Health status system

[bad_mojo (DayZ) 1204]

I suggest a health system based on a percentage of healthiness. 100% being perfectly healthy, 0% being dead. In order for your health status to fully regenerate over time, you need to have everything in perfect harmony. You can't be hungry, thirsty, sick, cold, injured, etc. or your rate of recovery will slow or possibly even turn into a rate of decrease.

 

To give an example. A fully healthy player is shot and loses a lot of blood. Their health instantly goes down to 50% before they can stop the bleeding. At low blood, the player is struggling to stay conscious. His body temperature also drops as a result of the bloodloss, and possibly from lying unconscious on the cold ground. So, instead of the regular recovery rate of(for example) 0.5% per minute, his low blood level removes 0.2% and being cold removes another 0.1%. So, in his injured state he is only recovering 0.2% per minute. On top of that, if the player gets sick from the cold or from just being in a weakened state, and throws up his lunch and starts to get hungry & dehydrated, he might lose another 0.3%, putting him in the red. Meaning if he doesn't get better soon, he will slowly die as a result of his poor condition.

 

Something else that could be done with a system of healthiness is to impose a cap for a duration after the player has sustained an injury or sickness. So, in the example above, the player might not get sick because he uses heat packs and his friend gives him medical attention. He might only be able to get his health status to a max of 75% for the duration of the healing process. Not only would this leave him in a weaker state percentage wise, but the health percentage could be used in other ways. For example, an unhealthy player might move slower. They might not be able to sprint. They might be more prone to catching a cold, or breaking a bone. Maybe they swing a melee weapon with less force.

 

I feel the biggest asset to creating a system like this would be the mystery. The player could essentially be kept in the dark about his exact condition. Hunger and thirst would no longer be a black and white operation. You could give the player an indication of them being hungry, maybe a stomach growl sound. But, the player wouldn't watch a hunger meter tick down to zero and start losing blood. They wouldn't actually know when it starts to effect them. If they starved themselves, they wouldn't just lose blood and die, they would slowly become more and more unhealthy. It would be a domino effect on other things. It would lead to sickness and eventually death. Also, starving yourself would have a lasting impact on your max health. So, even if you do find food and eat again, you need to maintain a good diet over the course of a long time in order to get yourself fully healthy again.

 

I know somebody has probably already suggested something very similar. I felt like my idea was probably unique enough that I didn't just want to post on page 20 of some other thread, so I started my own. Also, I know Rocket has some of this in mind, I just wanted to get all of my ideas about it out there.

 

Edit: Also, fatigue could be introduced. Running for long distances might drain your regeneration rate. So, while you can run around the map non-stop, you are putting yourself in a much weaker state until you actually stop and rest up.

Edited December 7, 2013 by bad_mojo

[Jasonperson 78]

I like this idea. Better than having a black and white system as you stated, and you wouldn't be able to exactly time when you need to eat or drink because it would affect you slowly.