Gameplay Mechanics Pt1 - The Player

[akafugitive 244]

^{*Disclaimer* The following are my opinions of features I would enjoy seeing in the game, this thread is in no way intended to express negativity towards the current development or express ignorance towards current development plans. I am fully aware of what alpha or "work in progress" means, as such I am doing what is intended for alpha testing and making suggestions, not demands. Please keep feedback constructive, and on topic.}

Health

If day and night cycle can be reduced to something like 6 hours for a full cycle; dehydration death should be 4 game days(24 hours), starvation death should be 10 game days(60 hours). Minus multipliers = exposure level, physical exertion, weight carried.

Healing factor Diagram

Signs

Statuses and textile feedback that allows the player to know there is a problem without providing all the answers.

- Contracting an illness or food poisoning has an incubation period with a chance to naturally be fought off based on overall health, source of illness or when it was contracted may not be clear.

- Replace statuses like "Hungry", "Sick", "Dehydrated", etc. with multi-functional statuses like "Abdominal Pain", "Drained", Headache", etc.

- Being dehydrated can display statuses like: "Warm", "Drained", "Headache", and provide text feedback like "my mouth is dry", "I feel exhausted". Severity of statuses and what statuses are displayed will allow the player to have an idea of the cause and importance of dealing with the issue (current colour bars)

- Being hit in the head with an object could display: "Headache", "Dizzy", and provide text feedback like "my head hurts", "I feel off balance", etc.

- Providing correct treatments could give positive feedback. For example drinking water when you are thirsty will remove/reduce serious statuses and provide text feedback like "I am feeling better"

- Allows for a very detailed illness system that can each have a range of complications such as: Headache, Body ache, Abdominal Pain, Drained, Sinus Pain, Chest Pain, Dizzy, etc.

- Each status can reduce over time or possibly require/have treatment options (eg: Headache will slowly fade, or can be treated with painkillers. Abdominal Pain from hunger will require you to eat)

- Each illness would have its own signs and symptoms that would have to be figured out and treated

Symptoms

Displayed and disabling effects that are effecting the player, if left untreated may become fatal.

- Heat exposure could be displayed by having sweat running down the screen from the top, and will start panting (intensity will vary by exposure levels)

- High heat exposure and physical exertion will reduce hydration significantly and energy slightly

- Cold exposure causes shivering making the screen to shake, and jaw chattering (intensity will vary by exposure levels)

- High cold exposure and carrying a lot of weight will reduce energy significantly and hydration slightly

- Lower levels of energy will increase fatigue level when running/ raising firearms, reduce melee damage, and decrease pain tolerance/ overall max health

- Lower levels of hydration will decrease exposure resistance, reduce conciousness, and decrease pain tolerance/ overall max health

- Fatigue will cause aim to sway, tunnel vision and reduce conciousness making the player more susceptible to knock down/out

- Extreme fatigue, indicated by the screen blinking, will eventually make the player pass out, see Sprinting

- Severe "Headaches" cause screen to blur, severe "Abdominal Pain" can cause vomiting, "Sinus Pain" can cause sneezing, "Chest Pain" can cause coughing, being very "Dizzy" causes screen to warp, twist and get double vision, etc. paired with illness system would cause being sick to have a range of less to more serious disabling effects

- Blood loss and requiring oxygen should apply white filtering to the screen(screen will become brighter, light sources becoming overpowering)

- Change "Concussion Level" to "Pain Level", will reduce over time if player isn't bleeding, infected, starving/dehydrated, has untreated fractures, etc. (Detailed below)

"Pain Level" (0-10), this is increased when taking injury (blows to the head will still cause higher pain levels then blows to the body)

Low Pain(1-2)= Grey filtering applied, occasional groaning

Moderate Pain(2-5)= Darker filter, edges of screen become black, minor shaking, more groaning

High Pain(5-7)= Very dark filter applied, black edges become larger, major shaking, constant groaning, occasional collapse, Momentary losses of conciousness(screen fades in/out like a head rush)

Severe Pain(8-9)= Collapses to the ground and will constantly fade in and out from conciousness, may still crawl for little bits while concious

