Passive regen without sleep: Do we want it?

[StopSignal]

I have been reading this for a while and it might be possible that it is not the best idea indeed, after all, the wholegame is balanced to work the way it is right now, so this change, in case it happens, should be really fine tuned. However, I’m totally up to try it at least, in any case we can just deactivate it again, that’s the purpose of the experimentals, after all!

[deoxy]

health regen during non-rest is unrealistic, makes the game easier and less fun, so don’t put it in the game.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I think regen is the wrong solution to the issue for me (I originally voted for it to be in but small).

I think adding a “rest” option (for gaining more of the benefits of sleep when you aren’t sleepy) would be better.

If I’m injured, I do sleep… but I also rest on top of that. As far as I know, there’s no such mechanic in the game right now.

Activities while resting could include reading, eating, drinking, using most electronics, etc.

Actually, we could simplify things, I think. Any time you are in a place that is “comfy” (like a bed) and you are doing something that involves only stuff in your inventory, and you’re not over you weight limit on inventory, you are “resting”, which gives, say, half the regen of sleep.

So, many small, simple recipes would be fine (cooking, tailoring, etc). The construction menu would definitely take you out of “resting”.

That would solve the issue I was looking at, while having at least some level of “realism”.

[Valpo]

Regenspeed is unrealistic no matter how you spin it. Either we keep it unrealistic or we try to keep it consistent within the world of cataclysm where regen is fast acording to the lore. Or we change the lore.

[StopSignal]

I think regeneration while comfy would be great.

[Coolthulhu]

Regenspeed is unrealistic no matter how you spin it.

This
If the game was to have realistic regen speed, it would be unplayable, with minor confrontations ending in 2 weeks of mandatory downtime.
Current regen could easily be halved without causing a giant slog, but I’ve already seen protests about it being way too slow and necessitating use of cotton balls as bandages.

[quote=“deoxy, post:82, topic:12896”]I think adding a “rest” option (for gaining more of the benefits of sleep when you aren’t sleepy) would be better.

Actually, we could simplify things, I think. Any time you are in a place that is “comfy” (like a bed) and you are doing something that involves only stuff in your inventory, and you’re not over you weight limit on inventory, you are “resting”, which gives, say, half the regen of sleep.[/quote]

We already have some activities marked as “rooted” - those allow a plant mutant to plant themselves into the ground. Anything that takes this little movement could as well count as rest.

Rest regen speed could also be tied to terrain type (actual bed > makeshift bed >= car bed >= sofa > chair > floor > dirt), though I’m not sure if that wouldn’t be a bit too tedious.

[plazma_rush]

I haven’t read through the whole thread, but I have seen a realism argument thrown in there, so here’s my two cents on it:
I read a theory somewhere out there that mutations are caused by the Blob inside of you being stimulated by radiation or mutagen, thus making the otherwise unrealistic ‘radiation causes mutations’ thing, despite being unrealistic, make sense in the context of the game (mutations in the sense of suddenly growing wings, etc).
Would it be too outlandish to simply ascribe the regeneration as being another aspect of having the Blob inside of you?
As far as I know, the player being infected with the Blob from the start is canon, after all.

[pisskop]

All manner of justifications for this, we dont even have balanced mutations but thats okay lets throw in balanced regen based on canon for unbalanced mutation.

It not being realistic is just one of many reasons why its not a good idea. Healing is to fast/common. The solution to hard early game combat is not to add a default instant win function.

[plazma_rush]

I was thinking something along the lines of just keeping healing as it is now, ascribing its unrealism to the Blob, and possibly moving the proposed feature here as a buff to the already-existing Regeneration mutation. It’s not as powerful as the name would imply, as it is now.

The system as we have it is fine. I can see wounds immediately starting to close up and mend themselves as you wander around town happening on a mutated post-human survivor (would be pretty creepy to watch), but as a guy fresh out of the shelter? Naw.

[Ferodaktyl]

[quote=“pisskop, post:87, topic:12896”]All manner of justifications for this, we dont even have balanced mutations but thats okay lets throw in balanced regen based on canon for unbalanced mutation.

