I have only one main suggestion, bandages and first aid kits should not heal instantly as they do now, but rather give a good boost to both waking and sleeping regen.
I also think the current regeneration rate for sleeping is a bit too high. I always play with the Slow Health Regen and it is still too fast IMO. As per above, I think the current regen rate should only be achievable if you have used some sort of first aid, otherwise it should be at least a bit slower.
You pretend I'm downplaying your cases, but I literally couldn't have done that because you didn't present them back then.[b]1[/b] well if this is the case then you will have to forgive me. Im used to leaving people to imply my cases for me, as a result of playing actual social games. people are easier to convince when they can come to their own conclusions or have to get invested by doing their own.
Sleep is pretty limited[b]2[/b] sleep is a cough syrup away. Found in every other bathroom. And when you cant sleep because you are an insomniac thats part of the deal. Not being able to sleep is a limiting factor of healing, and not being able to heal whenever you want to adds risk and danger to combat.
Nothing about survivors not being able to fall asleep whenever they want to is unbalanced or poorly designed.
"Cheapens the experience" implies subjective.[b]3[/b] It implies that the fun of the game comes from the challenge for many players, and that after exploration has worn thin by familiarity it keeps people coming back.
It implies that nothing gained for free is worthwhile, and that using your health, a serious concern, as a easily and automatically replaced resource is going to deprive the player. When you are safe enough to sleep you are, by definition, considered to have gotten away from the danger. Sleeping in the ‘danger’ is a risk of its own, and thus sleep healing provides tension and risk and satisfaction. Unlike going home and crafting new armor while your body heals,
Sleep is better designed and put to better use than you are giving it credit for.
Nowadays it's more like 7 days. Faster if player finds a gun stash.[b]4[/b] I wouldnt know. I only use the mod of mine. It takes me 3 days or so to have good, craftable armor. Then I usually have to contend with monsters that can kill a MG player but spawns EG. Then I have to deal with hordes that overwhelm me and then I usually dont chase 'easy' weapons and armor.
So I would say that proper early game for me only lasts a day or two unless I fail to get a car. Then 5 or 6.
What You mean fast heal/regen? Those are incredibly weak traits that would actually gain an use here - one that they can't have with current model.[b]5[/b] nanomachines. traits/bionics.
I want combat that is meaningful, not about kiting brainless mobs into windows to safely dispatch them. Regen alone won't do that, but it will not make it less meaningful, while also opening a way to add more hard to avoid attacks.[b]6[/b] Meaningful combat is combat you have to weigh carefully. The reason people kite now is because they want to make the most out of their weapons and health. Their drive to make the most of their gear makes kitting happen. Adding a health regen wont make it more meaningful, but perhaps it will make them underestimate it and they get sloppy and no longer minmax their gear/character.
The high health of zeds and low damage of early game gear requires caution be used. The caution is what makes people kite. Or use doorways. Zombies spawning close by from hordes is why I still need fires to kill them instead of just running. The cold winter night and my unarmored survivor freezing is why I cant just run.
Maybe we should make a summer start instead of spring. then armor isnt going to be required. then we can safely buff dodge and penalize it for armored players. then we can make armor about parrying than dodging, and fix coverage to boot.
p:
Autumn is actually my recommendation. This way food is more scarce for winter and warmth still matters.
a small amount of natural healing, buffed by use of bandages and aid kits that would increase that healing rate would make more sense than the current system, where you simply add hp by using said bandages/aid kits.
Also maybe hunger / thirst should have an effect on the healing rate, adding or subtracting from the regen rate.
As it is, sleep healing is something both OP and prone to abuse.
In CDDA, zombie hits you and you go home and then come back tomorrow. In Nethack, orc shoots you and you retreat to heal but then starve, and you have to repeat the whole early game. The current healing rate is already very tolerant, because this game is relatively slow-paced.
If the goal is to discourage kiting, more fast monsters can be added. One cannot kite a fast enemy.
When the survivor can dodge and tank, he is not a real dodger. A dodger is squishy, but very difficult to hit. When a dodger is hit, that is a critical failure for him, and he should quit the fight and go home, at least for a day.
Aye, but any enemy that is too fast to kite is also too fast to ESCAPE.