Fatal Pain(10)= "Heart Attack" as refereed to in patch notes

Treatments

Treatment options should not be magical instantaneous fixes. Add in "Drug level" that will act as a balancing mechanism to "Pain Level". +1 Drug Level will balance out 1 Pain Level and vice versa. after taking medication, Drug level will reduce at a similar speed as Pain Level, however drug level will reduce even if Pain Level is not(due to untreated issues)

Example: If Pain Level is 6 and Drug Level is 4 Player will experience the effects of Low Pain(2), after half an hour Pain Level is reduced to 5 and Drug Level is 3

"Drug Level" (0-10), this is increased by when taking medications

Slightly Buzzed(1-2)= light blue filtering applied

Moderately Buzzed(2-5)= Brighter Blue filter, motion creates slight double vision

High(5-7)= Very blue filter applied, double vision, motion creates vision trailing, "dishwasher" vision

Overdose(8-9)= Very blurred vision, motion trailing imprints on screen for a short period, screen wobbles, constantly collapsing.

Fatal Overdose(10)= "Heart Attack" as refereed to in patch notes

- Vitamins add a low drug level, slightly increases overall health (eg: each time taken it adds +1 drug level. Health my still degrade if another condition is causing it to drop)

- Pain killers add a low drug level, and removes "Headache" status (eg: each time taken it adds +2 drug level. Headache status may return if an untreated condition is causing it)

- Morphine adds a moderate drug level, removes "Body ache" status (eg: 1 shot of morphine adds +4 drug level. Body ache status may return if an untreated condition is causing it)

- Epinephrine temporarily adds a high drug level, adds "Healthy" status, and wakes the player (eg: +6 drug level, healthy status added for 2 min. May fall unconscious again if cause by Bloodloss)

- Antibiotics/medications add to moderate drug level, and start healing a specific illness for a limited time (eg: Sodium Bicarbonate adds +4 drug level, slowly heals a kidney infection for 1 hour)

- If an illness is not fully treated when the medication has left your system illness may come back unless another dose is taken

- Splinting a broken leg will stabilise it, instead of repair it, allowing it to heal. Once healed splint may be removed (will be displayed on the players body, can limping walk/jog but is unable to sprint)

- Putting an arm fracture in a sling will work like splinting a leg, arm will not be usable while in a sling

- Administering IV's deserves its own section (see Administering an IV)

- CPR deserves its own section (see CPR)

- Tourniquets change heavy bleed wounds to small bleed wounds (see Catastrophic Damage)

Gunshot wounds/ Holding firearms

- Holding your weapon in ready stance for too long will cause you to shake, eventually lowering back to low-ready (weight of a firearm in outstretched arms)

- Allow for auto resting on walls, windows, etc. to counteract shaking/lowering effect

- Getting hit by a round in the shoulder/arm will decrease length of time you are able to hold a firearm in ready stance (based off of calibre, range and armor value)

- Getting hit by a round in the leg will cause limping, chance to break bone, and a low chance to sever femoral artery causing fast fatal bleeding (based off of calibre, range and armour value)

- Rounds have a chance to embed in your body (high chance in extremities, low chance with high calibre torso hits)

- Embedded rounds will cause permanent reduction to healing ability, more damage then a pass through and require additional cleaning to prevent serious infection (eg: x2 damage/infection chance)

- Attempting to remove an embedded round will cause high damage and heavy bleeding but if successfully treated will remove healing debuff

- Add item "tampon"... not just for women, can be used to treat gunshot wounds

- Firearms have a higher chance to cause an incapacitation instead of killing, unless shot in the head, heart or upper spinal column (based off of calibre, range and hit location)

Incapacitation

Target is temporarily taken out of action fully or mostly, target may discharge a readied firearm accidentally.

Winded - Briefly blacked out and knocked to the ground, will wake again shortly after hitting the ground (common when hit in the torso while armored or with lower calibre rounds)

Downed - Knocked to the ground and hazy but can still slowly crawl away (common when hit in the torso or lower extremities not protected by armor)

Out of action - Out cold, degrades to dead then brain dead unless stabilized/treated (common when hit by multiple rounds to the torso and is bleeding heavily)

- Being knocked or falling unconscious will display as a fade in/out to a black screen. High levels of unconsciousness will remain black

- Unconsciousness will not kill the player if they are logged out but instead will continue to downgrade their status while logged out and they could still die as a result, they will also no longer be stabilized if they were previous to log out (saves legit people from loosing their characters to a reset, crash, etc.)