It not being realistic is just one of many reasons why its not a good idea. Healing is to fast/common. The solution to hard early game combat is not to add a default instant win function.[/quote]

you know what an instant win function is ? it’s the actual spam of firstaids with insta HP, not a slow regen rate influenced by use of said firstaids. As it is now, they serve the same function as any health potion. So i’d rather have a system like in Project Zomboid, where you must clean and bandage a wound in order to start healing than all this protest that a slow passive regen would make the game too easy.

[Neonwarrior]

you know what an instant win function is ? it’s the actual spam of firstaids with insta HP, not a slow regen rate influenced by use of said firstaids. As it is now, they serve the same function as any health potion. So i’d rather have a system like in Project Zomboid, where you must clean and bandage a wound in order to start healing than all this protest that a slow passive regen would make the game too easy.

I’m not sure how I feel about First Aid Kits in Cataclysm. Yeah they’re near-instant healing devices and I’d rather have a more in-depth medical system on top of it, but they’re not overpowered because it takes too much time to just spam them to get out of out of an ugly situation and they’re not exactly common to find. That forces you to only use them outside of combat. The RA21E medical ampoule is probably the only medical item I can think of that makes sense to instantly regenerate health since it’s just a syringe filled with Applied Phlebotinum sci-fi med goo (I hear these are what Artyom uses in Metro 2033). Bandages being able to heal instantly though makes no sense and should probably only remove bleeding.

But I do actually think that the game still needs First Aid Kits, regardless of whether they make total and complete sense to instantly heal. Regular damage still has to be taken through a health-point-based system, and it needs to be able to be healed quickly through “health potions.”

My suggestion earlier was to add a long-term wounding system that cuts off some of your max HP (maybe some other debuffs) and requires specific medical items to heal them completely, like how Metal Gear Solid 3 does it—in that game you still take regular damage from most sources, but every now and then you receive long-term wounds like bullet wounds that require extraction (which is dangerous to do in real life and most surgeons leave them in), burns that require ointment, and the possibility of breaking bones other than just the arms and legs. You can still heal, but unless you perform those procedures (or wait long enough for it to heal naturally or use a healing syringe), part of your max HP is reduced. I’d actually like to suggest taking it a step further in Cataclysm and have wounds apply more status effects depending on what they are, like a broken wrist causing pain on melee attacks. Punching zombie skulls is ill advised without hand protection!

I’m not saying that when you receive a wound in Cataclysm that you need to be out of action for a realistic period of time for it to heal, but to make healing a more involved action that can be sped up with the use of medical supplies.

Also, in regards to your comment about Project Zomboid, it’s interesting to note that First Aid Kits in Project Zomboid aren’t actually healing items, but containers filled with other medical supplies like bandages and antiseptic. I kind of disagree about the injury system in that game though, because in that game you can die from one scratch just because you didn’t bandage it, regardless of where you got it. Bleeding just does not stop on its own in that game.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

[quote=“Ferodaktyl, post:89, topic:12896”]you know what an instant win function is ? it’s the actual spam of firstaids with insta HP, not a slow regen rate influenced by use of said firstaids. As it is now, they serve the same function as any health potion. So i’d rather have a system like in Project Zomboid, where you must clean and bandage a wound in order to start healing than all this protest that a slow passive regen would make the game too easy.

I’m not sure how I feel about First Aid Kits in Cataclysm. Yeah they’re near-instant healing devices and I’d rather have a more in-depth medical system, but they’re not overpowered because it takes too much time to just spam them to get out of out of an ugly situation and they’re not exactly common to find. That forces you to only use them outside of combat. The RA21E medical ampoule is probably the only medical item I can think of that makes sense to instantly regenerate health since it’s just a syringe filled with Applied Phlebotinum sci-fi med goo (I hear these are what Artyom uses in Metro 2033). Bandages being able to heal instantly though makes no sense and should probably only remove bleeding.

But I do actually think that the game needs First Aid Kits, regardless of whether they make total and complete sense to instantly heal. Regular damage still has to be taken through a health-point-based system, and it needs to be able to be healed quickly.

