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Loneliness, Motivation, Improvised Weapons, and more


PixelGabe

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This going to be a slew of ideas, I'll group them with similar ideas

This is going to be very long so if any of this seems too far fetched/ game breaking, just skip it. I don't mind

I'm also sorry if this any of these ideas were addressed somewhere else

Loneliness and Bonding

—Add a loneliness moodle (e.g. lonely<isolated<feeling desolate<desperate for attention)  causes unhappiness similar to boredom

—Can name items for different effects (e.g. naming a weapon can slightly increase resistance to panic [you are more confident with the weapon], tools can be named for increase speed/efficiency (minor though) you can find and name houseplants, fish (get them at a supermarket, place a tank found in the store in your base and carry the fish in a plastic bag or bottle), and eventually dogs as well. In the case of fish and houseplant you will need to spend water for watering and water changes/cleaning, and fishes would need to be fed certain foods (fish pellets at the store, fish bait from foraging) and perhaps fertilizer for the houseplants. These would fulfill the loneliness moodle if you don't have, or don't want to be around other players/NPCs. Each living thing would have different levels of effect (houseplant<fish<dog/cat), and if you don't care for them they will die and you will get a decent hit to your unhappiness with a similar in proportion to the living thing's loneliness modifier. Same with tools and weapons if you lose (leave it alone far away for too long) or break it. 

—In order to prevent players from naming everything for a bonus, they would need to use the tool/weapon for a while (I don't think this should apply to pets and houseplants since getting them should be the challenge) (damaging the item making it more costly to name unless you can repair) and you can only name one from each category (tool, melee weapon, gun, one fish tank with a max of 3-5 fish [maybe, less for a fish bowl—and making it harder to clean—] a handful of plants, and maybe 1-3 dogs). Houseplants and fish 6 months after should be extremely rare, maybe you have to catch the fish or find a pretty wildflower in order to have a something with a similar, but less effective property. 

 

Weapon Inspection, Condition, Improvised Weapons, and Possible Throwing

—Weapons should have an inspection action like tailoring clothing (this could already be planned). However, there could be a "structurally weaking damage" wear type. For example your bat has a crack in the handle, the bat is still in good condition barring the obvious, this crack has a certain percentage or number that can cause the whole weapon to fail when in use. It may be mitigated by certain repairs, but most likely it won't completely fix the damage (you'd better finding a new one or making one if you want perfect). If it has a critical fail when the overall condition is still high, it would surprise your character causing increase panic (at least when using it fighting zombies). It would also make named weapons more likely to break. To not make weapons completely infuriating, they would have great conditions overall and break "normally" less frequently.

—There could be the possibility of making some normal items a last-ditch-effort weapon. Chairs come to mind as a medium damage weapon with high stamina demand and very slow animations/swings. Maybe make the Chair able to keep zombies away from by readying/aiming, but this would also use up stamina fast (increasing with the number of zombies). Any item with some heft/pointy end that can be handled effectively can be included as an 'Improvised weapon".

—The ability to throw weapons would be a nice feature to give variety to combat. You can throw spears, single handed blunt weapons (maybe two handed), and bladed, each with a different effect. Non-bladed weapons would "DONK" and maybe knock the zombie over with about the same damage of one hit with the same weapon. Bladed weapons like a hatchet or a knife would stab /chop into the zombie doing more damage (perhaps a few swings) with less knockover effect, and spear would be powerful but at a higher cost (they break easier used this way, have very little knockover effect, and have a much smaller chance of hitting the head—the only time it does reasonable damage). Each weapon may also have a chance to hit effectively (going up with a skill). If the check fails the weapon hits the zombie with the handle or some other ineffective spot and does very little if anything. This could be done with improvised weapons as well (think "Dudes of Hazmat" with the cans). 

 

Motivation, Willpower and Moodle changes

—Could there be a motivation system in place? If one is bored, then one wouldn't be motivated to do tedious work like crafting certain items, tailoring, etc. Other moodles could have effects on different tasks, but the main effector of motivation would be the unhappy moodle. The unhappy moodle doesn't really have a major effect that really burdens the player. When depressed, the character won't want to do most actions (basically anything that the player has direct control over: moving, fighting, and looting with the same slow looting/organizing debuff wouldn't be affected). This represents the character starting to give up. It makes the mental moodles more effective especially unhappiness, which i would say should be one of the major survival moodle.  Maybe (distracted, unmotivated, apathetic, vegetative) it could also be a form of "focus" from doing too much mentally straining activities. The higher the unhappiness, stress, or boredom the faster the moodle sets in. Plus, it could also make you feel more fatigued as a form of being unmotivated to move. 

—However, I don't think control of the character shouldn't be given up. No hard locking action when you would think even when depressed your character would still perform the action. This is where "Willpower" would come in. Whether this would be another moodle or some unseen number like nutrition. It would allow the character do things outside of their natural ability, including doing things that they aren't naturally motivated to do. This would be a precious commodity that would be hard to recover as you would need to have no negative effects or maybe positive effects like a "satiated" moodle for unhappiness like "content". 

