r3dskull

Ok we all know the Dayz does a pretty good job of simulating of the physical side of the the zombie apocalypse (animations aside, sorry rocket I know your not an animator!) but what about the mental toll on the player? I came up with this as a game design concept from getting tired of getting whacked by faceless snipers, the Call of Duty types who seem to be slowly destroying the social experiment that Dayz started out as. What would make these guys stop and talk to me, maybe if they did it would make it harder for them to just blow me away when they get to know me as a human being, what could I have that they would need? (coz blood bags just aren't cutting it!) So here it is: Mental Heath System! Your mental health takes damage to varying degrees if: Low You take pain killers or morphine You injure yourself. You are chased by zombies. Your hungry or thirsty for a prolonged period. You are harmed by zombies. You are harmed by other players. You kill zombies. Med You discover a dead player and interact with them (loot, hide etc). You are seriously injured or break a leg. You seriously injure another player. You get cold. You Kill another player in self defense. High You get an infection. You Kill another player in cold blood. You eat another player (You should be able to gut, cook and eat other players this would have an impact on both morality and mental Health) The mental health damage bar (which would of course be invisable to the player) would take a long time to fill up over maybe 12 hours of playing if the player is involved in frequent high damage activities and would have 4 stages, so you would have to fill the bar 4 times to get to the fourth stage. Effects are accumulative so a stage two you would be having occasional visual and Aural hallucinations and at stage 4 you would randomly feel all four effects. Also the fequency of an effect occuring would increase as you progress down the stages Stage 1 Aural hallucinations : At random times the player would hear gunfire, player movement noises, vehicle noises, zombie noise, animals when there was nothing there. Stage 2 Visual hallucinations: Zombie, player, animal models would randomly appear and then when the player gets closer disappear. Also models would get confused zombies, could appear as animals, or players and vice a versa. Stage 3 Freak out. At random time the player freaks out and makes screaming noises that can be herd by other players there is also a low chance that they might automaticly fire of a couple of rounds of the weapon they are holding. Stage 4 Break down. The player collapses to their knees sobbing and covers their head with their hands for a egg timed period. Anti-psychotics (medical loot) would remove the effects for a set period but they would not lower the damage on the mental health bar so when they run out you once again being to effect by the effects of the stage you at. Here's the game design trick the only way to restore mental health is to sit at a fireplace with another player! As you sit you health bar will gradually refill. You could receive bonuses to the restoration for the amount of players you sit with. It would make fireplaces hubs and force players to interact with each other if only of 5 mins or so. I think this would be a great story telling tool and provide a greater survival challenge for more experienced players. What do you think? A way of getting people togeather without restricting play styles? Would you share stories with a bandit over the campfire? Flame away!

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I agree too many health monitors Rocket has said he want to get rid them and replace them with some sort of "tells" (eg players doing a limping animation if they have lost a lot of blood) from your avatar and I think you could do this with the different stages.. If everyone kills you then you never go nuts because your status resets on death but the people who killed you may go nuts, if the kill everyone they meet. Is sitting at a campfire with someone for five mins in every 4 to 12 hours or so (depending on your playstyle) of play a punishment? I'd like to think of it more as an ice breaker! Seeing as most people only live for an hour it won't even effect the majprity of players, it's just part of the meta game for more experienced players another stage in trying to stay alive!

The system doesn't give you a mental breakdown if your bad and a clean bill of mental health if your good it's dosn't make value judgements, it's just like running and drinking water if you are involved in high level activity you will need socialise from time to time. If your good and don't socialise very occasionally you will go nuts, if you experince a lot of bad shit and don't socalise now and again you will go nuts too, people need other people it's a proven fact. You know why soldiers are able to kill people without going nuts? Its the comaradery the feeling of being looked out for, that you have people you can turn to who are supporting you, that you are doing the right thing as a collective. In the real world people who kill a lot of people without being in a unit, group or social network (not talking about facebook here!) are assasins who kill very occasionally for large amounts of money or and this is the majority, are mentally ill people who walk into a school or movie theatre and pull the trigger. In game, it just means people who kill a lot of other players will occasionally have to interact with other players in order to not go nuts, they don't have to be nice, they can rob them, threatern them they just can't shoot them in the face for a small period of time or there will consequences.. after they have sat down for a bit and maybe if they like, spoke to another player then they can go back to shooting people in the face for no reason again and again and agin, hell they can even shoot the person they have just shared the campfire with in the face, it's their choice. Everything has consequences if I wanna play a medic their is a possibity someone I am helping could kill me, they are the consequences, if I am a mass murderering hermit then it will probably take a toll on my sanity.

Thanks for all the Beans folks! I am a little confused how some people think this system punishes a play style? I like to run most of the time that means I need to consume alot of fluids do I complain about this being a punishment on my playstyle? No it's part of the fun of the game. Frankly if you snipe newbies and the unarmed on the coast with your AS50 then "in game" your a psychopath and at least this system helps you simulate that more effectivley. If you don't have a mechanic like this that forces you on very rare occassions to interact with others then all the lambs will get pissed off and stop playing the game and the wolves will all be camped out with snipers with no one to kill! Imagine you just spawned and some bandit points a gun at you and tells you to turn around, he puts an axe and some matches in your backback and marches you to a wooded area where he tells you to build a fire, do you try and use that axe on him when he gets confortable or try to strike up a conversation? Maybe you come across a group of strangers around a camp fire and the invite you to join them as your having fun a another group attacks, or in a cherno raid one of your group freaks out and starts shoting another member saying he's a zombie, or a bandit gives away his position by his insane ranting, or in a city a group gathers around a burning bin to share story's, trade, eat and ease the burden of their situation all these would be supported and reinforced by an in game mechanic, is that not cool?

(cB)the_tr00per criticisms are perhaps the most valid, but aren't we already having active effects (the shakes, trauma) coming from the avatar not the player? Perhaps the effects could be made more subtle so they influence a players behavior rather than control it.

I think people are missing the point slightly, it's an acumaltive effect. Even if you engaged in high level activity you would still take some time to hit stage one. I am not suggesting that you would start hallucinating if you saw one a dead body or someone die today in your home town or if you fell in some water and got soaked and cold. But If you were alone, with no human contact and hunted by infected zombies, over a period of twelve hours you saw 6 dead bodies and were forced to loot them just to find food and supplys, you saw someone coming out of a shop with some beans murdered with an axe, then you killed two women in cold blood beacuse you were scared and had an itchy tigger finger then you were ripped up by zombies and broke your leg only to be saved by injecting yourself with morphine, then you spent the day wandering the zombie infested streets in the rain and caught an infection... you might hit stage one and start to become a little paranoid.

It's not really punishing people who kill just making them think twice about doing so, making them face the consequences of their actions, also if your in a group of killers there would be little punishment at all. Live togeather Die alone. It would make being a lone wolf more skillful more of an elite player. Would also make people try robbing without killing, create more tense situtations.

Terrex, I am not saying this should be part of the stand alone at alpha launch but maybe a goal for the developers in the longer term. Any ideas on how to simplify it? I am not a code man :-)

Cheers Nick, Just think we need more things that bring people togeather but are still part of a survival mod. Might encouge players in the early stages to light fires in order to signal to players that they wanted to chat, share some beans and recoup thier mental health.