Depression, sadness and stress moodles

[fnemec]

Hi, guys. I'd like suggest something. 

 

Some zombie media (comics, movies, books, etc) explore the psychological effect on zombie apocalypse survivors. 

 

Maybe, Project Zomboid should explore that too. AFAIK, depression moodle just increase the time to complete some tasks. PZ could have a bar (like the health bar) measuring the character's mental stability. Each day that bar decays a little. If character is sad, bored, stressed or depressed, it decays faster. 

 

If that stat is too low, the character may have outbursts, destroying items, food, spending ammo or just shouting, for instance. While outbursting, the player loose control over the character for a short time. It can be fatal if the outburst occur while surrounded by zombies, and it is another factor to consider regarding character's panic. 

 

If mental stability drops to zero, the character goes insane and, for all purposes, he is as good (and dead) as a zombie.

 

To make matters a little more complicated, increase mental stability gets harder as lower it gets and can only be increased a pinch each day (representing the longer time needed to fix mental issues, compared with physical wounds). 

 

So far, panic, stress and depression are just an inconvenient. With an improvement like that, those moodles will get a high importance. 

 

I could mod that, but I don't know if  that improvement can be made thru modding. I know a little Lua myself, but I think that will require messing with game's java files. Some dev can drop me a hint about that?

[ZAMNPlayerD]

This does seem like a neat thing that could make worrying about the character's mood more important. Let's be real, I've played PZ for around 200 hours and the only emotional moodle that made any real difference was panic, and only because being panicked now causes random tripping.

 

But I'm not sure if insanity should be equal to instant game over. Here's how I'd imagine it:

 

1. Character has a sanity bar next to their life meter in the skills/first aid menu. Things like panic, not getting enough sleep, and being too drunk, sick, or bored slowly makes it decline.

 

2. As the sanity bar declines, the character starts developing tunnel vision, and then he starts moving slowly, and then he starts hallucinating. And by hallucinating, I mean hearing noises that aren't there, seeing zombies that aren't there and not going to sleep or eating.

 

3. The sanity bar when empty, makes the entire landscape and makes it hellish and the shadowy, hallucination zombies will run at you constantly, but killing them will slowly restore your sanity.

[sprkng]

I've also been thinking that psychology ought to have a bigger impact on the game. The human civilization just ended, everybody you know is dead, the city is filled with undead who want to rip you apart. Overwhelming fear, sadness and dread ought to be the default state.

 

Not only are the negative effects quite weak, but I think they're too easy to cure as well. Speed reading a book instantly removes anything and you can constantly pop antidepressants and beta blockers without side effects.

 

Would be interesting if they experimented with constantly growing unhappiness and stress. The positive effects of reading ought to be limited, both for gameplay and realism. I propose that they make reading non-skill books much slower and put a limit to how much benefit you can get from it per day/week/etc. They could also add a random ID to each non-skill book and give it a name from a list to add a little flavour. That way you could read some pages from "Pride and Prejudice" before going to bed a couple of times per week to keep the gnawing sadness at bay.

 

With increased unhappiness generation and reduced effect from books and comics there would have to be more methods for reducing it. Playing video games, listening to music on portable cd players, non-skill programs on TV/radio should also reduce unhappiness and stress.

 

Pills could be balanced by introducing the possibility of becoming addicted and adding side effects. I've never taken anti-depressants myself but according to the internet the side effects include:

- nausea
- increased appetite and weight gain
- loss of sexual desire and other sexual problems, such as erectile dysfunction and decreased orgasm
- fatigue and drowsiness
- insomnia
- dry mouth
- blurred vision
- constipation
- dizziness
- agitation
- irritability
- anxiety

 

All except erectile dysfunction and constipation would be easy to add in PZ :) Would be cool with something that causes nausea and agitation except zombification, so you wouldn't know for sure if you got infected by a scratch or if it's just your medication..

 

I like several of the suggestions in the previous posts but some sound like very generic game mechanisms and would feel out of place in the semi-realism that Indie Stone are going for with PZ. Hallucinations, insomnia and loss of appetite seem fairly realistic and could make a nice addition to the game, but I'm skeptical towards sanity meters, gaining sanity by fighting imaginary zombies and losing sanity from drinking alcohol etc.

 

Losing control of your character could be a fun mechanic if implemented right (i.e. fairly realistic but not so much that it makes the game boring). Freezing when zombies start banging on the door to your safehouse or forcibly running away from hordes if your panic gets too high seems reasonable. Apathy due to excessive sadness could be implemented as fast forwarding time (like sleeping except screen doesn't go black) but it might not work in MP. Self mutilation/cutting seems to happen among severely depressed people, but it might be too dark to include in the game.

 

Item destruction from unhappiness gets a big maybe from me. I've never heard anything like this from my IRL friends who are struggling with depression and I don't recall this ever happening in any zombie movie I've seen. People just don't seem to think it's a good idea to destroy their means of survival even if they're feeling like shit.

