Unexplained Death!

[Justice]

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:18, topic:381”]The whole point is that you don’t know when you’re getting close, if people knew that, they’d never OD.
A better death message may be called for though since there is confusion about why it’s happening.[/quote]

It would be fun to see messages in the final turns leading up to death detailing the symptoms of an overdose based on the type of drug taken. Wikipedia has at least one article. For instance, this article on Barbiturate overdose reads, “Symptoms of an overdose typically include sluggishness, incoordination, difficulty in thinking, slowness of speech, faulty judgment, drowsiness, shallow breathing, and staggering. In severe cases, coma and death can result.”

You feel sluggish.
You’re having difficulty thinking.
You feel drowsy.
Your breathing becomes shallow.
The room begins to spin.
You stop breathing.

[kevin.granade]

[quote=“Justice, post:19, topic:381”][quote=“Kevin Granade, post:18, topic:381”]The whole point is that you don’t know when you’re getting close, if people knew that, they’d never OD.
A better death message may be called for though since there is confusion about why it’s happening.[/quote]

It would be fun to see messages in the final turns leading up to death detailing the symptoms of an overdose based on the type of drug taken. Wikipedia has at least one article. For instance, this article on Barbiturate overdose reads, “Symptoms of an overdose typically include sluggishness, incoordination, difficulty in thinking, slowness of speech, faulty judgment, drowsiness, shallow breathing, and staggering. In severe cases, coma and death can result.”

You feel sluggish.
You’re having difficulty thinking.
You feel drowsy.
Your breathing becomes shallow.
The room begins to spin.
You stop breathing.[/quote]

You’re totally right, early-onset symptoms need to happen. I’ll look into making that happen.

[DWC]

Early onset symptoms make sense, you should still OD if you take too much all at once. In real life, people end up passed out or in temporary comas before they fatally overdose, especially with alcohol. You can’t do more drugs if you are face down on the floor, after all.

[Pthalocy]

:U this is a totally appropriate solution and I have no complains.

[xLemor]

as long this all happens in a few minutes and not give people much time to react to it. It would only be a death message but not a way to avoid the OD

[GlyphGryph]

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:18, topic:381”]The whole point is that you don’t know when you’re getting close, if people knew that, they’d never OD.
A better death message may be called for though since there is confusion about why it’s happening.[/quote]

Yeah, like I think we’ve all realized, I don’t think anyone wants a sign you’re getting close to taking enough pills to MAKE you overdose, just that you’re getting close to the point where you’re gonna die from it (or maybe not EVEN die - it would be nice to occasionally live through a non-fatal overdose as a wiser and more cautious person).

Obviously, though, this warning would come too late to do much about it, unless you happened to be IN a hospital and already hooked up to an appropriate blood scrubber, or if you have a manually trigger-able cbm to flush the drugs from your system. (which should totally be an option if it isn’t already - I forget how exactly the blood filter works)

[KA101]

Blood Filter completely clears the instant stat-affecting conditions: Drunk, High, etc. it doesn’t clear Painkiller slowdown–so I imagine it wouldn’t prevent an OD–nor does it affect addiction counters. (For the record, it also doesn’t affect Morale bonuses.)

In short, it’s a little underpowered and IMO buggy.

[xLemor]

It would be op if it would prevent you from OD.
takes 10 oxycodone, 10 snorts of coke, some meth, adderall and activate blood filter Yay im saved…
Nah it would be absurb. Why everyone insists on taking a lot of drugs in the game? loll Drugs are bad mkay?!?

[KA101]

Not necessarily: preventing an OD, by instantly removing all drugs/drug effects* means that the pain comes back, the morale-boost disappears, and any stim effects are gone. You’ve just wasted all those drugs.

*To be fair, if that isn’t Exactly What It Says On The Tin, it’s pretty close: http://www.wiki.cataclysmdda.com/index.php?title=Blood_Filter

[DWC]

They do have drugs that can do that IRL. Naloxone/ Narcan is an extremely effective one that comes to mind. That could be a thing for the game if you wanted to stop a oxycodin overdose before it was too late, but if you were careful enough to stock narcan, you’d be careful enough to not OD in the first place, I suppose.

Made me think of anti-venom as a thing too, but it’s non-trivial to manufacture it and they have blood filters in the future, anti venom and such things would be obsolete anyways.

[xLemor]

hard to overdose on oxycodin when 2 tablets will take care of all the pain you have if you let it take effect instead of trying to take 10 or more of them lol

[halberdsturgeon]

It’s extremely easy to overdose on oxycodone if you aren’t using it for pain relief. But yes, I’m surprised so many people are dealing with overdose in Cataclysm. Any kind of opiate is so effective at relieving pain in this game that I’m not sure under what circumstances you’d even need to take more than a single pill at a time.

[Weyrling]

It’s extremely easy to overdose on oxycodone if you aren’t using it for pain relief. But yes, I’m surprised so many people are dealing with overdose in Cataclysm. Any kind of opiate is so effective at relieving pain in this game that I’m not sure under what circumstances you’d even need to take more than a single pill at a time.

I’m guessing it’s because you can take a couple pills, take a few steps and not see an effect, so lets take a couple more to make sure it’s working…
I always take some painkillers and (run like hell) hit ‘|’ Wait 5 minutes, then judge how many more, if any, I need.