I would like to see a “Rest to heal feature” wherein you can hang out somewhere comfortable for a few hours at a time without actually sleeping that would give some increased healing. I would also like to see sleep healing reduced somewhat. Most of my runs don’t last long enough to stockpile healing items, and the ones that do inevitably NEVER use them because repair nanobots/combat monster/deathmobile/KILL EVERYTHING WITH FIRE. Sometimes all of that at once.
So yes, yes a way to sit down quietly for some quality regen time would be nice. Probably not in combat though.
Link passive regen boost to when you get comfy.
That’s a good idea.
I didn’t read the whole thread, so maybe it’s been suggested, but I like the idea that you can heal without needing to sleep, but I don’t think we need any more regen than we already get.
So yeah, say, 10% of sleep current regen all the time… but then reduce sleep regen by about 20% (since you normally sleep about 1/3 of the day, that extra regen would be worth about 20% of the sleep regen).
Getting by on less sleep? Living on atomic coffee? You’ll still regen, but only about 1/3 as much.
Just know I’m gonna get flak for this.
I’m not sure why people want regen and instead not a more in-depth medical system. I’ve wanted something that was perhaps similar to the way Dwarf Fortress does medicine—maybe not be so in-depth as to be able to sever individual fingers or spit out teeth when I get mauled in the face, but the way it is right now is abysmal and everyone agrees. All wounds can be fixed by simply spamming bandages or sleeping for a bit. It’s bullshit. Why not include more afflictions? Why not be able to suffer bruises? Why not have major and minor cuts? Burns? Broken hands from punching zombie skulls without gloves? Nerve damage? These should be features people want.
It seems that most people in the poll want a “less tedious” medical system. This reminds me of AAA game developers that put “fun over realism” and end up making games way too casual and easy because otherwise people complain. We can still make the game more realistic and keep it fun. But adding regeneration for non-mutant non-cyborg characters is something that takes this game from sort-of-realistic to easy-mode-not-realistic-at-all. It shouldn’t have had regen-at-night to the degree it was in the first place. It should be: you get injured, you NEED medical supplies—that’s the only way it should ever be in a survival game. It doesn’t need to be fair, because the apocalypse isn’t fair. Where’s the risk vs reward for combat now if you just get your health back no matter what? Where’s the danger for characters that have full armor or stacks of bandages and medical supplies? Why make the game EASIER when it is already too easy?
Instead of this farcical regeneration system, I propose a short-term and long-term wounding system. I’m thinking a bit of Metal Gear Solid 3’s CURE system here. We already have broken limbs, which currently is the only long-term wound in the game that requires specific medical attention, so I know this can work. We can keep the regular damage system the way it is, with an HP value being lowered by enemy attacks. However, some attacks that enemies make would have a chance to cause larger wounds. Part of being in the apocalypse should be dealing with injuries that sometimes REQUIRE medical supplies (household items at a high First Aid/Survival level/presence of First Aid manual?).
It doesn’t need to be tedious; it could be as simple as pressing a “mend wounds” button to have your character automatically deal with their injuries to the best of their abilities with whatever materials are nearby, followed by a brief summary of how well your character mended the wound (“Your character sutures their arm to the best of their ability. It hurts like hell! They manage to close the wound” for a large cut). A higher First Aid skill means that your character could use different materials, less of them, no waste, better wound healing, etc. Then a wound would need to be left alone for a while (IE not take damage) to get rid of it for good. It wouldn’t take very long, perhaps only a few days at the most, and this could be sped up with a high First Aid skill or advanced medical equipment. The real flavor comes from the variety of wounds received, and even though healing obviously needs to sped up for gameplay purposes, it can still be included and work well. Perhaps NPCs could be given the specific task of wound-mending if your First Aid skill isn’t high enough to operate on yourself.
NOTE: I AM NOT SUGGESTING WE REPLACE ALL DAMAGE WITH THIS. ONLY ADDING LARGE WOUNDS.
So in conclusion: regenerating health as a gameplay mechanic is a joke. It’s no different than in Call of Duty to hiding behind a wall and sucking your thumb to get better. It only makes sense if your character goes to a science lab and gives themselves a mutation that allows them to regenerate. What we need is a medical system that is more in-depth. Tedium is not necessarily a bad thing if something works and makes sense. Cataclysm shouldn’t be a game that encourages reckless behavior by getting rid of consequences. There should be more consequences, not less, to receiving injuries.
