Yet another thread about sleeping (in MP)

[sweetcandyflip]

Make it so that you only need to take naps (hour or two per day) instead of sleeping 6-8 hours. Unnatural but works better game vice. Right now as lights arent syncronized in multiplayers night operations suck a bit... (flashlight party awww yiss).

 

Additional features for napping:

- Players in coop mode can sleep over the night

- Well rested/energized perk

- Better recovery from illnesses

- Only while sleeping player could level up (like in Oblivion)

Lack of sleeping makes some items and perks irrelevant, so it should be implemented in some form.

 

i rly hope they will implement some kind of sleeping for multiplayer... as farming gets rly useless without shortening the nights ingame

[harakka]

i rly hope they will implement some kind of sleeping for multiplayer... as farming gets rly useless without shortening the nights ingame

 

They intend to do so.

[sweetcandyflip]

 

i rly hope they will implement some kind of sleeping for multiplayer... as farming gets rly useless without shortening the nights ingame

 

They intend to do so.

 

yeah i know but im getting a bit worried about it, cause me and my friends are waiting for a solution since we tested mp some months ago and we decided to wait for it.... and after the new mondoid 1.0 i hope they find some extra time before finishing all the other stuff mentioned...

[Guest]

Sleeping needs to be implemented in my opinion, the only question is how.

 

The difference between multiplayer and single player for me is that the game cannot be paused, that being said I like to take a toilet break or tea break without having to quit out of the game (ruining suspense) which is what sleeping would be for me. It is really the only issue I've noticed with multiplayer, it's been fantastically stable in all my playtime.

[SlightlyMadman]

Napping is definitely the solution. It's entirely possible to exist on 15-20 minute every few hours and no other sleep. In a horrible situation like the one in-game, this would probably be a smart way to exist. Google "polyphasic sleeping."

[Viceroy]

I just can't see 'napping' as a valid alternative, this would negate night raids because you'd sit and wait for the guy to sleep and then when you are in through the door they are done sleeping. No thanks for that, it is not realistic, nor will it add to gameplay what I believe people intend for night time to allow..

 

Rather just give me something to do while I am asleep, something fun that I would not mind doing, like writing my 'diary', viewing a map with notes to plan ahead, a last-stand-esque survival dream where I can have fun blasting zeds, anything to pass the time that won't involve me staring at a black screen and won't involve breaking the roleplay of the game by going to sleep at 21:00 and waking up at 21:30 well rested with armed assailants barely able to take advantage of what is supposed to be a very vulnerable time.

 

Give us some minigame or something to pass the time while sleeping, it is the only valid solution in my opinion, it is fun, it can have positive and negative effects beyond the sleep period, it allows for the player sleeping to keep playing the game instead of googling breasts like they would otherwise. It allows for non sleeping players to still make use of the darkness of night for nefarious reasons and it would allow proper time for zombies to also break in or wander about without the sleeping player knowing.

[SlightlyMadman]

If I found myself in a situation where night raids were an issue, I'd only take quick naps unless I had friends who could sleep in shifts, so I don't see how that's unrealistic. Really though, being offline is the closest simulation of long-term sleep there is.

[deprav]

 

I do agree with you but I've been told the "mini-game" sleeping mechanic was a no go, tho it's probably something that could be done by a skillful modder.

Someone, earlier in the thread, mentionned a slideshow of a few snapshots of your previous day, which is a good solution to the blackscreen 'issue'.

imo the perfect system would be a timed nap system : you could either choose to sleep from 1h to 12h with a "resting scale", 1h being the minimum, 6h being fully rested, and past 6h would be bonus, useful to get better quicker when you're sick or injured.

[Viceroy]

Still that would just make people not play the game because you'd be staring at the screen for 6h in-game. And I never understood the opposition to minigames as it were, supplying things for a skillful modder to do won't make vanilla pz any more fun to play. Like take for example cards, you can find them in the game but perish the very thought of making them a playable 'minigame'. I sincerely think that it should be given alot more consideration. Many people have suggested it and many more will, it is a solution and it is a solution that would actually be fun to play, given the alternatives of either waiting or waiting an absurdly shortened amount time.

[Rathlord]

I still hold firm that PZ is not a game that should employ mini games. If you're playing PZ, you should be playing PZ in my opinion. If you want to waste time playing solitaire, tab out and play solitaire.

[Viceroy]

That is your opinion, I however would enjoy not having to tab out and instead being able to hold off zombies in a last stand mode whilst sleeping, instead of wasting my time 'playing' a black screen.

[EnigmaGrey]

Sleeping itself is pretty simple, ultimately:
1) determine how many hours to sleep
2) set a forced wakeup time
3) take control away from the player
4) draw a black texture across the screen with an alpha channel specific to the amount  of transparency you want
5) update body damage and IsoPlayer variables appropriatley, every 10 minutes
6) monitor clock until forced wake up time matches

Can be done for naps and for sleeping; I'd imagine it's even possible to do this for going offline, too, what with mod data.

