I was looking at the stamina regen changes and agree with the post at the end of this pull request:
The absolute amount if in-game time to recover a full stamina bar is actually slightly less than it was previously (now ~8 minutes on the clock). However, the fact it takes 6 times as many turns to achieve this makes zombies, effectively, 6 times faster than they were before, at least from the perspective of stamina regen. You used to be able to pace yourself, spreading zombies out and fighting them one at a time, catching your breath between each one. Now, the same tactic results in you being completely exhausted by the end because you recover almost no stamina in between attackers.
This means you can scarcely afford to fight one or two zombies in order to escape the horde, since you will be out of breath with no chance to recover before the rest are upon you. And even starting from a full bar of stamina, running away from a horde and consuming a half bar of stamina leaves you impaired for 100-ish turns; meanwhile the zombies are making up lost ground just as fast as they always do.
I think stamina costs and regen rates need to be rewritten so that the character can perform approximately the same number of actions (or run the same amount of distance) before becoming winded, but can regenerate that stamina in approximately the same number of turns as before, irrespective of in-game time passage.
Another option might be only minor tweaks to expenditure and regen, but give a much larger stamina pool. This would allow the player to undergo “hit and run” tactics similarly to before, but would still penalize long periods of strenuous activity or combat since the subjective recovery time is so much higher than before. Bottom line, minor scraps or running to evade the horde should not leave the character incapacitated for hundreds of turns.
Your observations are correct, however IMHO the conclusion is not. You suggest that character who is out of stamina should catch his breath in mere seconds, and that stamina regeneration should in fact be decoupled with passage of in game time. This assumption is directly opposite to anything resembling reality. In hit and run tactics you consume stamina on both “hit” and “run” parts, so all in all you are dealing with a very limited resource. You cannot expect that you can recover stamina in some magical time in between, as it is, as you said, mere seconds when the zombies that see you are on to you. It’s not the mechanic that fails, it’s the tactic itself. Zombies are restless. Even in Romero type slow zombie apocalypse scenarios it’s obvious that you can run from a zombie but then you need to rest while zombie does not, so you are in a disadvantage in the long run. So successful application of hit and run technique would include kiting a single zombie, and for larger groups you’d need a way for them to lose sight of you to survive. Because it’s not only hit and run. It’s hit, run, rest in safety, repeat. And you can’t rest safely in active pursuit. You’ve got to lose it effectively for a decent time.
EnDSchultz, imagine that happening in reality to YOU. How long will you be able to “hit and run” on your very own feet? 10 minutes? 20 minutes?
Even if one is trained and seasoned marathoner, he will drop incapable for days after 2 hours max of “hit and run”, as it is as stressful and exhausting as professional sports match or something.
I think the way the stamina works now is fairly realistic and I would like it to stay that way.
No more parkour for hours and days. Never again.
First: Fight against hordes of zombies in early game is wishing death, except if you’re playing a melee build with high dextery and manage focus points to increasing quickly your dodging skill.
Second: Normally all the characters are a little bit faster than normal zombies… walking, except if you’re already expended some of your stamina running.
So really stamina isn’t a issue if you don’t overuse it. Just don’t get needlessly at risk for a backpack.