 

And while we're talking about psychology and forced actions, I think it should be possible to lose the smoker trait, but if you find cigarettes while you have cravings your character will automatically smoke them and your addiction goes up again.

[fnemec]

@sprkng, I borrowed the idea of loosing character's control from x-com series. It is really fun when a soldier on the battlefield panic or goes berseker. 

I was thinking should have a bitter effect to negligence mental stability, so that's why I suggest to loose the character entirely if sanity goes unchecked for long. 

That would be a lot of fun to see all that beautiful crops been smashed in a burst of rage in the middle of the winter... 

 

Alas, no dev give a hint about the possibility of do that thru modding. I will check that for myself...  

[Raul_]

On 1/4/2020 at 11:42 PM, fnemec said:

If mental stability drops to zero, the character goes insane and, for all purposes, he is as good (and dead) as a zombie.

I liked the idea of making the character unplayable for going crazy. Which would be the same thing as a zombie. Shortly after being short, the character could run and scream nonsense, make some shots with a gun and then kill himself. Running into a horde saying something like "I'm dead too! I'm a zombie!", Laughing and running. Or even add some funny animation to represent the madness. Make the character dress funny. He runs around trying to "horn" the wall, hitting his head and getting hurt by the action, and then continuing to hurt his head on the wall until he passes out ...

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Another disadvantage of depression could be: The character is crying when he enters a closed / safe environment. and keeps mumbling things like "I have no hope." "I am totally alone here." "Why do I keep trying to survive?"

Sometimes he cries.
When alone in a room, for example, he is crouched and crying with his head down (becoming unprotected if a zombie comes in the back, as he will be with his head down and crying, creating a certain noise.)

Edited February 8, 2021 by Raul_

[TrailerParkThor]

Pretty sure I've seen the devs mention a Psychology Overhaul coming some time in the future. Would love to see an actual challenge behind keeping your mental health at a functional level. Severe Depression isn't something you can just read a book and eat some chocolate and cure all the sudden. It's something that has an effect on every aspect of your life. Something that makes even keeping your will to live difficult. Currently in game, you just perform actions at a slower rate when depressed, and that makes no sense. Depression should keep you from getting out of bed in the morning. It should stop you from performing all but the most essential survival actions. You should be tired all the time, you should want to just end your suffering, and no amount of entertainment or junk food should bring you out of it. In fact, the opposite should be true. Of course this needs to be game-ified, but anyone who's ever struggled with depression knows that sitting in front of the TV eating crap doesn't help at all. Sometimes it can actually make it worse. The things that really help are eating healthy, exercising, getting out into nature, spending time with loved ones, and accomplishing your goals. Now until NPCs are added, socializing is off the table (I would hazard a guess this is part of the reason they are waiting to update it). However, everything else can definitely be included in the game.

 

Currently, Boredom contributes to Unhappiness, and that makes sense. Eating junk food, reading books, and watching movies is a great way to keep boredom at bay, and it should stay that way. Keeping yourself entertained is a great way to stop the depression from taking hold, but those things should not directly fix your mental illness. Instead, when Unhappiness builds up to dangerous levels, should be lost by a few basic things: Obviously taking anti-depressants, eating hearty and healthy meals, having a high level of exercise frequency, and leveling up skills. Going outside would be nice, but I think it would be easily cheesable and seems like a dumb idea for wilderness survivalists to never get depressed. Maybe Fishing and Foraging can help in this way but I'm not sure how that would work in practice.

 

In terms of what effects Depression would actually have on the PC, I think there could be some simple yet effective things to realistically simulate such a debilitating illness.

Feeling a little sad - PC performs actions at a slower rate (probably at the same slowness as current Severely Depressed). Tiredness increases twice as fast.

Getting a tad weepy - Same as above, but PC can never be less tired than Drowsy. Tiredness will also decrease half as fast, meaning sleeping twice as long.

Depressed - All of the above, and PC will always be Tired or more. PC also cannot perform any Crafting Skills except Cooking, Farming, or First Aid (as well as Basic Item Crafting)

Severely Depressed - All of the above, and PC will be permanently Very Tired. PC can only Eat, Drink, Sleep, Loot, Read/Write, and perform Combat actions. PC will also randomly sit down and start to cry which can alert zombies. They will also talk about wanting to end it all and having no hope left. Perhaps if you reach the highest level of Unhappiness, they will commit suicide and it will be Game Over. I think forced self harm could be an interesting mechanic but could be hard to implement, as well as potentially in bad taste.