- Dying while being unconscious(eg: blood loss) displays as a while light on the black screen that slowly expands to cover the screen, upon death life will flash before your eyes

Fatalities

"You are dead" there will be no indication what state of dead you are in to the player or others, signs that someone is brain dead will be accumulation of flies around the body, birds circling the area, body is decaying, catastrophic damage textures, and information provided from diagnosing, eg: "This man appears to have a fatal wound to the head, body feels cold".

Clinically Dead - Severe injuries, illness, starvation, and dehydration fatalities will cause death with the ability to be revived by another player using correct treatments. Will degrade to Brain dead

Brain Dead - Fatal gunshot wounds/ lacerations, high speed collisions, extreme height falls, bleeding out to 0, and logging out while dead will cause brain death not allowing for revival chance

CPR (idea inspired by cryptonite)

- Add action "Preform CPR","Preform CPR - Face Shield", and "Preform CPR - BVM" to unconscious and dead players

- CPR preformed on an unconscious player has a chance to wake them (success rate determined by Advanced Medicine skill)

- CPR preformed on a clinically dead player can restore them to "Heart Attack" status till they can be defibed/stabilized by a medic (success rate determined by Advanced Medicine skill)

- Add item "face shield", reduces chance to contract illness from a sick player while preforming CPR on them (mostly found in medical centre's and wrecked ambulances)

- Add item "bagging mask", prevents contracting illness from a sick player while preforming CPR on them (mostly found in medical centre's and wrecked ambulances, lower spawn rate then face shield)

- Face shield and bagging mask can become contaminated and transfer illness from one patient to the next if not cleaned between use, even if patient is incubating an illness

Administering an IV (idea inspired by KerrSG1)

- Patient must be sitting or laying down before you can start an IV on them

- Saline and blood bags will be given a % value like food and drinks

- Administering an IV will now take longer by needing to insert the IV, slowly transfer the amount to the player, remove IV(animate insert IV line, hold IV bag while transferring for approx 5 min to transfer from 100% to 0%, animate remove IV line)

- Drawing blood does the same as above

- Action can be cancelled mid transfer but would still play animation to remove IV line

- Allow players to administer IV's to themselves, will automatically force you into sit once started (only if transfer is like above and not instant)

- Blood bags draw and transfer up to 1 pint of blood, there is approx. 8 pints total in the body (1/8 of overall blood per bag)

- Administering Saline IV's helps to restore hydration and a small amount of health

- Add IV's for different antibiotics and plasma to significantly boost ability to fight infection (plasma could work just like drawing blood, works off blood type, blood bags now just give option to draw plasma or blood)

- Filled syringes can be used to add solutions to an IV, before or mid transfer (eg: gravol for nausea, morphine for pain, contaminated blood for... well you know, etc.)

- Allow different IV bags to be combined together to allow for simultaneous use with one line (eg: Blood bag combined with Saline to restore blood, hydration, and a bit of health all at once, blood bag with blood bag to administer 2 units of blood at once, etc.)

- Empty blood bags are stackable

- Tie into Advanced Medicine skill, higher skill means better chance to insert into a good vein maximising amount transferred to the patient/self

Catastrophic Damage

I know this has been mentioned by many other before, but I would like to explain why I feel this is important to have in the game. Without catastrophic damage(detailed wounding of the body) shot calculations becomes a little bit more of a guess work, even with high powered optics, since we don't get a good visual of pink mist when the round impacts with a living target. It also can be difficult to judge if you have critically wounded your target or not, leaving you wondering if you should displace and check the body or give a 10 count and wait for movement. Understanding spatter patterns and having trails to follow will allow us to identify how injured a target may be and track them. I'm not asking for an over the top introduction of gore and dismemberment.

