Passive regen without sleep: Do we want it?

Game Talk The Bunker
101

The problem isn’t how you said it, but what you meant - it can’t be “reverse strawmanned” into something sensible.
Regenerating can’t be more tedious than healing with keypresses, because if it happens automatically, it’s the least tedium there can be.
You might have wanted to say something like “if we remove bandage healing and force everyone only to regen it would be more tedious than bandaging”, but you didn’t say that first part there. Either you genuinely forgot to put it there or you wanted to make it look like that first part isn’t needed to make regen look less like a good idea.

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

It is too useful. It replaces fast “mutant” regeneration with magical potions, then fails to limit the potions accordingly to their usefulness.
Time limit could be useful here, but it would need some mechanic to make it not tedious. So that it’s not about “snacking” on bandages, like what we have with aspirin.

Alternatively, different limit: making instant-heal items non-craftable or at least non-craftable with cheap stuff.

Its clear Ive already demolished any real case for regen.

In your mind, but you forgot to share that “demolishing” with anyone else. So far you have some minor arguments that it might not be needed or might result in not buffing those who need it while buffing those who don’t, and a whole load of baseless assertions, red herrings and unexplained leaps of logic.

1 Like
102

well no. youre entitled to your opinion about it, but my case stands, and until the reasons why pasdove regen are desirable change it is a needless choice 40+℅ of the games demographic disapproves of.

regen during ‘got comfy’ is a fair idea as far as passive regen goes, btw, since it implies extended rest, encourages Roleplaying, and implies safety from attack.

103

I wish I could vote for BOTH option 1: 20% awake regen, and option 2: nerf existing sleep regen (scale awake regen accordingly), but that’s just me. I would like to see wounds last longer and require more consideration, instead of completely disappearing as soon as I get back to my RV and sleep a day or two.

A missing and simplistic feature would be a “bedrest” option where the player chooses to stay in bed despite being unable to sleep (as opposed to forging armor and and constructing a log cabin to pass the time while recovering from two broken arms). This option would become available in the menu upon trying to sleep while not tired.

Wounds could also use a lot more inbetween and indeterminate states. I dislike that you know you are infected the instant you are bitten instead of choosing how well you clean your wounds in hopes of preventing infection. It would be interesting if limbs could develop “stress fractures” that would become broken unless splinted OR taking it easy a few days. Also, all healing items should have a lower instant benefit and a buff to healing over several hours and days.

Bear in mind I’m a newbie who can’t last a week on vanilla settings, so take my feedback with a grain of salt.

104

This entire topic boggles my mind.

Why would we need passive regen when the game already provides easy ways to heal?

I could see adding a regen bionic or regen mutation or both - those pile on to existing mechanics (that tend to add convenience as the game goes on).

We already have first aid skill, easy ways to raise it via using the skill and reading books, easily made bandages that are basically healing potions, and healing via sleep.

Note, for a game that seeks to be realistic and that is regularly punishing players in gameplay breaking attempts at realism, the fact that you can heal from near dead to full health with a bunch of bandages and the amount you can heal via sleep isn’t all that realistic - but I’d never suggest changing it since it is GOOD GAMEPLAY. And since bandages are a wonderful thing, it kind of encourages gathering bandage making mats and raising first aid so your bandaging is consistent.

Hell, I always take the slow healing trait for easy points because I don’t rely on sleeping to heal. Maybe in the early game when you’re just getting rolling. It’s so easy and an early game goal for me to get bandages in abundance to make staying full health a fairly trivial matter.

So to me, the passive regen thing is not only not necessary, but it takes away from two existing game elements. For one, you tend to want to have a safe place to sleep - both for sleeping and healing. For two, we already have first aid skill and healing items.

105

Adding more healing mutations is a fair idea. We are looking to balance out the pros/cons of bionics v mutations.

Mutations should provide more passive buffs and ease of access, while bionics should be cool and expensive and not provide the variety or versatility of mutations.

106

How about this:

[ul][li]Fast Healer mutation regens 1 hp per 50 minutes (no health scaling)[/li]
[li]V. Fast Healer 1 hp per 15 minutes[/li]
[li]Regen 1 hp per 5 minutes[/li][/ul]

Then Fast Healer would be expected to grant ~14.4 hp outside rest, V. Fast Healer 48 (enough for “another go” this day), while Regen would work like a third tier mutation is expected to work.

107

Sounds like healing traits will matter more now.

1hp for 50 minutes is a good clip. that’s enough to make learning unarmed easy -and as a mutant unarmed is important.

inb4 biogun thats powered from lizard parts that regenerate

108

Lizard regen is weird in that it doesn’t actually help regen HP - only mends limbs.
Still, it would make sense to allow lizard regen to remove own body parts, such as that annoying Megaman arm CBM.

109

Tyranid fleshborer!

MAKE CATA GREAT AGAIN!

