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Water/Swim Mechanics


TheMitu97

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Hello everyone, I want to come up with a suggestion about water in Project Zomboid. It always bothered me, that water is only a blue carpet acting as an invisible barrier (I know, it's gonna be animated in the future, but still be an invisible barrier).  And if there was a small stream, I had to walk a long way to find a dry land to cross it.

So I have couple ideas on improving it:

 

1. Basics
We should be able to enter the water. It would have course make your character wet, depending on how deep water is. There would be couple levels of deepness, from ankle deep to fully submerged. 
It would affect which clothes gets wet and also how fast can you move. Moving in water could also be louder.

How could this work? My example is deepness level being dependant on distance between water tile and actual ground. With the exception of swimming pools.
Something like: 1 tile from shore - ankle deep, 2 tiles from shore - knee deep, ect.


2. Swimming
About swimming part, I have couple ideas for that:

- You could swim for limited period of time, depending on your fitness level, weight you're carrying and how much tired you are. If you get exhausted, you will start drowning, losing health and eventualy die.
- About zombies, they can't swim. Either can't enter deeper bodies of water or make them walk on the bottom, like TWD. This could be troublesome to do it, but I don't have any ideas for that part.
- Some additional traits. Like "Can't swim" which would cause instant drowning when water is too deep. Or "Liked to swim" which would make character swim faster/longer.
- Being in water could also have positive effects when the weather is hot. And of course negative when it's cold.
- About the big river up north, you can just put some invisible barriers 
- If it's too hard to make, just skip it entirely, make invisible barriers in places too deep to walk.

 

3. Sewers. 
I've seen that sewers are planned feature in the future. If it's gonna be implemented into the game, sewer water could work the same way as normal water, but along wet, makes clothing dirty. 
Any wounds being submerged in the water could have very high chance of getting infected. Water high in the sewers could be dependent on raining. So sewers would become a deathtrap when it rains heavily, with chance of drowning.

 

4. Additional (optional) things:

- Water turning into ice on winter season. You could walk on frozen bodies of water, with chance of it breaking under you. Depends on temperature, your carryweight and if you're running or not.
- Simple craftable boats. It would require high carpentry level to make one.

 

I'm open for more suggestions about it, if you have other ideas then feel free to share them.

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1 minute ago, ZombieHunter said:

The main issue here is players will simply build bases on the water and swim in and out of it. Since they no longer have to worry about zombies attacking it. 

 

Also last time the River Froze in Kentucky was 1976. 

So they could forbid placing any structure on water tiles. Problem solved. As for frozing, you're mayby right, that's why I posted it as optional.

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45 minutes ago, ZombieHunter said:

The main issue here is players will simply build bases on the water and swim in and out of it. Since they no longer have to worry about zombies attacking it. 

 

Also last time the River Froze in Kentucky was 1976. 

 

I don't see this as an actual issue in my opinion,

 

If somebody builds a water base off of the mainland and has to soak themselves to get to it, lose access to the benefits of having land (vehicles, foraging) and are now heavily inconvenienced by their location travel wise. It's a give and take, which is why plenty of survival games entertain this as an actual possibility.

 

It also isn't stated that the players can build out on the water by simply swimming, since they wouldn't have any kind of support unless somebody builds a bridge (opening a way to zombies). 

 

Forbidding building on water tiles may not be the answer as people would probably be pissed if they couldn't set up bridges across streams (as many currently do) but not allowing build tiles that aren't connected to solid ground in any way (as mentioned or otherwise) is the answer to this.

 

~~

If people are worried about folks swimming to the other side of the Ohio river, on the other hand, the simple answer is to cut off the map at the edge of the river, as having an out of bounds area isn't an issue if it doesn't exist. This tactic is used in most games.

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1 hour ago, Kim Jong Un said:

I don't see this as an actual issue in my opinion,

 

If somebody builds a water base off of the mainland and has to soak themselves to get to it, lose access to the benefits of having land (vehicles, foraging) and are now heavily inconvenienced by their location travel wise. It's a give and take, which is why plenty of survival games entertain this as an actual possibility.

 

Bring a Towel - problem solved.

Also they don't need to "soak" for long you can build a 1 tile bridge next to land with 1 block empty. Would be drop in, get out. 

 

1 hour ago, Kim Jong Un said:

It also isn't stated that the players can build out on the water by simply swimming, since they wouldn't have any kind of support unless somebody builds a bridge (opening a way to zombies). 

 

Actually it is about as easy as that. You build 3 tiles - from land to water. Then destroy 1 tile connecting land to water. You don't need to even build "large bridge" of zombies simply need literally 3 tiles.

After that you are perfectly safe cause there is 1 tile broken and no way to walk across.

 

How do I know this? That's how I make my base in the town next to the River. 

You have 2 towns easily next to you thanks to that. Can easily go into town in the day and come back at night and break the tile behind you preventing them from coming across.

 

2 hours ago, TheMitu97 said:

So they could forbid placing any structure on water tiles

 

They could, but that would make the feature pointless since there is very little water to begin with.
The real problem is you have a good idea but issue is actually the map and not your idea. 

 

If the Map was not so demanding toward reality, you could add more swamps and lakes into the map where there are huge swaths of the forest - making your idea a lot more useful. 

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30 minutes ago, ZombieHunter said:

Actually it is about as easy as that. You build 3 tiles - from land to water. Then destroy 1 tile connecting land to water. You don't need to even build "large bridge" of zombies simply need literally 3 tiles.

After that you are perfectly safe cause there is 1 tile broken and no way to walk across.

If my idea worked out, then 1 tile gap would not work, since zombies could just go through water and climb your structure (remember, 1 tile from shore should be around ankle deep, not a problem even for zombie). 

 

This type of base would be similar to high floor safe houses with broken stairs.  Both are pretty much safe from zombies but players can still enter it.

 

And speaking of placing structures on water, there could be an option of one level high requirement, so you can still build bridges and stuff.

38 minutes ago, ZombieHunter said:

They could, but that would make the feature pointless since there is very little water to begin with.

Don't forget about custom maps. They could really benefit from those additions, and open new opportunity for modders.

 

39 minutes ago, ZombieHunter said:

Bring a Towel - problem solved.

This whole "dry yourself with a towel" thing should be a bit changed, at least for my water mechanics idea (It could stay the way it is for rain wetness). I would say that clothes would need to dry out over some time, mayby with towels speeding this process.

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