- Small bleeding wounds don't piss blood everywhere, instead they just slowly change the texture model with an expanding red layer, leaving behind a small trail once every few feet

- Heavy bleeding wounds will do the same as above but faster and spurt blood, leaving a constant trail that has splatters every few feet

- Standing still while bleeding will cause pools to form

- Rounds striking non-critical areas of the body will spray a small amount of blood, texturing the surface below/ behind them (eg: a shot to the shoulder will spray a small amount of blood on the wall behind the target)

- Rounds striking fleshy critical body points will spray a large pink mist and a large dotted texture on the surface below/behind them (eg: being shot in the upper torso with no armour will spray a large blood cloud covering the wall behind the target with polka dots)

- Rounds striking a body part covered in armour will display like a ground impact

- Extreme damage applied to the head will change the texture to give appearance it has been opened up

- Extreme damage applied to the torso will change the texture to give appearance it has been opened up (clothing can still cover this)

Ties to medical system

- Small bleeding wounds can stop on their own and are easy to bandage(eg: 5 blood lost a second for 1 min, until sucessfully bandaged or till level reachs 0)

- Heavy bleeding wounds will bleed until treated and are hard to bandage(eg: 10 blood lost a second until successfully bandaged or till level reach 0)

- Each individual wound would require separate treatment/bandaging (action menu could display multiple "bandage self" and "bandage target" texts with varied colours based on wound severity)

- Bandages and rags have a lower chance to treat heavy bleed wounds but are multi use/stackable

- Compress bandages have a higher chance to treat heavy bleed wounds but are single use

- Add tourniquet, both crafted and loot-able, that can be applied to change heavy bleeding wound to a small bleeding wound, increasing bandaging success rate.

Sprinting

I've never liked in games where you have a sprint meter, or where you can sprint forever with little repercussions. I think a more organic way to implement sprinting would be to allow someone to sprint till they pass out. This could be done by having the screen blink when you have hit your peak while sprinting, continuing to sprint after this will cause you to collapse fairly soon, the more you continue to sprint after a collapse without rest the longer you will be unconscious for. Weight carried and if progressive skills are implemented could govern this.

Tactical Gestures

I've wanted to see some form of tap and grab communication in a game since it is so crucial in tactical response. Examples of this would be tapping your lead man at a corner to let them know you are shooting over their head, or grabbing their shoulder to let them know you are bounding. This is useful when the surrounding noise drowns out verbal communication, or there is a need for silence.

I haven't figured out how this could be done till this idea just popped in my head:

Tap Guesture: plays tap animation and sends a message to the player directly in front of you "You feel a tap on your head" (or contextual based on your stance)

Grab Guesture: plays Grab animation and sends a message to the player directly in front of you "You feel your shoulder get squeezed" (or contextual)

Passports (Idea inspired by fox0rz)

Every player spawns with a passport that has their name, face shot, background and a date stamp from when they spawned, these can be looted from people. Will make for interesting interactions with people when they are trying to fake someone else's identity or try to lie about what skill sets they have and are caught.

Logging Out/Combat Logging

This one I've been thinking about a bit and I've thought traditional MMORPG's method of logging out could be the solution. *I've crossed out some of this based on rockets response on reddit

- Logging out in a city, town or any area populated with multiple buildings will move your character outside the area upon re-log (prevent people from getting killed by other who just logged in right by them in looting areas)

- Require the player to be sitting down before they can Exit, add a message that says "you must be sitting down" if they are not (slows the log-out process a little more, no more exit in mid sprint)

- Logout timer will be based off of current status, bring back "In Combat" status (eg: 30 seconds for out of combat logout, 2 min for in combat logout)

- Logging out will keep you in the game aware of your surroundings till logout timer has completed (action can be cancelled or hit "Exit Now" leaving your character vulnerable in game)

- Alt-F4 or client crash will act the same as hitting "Exit Now" (player will sit down and remain in game till timer expires)

Gamma/Brightness

Locking Gamma/Brightness setting on player creation menu I think should solve this issue for being exploited in game. You would have to kill your character and start a new one in order to change these settings(just like cloths, face, etc.

Add in an adjustment image:

This should be invisable | This should be slightly visable | This should be very visable

VOIP/ 3rd party communications

3rd party sofetware can add some unfair advantages however is essential to some people for enjoying the game, myself included. Do not hinder the use of 3rd party software, have DayZ detect VOIP and automatically open direct chat channel as a result. You can also reward those using in game radios by reducing their direct chat radius while they are speaking into their radio.