Fast enemies are annoying as hell. No thanks. I have enough with the wasps in early game.
An argument could be made with saying that sleep regen is too drastic, and in one session of sleep you are already up to go. So making another regen and nerfing that one could be great, in my opinion.
Also someone threw there the argument that getting comfy should give a bonus to healing, which i think is brilliant. That and books or anykind of activity that takes some time and it could be a great, mixed cechanic that plays with others. It’s fantastic, really. It could encourage new players to read more and do more time taking stuff!
No it makes sense if you are not bleeding out and your wounds are clean they will most likely heal on theire own. How long that would take is another question.
In cod you need mere seconds to heal up thats not how it works here.
Regeneration is completely normal and realistic as long as you don t start regrowing limbs… which you might with mutations.
Adding more types of woundrelated debuffs might be a good idea though.
+1 for that one :D. Much better idea than mine and most of what i have seen :D.
Plus that would take care of the sleep healing problem.
Also should be a mod, or have a mod to take it off, so that people who hate it can simply not use it.
First off, I’m seeing that my prediction stays true at the current time. Go me.
Now, for the discussion…
well if this is the case then you will have to forgive me. Im used to leaving people to imply my cases for me, as a result of playing actual social games. people are easier to convince when they can come to their own conclusions or have to get invested by doing their own.
In a proper discussion you do not let people just ‘imply my cases for me’, as you said. Did you ever watch a discussion on TV? On the Internet? In a discussion, both parties are supposed to clearly state their opinions on the topic, then they start to reinforce their position by clear, logical and substantial arguments. Half of that is simply missing from your posts.
It implies that the fun of the game comes from the challenge for many players, and that after exploration has worn thin by familiarity it keeps people coming back.It implies that nothing gained for free is worthwhile, and that using your health, a serious concern, as a easily and automatically replaced resource is going to deprive the player. When you are safe enough to sleep you are, by definition, considered to have gotten away from the danger. Sleeping in the ‘danger’ is a risk of its own, and thus sleep healing provides tension and risk and satisfaction. Unlike going home and crafting new armor while your body heals,
Sleep is better designed and put to better use than you are giving it credit for.
The issue is simply your wording here. Not sure why you can’t see that. You said “Cheapens the experience”. However, gaining ‘experience’ is always something subjective. Especially when it’s about a game. There are people who like to play DDA, but would prefer it to be easier. There are people, like me, who would like to have it very realistic and at least somewhat hard, there are people like you who like the game even harder (if your mod is anything to go by at least - by the way, I’m always playing with your rebalancing mod, i like it a lot. Kudos there.). You can’t just proclaim that “Change X will negatively influence the Experience of all players!” - this isn’t just possible, you can speak for yourself and like-minded people, but those are not the majority, as you can clearly see at the vote.
nanomachines. traits/bionics.Didn't we come to the conclusion earlier that Nanomachines aren't as OP when there are limits to bionics, which will be added to the game eventually...? Also, what is the "traits/bionics" supposed to mean? Traits versus Bionics? Or >other< traits/bionics, which would be influenced by the change, but you can't tell us their name...? What? I'm honestly slightly confused there.
Interjecting oneself into a discussion of which one has no context is bad.
Being able to see the point/conclusion but berating the method with which to deliver it is as. Especially if it was concise.
But, to answer. CT claimed automagic regen would help balance bionics. ‘We’ didn’t come to a conclusion ‘I’ challenged that claim and ‘I’ was pointing out how flawed the argument for supergeckosauce was
We have a 40/60 split on opinion as of now. I don’t think ‘people want it’ will hold water either.
It’s probably make a cool if slightly overpowered mod, like StS is.
But we can take away that the current sleep system is in the minority. I’d be in favor of a diminishing returns on healing items used too closely in time and less sleep heal.
Also an autumn default start, with fresh milk and no evo progression. What’s stopping a default autumn?
Interjecting into a free discussion? Especially when I was part of said discussion earlier and just stopped writing because Coolthulu and others made points I would have made?
I did read the whole thread, over several days though, so basically, not everything from 1-2 pages ago are still in my mind, especially when it’s ‘just’ about a game. Sue me I guess?