110

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:106, topic:12896”]How about this:

[ul][li]Fast Healer mutation regens 1 hp per 50 minutes (no health scaling)[/li]
[li]V. Fast Healer 1 hp per 15 minutes[/li]
[li]Regen 1 hp per 5 minutes[/li][/ul]

Then Fast Healer would be expected to grant ~14.4 hp outside rest, V. Fast Healer 48 (enough for “another go” this day), while Regen would work like a third tier mutation is expected to work.[/quote]

1 hp for 5 minutes sounds ridiculously OP, even for a third-tier mutation. That’s 12 hp per hour, or 288 hp per day. You could regenerate your entire health bar in under half that time. I suppose, though, that at third tier you’re SUPPOSED to be OP. Fully armored up and with regen, bionics, diamond no-dachi and martial arts buffs? Fucking invincible to anything except an automatic shotgun to the face. Or maybe an NPC with a fat-man nuclear launcher…

Being OP as a result of your hard work isn’t a bad thing, but ATM there just doesn’t seem to be enough end-level enemies besides a few that can damage you at that point. But this is a problem that the game has had for a long time. It would be cool if there were different regions/biomes that all had their unique enemies, (giant walled-in hellish nether-city or something?) but that’s just me wishing.

Anyways, yeah, I can definitely get behind some regeneration mutations. I’m kind of surprised that the game doesn’t already have them, besides that Hyper-metabolism mutation from the Chimera tree that regenerates your HP when you eat.

111

I agree with the most recently posted trait/mutation health regeneration. The only problems it might have are

a) It would trivialize the existence of repair nanobots and other bionic regen sources unless they were buffed considerably. This is especially true once bionic body-part limits get fully implemented, as you now have the choice between a ridiculously efficient passive healing from a mutation, or a less ridiculously efficient passive healing from a bionic whose spaces could have been used by something else. Or you could use both but that would be pretty damn excessive.

b) As Neonwarrior said, that third tier one is OP as fuck.

But both of these points can be countered:

a) Bionics in general as they currently exist are already more useful and more easily obtainable than high-end mutations. This balance may change when bionic body-part slots are fleshed out, (and with the “Mutation/Bionic Interference” idea that people have been kicking around for what feels like forever). Keeping the regen traits locked to whatever trees it’s currently in should help balance it.

b) Late-game characters are already OP as fuck and as long as there isn’t anything (be it mechanics or new threats) in the game to stop them from being OP as fuck, balancing one area of the game against them is going to do essentially nothing for balance. Expanding, developing, and balancing late-game is another beast for another day, and not one that we should be too concerned about at the moment.

However, there is one more thing to keep in mind: Rapid passive HP regeneration is objectively the most useful ability in the game, because the failure state of the game is reaching 0HP on one of two body parts (disregarding stimulant or sedative overdose). If Regeneration is added to the game in this form, then there is no reason for any character build to not want to shoot for getting Regeneration, thus pursuing a mutation path that lets them access it. Maybe this falls under the “minmaxers gonna minmax” thing and is nothing to worry about, but it’s still kind of a glaring issue that doesn’t have any precedent in the game that I’m aware of.

I read through this entire thread in one go and honestly I’d have to say that Neonwarrior’s posts have been some of the most insightful and unfortunately overlooked ones here. Passive regen through mutations and bionics is totally fine because lol science fiction. But for survivors who don’t have access to those things or for players who choose to purposely forego them, the current medical system isn’t great. In the poll (useless as it may be at this point) I had to go with keeping sleep regen as it is now because while it isn’t ideal, it’s the best compromise for right now with the current system. If you’ll forgive the analogy, it’s a bandage on the wound that is the game’s currently weak medical system.

All wounds are not created equal. Sure, we have measurements in place for severity of wounds, and we have pain to simulate a general “your body isn’t working as well right now because that hit you took”, but the consequences of receiving severe trauma to a specific part of your body should be much, much different than taking a spattering of minor hits to the same place. The implementation of a MGS3-like system for severe injuries as Neon described would work for this, and once it is implemented it could work in tandem with sleep regen, and could even include First Aid Kits (along with other tools) as a valuable component, making them less of a magic all-purpose healing cookie and more of a package of valuable medical materials for emergency situations. The aforementioned cuts and bruises could be dealt with using good old antiseptic and bandages.

The main issue here would be figuring out what conditions need to occur for a survivor to receive a “minor” or “severe” wound. Maybe something related to the critical-hit system? Can the player character even get “critical’d”, per say, in the game as it stands?

This is a case where I think a system inspired more by realism could enhance the depth and strategy of this field.
Then again I love stocking up on content mods that a lot of people call bloat, I unironically enjoy Filthy Clothes, Boom Cranes, and Vitamins, and I generally support changes and additions that make CDDA less of a game and more of a survival simulator so maybe I just have chronic shit taste and an irrational realism-boner. Who’s to say?

It’s 2AM right now and I didn’t say everything I wanted to say, but I’ll try to expand on this more in the near future.