That is, I'd like to see all three methods be viable: sleeping for a long period of time in real time (with some ability to interrupt it), brief naps of 1-2 hours (with some ability to interrupt it), and offline representing sleep. The only downside to sleeping on the server itself is that you can be attacked.

Whether any of these three are viable are not will depend primarily on the speed at which the server is set to. So it makes it sort of hard to shoot one down and support another. =/

[sweetcandyflip]

The easiest solution i guess would be serverside settings in a drop down box:

 

- Coop Sleep: One Player can start a sleep event and the other ones are asked to skip the night until morning... This wouldnt work on big server but it would be great for smaller Groups of players who want to play in privat like me.

- Napping: Same as the explanation above

- Minigames: I dont like it, but if you can choose settings anyway i see no problem ^^

- No sleep: Yeah there are a bunch of people, who dont care about our sleeping discussion, so deactivating could be also a setting

 

Everyone can be happy and we dont need the perfect sleep solution discussion ^^

 

edit: The Devs could use the settings to implement the "sleepy" emoticon again, and the way to refresh your character is the chosen server setting or not (No Sleep)

[Rathlord]

That is your opinion, I however would enjoy not having to tab out and instead being able to hold off zombies in a last stand mode whilst sleeping, instead of wasting my time 'playing' a black screen.

Aye, it's certainly down to opinion at the end of the day- the only objective claim I can make is that it would definitely take time away from development of actual gameplay elements. So the question would be twofold;

How the devs feel about mini games, and

Would enough people appreciate it/want it to divert resources from things everyone would use/enjoy.

[Vantus]

Like I mentioned previously, I think mini games would get annoying after the initial novelty wears off. With Zomboid-days passing fairly quickly, we would constantly be playing mini games.

On top of that there is the technical difficulties that are not being considered. Such as what happens when you are attacked in your sleep or zombies break in.

The game would have to suddenly interrupt your mini game (which will leave you with momentary "WTF" syndrome). Project Zomboid will then have to dump your mini game and begin the long load back in to "the real world". Not only would that be incredibly frustrating, you would be long dead by the time you load back in.

A black screen or image is just an overlay.

Theres more to it than 'is it fun?'. You have to think in the long term. 'Will it be fun after the first 10 sleeps?'

Besides Viceroy, I won't stop playing Zomboid because I have to not touch my keys for 1-3 mins. I do that already when reading skill books!

[Dillerin]

IF there were a 'Sleep Deprevation' status/energy bar... It could dwindle to 'passing out' after 3 in game days (maybe more or less with trait/flaw choices) to recover 1 days of sleep loss, 5 minutes of looking at a black screen.  So, the standard sleep (black screen) needed to refill your energy bar from 0-100% would be 15 minutes. 

 

Allow options to set a wind up alarm clock (could alert nearby zombies) so you don't oversleep if you only wish to recover 1/3 or 2/3 of your energy bar.  (other wake up methods could be implemented, (I.E. gun fire nearby, a window breaking in the house, or chat from players scurrying through your cupboards.))  all could have a %chance of awaking you. % chance greater in your favor the more full your sleep deprevation status bar is.

 

1/3 energy or lower could lead to faster hunger, quicker stamina drain when running, loss of max carry capacity, and more suseptable to sickness and infection.  %chance of alarm working 'on time' very low.

 

2/3 energy would have similar effects only not as harsh. 

 

above 2/3 energy would keep you in a 'normal' state. 

 

NOTE:  All numbers, durations, and effects are strictly my opinion mostly used as an example to describe how a Sleep Deprevation energy/status bar could be implemented into MP game play. 

[Kirrus]

Planning for the long nights, is currently actually pretty interesting in MP, especially if you can group up.

In my plays with friends, we aim to clear and build a safehouse before the power goes out, with safe farming land and plenty of campfire space. Then, we use the nights to read skillbooks, cook, or potter around generally, and spend the day scavanging and prepping for whatever madcap idea we have at that point. Like, moving to west point. After power has gone.

Getting ahold of torches is pretty critical.

Safe to say, TIS will add sleep back in in some form, but as always, in their own time. Patience!

[ApolloDiaspora]

I typically find the lack of sleeping ability in multiplayer forces me to be out and about at night, looting to avoid boredom. Which means securing a light source (lighter or torch and spare batteries) becomes a priority fairly quickly. Yes, I'd prefer to be at the safehouse reading skill books, or cooking for the group, but I eventually run out of things to do... And don't like to go out at night.

 

I DO like the idea of a dream mechanic though. You take your nap/short-multiplayer-sleep and are presented with images, words and so on. Having snippets of the player chat appearing and disappearing. Screenshots of particularly momentous or terrifying events during the day. But, this is still down time, and could make the player bored regardless.

 

So, we need something for the player to do when sleeping, if they don't want to take a toilet break or so on.

 

Planning. Picture this. When sleeping, you get presented with a hazy and very, very simplistic map of the places you've been during the day. Say, a segment of the main street, or the interior of a warehouse you looted. You can tag the map with notes and symbols, even write out notes in a 'dream-journal' or similar. But you can't control what places are shown in your dreams. The map fragments shown are randomised from all the places you've been, with places you've visited in that day being given preference.