 

As for what would make you gain Unhappiness, I think what is in the game is already pretty good. Boredom and eating nasty food definitely can make one unhappy, but we definitely need more than that. Like @sprkngsaid, human civilization just ended. Everyone you know is dead (at least until NPCs are added, but even then... MOST everyone). You shouldn't just be able to chill out in your base and feel fine as long as you're keeping busy and not eating dog food and dead rats. Unhappiness should be a constant battle in this environment. In real life, depression and suicide are already issues for many people that have a lot going for them and aren't fighting for survival in a hopeless situation. I think every day should add a baseline +1 Unhappiness to the PC. Meaning, if you do nothing to combat it, you have 50 days until depression kicks in, and at most 100 days until you would be at maximum depression (and potential suicide game over). I think that days in the Winter should even be a +2 or even +3 Unhappiness, as IRL those are the biggest months for depression and suicide. This would add another level of challenge to surviving the winter, since you can't just stockpile food/water and post up until the spring thaw. Drinking and taking Sleeping Pills should also increase Unhappiness after they wear off, since those are obviously depressant substances and will do that to the brain. Other factors like seeing dead bodies, killing X number of zombies, seeing a zed feeding, being naked/injured for too long, and more could also increase Unhappiness.

 

I'd also like to see a rework and overhaul of Stress as well, since it is basically negligible and useless as of right now, but that is a topic for another post. Anger would also be a great thing to add back into the game, and I think it could work without NPCs but again, different time lol.

Edited October 21, 2021 by TrailerParkThor

[TrailerParkThor]

On 1/10/2020 at 4:57 AM, sprkng said:

Would be interesting if they experimented with constantly growing unhappiness and stress. The positive effects of reading ought to be limited, both for gameplay and realism. I propose that they make reading non-skill books much slower and put a limit to how much benefit you can get from it per day/week/etc. They could also add a random ID to each non-skill book and give it a name from a list to add a little flavour. That way you could read some pages from "Pride and Prejudice" before going to bed a couple of times per week to keep the gnawing sadness at bay.

 

With increased unhappiness generation and reduced effect from books and comics there would have to be more methods for reducing it. Playing video games, listening to music on portable cd players, non-skill programs on TV/radio should also reduce unhappiness and stress.

 

I've always wanted to see named books in the game! There's so many classics both ancient and modern and everything in between. The devs could easily add 100+ random book names to the game from The Odyssey to Dante's Inferno to Of Mice and Men to The Hunger Games and more. I think the issue may be copyright of course, but they could get around this by either using public domain books (which many, MANY classics are in), or have fun with it by making spoof novels. "Jerry Totter and the Mage's Rock" "Steven Queen's The Glowing" "The Berries of Rage" "The Pitcher in the Wheat". Personally I'd prefer the latter. Maybe we could even have book series that function like the Skill Books where you need to read the previous to read the next. The PC might say, "I have no idea what's happening" or "I'm not caught up yet!". This would be fun for collectors, as well as sequels probably relieving more Stress and Boredom to simulate the PCs deeper investment in the series.

 

I definitely agree that Books should take longer to read than Skill Books. Reading a 'For Dummies' book IRL is a fairly quick read, but reading a full novel takes a long time. We already have the Page mechanic from Skill Books so it should be easy to transfer over. I think we should also have different tiers of book lengths that provide more and more bonuses depending on length. We could have Stories, Books, and Novels. Stories would be kids books and short stories along the lines of Green Eggs and Ham or The Tell-Tale Heart. Books would be average length books like Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas or Fight Club. FInally, Novels would be extremely long books like Dune or Foundation. This would go really well with the new Music/TV/Movie update we just got. Devs could even go all out and add a Likes and Dislikes feature to character creation where we can choose what genres of fiction, music, and even food our PC does or doesn't enjoy, adding buffs and debuffs to different forms of in-game entertainment.

 

So with that we would have a Book Revamp, on top of the Electronic Entertainment Overhaul we just received. That would just leave the video games you mentioned. Which, in case you haven't seen... they are working on it!! I will try and find the video and edit the link in later

 

On 1/10/2020 at 4:57 AM, sprkng said:

Pills could be balanced by introducing the possibility of becoming addicted and adding side effects. I've never taken anti-depressants myself but according to the internet the side effects include:

- nausea
- increased appetite and weight gain
- loss of sexual desire and other sexual problems, such as erectile dysfunction and decreased orgasm
- fatigue and drowsiness
- insomnia
- dry mouth
- blurred vision
- constipation
- dizziness
- agitation
- irritability
- anxiety

 

All except erectile dysfunction and constipation would be easy to add in PZ Would be cool with something that causes nausea and agitation except zombification, so you wouldn't know for sure if you got infected by a scratch or if it's just your medication..

 

This 100% as well. It's dumb you can only OD on Sleeping Pills, since Painkillers, Beta Blockers, and Alcohol can all lethally poison you if you take too much. And you can't even become addicted to any of them! Even though people living in the modern world with no death and destruction around them become totally dependent on pills all the time. Overdosing, side effects ,and addiction is a must for any future updates that include a Health/Psychology rework. Probably even adding more drugs to counteract/enact different effects. Caffeinated beverages besides Coffee, Pepto-Bismol, Ibuprofen/Tylenol, Benzodiazepines (like Xanax), and Amphetamines (like Adderall) are a few I can think of off the top of my head. Devs have previously stated that illegal drugs are 99% chance off the table, but legal medications are definitely something we could still have a lot of fun with!

Edited October 21, 2021 by TrailerParkThor