Being able to see the point/conclusion but berating the method with which to deliver it is as. Especially if it was concise.
I didn’t berate you. I just explained Coolthulus argument that you don’t deliver to the ‘usual’ expectations when in a debate/discussion. Which is at least partially true. The thing is, not everyone agrees with you or can see the point of your statements - for my part, some of the things you said I actually agree one, but those were the minority. Explaining your statements and showing objective arguments would help people to understand you better, and more people would potentially agree with you too, after all is said and done. That’s just as it is.
But, to answer. CT claimed automagic regen would help balance bionics. 'We' didn't come to a conclusion 'I' challenged that claim and 'I' was pointing out how flawed the argument for supergeckosauce wasGuess it was my fault there, because I didn't bother to reread the whole shenanigans about the nanomachines. However: One argument, from your point I believe, was that Nanomachines would be OP, as you stated in your earlier post - CT challenged that claim by telling you it wouldn't be as OP as it is now because they will eventually implement a limit on Bionics, which will make Nanomachines more of an emergency bionic, not one you can use all the time. This sounds logical to me, i don't exactly know how it would react to other bionics or traits though. You got me there I guess, I don't use Nanomachines or other Bionics that often, my characters >usually< prefer as little metal in them as possible :) I do however know that we have some traits which are, to put it bluntly, somewhat weak - I personally don't use them, and I don't know many people who would consider those traits to be very benefical. Connecting them to the regeneration-rate, be it sleep only or overall, could potentiall strengthen those traits.
In any case, we still could easily change the Nanobots, couldn’t we? Make it cost more power, or let it heal less. Something like this.
Or, a completely different Idea, and hear me out here:
Raising the Regeneration can be done in two ways - either by an absolute number, or by a percentage of the maximum health, correct? That means, low max health characters would benefit more from the absolute number than the percentage, while characters with a ton of hp would find a percentage increase more useful. Traits, like Fast healer, or mutations, which will increase regeneration, would most likely be affected by the constitution, strength and so on of the person, so those would be in percentages, like 5% per time unit. The Nanobots on the other hand can only do so much work at a given time, which would be an absolute number in regeneration : +4 hitpoints per time unit.
A character with only 50 health would get 2.5 Hitpoints per time unit with traits, while the Nanobots give an additional 4, so the ‘weak’ character would prefer the Nanobots.
A character with 75 health would get 3.75 from the trait versus 4 from the Nanobots, such a character could go either way basically.
A character with 100 health gets 5 hitpoints from the trait, and still only 4 from the Nanobots - such a character would therefore prefer the trait over the bionic.
That way we could change the traits and the nanobots in a way where both won’t be OP and will still be useful, just for different characters and different situations.
We have a 40/60 split on opinion as of now. I don't think 'people want it' will hold water either.
63% (24/38) for the change, 37% (14/38) against it. That’s nearly a 2/3 majority. How can you say that ‘people want it’ won’t hold water?
But we can take away that the current sleep system is in the minority. I'd be in favor of a diminishing returns on healing items used too closely in time and less sleep heal.Agree with the diminishing returns. At least if it's the same type of healing item. putting 10 bandages on the same cut won't help it heal faster, but bandaging, cleaning it and putting medicine on it will.
Also an autumn default start, with fresh milk and no evo progression. What's stopping a default autumn?I'd actually like that, for the reasons you stated earlier. Basically, more of a challenge. Another way would be that one can simply put in the start of the Apocalypse in world generatiion, that way we could have autumn, summer, spring and even winter starts with fresh milk and so on.
Autumn start will fix every single buletpoint CT has claimed this automatic passive healing will fix, except for the one about how he wants to make nanomachines easier to balance.
In short, it eliminates any doubt that this is a progressive gameplay choice. From a design standpoint this has no real place.
The claim that this helps early game characters is dubious due to how short early game is, and it scontribuitions to the powerhouses at endgame is much, much more harmful than any benefit it grants.
[quote=“pisskop, post:42, topic:12896”]
“Cheapens the experience” implies subjective.
