Effects of Depression

[Aelipse]

1) Depressed: The character not only takes longer to finish actions, but she also lags one or two seconds in commencing those actions.

2) Severely Depressed: The character suffers from suicidal tendencies. If she has a knife within her reach, she will try to cut her wrists. If there is a gun in her inventory or close to her, she will try to shoot herself.

 

The idea came to me when I saw people survive all winter on worms, and the only ill effect they got from the depression moodle was taking a bit longer in transferring items and building stuff. I think mental health problems should have much graver effect on the character and there should be some more incentive for players to avoid eating rotten food / raw worms for days. 

 

The lagging action idea (1) has to do with the person's lack of motivation to do anything (even surviving). She reacts to the player's input with a few seconds of delay, which can be deadly in presence of zombies or hostile players. The more severe depression (2) should make the character actively seek death where it is quick enough. I think it goes quite well with the overall dark theme of this amazing game.

 

EDIT: If the suicidal behaviour is too severe of a change, a heightened risk of injury and unwillingness to run could supplement the low mental state just fine.

Edited December 21, 2020 by Aelipse

[Badgzerz]

Big no to my character out of the blue cutting or shooting themselves. Maybe that part could be a trait. Input delay is a good one. I think increased risk of injury is the best course of action. Depressed people tend to be careless and reckless with tools and machinery. They tend to be careless with actions that can hurt them in a pretty apathetic way. They may not be paying attention while swinging an axe, using a saw, doing maintenance on a vehicle, or while using hammers. 

[TrailerParkThor]

20 hours ago, Badgzerz said:

Big no to my character out of the blue cutting or shooting themselves. Maybe that part could be a trait. Input delay is a good one. I think increased risk of injury is the best course of action. Depressed people tend to be careless and reckless with tools and machinery. They tend to be careless with actions that can hurt them in a pretty apathetic way. They may not be paying attention while swinging an axe, using a saw, doing maintenance on a vehicle, or while using hammers. 

 

Like @Badgzerzsaid, BIG NO to unwanted suicide. However, I agree there's room for a cool trait that factors that in. Self-Destructive could mean you are prone to self harm when depressed, and random destruction when angry. I imagine cutting your wrists or smashing your favorite weapon to pieces would totally be actions taken by someone with poor mental health in an apocalypse. It should still be a challenge that we can choose whether or not to take on though. I like the idea of random injuries occurring, but I think it makes more sense for that to occur when Tired. I imagine sawing a log when you haven't slept in days would be dangerous.

 

I think your ideas about the delay is good. Perhaps instead of self harm, on your average character, Severely Depressed will lead to extreme apathy. Sprinting wont be possible, and neither will exercise. Actions will have a chance to be "ignored" and you would have to reselect the action. Combining this with a higher delay would mean it could take an hour to perform a basic action. I think this fits the idea of a Severely Depressed survivor way more.

[Aelipse]

Thanks for the input! I'll edit your suggestions into the original post for easy orientation.

[BentNose]

On 12/21/2020 at 12:33 PM, TrailerParkThor said:

I think your ideas about the delay is good. Perhaps instead of self harm, on your average character, Severely Depressed will lead to extreme apathy. Sprinting wont be possible, and neither will exercise. Actions will have a chance to be "ignored" and you would have to reselect the action. Combining this with a higher delay would mean it could take an hour to perform a basic action. I think this fits the idea of a Severely Depressed survivor way more.

We have a subtle mechanic to support the 'ignored' result already in PZ too. If the depressed moodle shakes when you try the action, then the game is quietly informing you of the problem.

[SunnyPlayGames]

that idea isnt that bad at all, i mean there are alot of players out there who take adventage of the whole worm eating thing and only get depression of it. but instead of killing themself if they get depressed, they actually try to harm themself like cutting their arms, legs which can be done with a knife, a sharp object like a screwdriver or even their fingernails. that way people actually trying not getting depressed because they know if they go further down the hills they might hurt themself in the middle of a zombie chase xD

 

and in my opinion killing themself is quiet harsh to be honest. and i believe hurt themself is good enough to scare some people of that whole exploid. 

but now that im thinking of it they might gain medical skills if they intended to getting depressed so they can hurt themself to apply first aid ._.

Edited December 24, 2020 by SunnyPlayGames

[Aelipse]

Thank you all for sharing your views. Having the character commit a suicide is harsh, I admit, and by no means do I insist on it. All I wanted was a mechanism that would motivate players to watch their depression levels and perform activities that keep the character happy or at least motivate them to keep going.

 

This could by the way open a door for a whole plethora of ideas regarding mental health and its maintenance. Food recipes could vary more in the department of unhappiness loss, there could be character traits like sweets-lover or vegetarian, which could increase the happiness benefits from certain foods. There could be a character trait gym enthusiast, which would make working out also beneficial to the mental health; or a bookworm which would do the same for reading any book the character could find - even the educational ones. There could be other activities like playing darts or playing a musical instrument (plenty guitars in the game already!). The character could get hapiness benefits from going hiking or writing a diary or shooting at things, given they have the right traits. Sky's the limit. Currently, there is no incentive for the developers to introduce such activities or traits as there is no incentive for the players to actually take them.

 

However, the main reason I'm writing this post is to point out that other systems in the game do bring about death and nobody has a problem with it. If the character starves or goes without water or is too cold for too long, she dies and nobody has a problem with it because it is in line with realism. I would imagine that surviving on your own for weeks, knowing that you are probably the last person alive (which is true in the singleplayer), that all your relatives and loved ones are dead and you are destined to eat worms and drink puddle water for the rest of your short lonely miserable life, that you have nothing substantial to look forward to and are merely waiting to be torn apart by a horde of zombies; I would imagine that such situation might actually invoke some serious thoughts about death. It's nothing short of realism, and it's also nothing that couldn't be prevented by a mindful player - the same way starvation or freezing can be and is prevented. It's what makes this game a challenge and fun after all.

Edited December 26, 2020 by Aelipse

[Faalagorn]

I really hope some revamp will come eventually – devs have planned something more for it surely, as we have unused insanity attribute and sounds in game too.

 

Playing arcade machines was also teased at some point, it will probably come eventually with more electronic improvement, so better happiness management would surely be useful.  

[elbapewit]

Interesting ideas man!

[NoPizzaSad]

Yeah, depression should be actually dangerous, slower at tasks, higher risk of injury, less or no self defense reflexes (you know when a zombie comes at you and your character struggles to free themselves), a refusal to step on the car breaks could also be depictive of self neglect but players themselves already do that all the time haha.

If it seemed like your character just doesn't want to live that much, that's when you got it right. While suicidal tendencies are not always present, a lack of willingness to live is pretty characteristic of depression, managing to pull it off realistically would add some real grittiness to the game experience.

We could go the other way around too, and make your character happy if you keep their living standard up for a long time, giving you a bit more leeway if you have a character with a stress inducing trait. I don't have a cigarette for 9 hours and my character is already going around crying in corners lol.