*Note: I don't want to bombard everyone with 126 gallon-load of new moodles especially when so many of them have little difference so if any of these ideas could just be added to pre existing moodles that would work too  

—Stress maybe could have a chance to send you into extreme panic (i.e. a panic attack) the deeper you are into that moodle. I also believe there could be more separation from panic (fear), being its own gnawing dull pain (stress) when it comes to the effects of game play. As said above it would increase the chance to become panicked, and make it so that it becomes harder to get rid of panic. It could be more like boredom in the sense that it causes panic rather than causing a drop in damage and accuracy. Either panic or stress (I think stress) could have a paranoia effect making sounds like zombie moans, rustling while in the woods, and other sounds that could be hear in a normal dangerous situation (if stress is chosen then it would give other effects beside causing panic.

—Hunger, I think, shouldn't kill you so fast rather it should cause loss of fat and muscle. This would make a obese and overweight traits worth less points, though. the loss of muscle would result in the loss of strength and fitness. Making hunger less lethal (you will still die after several days as dying after weeks would take too long), but a very detrimental moodle to have for the long run. hunger should also be a little harder to satisfy 

—Wet moodle shouldn't cause a cold and only effect would be getting warm is harder and freezing is faster. However, I think colds should, along with other possible disease (like norovirus that causes a faster loss of hunger) should be contracted in a normal way, through fomites and food. Being dirty would cause your character to pick up disease more often, and maybe eating food without clean tableware would increase the chance getting a disease while eating with tableware would decrease it (though chips and the like wouldn't have the same effect as cooked and fresh food).  This could make it harder to prevent colds and other diseases.  (clean hands means a clean body)

 

Survival changes

—Survival tools seem to be too unrealistic. A stone hammer, as it is, would be wasting time with trying to attach a handle to a stone. Instead a stone by itself or maybe knapping a stone with another stone would make a hammer stone would be better. It could have a chance to hurt your hand like furrowing with hands, and would be still inefficient maybe even more so. However, the axe is the complete opposite.  An axe would take forever to make irl. It's not just tying a stone with a knapped edge onto a stick. There is two different types of stone axes that I can think of: celts and grooved stones (pictured below). both involve either finding a good shaped stone or knapping a stone into a shape that can be polished down into a head that has a sharp edge with the same polishing technique. This takes a long time. Even the Acheulean hand axes used by our ancestors took a long time to make with a lot of different skills needed. The only way I can think of making an axe/ axe like tool quickly is by polishing and knapping a stone into a easily held wedge that can be used as a handaxe or a chisel, but this wouldn't be able to cut down a large tree as I guess that would take days. In the survival crafting menu you can knap two stone to make hammerstones and crude stone edge (chipped stone). In order to make a axe head or the chisel I talked about you would need to have water/ be near water and have the chipped stone and another stone (though sand is usually used, but that could be too much) so that you can polished the knapped stone into an axe head (which stone axes would be better than chisels, but worst than modern axes. 

 Beckaxe3.jpg8735166_3_l.jpg

—Another change would be to make a forage only fire starter that is even weaker/inefficient than the notched plank and a sturdy stick. Man-made wood would be easier to work with (flat board easy to drill into and a smooth stick would be easier to handle), but you could definitely use sticks to make a similar friction fire. Perhaps have it called a fire plow (since it is another type of friction fire starter type that would make it distiquable from the hand drill method) you can make the fire plow (the stick) the fire stick (for a lack of a better name then "board") out of sticks. For balance it'll break quickly, and will not make fires very well unless with a skill, maybe. Just something for the survival nerds like me. (most of this comes from experience) 

 

Thanks for any consideration. I'm open to any discussion about these ideas.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Makeshift weapons are already in the games are they? Stone axes , Wooden spears , Stone knifes all from foraging in the forests. None of them last at really. The knife was nerfed in the new beta. The stone axe has like 6-4 cutting the trees before it snaps. Spears are pretty good in general but break after a few times. I read this at night so I might of missed a few key steps. The rest I agree with!

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On 2/7/2020 at 9:42 AM, Oksts2904 said:

Makeshift weapons are already in the games are they? Stone axes , Wooden spears , Stone knifes all from foraging in the forests. None of them last at really. The knife was nerfed in the new beta. The stone axe has like 6-4 cutting the trees before it snaps. Spears are pretty good in general but break after a few times. I read this at night so I might of missed a few key steps. The rest I agree with!

I was thinking more of using items that aren't weapons by design, for example, chucking a soda can or whacking zombos with an encyclopedia. I just find it hard to imagine someone relegating possible weapons to mere non-combat items when I can even find a use for a towel to become a useful tool in combat (e.g. blinding the zombo for a few seconds whether or not it would be good you can still try).  These would be minor and only last-ditch-effort. I especially like the idea of using a chair like a lion tamer. 

Thanks for the reply

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On 2/14/2020 at 2:18 AM, Kedryn said:

Loneliness might actually be planned but, since there'd be no way to fix it, not until NPCs are added.

I think they could still add it in early if they use the little pets/houseplants maybe even adding items you can get attached to (a la wilson). 

However, your probably right that NPCs should be add first. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 2/12/2020 at 5:15 AM, PixelGabe said:

I was thinking more of using items that aren't weapons by design, for example, chucking a soda can or whacking zombos with an encyclopedia. I just find it hard to imagine someone relegating possible weapons to mere non-combat items when I can even find a use for a towel to become a useful tool in combat (e.g. blinding the zombo for a few seconds whether or not it would be good you can still try).  These would be minor and only last-ditch-effort. I especially like the idea of using a chair like a lion tamer. 

Thanks for the reply

Ah I got you. You want more weapons like books and such. Desperate weapons. cool

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