Impatience is one of the main killers in rogue-likes, of course. I usually die because vehicles, or I wasted too many turns picking stuff up or messing around before throwing molotovs en masse in several directions (which is my main defensive strategy versus anything whatsoever).

[xLemor]

It’s extremely easy to overdose on oxycodone if you aren’t using it for pain relief. But yes, I’m surprised so many people are dealing with overdose in Cataclysm. Any kind of opiate is so effective at relieving pain in this game that I’m not sure under what circumstances you’d even need to take more than a single pill at a time.

They want an instant effect, dont know why tho. I usually just take 2 at once and forget about the pain for a couple of HOURS. The pain slowly continue to drop even after the painkillers are done. So to me its just people not wanting to deal with the stats penalties when in pain so their flawed logic goes like: hey if i take 10 of them maybe it will be all gone at once. Of course it works that way but it also brings death They just have to be more patient.

Btw a pain of 20-30 wont prevent you from sleeping, it happened often that my character got tired and slept a full night and wake up the next morning all healed up with no pain.

As for myself i havent OD once in the game yet, even with my melee characters who would stand and fight hordes of zombies.

[sillhouette]

[quote=“halberdsturgeon, post:30, topic:381”]I’m surprised so many people are dealing with overdose in Cataclysm.

They want an instant effect, dont know why tho.[/quote]

You really don’t know why?

Your body HP/status is presented as numbers. You get hurt and the numbers show it, and you use first aid and the numbers are fixed. Immediately.

You hungry or thirsty? It shows you right on the screen, and you have a big nom nom and glug, and you are sated and slaked. Right away, you don’t have to wait for digestion or something.

When you are in pain, you see a number also. You take a painkiller and you see … nothing change. It acts totally inconsistent with the rest of the game status systems as presented. There is even a “take more than one” expectation created from the aspirin text.

So, yes, people will take more than one. If painkillers are really a “Heal over time” mechanism, and invisibly so unlike most everything else, it’s because the game doesn’t even bother to say something like “you feel your pain slowly starting to fade”. How about adding an icon up-arrow/down-arrow next to the pain number showing it trending?

[xLemor]

I think you dont know how painkillers work, they dont heal anything at all. They just relief you of some pain by getting you high but the wound will still be there unchanged (you still have to take care of it with first aids or bandages). You can have a pain of 90’s for days and not die at all from it. The painkillers are acting the way they should like real painkillers.

Just remember pain and wounds are 2 different things, you use aid kits to heal wounds but you take painkillers only if you cant deal with the pain that comes with the wound. You could play the game just fine without ever taking a single painkiller if you just can live with the minor penalties associated with pain.

And again Pain can’t kill you.
Beside pain will go away by itself slowly with time or you get used to it

[system]

Pain rapes your stats and makes them cower in a corner.

It also causes unconsciousness in certain extreme cases.

Unconscious>Lost Turns>(generic zombie type coming along)>Death!

[KA101]

[quote=“xLemor, post:34, topic:381”]I think you dont know how painkillers work, they dont heal anything at all. They just relief you of some pain by getting you high but the wound will still be there unchanged (you still have to take care of it with first aids or bandages). You can have a pain of 90’s for days and not die at all from it. The painkillers are acting the way they should like real painkillers.

Just remember pain and wounds are 2 different things, you use aid kits to heal wounds but you take painkillers only if you cant deal with the pain that comes with the wound. You could play the game just fine without ever taking a single painkiller if you just can live with the minor penalties associated with pain.

And again Pain can’t kill you.
Beside pain will go away by itself slowly with time or you get used to it :p[/quote]

Objection: Pain can greatly diminish your speed and lower your stats, leading to an inevitable death. For those who state that Pain can be ignored, I suggest you proceed to operate in a Swamp, or other dynamic-spawning area, during Acid Rain. I suspect you won’t be able to stick around that long…

[sillhouette]

[quote=“xLemor, post:34, topic:381”]I think you dont know how painkillers work, they dont heal anything at all. …

Just remember pain and wounds are 2 different things[/quote]

I agree with everything you say. However you are making a realism argument, and I am making a game system and feedback argument.

If we wanted a realistic injury model I wouldn’t apply 15 bandages to an arm almost severed, and then have it heal to 100% function over a good nights sleep. Some people role play and imagine the char in a realistic situation and how they should behave in reality. Some people play the game like they are operating an airplane they just need to manage the “dashboard” and keep the numbers in the right range as they fly around looking for neat terrain to explore.

Whatever the game systems actually model, it should be clear to the player what the game is doing and what it is assuming. The game teaches the players how to play the game, so what it shows and what feedback it responds with is kind of central to the experience.

Having personal status tracking behind the scenes and obfuscated can be fun, like sanity or less obvious infections. Roguelikes all have some glee in the learn-by-dying mechanisms, but if the pain and non-obviousness of learning exceeds the hoped for fun, the game doesn’t keep new players.

edit: Remember the thread was started by a player who died but got such little feedback from the game that he couldn’t even tell that he had done anything untoward, or why the character died, and he was reporting it as a bug query. If it’s hard to tell whether you have done something wrong or if the game is broken, some more clear feedback seems reasonable.

[halberdsturgeon]

It’s true - the gradual effect of pain relief is inconsistent with the instant effect of the game’s wound-healing system. However I’ve found that the pain relief effect of taking codeine or oxycodone does begin instantly. Your pain starts going down essentially as soon as you take it.

I usually die because vehicles

Same, though ‘falling into holes’ is trending upward lately.