My suggestion earlier was to add a long-term wounding system that cuts off some of your max HP (maybe some other debuffs) and requires specific medical items to heal them completely, like how Metal Gear Solid 3 does it—in that game you still take regular damage from most sources, but every now and then you receive long-term wounds like bullet wounds that require extraction (dangerous in real life), burns that require ointment, and the possibility of breaking bones other than just the arms and legs. You can still heal, but unless you perform those procedures (or wait long enough forit to heal naturally or use a healing syringe), part of your max HP is reduced. I’d actually like to suggest taking it a step further in Cataclysm and have wounds apply more status debuffs depending on what they are.

I’m not saying that in Cataclysm that when you receive a wound that you need to be out of action for a realistic period of time, but make healing a more involved action.

Also, in regards to your comment about Project Zomboid, it’s interesting to note that First Aid Kits in Project Zomboid aren’t actually healing items, but containers filled with other medical supplies like bandages and antiseptic. I kind of disagree about the injury system in that game though, because in that game you can die from one scratch just because you didn’t bandage it, regardless of where you got it. Bleeding just does not stop on its own in that game.[/quote]

Whle I love the idea, Cataclysm has a problem with player-noninvolvement in complex features such as these. If the process of healing involved an entertaining minigame instead of another “wait 4-10 hours while the game does the work” system, it would be well received.

[Valpo]

It would be better to allow regeneration and remove the healing done by first aid and bandaging(maybe give well performed first aid a regen buff). Adding additional status effects to wounds that need special treatment can be a good mechanic though.

It apears to me that you think that this additional regen would be to strong. But it just has to be well balanced. You could make it so that over the cours of 24 hours you do not regen more then now in one night or even less.

I would suggest to just cut of a part of the healing done at night and paste it over the length of the day.
Its debatable whether this mechanic is worth the work. Though as a dev did suggested it I would asume he would be willing to do the work.
I like the idea.

[pisskop]

Mmm I had a good sleep last night. I must have healed really well what I didn’t when I was awake.

Because I was safe and warm I was not interrupted and thus IRL knew that combat was concluded. I cut myself on a knife yesterday and I used one bandage and antiseptic to seal it off. Antiseptic seems to be overkill for most Nick’s, but people around me seem visibly relieved for me to use irmt; if I didn’t have a bandaid I would have used the antiseptic alone.

But, I would not have used 4 bandages at once. Diminishing returns.

Hey there’s an idea. If your complaint is or was really about bandage spam the title of this thread would reflect that, hunh? We wouldn’t be trading bandage spam for another mechanic that lopsidedly benefits Endgame people, hunh?

Get out of here

[pisskop]

Fact is, Instagrams via items are a long-standing trope.

But more than this, they allow a player to recover from a mistake or two.
Around a corner a spitter lurks -Bamm- acid shoes.
Suddenly closet brute - bandage.

This lets players try again without going home. Much, much less taxing on tedium than any passive regen.

If you are really championing the removal of insta healing you support people packing their bags because a single spitter had a lucky roll.

If your issue with bandage spam than the solution is to limit the effective use of them over time. Like stimulants or painkillers, but without the death.

My stance, is that sleep healing should be halved. Restrict healing items by reducing their effectiveness based on how frequently they are used

[Valpo]

Your suggestion will double the downtime from fights.

And a simple little mistake doesn t nessesitate the use of first aid ingame.

I don t realy want to remove healing items. But i think it is better to remove the healing effect on items instead of removing or nerfing the healing effect of sleep.

[Alec_White]

[quote=“pisskop, post:94, topic:12896”]Fact is, Instagrams via items are a long-standing trope.

But more than this, they allow a player to recover from a mistake or two.
Around a corner a spitter lurks -Bamm- acid shoes.
Suddenly closet brute - bandage.

This lets players try again without going home. Much, much less taxing on tedium than any passive regen.

If you are really championing the removal of insta healing you support people packing their bags because a single spitter had a lucky roll.

If your issue with bandage spam than the solution is to limit the effective use of them over time. Like stimulants or painkillers, but without the death.

My stance, is that sleep healing should be halved. Restrict healing items by reducing their effectiveness based on how frequently they are used[/quote]

Doesn’t that contradict your previous statement regarding the lenient combat system and consequence?

I mean, going back from 5hp to 70hp in a few turns taking magic potions while running away of a tankbot, sounds a lot more lenient and disregards consequences of mistakes a lot more than sleep healing. Making overall easier for the player to commit mistakes and get out of them by means of insta-health button.

