Ideas for more real to life NPC behavior.

[Zombiologist]

This is something that bugs me about basically all post apocalyptic media I see. Humans that don't act like real humans do in real disasters. There are so many myths about how people act in disasters that are so pervasive that it's often accepted as fact. Given the devs dedication to making a realistic game that is fun to play, I would be quite delighted if Project Zomboid became the exception to the rule. I provide a bit of further reading materials that explain how real humans behave in real disasters as compared to how we think they do at bottom of the post.

First, people don't abandon all of their morals as soon as there is no government around to tell them not to. Crime rates do go up quite a bit, desperate people are more likely to steal or get involved in conflicts, and panicking people are more likely to make foolish decisions in the heat of the moment (for example if they see people looting, they are more likely to loot without considering the implications out of panic), but in general people are far more focused on working together and problem solving. Most of the people causing trouble are people who already were causing trouble before the disaster or who always wanted to and now think they can get away with it. Gang ridden areas might be really unsafe, but grandpa probably isn't going to beat you to death for a can of soup. People's moral beliefs may change over time but it's not something that just happens like a finger snap. The kinds of people that simply abandon all morals when disaster strikes are the ones the typically die pretty early on. Humans are a dangerous super predator, regularly creating conflicts with them does not give you good odds. Avoiding conflict is a far better survival strategy and comes more naturally. The news often focuses on the looting, shooting, and such, but that isn't what the majority of people are doing in most disasters.

Another thing. There are no "alpha males" or anything like that in real naturally formed human social structures. The scientist who coined the term only ever intended to to describe wolf behavior and later disproved the entire theory when he realized wolves only have "alphas" when you trap them all in a cage at the zoo together with no options for escape and not enough proper stimulation, not in the wild. During disasters the social structure that forms with humans is much less organized and more complex, at least for the first few years unless an organized structure already existed before the disaster (such as the military or a prepper group, etc) or some challenge causes people to come together to build a social structure (usually years down the road from the start of the disaster). People tend to congregate in the safest places they can, there are no clear leaders but certain personalities tend to command more respect. In the very beginning this tends to be the tough types that get stuff done, but this quickly turns over to people who have good people skills, can resolve conflicts, and can keep people's spirits up. However this doesn't mean any one of them is the leader or even makes the rules and nobody picks these de-facto leaders, they sort of rise up organically. In fact even the rules in these types of groups typically evolve spontaneously. That is nobody ever starts a discussion to make a list of rules, it just happens organically based on human instinct, culture, and a few other things. The enforcement is also typically fair and universal. Whatever your status was before the disaster nobody cares anymore, if you step on toes you might get kicked out. Exile is functionally the same as a death sentence in a long term disaster unless a different group will accept you (your reputation will follow you like it or not. People talk). This is one of the reasons there are no "alpha males" if you try to dominate everybody and make them agree with your rules they're going to all gang up on you and kick you out, or the group will devolve into conflict and dissolve into smaller groups, or if the conflict can't be resolved possibly everybody dies.

Cannibalism... It just doesn't happen. Yeah if you comb every survival situation over the past 100 years you find a handful of cases, but the vast majority of people literally rather starve. The rare times it does happen it's usually only if the people being eaten where already dead from other causes. Humans hunting other humans to eat for survival is so rare you can write it off as an urban legend. It's also a really terrible survival strategy. First there are few foods more dangerous to your health than human flesh for many reasons that would be a bit off topic to get into, short version is prions, diseases, biocumaltive waste, other mystery symptoms, etc. Second your reputation will follow you. If word gets out you're eating people a lot of people with a lot of time on their hands will be very upset with you, and remember conflict with a super predator is a bad survival strategy. No matter how tough you are you won't be able to take on angry mobs alone, and very few if any people are ever going to trust you enough to make a lasting group with you. Trust is worth more than gold in survival situations, and trust can only be gained long term by being a trustworthy person, people don't trust somebody who might eat them when their stomach gets the grumblies that only hands can sooth. Since this is a zombie game though I would add that who knows what the psychological impact of being surrounded by flesh eating humanoids all the time would be and how that might change behavior. Maybe cannibalism would be more likely in such an apocalypse at least over time.

