Just addressing 1 source of healing will not balance anything at all… And as sleeping has a bunch of mechanics linked to it, can’t dissapear from the game.
The goals of the suggestions that follow are:
-
Turning Sleep into a mechanism FOCUSED on recovering from “Tired” status, with marginal (If desired) effect on health regen.
-
Removing “cheasy” boundary effects were sleep is artificially triggered.
-
OPTIONAL content to make First Aid training more relevant and creating a framework for a detailed wound system further on.
The problem, IMHO, is what different players seek on CDDA. On a simple division:
- “Wasteland Heroes”. Nothing is too tough to beat, nothing is too secure to breach, nothing is too hidden to not been found. Downtime & micromanagement detracts from gameplay because it delays their action packed CDDA version. Health is a meassure of how much they can bite at one time before having to retreat to become stronger. Health regen for them is just something minor compared to growing more powerful to be able to beat whatever kicked their arses the last time. They abuse sleep system PURELY as a cheap HP regaining mechanism with boundary effects with minimum REAL TIME investment.
SUGGESTION: Replace sleep regaining HP with the equivalent passive HP regen over 24h period SINCE THE LAST TIME damage was received. Anything affecting regen (Slow healer, Fast healer, Mutations, Bionics) should operate over the ammount gained hourly. For as long as the character keeps receving damage, regen will not kick in doesn’t mater what. Sleeping in this model should cure “Tired” effects and provide a bonus to passive regen (Starting at the very moment the character manages to sleep) until the next time damage is received or Tired condition happens.
- “Survivalists”. Society as it was known is over, adapt to new ways of living or follow the dodo’s way, any needs previously fullfilled effortestly could be a challenge now that everything is crumbling, priorize, plan or die. Lack of details that highlight the differences with the Old Ways, and lack of options to create new ways to deal with problems is what detracts from gameplay because makes their reallistic CDDA version less immersive. Main problem here is that consumables as instaheals make any further consideration about sleeping secondary, coupled with the almost negligible effect First Aid skill has on the whole process which, paradoxically, should be one of the most fate-deciding skills to have on a “reallistic” post-apocalyptic world.
SUGGESTION: “Open Wound” debuff. OPTIONAL FEATURE. “Reallistic consumables” DO NOT make characters to regain HP. Each time a location looses 25% HP or more in a single hit, “OPEN WOUND [Location]” debuff applies. This debuff prevents any kind of regen on the location affected by it. A successful “Reallistic consumble” charge spent will turn it into “BIND WOUND [Location]” debuff which will last 96h / Effective First Aid skill (Base plus a bonus coming from the “Reallistic consumable” spent). BIND WOUND debuff reduces regen to half on the location affected until healed. Any new “OPEN WOUND DEBUFF” in the same location will remove BIND WOUND debuff forcing the whole process to restart.
Obviously, the above is just a generalization of the current “Bite” mechanism… But able to be triggered by anything damaging not just Zeds. So in reality we already have everything needed to have a reallistic wound system. What could make it fun to play with is linking each “Open Wound” with secondary effects, but that would be a whole new PR in itself, specially if one want to open it as definitions on a .json file, I have suggestions about it… But this thread is just about health regen.