Granted it makes for a more fast-paced gameplay. But at the expenses of consequences and difficulty.

I don’t understand why first you said:

theres no reason to expect this. this isnt halo, and you dont have a combat shield. You arent a reptile, and you arent a slime. This encourages players to hide in a hole to heal instead of using healing supplies. This makes the already lenient combat even less in touch with both Zombie Apocolypse and Survival simulation. This goes against CDDAs established nature as a grimdark game with consequences and it goes against the idea of an actual roguelike.

First part:

grimdark game with consequences

Consequences doesn’t matter much if you have a insta-heal magic button as safety-net, to use any time any place you need it.

and it goes against the idea of an actual roguelike.

Roguelikes are fast paced, and the only “real” consequence is the ever present threat of diying. So again, having insta-heal magic potions does favour a fast peaced gameplay and favours a great deal the survivability, which is the reason why magic healing exist in the first place, as such roguelike games are hard and the magic healing items balance the difficulty and grants for a faster gameplay.
Which is contradictory against your claims of the “lenient combat” as there isn’t a more “lenient” element than having ready-available magic healing in combat; Such as taking some serious damage in the middle of a city raid, and instead of backing of to your base and heal, while dodging any other dangers, you just pop-up magic healing, and continue city-raiding like if nothing has happened.
And again it goes against “consequences”, as even in the event of getting hurt mid city-raiding, you can pop up a magic potion and go back to base in, almost full if not full health, granting a huge chance of shrugging off any other possible enemies you may face on the way back home.

Over all magic potions and insta-heal suppose a huge safety-net, lowering the price of mistakes and softening its consequence, while speeding up the gameplay’s pace and over all lowering the difficulty.

So I really don’t understand why first you went with arguments supporting the latter effects of magic healing while sleeping disregarding the first ones, and now you are using arguments supporting the first part of magic potions instead of magic healing while sleeping.

Specially since magic potions while magic sleeping is the one that while slowing things down, doesn’t grant such a boon and safety net as magic potions does. I don’t think is possible to have both; a fast-paced gameplay with not-“lenient” combat while having “consequence” matter. As you either take a wound and having to defend yourself while crippled with all its dangers, or just pop up a magic potions and keep going like the Energizer Bunny disregarding consequences.

Personally I would rather have the aforementioned Project Zomboid healing system, than either magic sleeping or magic potions, but I understand that currently both magics are just tweak and add a few numbers, rather than coding from the ground up a new health system. Specially as I already stated that with the current vitamin mechanics and balancing it would be hard, and I’m not even going to mentions traits and mutations.
Which makes me agree with your first idea about “Why” are this changes needed now, instead of either leave it is or pouring work in a completely new healing mechanics with its health system.

I want to close this post saying that, while I think magic is all good and fine, I would rather have it stay in the Arcana mod, than rather in core mechanics in one form or the other.

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, and all that.

[Coolthulhu]

[quote=“pisskop, post:94, topic:12896”]Fact is, Instagrams via items are a long-standing trope.

But more than this, they allow a player to recover from a mistake or two.
Around a corner a spitter lurks -Bamm- acid shoes.
Suddenly closet brute - bandage.

This lets players try again without going home. Much, much less taxing on tedium than any passive regen.[/quote]

Having to mass craft bandages, which take multiple stages of crafting, hauling them around in the inventory, then having to mass-apply them on damaged body parts is somehow less tedious than just regenerating in the background?

It’s pretty obvious that you’re picking the arguments after having made the decision that regen=bad, and not looking at the whole deal and then making the judgement.
Just say outright that you plain dislike the idea of regen and base this on personal preference and/or internet memes.
It isn’t helping when you’re trying hard to invent reasons when none exists - in fact, it only shows that you don’t have good reasons and are forcing the bad ones to pretend to look good.

My stance, is that sleep healing should be halved. Restrict healing items by reducing their effectiveness based on how frequently they are used

If you mean just plain scaling based on timer, THAT would actually be really tedious.
There might be a system that would do it right, but it’s not a simple thing to design.

We wouldn't be trading bandage spam for another mechanic that lopsidedly benefits Endgame people, hunh?