If you liked this, also read/like/comment on these:

Gameplay Mechanics Pt1 - The Player(skills)

Gameplay Mechanics Pt2 - The Infected

Gameplay Mechanics Pt3 - Environment

Gameplay Mechanics Pt4 - The Weapons

Gameplay Mechanics Pt5 - The Interface

DayZ - How it all began... (coming soon)

Edited April 26, 2014 by akafugitive

[jock360x360 (DayZ) 26]

Holy Shit.

[TedZ 424]

Great Suggestion, also soon you can spray paint axes, i heard Dean say it =))

[NagsterTheGangster 388]

Damn youve been saving those for a while now eh? aha I like some of them but sometimes (in my opinion) things can get.... Too realistic for a game and should be left out.

 

*Eg. The dropping gun thing when using both hands, or your flashlight falling off your gun*

[SyL3X 51]

I want my character to able to perform flying knees

[akafugitive 244]

Damn youve been saving those for a while now eh? aha I like some of them but sometimes (in my opinion) things can get.... Too realistic for a game and should be left out.

 

*Eg. The dropping gun thing when using both hands, or your flashlight falling off your gun*

 

I like the current system they have where you can pickup a second firearm into your hands when you have one slung on your back. Just can be hard to manage sometimes, system needs to be a bit more intuitive, that's why I say drop only for 2 handed actions, give notices when dropped, dont auto-hide on hotbar and add in the slings so we can have one on the shoulder and chest if so chosen by the player.

 

If when you dropped the weapon on the ground to perform the action you picked it back up again automatically after that would be even better.

 

And the chance to fall off would just be to give proper rail mounted flashlights the edge

Edited January 28, 2014 by akafugitive

[akafugitive 244]

Updated main post

[janol 65]

Some nice ideas here, I particularly liked these (to mention few):

 

- Holding your weapon in ready stance for too long will cause you to shake, eventually dropping back to low-ready (weight of a firearm in outstretched arms)

 

[...]

- Getting hit by a round in the shoulder/arm will decrease length of time you are able to hold a firearm in ready stance (based off of caliber, range and armor value)
- Getting hit by a round in the leg will cause limping, chance to break bone, and a low chance to sever femoral artery causing fast fatal bleeding (based off of caliber, range and armor value)

 

[...]

- Higher chance to incapacitate instead of kill, unless shot in the head, heart or upper spinal column (seems more or less the case currently)
- Incapacitation can be briefly blacked out and knocked to the ground, knocked to the ground and hazy but can still slowly crawl, or out cold (based off of caliber, range, hit location, and armor value)

 

[...]

- Rounds have a chance to embed in your body and must be removed (pliers, knife, surgical tongs, etc.) if left in the body will slow healing ability and can cause serious infection (based off of caliber, range, hit location, and armor value)
 

 

On the other hand, I disliked some, for example 6 hour day/nigh cycle. These lenghty mixes are hard to comment on... Maybe would be a good idea to thematically split up the content into different messages.

[akafugitive 244]

6 hour is just an example, I'm just hoping it not be 24 hour so I can see a transition in day/night in one play session since I typically only play at the same time

[akafugitive 244]

As suggested I'm splitting this up into separate threads, I will link the others as they are created.

[dan00087 4]

Again great ideas would love to see some off these implement in the game, keep up with the great ideas :)

[akafugitive 244]

updated to include Catastrophic Damage, Administering IV's, CPR and passports 

Edited February 8, 2014 by akafugitive

[glowfow@hotmail.com 55]

I want my character to able to perform flying knees

 

I used to be an UFC fighter like you but then I took a knee to the face...(Not sure if still acceptable or made an ass of myself)

 

OT: Good post, I like most of the ideas. Except maybe the skill system, I've seen better suggestions for that (http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/158609-sa-suggestion-introduction-of-microskills/). Maybe choosing a 'background' for your character could add a little head start on some skills, but nothing that has anything to do with gun handling as I think that'll probably force a lot of people in the military/police background. I absolutely adore the passports you mentioned, if only for rp reasons... there would need to be a little more customization though.