The lone survivor in the wild: they don't exist. I mean yes if you comb through the records you will find rare instances of it, but few forms of survival are harder than lone survival. Few can survive long this way without support from others, or at least plenty of resources to scavenge from long dead others. It's really hard to do and a single mistake or injury and you're as good as dead. We are a social species evolved for millions of years to survive in groups, not alone. Being alone = death. You aren't likely to wander out into the woods and find somebody living out there alone, and if you do it's because they prepared very well ahead of time and almost certainly brought modern tech to help them.

The psychology of survival. Surviving cooperatively in a group actually feels really good emotionally. We evolved specifically for this very function and it gives a person a sense of satisfaction and purpose that is very hard to get in the modern age. It's an extremely hard and dangerous life but also one that many people find highly rewarding overall. In fact some people who have escaped such situations made efforts to go back. It's typically those that are close enough to the disaster to be affected emotionally but unable to actually do much to help anybody that typically have the worst psychological side affects. Not that one should underestimate trauma and other factors that will affect those directly involved. In most survival situations more humans (as long as everybody has a cooperative goal) serves to improve your survival odds, hence our instinct to help people even if we don't know them that well.

Some of these ideas may not be well accepted in modern thoughts about disasters or might not translate perfectly into video game logic where the goal is to make a game that's fun to play but I suggest you consider where your beliefs about disasters comes from before you write it off, and maybe do some reading on the topic of real situations other than the sensationalized internet news headlines. How much of what you know comes from real life experience or even at least people who were actually living it that you've had full conversations with?

Further reading on real life human behavior in disasters: Tribe by Sebastian Junger, A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit, https://www.commentary.org/articles/james-meigs/elite-panic-vs-the-resilient-populace/

[PoshRocketeer]

"Lone survivors do no thappen"

 

You know, except for the 300+ people who've been stranded, managed to survive for several months before being rescued, and lived to tell the tale in the last 100 years.

[getstoopid]

He meant if other survivors are present, I guess and not the one plane crash survivor who simply had no choice.

 

@OP I agree with most of what you said about people and their intrinsic motivation to "do good" BUT you yourself also mentioned those gangs, groups of bullies and rare violent idiots.

...And now you have a problem because if you have no or only a small group behind you (and people you care for and feel responsible for), you just can't rely on statistics (= the probability that bob here, wearing a gun and a large bloody machete, is not one of those rare types but friendly and helpful).

So what will happen... let's call it a misunderstanding.

 

The next problem will be that civilization is spreading thinner every day for the first few weeks to the point where you may see no other people for days or even weeks and chances are that at least one time your trust will be abused and (if you survive it) you will be waaay less trusting or even hostile in the future which leads to more distrust and violence spreading like a disease.

 

Because "society" to handle those bullies and gangs doesn't exist any more... the good people are no longer the majority aside from larger communities that may form after a while... I would assume for the first few months or even years humanity is in for the dark ages again.

 

Edited December 7, 2023 by getstoopid

[Zombiologist]

21 hours ago, PoshRocketeer said:

"Lone survivors do no thappen"

 

You know, except for the 300+ people who've been stranded, managed to survive for several months before being rescued, and lived to tell the tale in the last 100 years.

Several months is a lot different than years. I meant to refer to long term survival. If you look at these people that have survived months alone almost all of them lost significant weight and had vitamin deficiencies, if not serious illness. They managed to buy themselves time but they couldn't have survived indefinitely alone. Lone survival for the long term is near impossible for a human. Isolation is deadly. Even homesteaders living alone in older times usually went to the market every year before winter if not every few weeks or so or at least had distant neighbors they occasionally saw. It's just too hard to survive any other way. The majority of cases surviving for a very long time alone they lived in ideal survival environments like tropical islands with plentiful natural resources. Surviving a winter alone would be difficult for even a hardened survivalist.

 

 

6 hours ago, getstoopid said:

He meant if other survivors are present, I guess and not the one plane crash survivor who simply had no choice.

 

@OP I agree with most of what you said about people and their intrinsic motivation to "do good" BUT you yourself also mentioned those gangs, groups of bullies and rare violent idiots.

...And now you have a problem because if you have no or only a small group behind you (and people you care for and feel responsible for), you just can't rely on statistics (= the probability that bob here, wearing a gun and a large bloody machete, is not one of those rare types but friendly and helpful).

So what will happen... let's call it a misunderstanding.

