Loneliness

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

I suggested elsewhere that loneliness could be a serious contender for filling up the end-game, so let’s chew it over. For starters, “loneliness” is kind of a catchall for the psychological effects of the Cataclysm. Grief for loved ones, purposelessness, and, of course, craving for human contact are all bundled in here.

Mechanically, what I had in mind was Cata secretly tracking the extent of the survivor’s isolation, winding down from 100 (healthy social life) to 0 (utter hopelessness and despair). Each day it ticks down, imposing morale penalties and threatening the character with mental illness. There would be various methods for keeping the survivor semi-sane, most prominently reading those “Just for fun” books, keeping pets, talking to NPCs on the radio, and establishing your own “tribe”. Of these, only the books and radio are easily implemented, although perhaps getting the Cat Food to summon you a housecat “item” to carry around and keep you company (it’s constantly on and needs to be “reloaded” with food from time to time) wouldn’t require too much novel coding.

Obviously, these methods would have different levels of effectiveness, but more importantly they’d be limited in how far from 0 they can take you. Reading can take the edge off, but it would be limited to pushing the character’s loneliness off the bottom (can’t go over, say, 30). Being a cat-lady is pretty insane in itself, so maybe taking care of kitty only gets you up to 50. And radio contact still isn’t the real thing, so that’s a ceiling of 80.

The great merit of this scheme is that it doesn’t much change the opening, so new players aren’t going to get clobbered. They might see a “You miss your Mom” message pop up, but if they’re struggling to beat Day 5, loneliness isn’t going to do them in. For veterans, the trade-offs between keeping a library but being mentally ill, having a fussy feline but being a bit gaga, or doing quests for your radio pals so that they’ll talk to you, adds more difficulty, not to mention realism, to the late game.

2

[quote=“Womble, post:1, topic:6486”]I suggested elsewhere that loneliness could be a serious contender for filling up the end-game, so let’s chew it over. For starters, “loneliness” is kind of a catchall for the psychological effects of the Cataclysm. Grief for loved ones, purposelessness, and, of course, craving for human contact are all bundled in here.

Mechanically, what I had in mind was Cata secretly tracking the extent of the survivor’s isolation, winding down from 100 (healthy social life) to 0 (utter hopelessness and despair). Each day it ticks down, imposing morale penalties and threatening the character with mental illness. There would be various methods for keeping the survivor semi-sane, most prominently reading those “Just for fun” books, keeping pets, talking to NPCs on the radio, and establishing your own “tribe”. Of these, only the books and radio are easily implemented, although perhaps getting the Cat Food to summon you a housecat “item” to carry around and keep you company (it’s constantly on and needs to be “reloaded” with food from time to time) wouldn’t require too much novel coding.

Obviously, these methods would have different levels of effectiveness, but more importantly they’d be limited in how far from 0 they can take you. Reading can take the edge off, but it would be limited to pushing the character’s loneliness off the bottom (can’t go over, say, 30). Being a cat-lady is pretty insane in itself, so maybe taking care of kitty only gets you up to 50. And radio contact still isn’t the real thing, so that’s a ceiling of 80.

The great merit of this scheme is that it doesn’t much change the opening, so new players aren’t going to get clobbered. They might see a “You miss your Mom” message pop up, but if they’re struggling to beat Day 5, loneliness isn’t going to do them in. For veterans, the trade-offs between keeping a library but being mentally ill, having a fussy feline but being a bit gaga, or doing quests for your radio pals so that they’ll talk to you, adds more difficulty, not to mention realism, to the late game.[/quote]

CATS ARE NICE. #readtoomuchDiscworldlately

Radio folks would logically also get lonely, FWIW. Agreed that books could help but some might be Counterproductive (Rivet’s mentioned that she intended the photo album to be Disconcerting for players), and having a dog around would probably help as well.

That said, it definitely needs traits to speed/slow things. I’d be interested in a PR, but would probably nitpick it fairly hard.

3

I’m on an old machine while between proper computers, so I wouldn’t be trying to put this together for another couple of months myself.

