Ideas for Implementation of Dogs

[xTosca]

Okay, so, to preface this- I do know dogs have already been marked a 'yes' in the "common suggestions" thread, so this isn't a general "please add dogs" suggestion thread.

Instead, I'd like to introduce some particular ideas I had for the implementation of dogs into the game, and how they could function in a way that makes them interesting.

 

1. "Follow Me" - Party System
So, one of the big things here is- ideally, if you have a dog in a game like this, you want them to be able to travel with you as your companion and make the game just a little less lonely. The idea here is, when you have a dog set to travel with you, it gets its own stats panel that you can keep track of on the HUD, kind of similarly to your party members in an MMO or RPG. That way you can keep track of its health, stats, hunger, and so on, so you can effectively keep them alive. If your dog is trying to help you fight off a zombie horde and sustaining a lot of damage? You could command it to flee and save itself. You as the player have the capability to run away- so your dog should, too.

2. Dog Stats and Training

Ideally, to avoid dogs either being entirely invulnerable or super squishy and easily killed, they should have some kind of trainable stats system similar to the player. For example- strength, fitness, agility, etc, anything else that would fit and be useful for a dog. There could also be a "loyalty", "bond", or "obedience" stat, which affects how likely the dog is to obey your commands.

Dogs could be trained to raise stats, or trained in specific commands, that allow you to sort of control how your dog behaves while travelling with you. For example: Come, Stay, Attack, Run Away, Hide Under Car, Get In Car, etc. Maybe you could even train dogs as livestock guardians if more predatory animals are added or if zombies target livestock.

3. Idle Behavior
When in Travel Mode, dogs could have a certain radius around the player where they may still wander a bit. i.e. walking around, sniffing at things, and generally just... behaving like dogs. In general, they'll follow the player, although it may not always be right at their side.

When not in Travel Mode, dogs could wander freely(unless shut inside a house or fenced in), but have a sort of "home territory" they'll always try to return to and mostly stay within. The player could set the dog's "home", and then the dog could expand its territory radius from there via exploring, until it hits a certain cap and it'll mostly stay within that area. To keep dogs confined, you could keep them indoors or behind a fence. There could be a button to call the dog from anywhere, and if it's within a certain radius, it can hear your call and will come to you if trained- but of course, this call could also attract zombies within the same radius.

4. Multiple Dogs

Would be nice if you could have multiple dogs, maybe up to a certain cap, but can only bring one or two with you in "Travel Mode" to prevent it from being too OP. This could allow you to breed them, or train different dogs for different purposes. Dogs could interact with eachother when idling, just to add some flavor.

 

5. Dog Armor

The ability to loot things like K9 police vests and such to put on your dogs for protection, similarly to clothes on the player character.

[mimo_za]

I strongly support it!

[Axezombie]

Quote

The idea here is, when you have a dog set to travel with you, it gets its own stats panel that you can keep track of on the HUD, kind of similarly to your party members in an MMO or RPG. That way you can keep track of its health, stats, hunger, and so on, so you can effectively keep them alive.

A HUD like that for skill points in obedience, loyalty... maybe but for hunger and health I don't think it would fit PZ, because it's supposed to be as realistic as possible, for health you could inspect it (like players being inspected by other players) and based on your level of first aid you would know what's wrong with your dog. For hunger you would know if it's hungry or not based on its reactions (animations and sounds like whimpering, barking...)  and/or you feed it always at the same hour of the day.

 

You better train your dogs really good before going out with them, because if they bark... I don't have to explain what's going to happen.

 

Either than that yes those are good ideas, there is so much to do with animals and especially dogs.

[xTosca]

On 1/28/2023 at 3:03 AM, Axezombie said:

A HUD like that for skill points in obedience, loyalty... maybe but for hunger and health I don't think it would fit PZ, because it's supposed to be as realistic as possible, for health you could inspect it (like players being inspected by other players) and based on your level of first aid you would know what's wrong with your dog. For hunger you would know if it's hungry or not based on its reactions (animations and sounds like whimpering, barking...)  and/or you feed it always at the same hour of the day.

 

You better train your dogs really good before going out with them, because if they bark... I don't have to explain what's going to happen.

 

Either than that yes those are good ideas, there is so much to do with animals and especially dogs.

I mean... a HUD like that would literally allow it to be realistic, at least as far as health goes. Considering the extremely low poly/low detail style of the game, it'd be pretty much impossible to tell if your dog is injured or close to death by sight alone, as the player. It is literally impossible to depict on the model itself a difference between a mild injury like a small scratch/cut vs. a severe one like a deep wound, + there's blood loss etc etc... all things your CHARACTER would reasonably be able to see so long as the dog is within sight.

You wouldn't even need a high first aid skill to tell your dog is absolutely mangled and bleeding out, like, speaking from a realism standpoint. If you, in real life, could CLEARLY see your dog being ripped to shreds by zombies and sustaining obvious injuries........

There's really no reason that can't be communicated to the player as well. The player should be able to know everything the character could reasonably see, at least.

Also, I can imagine people getting REALLY attached to their dogs and not wanting them to die. Dogs kind of have that power over people. It really wouldn't hurt to give players as many tools to keep them alive as possible, without completely destroying realism by making them outright immortal, especially considering you can't outright control a dog the same way you can your player character, so you need to be able to keep track of it somehow, otherwise it would just get itself killed super easily because... AI does AI things.

Like, a REAL dog would probably be a lot more intelligent than an AI dog in this game, and have more of a survival instinct and be more capable of keeping itself alive. In a game like this, though, with what seems to be relatively simple AI...(the zombies will literally ignore an open door/broken window and bang their heads against a different door/window instead)

A dog would probably die pretty easily without the player being able to effectively micromanage them, tbh.

Edited January 29, 2023 by xTosca

[Axezombie]

Sorry I wasn't very clear, for health I meant the same HUD as players and only seen after inspection (a right click action to get the health window), not constantly visible like a RPG health bar.

If your dog is bleeding or close to death you would notice it easily with animations and sounds only, you can already see it with your character, they leave a trail of blood when bleeding, but for small injuries and to treat them you could inspect it which would bring a health window.

 

Dogs can have a lot of issues and from the exterior you can't always determine the problem, you have to go to a veterinary to know what's wrong with it, that's why you would need some first aid skill. Of course I'm not asking for dogs to get all health issues possible and not need 8 skill points in first aid to do anything.., but not just bleeding. What i'm trying to say is that it's not always that easy to tell what's wrong with your dog (sickness, dehydration, starvation, infections...)  and I feel like someone with better medical knowledge would do better than someone who knows nothing at all at identifying problems and applying adequate treatments.