Stress And Adrenaline

[burkino_026@yahoo.com 14]

This is just my take on others' opinions and my own interpretation and creativity to it.

 

 

I'd like to see, one day, a stress system in the game. One that works two ways, or, more specifically, has two "meters" or "bars" that take into account the two aspects, the short term, and the medium-long term.

 

Stress and Adrenaline

 

Adrenaline being the short-term

 

Stress being the medium/long-term

 

Adrenaline kicks in whenever you're face-to-face with a screaming zombie, when you fire a gun, when you hit something with a melee weapon, when gunshots sweep past you... etc. The amount and intensity of adrenaline depends on the situation, and can accumulate. The effect is both positive and negative.

 

Positive:

-increasing resistance to pain (pain giving possibly visual cues and shaking, and moaning), allowing your character to almost ignore small wounds completely.

-small stamina bonus (that is, considering a stamina & fatigue system present)

-attack strenght bonus (your melee attacks become slightly more powerful)

-slightly more acute vision (better aiming as well).

 

Negative:

- hands shaking increases with amount of adrenaline

- visual and sound cues of heart pumping (mostly for immersion, but can add to the confusion and intensity of the sitation a lot)

- accelerated metabolism (get thirsty and hungry faster while in adrenaline rush)

- heavy breathing (can be heard, massive give-away for sneaky situations. Miight be an idea to use "hold breath" to avoid being heard by a passing character or zombie)

- possibility of tripping over, loosing grip on carried object, or, in a very intense rush, getting into shock, and possibly fainting brefily (only in extreme cases, and especially if low on health and blood)

    tripping over animation i believe is already in game, if not, it's still part of arma2 engine, so wouldnt be too laborious. Losing grip of the carried object would simply mean dropping it to the ground in a massive adrenaline rush, unless it's strap via a sling (considering a sling/shouldering system as discussed in another thread, which i really like the idea of)

Shock would mean a prolongued adrenaline rush with mostly increasing negative effects and not much positive ones, almost always requiring you to seek cover and catch your breath, or flee altogether. Fainting is just falling unconcious for a brief period of time. Could mostly happened in low health situation, when you're already weak, and a shock can knock you out by itself.

- after effects: THE most important ones, possibly. They kick in at the end of the adrenaline rush. These are a massive drain on fatigue (which i'll describe in a minute), a temporary reduction in stamina, increased vulnerability to pain, infections, and health-related what-nots, and generally a "drained" kind of status that makes you want to seek cover and rest for a bit, or lower the pace in general, depending on how intense the adrenaline rush was.

 

STRESS

 

this is somewhat a collection of the negative effects of adrenaline, in a more subtle way, but in a prolongued and cumulative fashion. The more adrenaline rushes and shocks you accumulate, the higher the stress level, leading up to constant shaking, elevated heart rate, and other nasty symptoms. Could bring the implementation of sedatives and other drugs as an element of gameplay, apart from the simple solution of resting and lowering the pace.

Stress can deteriorate your body functions to the point where, even if your character is healthy, he might be acting like he's sick and weak. More prone to shocks, more prone to disease and colds and everything. Generally more vulnerable to external factors.

 

 

FATIGUE

 

This is just the overall tiredness of your character. Running and sprinting consume your stamina (ill talk about in a little bit) which is a temporary/short-term condition. But, in the mean time, your get tired regardeless of what you do. The intensity, or speed, to which you get tired depends obviously on your body functions. Running all the time, carrying a lot of stuff, getting adrenaline rushes too often, will cause you to get tired more quickly and in a more intense way, thus requiring you to consider a lower pace of body functions during quiet times.

Recovering fatigue can be done by resting. As simple as that. Take breaks to adjust your gear, to talk to ingame friends, to craft items, to light a fire, to eat and drink, to read a book. Whatever. All those quiet times will actually have a higher function on your character. No more crossing the whole map diagonally at a supersprint only to start a gunfight just as you reach your destination and snipe down people. Big no no. If it's going to be a survival game, than it needs to balance action with interaction.

Another IMPORTANT and positive factor of fatigue is that it encourages you to rest, as mentioned above, which HEALS you as well. Nothing better than taking a nap, and waking up feeling refreshed and healthy, having healed from that food poisoning or from that nasty zombie attack.

 

>> little note on getting shot << it should HURT a great deal more to get shot, depending on a number of factor like caliber, body part affected, etc. Pain, blood loss, and SHOCK. And it should require you to, yes, bandage to stop bleeding, but, the "shot" status, unless a clean through shot (another consideration here for a possible ballistic implementation), will remain until you get to a safe location and treat the gun wound with medical equipment, possibly extract the bullet/fragments, and clean the wound. All depending on severity.

Should make a player be more cautious and THINK before getting into the next firefight, as it should be. No rambos. Come on. Seriously.

 

 

 

STAMINA

 

stamina is just an energy bar. Every physical effort consumes stamina, which is restored naturally through resting and lowering the pace. The amount of stamina is influenced by fatigue, health, energy (well fed), and other factors. The most immediate and common effect of stamina is the limit you can sprint for. Obviously affected by how much stuff you carry.

Consuming a lot of stamina makes your fatigue increase more rapidly, along with increased body functions such as digestion (afterall, the stomach is simulated). Will also affect aiming, because of muscle exercise and breathing. No more sprinting across the map only to start shooting down everyone with perfect accuracy. You might still accomplish it, because maybe you're very skilled at combat, but you SHOULD feel the intensity and difficulty of engagement during high-stress and fatiguing situations, otherwise there is just no motivation.

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

Im sure and, i already mentioned, that most of this stuff is other people's idea as well, i just re-organised some stuff i had in my head and wanted to share. Maybe it's the same BS you read everywhere else, or maybe you might find a point or two interesting and original. I dont care. And maybe the developer has everything already planned and this post is completely obsolete even before posting it.

But, considering all this, i still would like other people's opinion on this suggestion list.