For the radio folks, it’s possible that they have a better set-up and subsist in a little tribe, so talking to the survivor is more of a curiosity/opportunity. Creating lapdogs on the same “item” scheme as a housecat should work pretty well, but the current pet ai doesn’t make them good companions.

Traits probably need to be specialised, like “Cat Lover”/“Hates Cats”, “Bookworm” (finds it easy to immerse in fiction), “Charming” (can get radio folks talking without doing them favours), and so forth. But they’re not hard to think up. It also occurred to me that this mechanism can deal with guilt for killing NPCs, child zombies, mothers, etc. much better than morale, as it gives a persistent and quite serious effect.

4

Having everyone else reachable via radio already (& mysteriously) well-off (so they don’t need you for companionship) seems awfully contrived, IMO. It’s understandable that some might be, but not all.

Folks similarly situated to the player might need some tangible incentive to invest the time and batteries talking to some new schmoe, granted–but after that, perhaps having a scheduled talk-time (say, odd-numbered days at 1800, you’ve got 5 min pre/post grace period to be on the horn) and tracking adherence to that might well be suitable. If you miss more than X days in a row or miss more days than you make, the person stops answering/calling.

5

Radio could occasionally end up more depressing. When you hear other stations go off the air one by one… victims narrating their own impending demise, crying for help or, rushing words in panic as the the door is pounded in… or dejectedly, almost clinically listing off the progressing symptoms as they succumb.

Military transmissions growing more and more distant, and less frequent as the alienation zone widens around the player.

An alert or numbers station slowly runs down it’s nuclear batteries while upband some music station’s transmitter is still running on automatic, replaying the last week of music and canned advertisement… of normalcy…again… and again… and again…

Eventually… you start to notice new patterns in the static… sounds… perhaps whispers, clicks and whines… or new noises you cannot identify.

6

[quote=“Belteshazzar, post:5, topic:6486”]Radio could occasionally end up more depressing. When you hear other stations go off the air one by one… victims narrating their own impending demise, crying for help or, rushing words in panic as the the door is pounded in… or dejectedly, almost clinically listing off the progressing symptoms as they succumb.

Military transmissions growing more and more distant, and less frequent as the alienation zone widens around the player.

An alert or numbers station slowly runs down it’s nuclear batteries while upband some music station’s transmitter is still running on automatic, replaying the last week of music and canned advertisement… of normalcy…again… and again… and again…

Eventually… you start to notice new patterns in the static… sounds… perhaps whispers, clicks and whines… or new noises you cannot identify.[/quote]

Eternal Darkness Days Ahead is mod territory. Thanks.

7

Talking to NPCs not only in the radio, too.

There would be some things that would turn it back, however. Depression, newspapers, things that could remember you of the past too much.

8

If there’s gonna be a trait that reduces the effects of not talking to people slightly, I have a name for it. Probably a stupid name for it, but it’s still a name.

Asocial.

9

We’re already tracking survivor mental health, we call it “morale”.
What you’re proposing boils down to one or more morale penalties that steadily increase over time if not specifically countered.
For example, “lonliness” might increase by one each day, and be reset or partially reset by talking to another survivor, or maybe interacting with a pet.
It’s different from the existing morale penalties/bonuses in that it’s so long-term, but other than that there’s no reason for it to be a separate thing.

The main blocker for this is of course that there’s no reasonable way to deal with it in-game, NPCs are broken, and keeping pets isn’t particularly functional either.
Pets and radio communication might be easy enough to add that this could make it into the game before we have NPCs sorted out.

10

I really like the idea of a dedicated character, perhaps like Red from Penumbra. (I might have named the wrong character) Who’s, for whatever reason, unable to be seen in game (for now!). Another survivor with shelter and supplies to last, only contactable through the radio for friendly? chit-chat, possibly intel, missions or just some good advice. Someone the player can bond with/ignore/hate forever as they’re taunted by the fellow survivor as long as he knows they have the radio on.

11

Of the titan’s of the wastelands scavenging what’s left and the hoards searching for new prey.

Anyways I’m back.