Health and Healing thoughts + Zombie mechanics

[Finch (DayZ) 0]

First off, this is the closest to perfection an alpha of a mod for a notoriously awkward game has ever been, I'm absolutely loving this game and I can't wait to see what's on the horizon.

Here's a few things that I find ruining my enjoyment. These mostly focus on being able to get yourself back up to full health and enjoying the game if your careful and cautious and eliminating the "your as good as dead" situations that spring up often.

•Painkillers should be a convenience, not a necessity. If I get beat up pretty badly, but don't have any painkillers I have to deal with the shaky vision for hours on end even when I'm pretty well fully healed. Painkillers should allow for temporary normal functioning/vision when badly injured for the sake of making a getaway, when they wear of, your still in bad shape and need to properly heal yourself. I shouldn't need to have a supply of them to "reset" my vision even once I've healed everything else.

•Morphine does not cure broken bones. I see where this was going, but it feels silly. I would propose that painkillers allow you to run on broken legs (OUCH!) until they wear off, and bandages would mend them, or allow them to start healing. IE: bandaging yourself will stop bleeding immediately, and will allow you to walk on broken bones, where as sprinting will cause you to trip and possibly start bleeding again and reset the broken bone heal time (just think about this, the mental image is excruciating). Having your bones bandaged long enough will allow them to heal and you'll be ok to run again. Thirst and hunger are accelerated during bone healing of course.

•Blood should regenerate. Not quickly, and only if certain criteria are met, but if I'm well fed, not thirsty and not suffering from broken bones and resting a bit then blood should slowly regenerate, as it does naturally. Eating a whole cow in one sitting should not heal me completely. I should be able to eat a steak, and then sit, pitch a tent, or walk and blood should regenerate slowly. Like maybe an hour or two of relaxing to make it back to full health, and I should get hungry faster as this is happening. It really ruins some of the enjoyment when I get beat up once, and unless I'm far enough into the game to eat whole cows, I spend the whole day looking for and eating beans by the truckload to slowly heal myself. Blood transfusions should still be a big shot to health and only administered by another player, this is an excellent mechanic. perhaps pitching a tent and resting there would be the quickest way to regenerate blood, where as walking would only allow for slower regeneration.

•Food should have benefits, instead of being a countdown to death. Right now there is no difference between being near starving and well fed. The water and food meters are essentially timers counting down, and we have to find more time to add to them, naming it food and water doesn't make it gameplay. Being well fed should allow for longer and faster running, and blood regeneration, so there is a reason to stay well fed, instead of just eating beans every few hours to reset the timers.

•We need a legitimate way to lose zombies. I love the high zombie levels of 1.5.7, and I love sneaking into town past them, but accidentally alert too many and your usually dead, or out of ammo in no time. Some sort of zombie stamina would be great, they chase you quickly at first, but slow over time so if your well fed enough to keep running you can get away, regroup, and try again. I love the challenge or sneaking into towns, but I'd rather get a chance to try again with a different approach, than start the game over.

•Zombies only in towns is wonderful. It makes sense, and honestly with how much running through the forest we have to do, not having to also avoid zombies the whole time is really nice. I really like forests as safe zones, this game is stressful and dangerous enough that it's nice to find somewhere safe once in awhile....unless someone else wanders into your forest.

•Some plants we can eat would be nice. There are pumpkins and sunflowers in the towns, I'd like to eat those too! If there were berry bushes in the woods I'd be super happy.

[TOPMO3 119]

Agree with %90 of this. I said something similar in my post about bleeding, that it's ridiculous how it's implemented. You can get hit once, and you'll just bleed till 4000 where you will start visually noticing that something is wrong. Your character makes no noise, and no visual notifications that you're bleeding aside from a while medical cross (???) that's supposed to represent life draining out of the body? If I'm bleeding, I should see red blood-drips covering the camera, or a blurry effect, or 3 red blood drips flashing bright red either over the blood icon, or next to the crosshair, something!

Quickedit: Love the regenerative blood idea too. Naturally the body heals by itself, if you sit still, are fed, hydrated, you should regain health slowly. Maybe faster if you've lit a fire and are sitting by it (this would be a cool trade-off mechanic. Heal faster, but be a bigger target)... what do you think?

[Dr. Solomon Graves 1]

Agree with the bleeding idea with a more noticeable effect. Simple coughing or some kind of gasping would be acceptable, along with some visible red effect around the blood drop.

Regenerating blood is also a plus, but i feel as if there should be a threshold, only if your blood is above 5000 or so should you regenerate it, seeing as if you lost a very large amount of blood, you would need a transfusion.

[terrvik 2409]

Had some ideas on how to improve food and have it give some benefits.

Have a look. :)

http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=1974

[Finch (DayZ) 0]

Agree with the bleeding idea with a more noticeable effect. Simple coughing or some kind of gasping would be acceptable' date=' along with some visible red effect around the blood drop.

Regenerating blood is also a plus, but i feel as if there should be a threshold, only if your blood is above 5000 or so should you regenerate it, seeing as if you lost a very large amount of blood, you would need a transfusion.

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I like both of these ideas. Maybe if your below 5000 you really need to sit or lie down for awhile (good time for a pee break) but once your over 5000ish you can run around again and it just goes a bit slower if your more active. I just shy away from absolutely needing a transfusion since in all my playtime NOBODY has ever done it for me, nor have I even encountered someone who even had a bloodpack. They are an awesome item if your playing as a team, but if your soloing, I'd happily wait in a tent for awhile rather than have to run off to find someone else in that state.

[Nighteyes 1]

I have thought about the health a lot and here are my suggestions and reasoning.

Healing should be regenerative. Not like modern shooters, however.

Right now, a can of food gives 200 blood. Let's change it so a can of food gives 400 blood over the course of an hour. Eating a nice cooked steak should give a double regen bonus, like a buff status, that lasts for 1 to 2 hours. This will give you 800 blood every hour for the duration of the buff.

The only way to immediately raise blood levels is with a blood pack.

I think this will really add to decision making and keep people with 10 steaks in their pack from being overly careless because they can instantly get back 8k blood.