 

The next problem will be that civilization is spreading thinner every day for the first few weeks to the point where you may see no other people for days or even weeks and chances are that at least one time your trust will be abused and (if you survive it) you will be waaay less trusting or even hostile in the future which leads to more distrust and violence spreading like a disease.

 

Because "society" to handle those bullies and gangs doesn't exist any more... the good people are no longer the majority aside from larger communities that may form after a while... I would assume for the first few months or even years humanity is in for the dark ages again.

 

There definitely will be increases in violence and such. On average more prosocial people will survive longer, but there will still be people who will mug or kill you and the number of them will be higher than pre disaster, it just won't be like the movies where every other person wants you dead. More people are likely to try and take stuff behind your back than try to attack you premeditated. Most people will really want your company. Many of the things you hear about in sensational news headlines do happen, just not nearly as often as the media would have you believe. For example mobs stealing from homes do happen and in a long term disaster you may even encounter them at some point, but more often than not they go after doomsday preppers or hoarders who refuse to share with the community. Unless it's getting desperate and people have kids to feed, they are less likely to loot house to house in mobs.

You also have a good point about misunderstandings, especially at the beginning when social order is breaking down they could be a lot of confusion and misunderstandings that can create conflict.

Lonely people are also more prone to becoming less trusting and more likely to interpret neutral social cues as negative ones, which can create problems. Not to mention the rates of psychological trauma are likely to be much higher in the unique situation of a zombie doomsday at least I'd imagine. The fact that anybody could be infected may also make people less prosocial, at least on first encounters if not in general. Somebody that has been hiding in the house alone for several weeks might be a little grouchy when you find them, but they will likely also be desperate for company so they might be a little unpredictable at first.

Edited December 8, 2023 by Zombiologist

[Unamelable]

I don't like reading

[PoshRocketeer]

36 minutes ago, Unamelable said:

I don't like reading

Cool story

[Unamelable]

On 12/8/2023 at 2:12 AM, Zombiologist said:

Several months is a lot different than years. I meant to refer to long term survival. If you look at these people that have survived months alone almost all of them lost significant weight and had vitamin deficiencies, if not serious illness. They managed to buy themselves time but they couldn't have survived indefinitely alone. Lone survival for the long term is near impossible for a human. Isolation is deadly. Even homesteaders living alone in older times usually went to the market every year before winter if not every few weeks or so or at least had distant neighbors they occasionally saw. It's just too hard to survive any other way. The majority of cases surviving for a very long time alone they lived in ideal survival environments like tropical islands with plentiful natural resources. Surviving a winter alone would be difficult for even a hardened survivalist.

 

 

There definitely will be increases in violence and such. On average more prosocial people will survive longer, but there will still be people who will mug or kill you and the number of them will be higher than pre disaster, it just won't be like the movies where every other person wants you dead. More people are likely to try and take stuff behind your back than try to attack you premeditated. Most people will really want your company. Many of the things you hear about in sensational news headlines do happen, just not nearly as often as the media would have you believe. For example mobs stealing from homes do happen and in a long term disaster you may even encounter them at some point, but more often than not they go after doomsday preppers or hoarders who refuse to share with the community. Unless it's getting desperate and people have kids to feed, they are less likely to loot house to house in mobs.

You also have a good point about misunderstandings, especially at the beginning when social order is breaking down they could be a lot of confusion and misunderstandings that can create conflict.

Lonely people are also more prone to becoming less trusting and more likely to interpret neutral social cues as negative ones, which can create problems. Not to mention the rates of psychological trauma are likely to be much higher in the unique situation of a zombie doomsday at least I'd imagine. The fact that anybody could be infected may also make people less prosocial, at least on first encounters if not in general. Somebody that has been hiding in the house alone for several weeks might be a little grouchy when you find them, but they will likely also be desperate for company so they might be a little unpredictable at first.

The Walking Dead even if not realistically, but accurately shows how society becomes after such a dramatic disaster, you can see different types of people and how they interact with others, and trust in this danger scenario creates accurate moments that i wish Project Zomboid NPC update gonna have.

 

I remember playing TWD: Season 2. There was a female what was a lone survivor. And SPOILER: She died from suicide when she out that I was pregnant after “quick sex”. And I’m sure that she did it without thinking about it, which is why she regretted it very much. She is a lone survivor, she clearly could not stand the moral responsibility that she created for herself.