[akafugitive 244]

I do like that post on the skills system, I've tried to make mine just a little simpler so skills can be background traits that don't require a lot of managing or motitoring mentally. I think complex skill traits can cause a lot of confusion or skill tree stacking to make the ultimate character.

I want a skill system the adds slight diversity without handcuffing players into choosing set skill traits to compete on another players level, hence why firearm skills only have a slight increase to reload. Advanced Medicine(parametic) will be much more important to the guy who plays a medic role in a team. Innovation, with some medical and firearm skill(hunter) would be best for that solo player who likes to live off the land and avoid conflict with others.

I don't think Soldier or Cop will be the ultimate choice because the downside is, yes they start with a reloading advantage in armed conflict, they will also require finding, maintaining and having ammo for the firearms to take advantage of these skills, none of which you start with. Other skill lines will actually become more popular for people to help them survive getting off the coast, everyone will still be able to progress the skills they are lower on with prolonged survival based on their play style.

My complexity design focuses on managing and maintaining you or your partners life, my skill idea is just meant to augment this a little to help add a value to life, diversity in communities and a back story that helps attach the player to their character.

Edited February 9, 2014 by akafugitive

[rickenbacker 190]

I really like the thoughts in the first half of the posts. But please, no skills! 

[akafugitive 244]

I really like the thoughts in the first half of the posts. But please, no skills!

Just out of curiosity, what makes you dislike a skill/progression system? I understand people's apprehensions to them becoming a COD like perk system but what makes you want to dismiss it all together? On a Gameplay standpoint it creates goals to continue playing, on a reality standpoint most people aren't equal physically, know how to insert an IV, etc. Is it for accessibility? Edited February 12, 2014 by akafugitive

[ImmunePower 26]

Some ideas are retarded (skils-no offense)... but others, are awesome. I love the one about broken legs and the limp. Keep up the cool ideas. 

[akafugitive 244]

Since this topic is getting long and the skills system is mostly the only thing debated, I'm going to split this into 2 parts.

[hunk92 5]

great suggestions, you can also add the same system as NMIH and state of decay:

- use your melee weapon too much repeatedly decrease an hidden stamina bar ( 0 = can't perform melee attack, you need to breath some sec)

- perform a melee attack when you need to breath (after a long run or something else) reduce the power of your hit until you take your breath.

- attack can be 3 time more powerful than regular when performed in stealth mod. I think you can kill a Z with a knife if you hit his head in, a baseball bat will instead knock him down but wont kill him instantly. (not sure if it's the right thread for this idea)

 

for now, there's no difficulty for the pve and survival part. Add more zombies don't seems to give more challenge.

Edited March 3, 2014 by hunk92

[akafugitive 244]

Great idea, adding melee into the fatigue system is a very good idea. High levels of fatigue means your swing speed and damage out puts would be lowered significantly. I think heavier melee weapons should fatigue you faster then lighter ones.

I have also noticed that if you sneak up behind a zombie and hit them, it can instantly kill them or usually knocks them down. I don't know if this is by design but that element could possibly be in the game already.

[Duenan 226]

Thanks

 

Don't forget Interruptable animations. Meaning if you are eating/bandaging/slow vaulting etc. You should be able to stop the animation playthrough at a moments notice if you get attacked or shot at. This would cancel the animation and you would not get credit for whatever action you were undertaking at the time you interrupted the animation until the animation has played fully.

 

This is a major game issue if you're sitting and drinking/eating/bandaging and all the sudden a zombie spawns behind you or you're shot at and can't move because you are stuck in the animation

[akafugitive 244]

Yeah only reason I didn't include that in my post is because it has been mentioned a lot by others. Is a must though, I honestly think that the eat and eat all options are not needed if they just made it start action, stop action. They would just need the % value reduce by a certain amount each time you pulled it to your mouth until empty or canceled

[akafugitive 244]

Bump, Poll added.

[akafugitive 244]

cleaned up for easier reading

 

Updated Health with Signs & Symptoms

Edited March 17, 2014 by akafugitive

[akafugitive 244]

-Tweaked Health section (Modified signs& symptoms, added in treatments)

 

-Merged Tactical Gestures & added Poll