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Improvements to wounds and healing


arkonten

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Lately I've played extensively with zombie infections disabled which has showcased how it is to be wounded in PZ. Note that I only play in multiplayer, with sleeping enabled (and needed) which possibly could be relevant below.

 

Being wounded in PZ is pretty unrealistic:

  1. As long as you keep yourself bandaged and not starving, your HP will remain full all the time, so you are in a good condition (except pain). I've had something like seven wounds (not all scratches!) at the same time, and my only problem was pain. In reality I would also be weak and bedridden! Running around like I did should hurt me or at least prevent any recovery.
  2. Fevers are... weird. Let me tell a story: by mistake I climbed through a window with broken glass and got cut. No big deal! I couldn't disinfect but made sure to have it cleanly bandaged, and I ate a lot of food and went to bed (remember: this was in a multiplayer game with sleep enabled). The time started to fast-forward towards morning, but then I died in my sleep. Yeah, the wound got infected and then fever hit and killed me. Since then I've learned to always go to sleep with the health info showing, and to quickly abort if I see the HP drop and then go and have an absurd late-nigh feast to save my life.  There's really no way to survive sleeping with a fresh wound (that might get infected) except to do this, which feels extremely unrealistic and silly.
  3. Also, it is too hard to get wounded and live to treat them! PZ has probably the best medical systems I've ever seen in a computer game, but you barely see any of it. This is especially true if zombie infections are enabled: most wounds you get will zombify you (since combat is the #1 source of wounds, by far, imho) so you barely get any interesting medical problems to deal with.

 

Here's a list of changes I think would make all this much more interesting and realistic:

  • A nice fix for [1] (referring to the numbered list above) would be to make each wound reduce your max HP. That already fits nicely into the current system since having several wounds will then cap your HP so it will be low enough to give you one of the Injured-moodles until you heal, so now being injured actually makes you weak and slow. The severity of the wound should determine how much it lower the max HP, but when combining several there should probably be "diminishing returns" and some minimum cap so it doesn't get completely out of control so several smallish injuries that don't add up to being critically injured. But a single extremely bad wound should be able to bring you down so low you get the Critical injuries-moodle.
  • We can do the latter half of [1] by making it so that the Injured-moodles prevents healing or even hurt if you are too active:
    • Minor Injuries: you don't heal while performing heavy activities (running, farming, melee, climbing, being overburdened, carpentry and similar) but you start healing as soon as you stop.
    • Injured: heavy activities prevents healing for the next hour.
    • Severe injuries: heavy activities hurt you slightly and prevent healing to the next time you rest/sleep; light activities (walking, foraging, crafting) prevents healing for the next hour.
    • Critical injuries: heavy activities hurt you moderately, light activities hurt you slightly, and both prevent healing to the next time you rest/sleep. You are essentially limited to still activities (idling, sleep, rest, reading, medical, cooking; I'm sure some crafting could be considered "still" but a lot of it is definitely "light" (or even "heavy") so we would have to add a flag for it to all recipes) until you heal.
  • For [2] I think fevers have to be reworked a bit (unless it's just that they are weird with multiplayer sleep). I think it would be more interesting if fevers lasted longer (a couple of days, getting worse and worse so the high point will be in the middle) but were less severe. The Sick-moodles could behave similar to what I propose for the Injured-moodles above, and that activity even accelerates the sickness to move towards the next level of moodle, and if you are getting better activity halts any improvements until you stop. In addition, I think the Sick-moodles should add a modifier (that increases with the level of the moodle) to all fatigue costs, so you get more easily tired.
  • For [3] I think we need to make it easier to get hurt outside of combat. I would love to get:
    • cut by the saw while doing carpentry (or cut when crafting a recipe using a something sharp) and luck out and get an infection that forces me on a quest to Cormen Medical for some antibiotics or else I die within a week. Non zombie-infections that require antibiotics should be a thing (but let's make it rare for the sake of playability).
    • a facture when cutting a large tree and having it fall on me by mistake.
    • a bunch of scratches when running like a fool through a thick forest.
    • a burn when failing miserably with the blow torch.
    • a lodged glass shard when I try to pick up a huge mirror but fail and break it.
    • wounded when running and failing to jump over a fence. This I actually saw in one of the videos showcasing the new animation system. More of this, please!
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I really like these suggestions!


The only thing I would like to suggest is an expanded explanation of damage treatment. For example, when carrying a heavy load the player's health decreases. When the player sees the sprained/broken bone moodle appear it only says seek medical aid. So the players thinks okay I must be injured. Then the player checks their character health and there is no indication of injury beyond some lost health. The player then becomes confused because there is no way to provide themself first aid as the moodle says as it stays on screen.  Now what the player is suppose to do to fix this problem is consume food and keep a full stomach to regain health. There is no explanation that this needs to happen in order to regain health aka first aid. Having the moodle or health graph provide information on what to do as the player health decreases would be greatly useful.   

(so new players do not make my mistake of going insane trying to apply bandages because the moodle says seek medical aid.)

Edited by geronimo553
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This is all great. Regarding [3], I wouldn't want to make the early game grind any more tedious by applying a chance for random injury all the time. But, maybe a chance for random injury whenever the activity is interrupted? And the chance is pretty high to begin at early levels? That way players have more control and can avoid these aggravating interruptions, but if one grows impatient or has to break off to fight a surprising zed, there's a risk of an accident?

Not a perfect solution but I'm hesitant to support a danger that is wholly left to an RNG and doesn't engage the player.

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I totally agree with your sentiment, trombonaught! What if the chance for injury starts at 0% but increases with bad moodles like Tired, Panicked and Pain? It both seems quite realistic and will give players some control over the risks. At least when it comes to crafting/carpentry/metalworking and similar "controlled" activities.

 

I think pure RNG still is fine for "fast" activities like running + jumping over fences, or running through thick forest, although the Nimble skill would help. And players still have control over the risk: don't want to risk it? Then stop running!

 

In multiplayer (and when NPCs arrives) it would be cool if you can hit your friends (even if friendly fire is disabled!) by mistake if you are reckless and fighting  too close to each other. With swinging weapons being way riskier than stabbing weapons.

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