It implies that nothing gained for free is worthwhile, and that using your health, a serious concern, as a easily and automatically replaced resource is going to deprive the player. When you are safe enough to sleep you are, by definition, considered to have gotten away from the danger. Sleeping in the ‘danger’ is a risk of its own, and thus sleep healing provides tension and risk and satisfaction. Unlike going home and crafting new armor while your body heals,
Sleep is better designed and put to better use than you are giving it credit for.[/quote]
Challenge could be defined objectively, but “experience” is as subjective as you can get.
The problem with using health is that in vast majority of cases, you can just not pay the cost. You can just use some tedious kiting to avoid being hit. But that’s balancing with tedium, which is pretty close to being “objectively wrong”.
The problem here is that the game design doesn’t handle spending health well. You can kill 90% of threats without using any health. So treating health as expensive just doesn’t work. Your mod doesn’t change it much - most critters are still ~100 speed and no leaps, meaning kiteable.
Then again the whole deal gets out of the window once you can kite with a car - then monsters without ranged attacks are in deep shit.
Regen would fit this design. Not because it’s a good idea on its own, but because it would fix a part of the tedium.
Sleep in danger isn’t a real aspect of the game. You are almost never in danger thanks to the dumb AI not chasing you down the basement. I tried to change that in many ways, but it’s not done and actually fixing it completely would require getting Kevin to change his mind about pathfinding zombies or somehow going around his ruling.
I want combat that is meaningful, not about kiting brainless mobs into windows to safely dispatch them. Regen alone won't do that, but it will not make it less meaningful, while also opening a way to add more hard to avoid attacks.[b]6[/b] Meaningful combat is combat you have to weigh carefully.
[/quote]
The problem is, it’s caution of the kind that doesn’t require any real thinking or involvement.
For example, current versions of Stone Soup Dungeon Crawl only allow you one chance to spot a trap at a distance. If you fail, the next chance is when you trigger it.
It would be the most logical to retrace your steps while possible.
This is the type of caution I want to avoid here.
Caution is only good when it also involves some sort of anxiety, fear of consequences of failure. Caution all the time can easily turn to frustration and boredom. So basically, caution in hard combat is good, caution in routine cleanups is not.
Regen would be good here, because it allows a degree of “bumping” instead of necessitating kiting everything.
For now I won’t be adding global regen, but giving it to traits sounds safe enough to try it out.
Fast healing is one of the traits that very quickly become obsolete and this could make it not suck. Plus, it would have a relatively clear progression: slow healing (few days of rest), regular (one day of rest is near full heal or full heal), fast heal (fully healed after sleep or after a day of non-combat activities).
No it makes sense if you are not bleeding out and your wounds are clean they will most likely heal on theire own. How long that would take is another question.
In cod you need mere seconds to heal up thats not how it works here.
Regeneration is completely normal and realistic as long as you don t start regrowing limbs… which you might with mutations.
Adding more types of woundrelated debuffs might be a good idea though.[/quote]
You gotta be kidding. “It makes sense that if you are not bleeding out and your wounds are clean they will most likely heal on their own.” As someone who is studying to become a nurse, I can tell you that regenerating health in the way that the OP suggests is ridiculous. It is true that the body heals on its own, yes, but this is something the body does ONLY while in resting state (anabolic state). When you’re running around killing zombies, your body does not partake in healing as the energy is instead used for fighting and moving. The body’s hormones also change during resting state versus active state (growth hormone spikes during sleep). If regeneration is to happen during combat, it HAS to be due to a mutation, trait, or cyborg module.
I get this is a video game and video games aren’t always realistic. But even from a gameplay perspective, I disagree with regenerating health. There are plenty of in-game medicines that will do it for you, and it already is extremely easy to get your health back after one or two nights of sleep.
That is why I instead want a new system that adds long-term wounds that require medicine. If regeneration is added anyway, I hope that more wound debuffs are added that limit the total amount of regeneration that can happen if there are pre-existing wounds on a certain area of the body. Even then I would rather these wounds would have to be dealt with using medical knowledge and supplies, but at the very least there needs to be more injuries that can occur to give a bit more depth to gameplay.
Zombies should be able to go down stairs as part of their random shuffling. If zlevels are going to exist then vertical movement for monsters has to 2. If we accept grapplers then we should accept that the living stretch-armstrongs should be able to climb maybe too. At least on each other