112

No, it’s nowhere near OP. I’m still worried it may be too weak to compete.
At the time you have third tier mutations, you can easily craft 100s of bandages from ethanol from robbed liquor store and heal faster than the regen would heal you.
It’s more quality of life at this point, as it doesn’t help at all with the most dangerous threats - ones that kill you so fast you don’t have a chance to recover.
High level characters aren’t worn down, they die in one encounter (if ever).

Third tier regen doesn’t even scratch repair nanobots - it won’t regen you while you’re kiting things, only between encounters.
With regeneration, you essentially start every battle healed. With nanobots, you’re healed moments after being smashed by a hulk, possibly even before it recharges the smash.

113

(Forgive me, I only skimmed the thread, but…)

So, I was under the impression that the lore explanation for faster-than-real regeneration was that everything is infected by the blob at a low level. (This is borne out by a couple of terminal entries.)

This is probably a post-hoc explanation for a gameplay mechanic, (and it doesn’t really affect whether or not regeneration while awake is balanced,) but it does address the whole “everything heals to fast, why no scars” question.

I’m okay with sleep regeneration only, as it adds a level of vulnerability. I guess I wouldn’t mind non-sleep regen, but I would vote for very slow, like 5-10% sleep regen - just enough that a limb on the verge of falling off gets a bar over the course of a day.

114

I voted for the first option; I’m also not a big fan of the idea that the player purposely wanting to knock themselves out with alcohol or drugs, just to initiate regeneration from sleeping.

115

I do not support any buff of bionics as a kneejerk to mutations being buffed. They arent comparable, and as Ive stated before, bionics shouldnt be as versatile as mutations. They should be specialized equipments and limited in their ‘slots’. Bionic nanobots should be pretty compatible with fast healing from mutations.

Bionics are one reason why endgame is so boring, stagnant, and easy.

116

Yeah, that’s why I suggested some kind of “rest” option that regens health, too, instead of just sleep (though, to be fair, in the real world, we often drug ourselves to sleep more than usual for a while after medical procedures to let the body heal).

117

vote: Yes 10-20%
Although previous poster did have a point about it just being another CPU eater.

Heres my thinking. Bandages Etc. Doing more than providing a non-stacking buff and fixing status effects, doesn’t make real-life sense, and whatever the decision (over time vs bandages are fix all suture saline kits) it should be consistent. Using both systems doesn’t Really make sense as a game mechanic, or a RL simulation thing.

Time Based Healing:
This is how I typically play CDDA unless I need a little more Heal to be out of red zone etc…
Bandages etc… are used mainly to heal status effects, heal over time is % based and balanced so that average Player takes approx 1 night + day to heal fully from bad injuries (but not broken limbs) healing much faster in sleep.

Don’t need to worry about how that compares with RL for the same reason we ignore other RL stuff in CDDA. It would take away from play to make it correctly accurate, and time is scrunched in CDDA anyways, with default seasons being 14 days, about 1/2 a month which is approx 1/3rd of a full season so 1/6th ish very roughly

So we can justify any realism complaints such as bathroom, and woulds healing too fast, learning to fast etc… as things that happen in all those days banished to the none because playing ALL of the days would be boring.

Gamified healing: NO healing is done via regen. This is full game mode healing, you must scavenge ALL the loot necesary to heal, whether from the forest or bandages and scrap cloth etc. You have to find or craft any healing you want to do.

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Whichever is done, I think it should be all one, or all the other, with the banished version becoming a fully supported mainline mod. Mix mashing the healing types is weird, breaks immersion some, and makes it feel like the game can’t decide what it wants.

Personally I think it should be the Chronological Healing that becomes default, with Gamified Healing being a way to completely 180 the game on a whim thus giving CDDA more double the depth of play for code written.

118

chronohealing is gamey. thats why its a magic mutation and ‘sleephealing’ isnt.

lol.

119

its a game enhanced real thing. IRL we heal over time, just not as fast as in-game. Really though, I just needed some catchy terms to differentiate them. The mutations etc. that make characters heal at super speeds (even for a game-time) are different they are mutations and thus excused from even attempting to look like reality.

120

Speaking of mutations and traits, I have Attison’s Disease, a rare disorder of the adrenal gland which causes it to basically not function at all, especially if I were to break an arm or start bleeding profusely from a wound. I carry a shot of adrenaline at all times because I cannot produce enough on my own, if I were unable to inject myself in the case of major trauma, there would be nothing to do that would stop me from dying. See where this is going? I do.
!!FUN!! new starting trait! Regen revisements completely change gameplay if such a trait were to exist, adding so much !!FUN!! to the game to be enjoyed!
And yeah, I think slow regen should be implemented, but I think there should be a limit on how much injuries it can heal, like it only working on green or yellow body parts, because, like people already said, a paper-cut and a knife cut don’t heal in the same amount of time.