Balancing blood bag system

[xfera 7]

First of all, please apologize me for my fist post being a thread opener. I've been reading this forum a lot the last few months but I've never been on the need of posting anything :(

But, reading this whole thread gave me an idea that I'd like to propose for you all to discuss.

I think it's rather obvious that the blood bag system is today crearly unbalanced and unrealistic. I've been many times playing alone and found that being low on blood is an important problem if I have no companion for tranfusing me or enough food to recover (specially at night, with the loss of vision capability).

Wich takes us to the huge spawn of bloodbags in hospitals, and the instant recovery that makes a player suitable for fighting, running or whatever again in just a few seconds. In that thread I mentioned earlier there where many great ideas for balancing blood bag system like less blood bag spawn, some sort of tranfuse delay, or even just disabling the item from the game.

My idea is taking the blood bag system much further, being as realistic as it takes. Let me explain myself.

First of all, there would be the need of introducing the Blood Type system on any character. As you spawn, you will be given a certain Blood Type based on a realistic proportion. It should look more or less like this:

Blood Type -> Percent spawn rate

(A+) -> 30%

(O+) -> 35%

(B+) -> 20%

(AB+) -> 5%

(A-) -> 4%

(O-) -> 4%

(B-) -> 1%

(AB-) -> 1%

Of course blood bag spawn could take different rates. Real life hospitals tend to stock higher amounts of O- blood bags due to its higher compatibility. The type of blood we can recieve (or give) should be the same than in real life.

And lastly, just for making it a little bit more challenging, it could be nice if we could transfuse or extract blood on ourselves, but with a 30 seconds (or so) time in wich we can't move until it finishes. If the player moves transfuse will be canceled or just partially completed.

This idea is just for making the game even more realistic, and give a true solution for the blood bag spamming is happening now. This could potentialy make partnering easier as we will likely need to exchange bloodbags for anything with other people.

Not to mention exchanging things is something I miss in DayZ and should really happen much more often in a similar real life situation.

Thanks for reading :)

PS: I understand this whole system could be somehow hard to learn, and a huge pain in the ass for new players. Not to talk about coding issues. So it could be easily simplified just taking out the RH+ and RH- from the system, and just using A, B, AB and O.

Edited January 14, 2013 by xFera

[vkris 4]

holy shit

[Hartraft 100]

I like the idea of blood types and that it should be implemented but what I would like to see which differs from realism is that you can use any blood type to heal yourself but only your own blood type would heal you completely.

So say you are A+ and you found B- then it would only heal you for 500 blood or something like that. This means you could make different spawn rates for different bags and it means that it is still worthwhilen trying to find your matching blood bag.

To add an additional complication you would need to find a piece of equipment to find out your blood type.

Edited January 14, 2013 by Hartraft

[Corpselooter 16]

To complicated to implement correctly IMO

[h3retic 224]

Too complicated for people to like it

[vkris 4]

Too complicated for people to like it

Man, I think it's a great idea, it'd be pretty easy too.

You just give a character a blood type on spawn and in your 'stats', I guess if you open your bag or something, it'll say somewhere on it BLOOD TYPE: AB+.

Then when you're hovering over the bloodbags while looting it'll just say

Bloodbag - B+ x5

Bloodbag - AB+ x1

Bloodbag - A- x10

But yes I agree some people will try to do the transfusion with bad blood. And eventually die/get sick and maybe then they'll learn.

Edit: From montreal too? :D

Edited January 14, 2013 by vkris

[Jonsse 69]

I agree with you that the current system is kinda wonky at best. It works, but provides problems as well. But what you're suggesting is unnecessarily complicated.

The fact is that in a game there needs to be a function for recovering hit points, otherwise there is no longevity. To implement a need to play nice with other players through trading is certainly not a bad idea either. Different blood bags could certainly be a way to go about it, but in my opinion not a very good one.

I do like the idea of drawing your own blood for a blood bag, it would make an interesting gaming mechanic. It would require a passive regeneration of our blood points. And taking blood out of you would then decrease your own blood points by the amount in the bag, for example 3000 points / bag. Which then would regenerate slowly over time for you and the person you gave the blood to. But again might be unnecessarily complicated.

I also fully support the idea that blood bags would slowly replenish your blood points over a period of time rather than 12k instantly.

Edited January 14, 2013 by Jonsse

[xfera 7]

Yup I do agree that maybe is a hard and complicated system in many ways, but just wanted to point that IRL people can't just use a blood bag on themselves without making any further comprobation. And that going into an hospital and find 5, 10 or more blood bags that are compatible with your RH it's not likely to happen usually.

I think the main subject of all this is finding blood should be much more harder, so it become a high value item suitable for trading. Finding a medical cathether and empty bloodbags could be easier so we are able to take out our own blood when healthy.

This way we could store blood and maybe trading could still happen.

But yes I agree some people will try to do the transfusion with bad blood. And eventually die/get sick and maybe then they'll learn.

