Mechanic for Doors

[OMG (DayZ) 4]

At the moment I can't explain in great detail what happens when you slam a door on a zombie because I've only done it a couple of times and what happened next for me was the zombie(s) sorta just phasing through the door anyway. I have a feeling that zombies can just open doors like players however zombies, being the masterminds they are, are not the type i would pick for their door opening abilities. It would make sense then that zombies cannot just swing a door open after you frantically close it trying to catch a breath.

And so, my idea is this:

A 'Knockdown' mechanic on doors that changes depending on the type of door. Basically how this would work is each time a zombie bangs on the door trying to break in, the game rolls a dice (D6). If it lands on say 4-6 the door opens. If it lands on 1-3 the zombie needs to smack it again.

The thought process behind this is so that you can still close doors behind zombies but you will only have a 'random' amount of time before the zombies break through. Imagine running from a group of zombies into a shed or something slamming the door behind you while quickly trying to reload or pull out your axe knowing the enemy could burst in at any second.

At first I thought the simple D6 roll would be ok but then it would be pretty rubbish if you closed a door only for a zombie to punt it open the next second and so I came up with something that might get around that. This entails giving doors a certain amount of 'Unbreakable Attempts (UA)' before the dice starts rolling. It would also be a bit silly if a zombie can knock down a flimsy wooden door to some shack just as easily as they can a huge metal door to a fire station or something. As a result, the amount of unbreakable attempts is defined by the quality of the door.

A small wooden door to something like a little shed could have 1 UA before the normal dice roll per hit would come into play.

A door to a house could have 2 UAs

Something like a big military door could have 3 UAs.

Now then, we obviously don't want to get to the point where doors become too over powered so you can just close one and say bye bye to your problems. Earlier when i mentioned that the dice needs to hit 4-6, you could also increase the chances for break-in depending on the door as well. A small rubbish door might only need a 3-6 on the dice. If that makes it too hard for the player, knock it up to 5-6 for a break-in but for each zombie that can reach the door, roll an extra dice to simulate more than 1 zombie trying to knock the door down (each dice individually still having to hit a 5 or 6). If you wanted to go crazy you could combine it all. Make the door need a 5 or 6 to open but for each zombie that can physically reach the door, use an additional dice and increase the chances by one so 1 zombie would need a 5 or 6 and 2 zombies would need a 4, 5 or 6.

Another mechanic I thought of was an actual 'door breaking' idea. Say the game rolls a 6 when deciding if the zombie knocks open the door, the door could 'break' meaning you would be unable to close it. What would perhaps make pvp content more interesting is if the door physically breaks so the top half comes off or something meaning you can still close the door but you would only get 'protection' from the lower half (and obviously zombies can now just open it themselves without needing to dice check). You can include various different ways the door can break ranging from being broken in half, split in half (top to bottom) or broken off completely (all still effectively meaning a zombie can now open it like a player, it just changes how the player can see/shoot in or out of the building).

If the game does not roll a 6 but rolls high enough for the zombie(s) to break in, you would of course still be able to close the door again once you've dealt with the immediate problem of zombies in your face.

At the moment I don't think there are really any mechanics involving doors in the game/mod but it's the small things that matter sometimes. Also, try not to think of this idea making escaping zombies too easy, on the current A.I. of zombies perhaps yes, but i'm sure we would all like to see an improved A.I. which would mean things like this are not as 'instant escape' as they could be.

I will attempt to attach a poll to this thread so people can either agree with my idea or tell me how rubbish it is. Polls are always a pretty solid way to find out the opinion on matters but i have no idea what i am doing so it might not show up.

Thank you for reading. :)

Edit: Oh and doors would of course eventually respawn if they are broken. Perhaps if no player is in the area around a broken door for a couple of hours they could just respawn.

Edited January 15, 2013 by OMG

[Sutinen 635]

Didn't read the second idea, but I approve the first one.

[Shadow Man 142]

I like the idea of a breakable environment in general. You could give things like doors hit points perhaps, so that they could be repeatedly hit and degraded. The amount of damage done could be slightly randomised so as not to be too predictable.

[jayman9696 14]

I don't know, it seems unnecessary complicated and if you think about it a zombie should never be able to punch in a a metal fire station door anyway.

[OMG (DayZ) 4]

I don't know, it seems unnecessary complicated and if you think about it a zombie should never be able to punch in a a metal fire station door anyway.

Well that can be true. Perhaps then certain doors like the metal ones cannot be broken. You can't 'lock' any doors in this game so the zombies can still push them open.

Bigger doors like those ones would need slightly different mechanics anyway because if you had each zombie in range of the door making it easier for them to open it, the big doors like that wouldn't stand a chance. At the same time you don't want to make them too tough or you would be able to just laugh at a couple of zombies trying to get in that don't stand a chance (although that may be more realistic, it might be too over powered for just a game).

This is of course all still just an idea that i in no way expect to be bullet proof. Things like this would need far more ironing out first than to call it perfect after just one small post.

Also, how do people feel about public polls? I am not an expert and making them so didn't know what i was doing when i ticked the box to make it public (i thought it was making it so anyone could vote). I can't seem to find a way to turn it off after attempting to edit the post so if anyone really cares about not wanting to have their names seen where they vote and can tell me how to take it off i will do.

[m.w. vindicator 880]

Good idea. Dice rolling is a good way to describe the randomness.

The poll seems kind of unecessary. No big deal though

[OMG (DayZ) 4]

Good idea. Dice rolling is a good way to describe the randomness.

The poll seems kind of unecessary. No big deal though

Yeah maybe. The poll is just there to make it easier to see how many people agree/disagree instead of having to scroll through lots of posts incase the idea became more popular.

Also, if the idea sounds too complicated, that is only because of me having to explain how the mechanic would technically work. The basic idea (in terms of how the player would actually see it in-game) is that zombies can't instantly open doors and will instead have to knock the door open taking a random amount of time which takes longer on stronger doors. With the chance of the door getting damaged meaning you can't just close it again forcing the zombies to try and break in all over again.