 

The map fragments/building blueprints would be simplistic in that buildings and roads would be solid blocks and blobs of colour (perhaps all shades of grey on black?), given without any form of context. The player would have to figure out what chunk of dream-map relates to what location the visited during the day. The player, and the character, are literally trying to remember things in their sleep. The dream map would not be accessible during the day.

 

As the days go by, the player would start to recognise what fragments of dream-map correlate to the real world, if only because they wrote it down on the map during their sleep. Ideas for future safehouse locations, loot-runs, and horde-cleaning operations could all be formed in what would otherwise be unused down time.

[EnigmaGrey]

See? I personally just open up FireFox and browse the Internet while the character sleeps in game, or as a night that I have no interest in, passes.

[Vantus]

Shift + Tab.

 

...Oh hello Steam Overlay! Fancy meeting you here!

 

 

[SeanJninsvit]

My apologies for not reading all the posts to see if this was mentioned, but I don't have the time at the moment.  I was thinking - maybe multiplayer sleep could work this way:

 

You can right-click a bed to get in and sleep, and you will begin sleeping.  However, you don't actually "fast time travel" through the sleep until all players are in bed, sleeping.  For example:

Player A gets in bed at 10 PM, begins sleeping.

Player B gets in bed at 10:30 PM, begins sleeping.  Sleep "fast time travel" begins at 10:30 PM for both players.

Sleep "fast time travel" ends when Player A wakes up at 7 AM (assuming the hard-coded sleep time is 9 hr).

Player B stays in bed, with no Sleep "fast time travel" until 7:30 AM when they wake up naturally.

 

Some mechanic could be built in for one player to wake the other, or for there to be some type of alarm clock (I think an alarm clock mechanic was previously suggested).

 

This would work well with cooperative play, but in a PvP situation (I don't know if the devs or community want to take it there), it might not work so well.  It should at least be an option for those who wish to undertake cooperative play.  I think the sleep mechanic is a big part of single player, and it should be included in multiplayer.

[Vantus]

I see what you are suggesting Sean.

 

I think though, that it would be best if there was only 1 finalized solution to online sleeping as opposed to splitting sleeping into a "PVP Sleeping version" and "Co-Op Sleeping version".

 

The system should be developed in a way that works in both PVP and Co-op environments.

Nothing overly inhibiting or arduous but at the same time, allows ample opportunity for both zombies (and other players) to still pose a threat to the player while they sleep.

[Kuikka]

Well, game could check if all players are sleeping, if they are, it would fast forwards x hours.

I really hope for a fix to flashlights etc in multiplayer before devs add sleeping function... Highly annoying, and limits what groups can do during night.

[Geonjaha]

I still think that Minecrafts version of multiplayer sleeping should be an option for all multiplayer servers. With large servers this of course wouldn't be activated as it would cause too much trouble - but with smaller servers (~2-6 people) keeping tiredness in and making it so that everyone needs to be sleeping for the time gap to occur would mean that aspect of the game remains intact.

 

If someone wakes up from being disturbed then everyone else pauses sleep and has the option to get up if need be, or otherwise wait for the other person to resume sleeping. Haven't checked to see if this specifically has been suggested - if so, just ignore the repeat.

[crowmium]

I'm curious how no sleep currently affects MP. I do not seem to be able to recover from any illness (non-Zombification) no matter how well I eat or how many drugs I take. Is sleep required to survive sickness? It should be realistically, but I don't know how it is implemented in MP right now.

 

I actually have no problem with no sleep in MP right now. I rarely move at night because it is far too dangerous (my screen is usually very, very dark; I don't gamma cheat), so I effectively am immobilized equivalently to sleeping. My only complaint is I would really like the chance to recover from illness if all I have is a common cold. It's frustrating to lose a very nice character because you sat in the rain a tad too long.

 

As for the effect while sleeping, there is no need for complete darkness and removed control. Just make the black Fog of War close in completely around the character so you can only see the small bubble around you (akin to the amount you can see behind you while awake, but in a radius around the player; this would simulate the small amount of perception you have while asleep). That way players aren't completely bored and can still manipulate UI elements and such. Obviously no actions could be taken until they wake up.

 

If sleep was implemented in MP, I really hope that either: 1) It is a time compressed sleep; OR 2) You have the option to disable it in the server settings. I would frankly quit playing PZ immediately as soon as I am forced to sit and stare at a blank screen for 30 minutes while my character sleeps. I don't have the time in my life to be wasting it on that sort of nonsense. This is still a game that I am playing for entertainment at the end of the day.

 

I think Minecraft's solution is one possibility for time compressed sleep. Another (and I think superior choice given how time compression is already implemented in singleplayer) is a time compression by vote mechanic which is popular in the Paradox grand strategy games. In those, every player chooses what time compression they would like to be running at, and the server moves at the lowest setting chosen by any single player (the UI shows both the current time compression as well as the one you the player has selected). If the game is paused, it can remain paused for 30 seconds before another player is allowed to unpause. Lastly, you could make an admin command to force time compression if you have trolly players on the server (or I guess you could just kick them).