That'd be awesome btw :D

Edited January 14, 2013 by xFera

[Jonsse 69]

Agreed, visiting a hospital with 5 boxes of 10 blood bags each is not a very likely occurrence in any situation. Getting full health is far too easy and simple currently.

[Never 237]

This way we could store blood and maybe trading could still happen.

Main problem is storage. Blood needs refrigeration or it spoils, carrying around a bloodbag in your satchel means you'd be the proud owner of basically a scab.

Simply put, bloodbags should have a very short 'shelf life' when removed from storage in the hospitals, add in direct transfusions maybe, as it would be fairly cool to have to make the decision to help your mate at the cost of your own health.

If Rocket ever makes the infection stuff hes mentioned sour bloodbags would be useful for making that more dynamic.

[Jimeeh 5]

also what bothers me is running around with un-frozen/chilled blood it would go off and coagulate maybe you should only be able to use blood bags AT the hospital or completely remove them and just have to go to the hospital (maybe in the SA it will be a bigger building with more rooms etc) and actually use a fixed item there to restore your own blood could add a cool down to it but most importantly it would make it dangerous/risking going into the town/city to the hospital along side it add another consumable like lemsip or something that gives 3k blood that can be carried around (can be anything medical thing i cant think of a good 1)

[xfera 7]

Yes, we should need some refrigerators next to our tents hahaha!

We could make that work, maybe modding a bike so it is connected to a electric generator and recharge a battery that way xDD

Yeah, I just read the book "Zombie Survival Guide" by Max Brooks :)

[enforcer1975 1111]

If you want to balance blood transfusion don't forget you have to wait a couple of minutes ( lets say about 5 minutes because having to wait 30 mins if you do a real transfusion can be quite boring in the game ) and you aren't allowed to move or else the transfusion will fail, if you finish the transfusion you will only gain about 1/8 of your maximum blood level which is about 1500. Food should never raise the blood level.

Edited January 14, 2013 by Enforcer

[20thCenturyGamer 16]

Food should still raise the blood level as getting blood from hospitals is not easy as u need to travel a long way to get a hospital if u did not carry any medication on you.

Eg : Spawn far from city and have 1k blood because bandit shot u.

Takes around 30mins to get into hospital and another 10mins sneaking around and breaking into the hospital may be too time consuming and not newbie friendly...

Edited January 14, 2013 by 20thCenturyGamer

[Jonsse 69]

Ok stop right there, there's a certain level of fiction involved in a game like this. I'd like to remind everyone that there is no electricity in a post apocalyptic world. So a notion that blood bags would be available anywhere for any reason without refrigeration is unrealistic. It's a veil if ambiguity needed to build a gaming system around zombie survival.

[enforcer1975 1111]

Ok stop right there, there's a certain level of fiction involved in a game like this. I'd like to remind everyone that there is no electricity in a post apocalyptic world. So a notion that blood bags would be available anywhere for any reason without refrigeration is unrealistic. It's a veil if ambiguity needed to build a gaming system around zombie survival.

I already posted that somewhere else...obviously people tend to "forget/oversee" things.

[xfera 7]

I believe its not neccesary to point that. We all know making a game like this going to "simulation" will anyway make some "gamy licenses" at any point. I was just stating that blood bags, as they are appearing now, are gross and many times kills the immersion in the game :/

[radrussian1 (DayZ) 23]

aids blood bags

[Shadow Man 142]

aids blood bags

I don't think there's enough time to die...

I do like the idea of having to do transfusions at the hospital though.

[Mos1ey 6301]

There is no power in Chernarus in case you hadn't noticed, they're being stored at room temp. even in the hospital. xD

Edited January 15, 2013 by mZLY

[xfera 7]

Back on this topic:

Something they're experimenting with is some kind of bloodtype. Hope this will get implemented on final release. No need of that on alpha of course, I need that before I grow old please! :D

[DemonGroover 8836]

I like your ideas.

Bloodbags should have a bloodtype (perhaps the majority being O -ve since that blood can be used by anyone) and players should spawn with a blood group.

Discovering what blood group you are would be something you need to find out.

[Serious Stan 202]

What if you could sedate other survivors and tap their blood to gain more blood for yourself?

[joe_mcentire 2073]

did i already mention i don't like the bloodbag system/idea not one bit! i thought the new health system would make the dependency on such awful things more or less obsolete. now i realize the bloodbagging is going to be enhanced....

[Private Evans 1303]

I like your ideas.

Bloodbags should have a bloodtype (perhaps the majority being O -ve since that blood can be used by anyone) and players should spawn with a blood group.

Discovering what blood group you are would be something you need to find out.

Rocket said that they are thinking of implementing a blood type test :)

Edit I think it is a lot more realistic to create your own infusion kit and get someones blood than to find bloodbags ( which is indeed completely impossible in RL after a few weeks)

Edited June 24, 2013 by Private Evans