 

And if you look in the long term (for example, a year later). There will obviously be many people who will have serious problems with trust, even now there are many people who are skeptical of acquaintances or friends. And here you cannot do without squabbles or problems with group members. And like in TWD (the game) everyone dies or goes missing at the end.

 

Also, do not forget that ONE PERSON IS NOT AN ARMY. It can be easily overwhelmed by quantity. Unless of course he's a master of stealth. And if we take for example a scenario where there are 10 raiders who are ready to kill for resources. And 4 people who are neutral towards the others - then they have 3 scenarios: Capitulate to the raiders and fulfill their requests; Die trying to fight back; Run away. So I don’t think that groups of fighters will not be popular in the apocalypse, although of course many will die at the beginning of the disaster, but the group that survives longer will clearly be much stronger.

 

Don’t forget about trust, because in the apocalypse it is extremely shaky and very unpredictable. It can only be obtained if you are a group that survives for several months. If not a year. Because even after several years of exterminating zombies, human mistakes and stupidity will not go away.

 

At the beginning of the apocalypse, absolutely everyone will be shocked, and this will affect their decisions, because they are damn afraid. The first 2 months of the apocalypse will be unpredictable because many simply do not know what to do. And they were damn lucky if they lived for more than 2 months in this madhouse. After a while, people’s panic and stress from zombies will decrease, and they will think easier. Keep making plans, and in the end there will be the first self-made cities, and everything will more or less settle down.

And there will be fewer of the same raiders because there is nothing left to rob, all that remains is to live in factions.

 

I am also sure that a person, due to being in constant stress and danger, will receive some immunity to dangers, including survivors. So I'm sure they will make more suicidal decisions with great profit. Because they don’t feel the same feeling of adrenaline that was off the charts at the beginning of the apocalypse.

 

 

 

 

 

To put it simply, this all goes into deep psychology, and I don’t think it can help in developing good NPC behavior. In the end, the game should be made fun and MAYBE realistic, than the point where your opponent will make decisions based on the dice.

[Unamelable]

I forgot to add that people, like all animals, have an instinct of self-preservation. In the end, no one knows what awaits them after death, and they only have 1 try.

 

So it would be pretty stupid to make dummies that are not afraid of anything.

[PoshRocketeer]

I do genuinely kind of struggle to imagine how NPCs in zomboid are going to work. I'm hopeful, though. Indie Stone has done unbelievable work for an indie team.

Edited December 17, 2023 by PoshRocketeer

[Unamelable]

It would be great to add a karma system. Where the player if kills NPCs that are unknown to him. Could be related to other NPCs. Because of which he would be considered a raider or just a survivor who was forced to defend himself. To create a kind of realism effect where every action of the player is important. Whether he helped the needy, or created a long-standing relationship, or robbed, helped. A lot of scenarios like this can diversify the relationship with NPCs

[Zombiologist]

On 12/10/2023 at 1:11 AM, Unamelable said:

The Walking Dead even if not realistically, but accurately shows how society becomes after such a dramatic disaster, you can see different types of people and how they interact with others, and trust in this danger scenario creates accurate moments that i wish Project Zomboid NPC update gonna have.

 

I remember playing TWD: Season 2. There was a female what was a lone survivor. And SPOILER: She died from suicide when she out that I was pregnant after “quick sex”. And I’m sure that she did it without thinking about it, which is why she regretted it very much. She is a lone survivor, she clearly could not stand the moral responsibility that she created for herself.

 

And if you look in the long term (for example, a year later). There will obviously be many people who will have serious problems with trust, even now there are many people who are skeptical of acquaintances or friends. And here you cannot do without squabbles or problems with group members. And like in TWD (the game) everyone dies or goes missing at the end.

 

Also, do not forget that ONE PERSON IS NOT AN ARMY. It can be easily overwhelmed by quantity. Unless of course he's a master of stealth. And if we take for example a scenario where there are 10 raiders who are ready to kill for resources. And 4 people who are neutral towards the others - then they have 3 scenarios: Capitulate to the raiders and fulfill their requests; Die trying to fight back; Run away. So I don’t think that groups of fighters will not be popular in the apocalypse, although of course many will die at the beginning of the disaster, but the group that survives longer will clearly be much stronger.

 

Don’t forget about trust, because in the apocalypse it is extremely shaky and very unpredictable. It can only be obtained if you are a group that survives for several months. If not a year. Because even after several years of exterminating zombies, human mistakes and stupidity will not go away.