Minor benefit to endgame characters (who don’t care much at that time, because they wipe with disinfected bandages and snort antiseptic powder) isn’t worth the early game kiting slog.

[pisskop]

Wow.

If a player wishes to grind bandages not a whole lot we can do. But wow, somehow, youve managed to cherrypick a statement that being able to instantly heal is less tedious than going home to heal slowly.

Its clear Ive already demolished any real case for regen. Just say “I like it unrealistic sometimes. I like it easier sometimes. sometimes, I want a power fantasy”. Really, not so hard.

Dont go grabbing quotes and reappropriating them to your own ends.

Do you disagree with me wrt: the usefullness of instant healing in a game?

P:
Do you think we should reduce bandage effectiveness? Youve relatively recently increased its effectiveness.

[pisskop]

And, lets adress this new thing we are dancing around:

-why is kiting happening?
-is kiting happening too much?

-Grinding: What do?

Kiting, as Ive claimed above, is about people conciously choosing to make the most out of their character's skills, armor, and weapons.  Kiting is dropped as soon as a player feels there is no danger in fighting.  people will immediately pick it up again when they feel threatened (say by a brute).

Player’s kite-fight because they have no choice only when they:

-1 want an item or the promise of items.
They are risking themselves to get some loot or to go to a place with loot before they can reliably take it by force.

-2 have no choice.
They are underarmored, freezing, and have no sense of direction. Say on the first night of the game or after fleeing an intense situation.

The first -1- Is the player’s own fault, and while it should not be actively encouraged, there is nothing wrong with it. They are playing the game.
The second -2-, is a bit more of an issue. An autumn start fixes the latter point, at least for brand new characters. But the former -hurt and fleeing- is also just part of the game.

so really, kiting is only an issue when the player is new. An autumn start provides a chance for the palyer to flee. Ergo, Autumn start, as proposed earlier, fixes your concerns about kiting.
Changing the combat system would probably also fix any concerns about kiting. Why are you trying to mask the perceived problems of kiting with passive regen? Thats bad design.

Grinding is its own problem, but ultimately grinding is the result of minmaxers. There will always be people willing to exploit grindable mechanics. How far do/should we go to prevent them? Not so far as to disable savescumming, apparently.

-How to reduce heal grinding?

-Well, we can force the player to use healing items to heal at all -as suggested elsewhere in-thread.
-We can limit the amount of healing items usable at one time somehow. Via a time mechanic or via a diminished returns system for ‘X’ variable.
-We can remove healing items from the game.

Option 1 hurts the new player but doesnt really affect the endgame player at all. In fact, the ability to grind makes it all the easier to get these items.
Option 2 works, but requires a good mechanical setup to avoid tedium or feeling contrived.
Option 3 is a poor one, due to reasons Ive outlined above. damage -your acid in particular- is often unavoidable. healing lets people mitigate that with minimal tedium.

[Neonwarrior]

Whle I love the idea, Cataclysm has a problem with player-noninvolvement in complex features such as these. If the process of healing involved an entertaining minigame instead of another “wait 4-10 hours while the game does the work” system, it would be well received.

A minigame would be okay IMO, but I don’t know if other people want something like that. I was thinking more along the lines of adding a “mend wounds” function that makes your character automatically heal themselves using whatever medical supplies (or improvised supplies) they have nearby. This would only work for the large wounds that apply specific status debuffs, not simply having low HP (which is what First Aid Kits/resting is for). It would take a lot of time for them to perform the necessary procedures, but you would get a report when your character finishes each procedure along with a small summary of how successful they were. Then the status debuff can be removed according to the success of the procedure, and this will raise the character’s max HP back to what it was before they received the wound.

All of this would be handled by the game—all the player has to do is find a quiet place and press the “mend wounds” button, as well as make sure they’re carrying the right supplies. Alternatively, it could be a list of wounds that the player decides on which to perform first. I would imagine that setting a broken arm would cause a large amount of pain, and the player might opt to wait on doing such a procedure until they’re ready with painkillers.

I would think that a higher First Aid or maybe Survival skill would allow the character to perform medical procedures using household/foraged items, and having an emergency first aid manual could provide a bonus to the chance for success.