgets the zombies are there as the player is expected to remember they are there.

 

I mean we can't mark our blind spots with symbols, likewise our characters can't.

[Sickle]

We hear and see zombies according to real life limitations, however we the players are the brain behind it all processing the information and reacting accordingly. While I can see your point this is sort of part of the immersement value of the game putting you in your characters shoes so to speak. As you said when zombies are not in your LoS they disappear however it's not so much that your character forgets the zombies are there as the player is expected to remember they are there.

 

I mean we can't mark our blind spots with symbols, likewise our characters can't.

 

But there is one problem with this. In real life animals and other organisms don't spawn or respawn.

[Suomiboi]

There isn't any respawn in zomboid either. And the zombies don't despawn unless they're off screen. LOS has nothing to do with this. I think you should just try to remember where they were although I'm not fully against the greyed standstill zombie.

[Sickle]

There isn't any respawn in zomboid either. And the zombies don't despawn unless they're off screen. LOS has nothing to do with this. I think you should just try to remember where they were although I'm not fully against the greyed standstill zombie.

 

Remembering zombies on the screen works totally differently from real life. We have a top down view, in real life we use first person view. So we associate 3D images with the location of objects.

 

You could also argue that my real life strength should have correlation with strength of the character, but instead we have traits.

 

Traits are part of an arbitrary symbology (just like health bars) to translate our complex real life variables into the simple virtual world.

 

-----

 

In this light, characters are not relying on OUR memory but THEIR. Just as they rely on their strength not our.

[TinnedEpic]

 

But there is one problem with this. In real life animals and other organisms don't spawn or respawn.

 

 

By all technical means then zombies shouldn't exist then. But this is irrelevant to the topic at hand, I personally feel that memory should be something forced onto a the player not segregated and placed onto the character.

[Sickle]

 

 

But there is one problem with this. In real life animals and other organisms don't spawn or respawn.

 

 

By all technical means then zombies shouldn't exist then. But this is irrelevant to the topic at hand, I personally feel that memory should be something forced onto a the player not segregated and placed onto the character.

 

Read my comment above yours why shouldn't.

[Ontogenesis]

I have to agree with the others that the player rather than the character will remember the zombies last positions. It adds tension when you have to turn away to try and prise open a window and you're uncertain how far they are behind - adding on screen markers might even make it a bit too easy.

[Burianu]

I believe that this idea makes perfect sense - not everyone has the spacial awareness and quick thinking necessary, especially in a moment of stress/anxiety, to create a mental picture and recall where you last spotted the pursuing zombies, so it should be something a certain character build is good at, not a certain player is good at.  So depending on the character's "spacial awareness" stat or something like that, the screen will display indicators of where you last saw zombies.  That way, if you're playing with an utterly incompentent character, it is entirely up to you to determine where the zombies were, whereas if you're playing with a sports star or someone with good spacial awareness, the assistance of indicators would highlight the character's strengths, and give them a clear advantage over the other.  The higher the spacial awareness, the more precise the indicators. 

 

In fact, an interesting concept would be false indicators if you have particularly bad spacial awareness.  You would think the zombies are closing in on you when in fact they are many yards away, and vice versa, but that would depend on a system of indicators that not only tracks where your character thinks they last were, but where your character thinks they were last moving toward, and the speed at which your character thinks they were moving.

[Sickle]

I believe that this idea makes perfect sense - not everyone has the spacial awareness and quick thinking necessary, especially in a moment of stress/anxiety, to create a mental picture and recall where you last spotted the pursuing zombies, so it should be something a certain character build is good at, not a certain player is good at.  So depending on the character's "spacial awareness" stat or something like that, the screen will display indicators of where you last saw zombies.  That way, if you're playing with an utterly incompentent character, it is entirely up to you to determine where the zombies were, whereas if you're playing with a sports star or someone with good spacial awareness, the assistance of indicators would highlight the character's strengths, and give them a clear advantage over the other.  The higher the spacial awareness, the more precise the indicators. 

 

In fact, an interesting concept would be false indicators if you have particularly bad spacial awareness.  You would think the zombies are closing in on you when in fact they are many yards away, and vice versa, but that would depend on a system of indicators that not only tracks where your character thinks they last were, but where your character thinks they were last moving toward, and the speed at which your character thinks they were moving.

 

Also keep it in mind, that not many player would pick memory (or spatial awareness) for -6 points (or whatever points), when they can take strong or athletic. Definitely not all of them.

 

Bad memory for plus points could also serve your undoing, by displaying phantom zombies markers.

 

-----

 

I don't know if moving memory markers is a good idea though, I think Suomiboi's suggestion about standstill, greyed out zombies could be implemented easier. Moving markers could also tax CPU or Memory, though I have don't really have competence in Java.

[Rathlord]

There's one good reason that this will never be added to PZ. It's far, far too 'gamey'. It's immersion breaking and not particularly realistic.

Your logic about why it should be governed by the game is also flawed. There are obviously dozens of exceptions to your 'rule' about what the game handles and what the player handles. That's not the criteria that's used to judge it at all.

I really don't have any trouble remembering where I've seen zombies, and considering not knowing exactly where actually adds to gameplay, not detracts from it, I see this as an immersion breaking suggestion to fix a nonexistent problem.

[PK'EZ-54]

If we got this, we could get the "Oh snap! I can't remember where I left my keys." trait because demonstration man is artist.