 

At the beginning of the apocalypse, absolutely everyone will be shocked, and this will affect their decisions, because they are damn afraid. The first 2 months of the apocalypse will be unpredictable because many simply do not know what to do. And they were damn lucky if they lived for more than 2 months in this madhouse. After a while, people’s panic and stress from zombies will decrease, and they will think easier. Keep making plans, and in the end there will be the first self-made cities, and everything will more or less settle down.

And there will be fewer of the same raiders because there is nothing left to rob, all that remains is to live in factions.

 

I am also sure that a person, due to being in constant stress and danger, will receive some immunity to dangers, including survivors. So I'm sure they will make more suicidal decisions with great profit. Because they don’t feel the same feeling of adrenaline that was off the charts at the beginning of the apocalypse.

 

 

 

 

 

To put it simply, this all goes into deep psychology, and I don’t think it can help in developing good NPC behavior. In the end, the game should be made fun and MAYBE realistic, than the point where your opponent will make decisions based on the dice.

TWD is actually a good example of one of the many shows that gets human behavior completely wrong in disasters. The kind of human behavior portrayed in the show can technically happen in real life but is not nearly as common as portrayed in the show and doesn't work the way the show would have you think, the fact that there always seems to be somebody raiding them or trying to eat them or etc just isn't how real disasters work. No show or movie will show you what a real disaster looks like. Unless you've either been in a real disaster or talked in depth with people who lived through them then you really don't know what it's like, because all the people making shows about them are just making stories about experiences they've never had, and all the news outlets are trying to sell clicks with the most extreme stuff they can find not capture the whole human experience. The books I mentioned in OP are better examples of how it really works as they are real accounts of actual events rather than just stories. The stuff that happens in the books is not like what happens in TWD or any movie or show or story book I've seen.

Raiding to survive is about the worst strategy there is. Sure there will be people who raid, but not nearly as often as movies lead you to believe. Quite simply most raiders just die. Also people won't be violent towards each other without what they at least perceive as a good reason, and the most violent will be the ones dying early. Factions don't form easily because everybody is in the same shoes: desperate to survive scraping by with what they can. There isn't that much to really fight about and fighting is scary and dangerous when there is no hospital and no antibiotics for your open wounds. The people who are in real danger of being attacked are those that have much more than everybody else, haven't hidden the fact well, and refuse to share. Your stereotypical doomsday prepper for example usually is among some of the first to die as there aggressive posture towards everybody else, combined with their huge stockpile of supplies, makes them a very hard to ignore target for hungry mobs.

There are some things that change this calculation though: if a group in the area has a monopoly on violence or some sort of leverage as well as enough ideological, cultural, or other type of difference to view themselves as separate from others then they might start trouble. Gangs, cartels, rogue military groups/war lords, cultists, etc. These things don't stop being a threat just because society collapses. They still exist, but they aren't everywhere all the time and in most real life disasters even of large scale you're unlikely to personally encounter them much if at all unless they are already in your area per-disaster or actively caused the disaster. Games do tell a story though, and stories need conflict. There could be reasons these groups might be included in a game, but I think if they are included they should be included in ways that mirror more realistic life scenarios rather than just being a ubiquitous threat that exists one dimensionally to harrass players.

[getstoopid]

I don't think that you can simply project how humans behavior in a disaster that is focused on a region and has a definitive end to the apocalypse where society basically collapsed and no jurisdiction exists any longer

[Zombiologist]

On 2/22/2024 at 3:35 PM, getstoopid said:

I don't think that you can simply project how humans behavior in a disaster that is focused on a region and has a definitive end to the apocalypse where society basically collapsed and no jurisdiction exists any longer

To a certain degree there will be at least similarities. Additionally a lot of real life disasters face similar levels of isolation as a global collapse would. It would be closer to a more extreme version of real disasters than it would be anything like what movies and games portray. I think it would be better to use real life as a template than it would be to use media cliches or guesses. We can also look at historical accounts of real life past situations that were perceived by the people experiencing it as global, such as the black death which many at the time believed would be the end of the human race and is probably the closest thing to a zombie apocalypse we have in real life to compare to.
Additionally many large scale regional disasters have no definitive end in sight. Some places remain destabilized for years with seemingly no way to bring things back, like in failed states.