Disclaimer: Yes, I searched this time for this suggestion to avoid repeating, and although I found some similar ideas, they were only partially going the way I'll suggest and were topics from 2 years ago, mostly focused on "avoiding KOS" and some moral values that would be very relative in a post apocalyptic world. So you can keep reading :). (In case that I missed a suggestion that was very alike to mine, please sorry, and I hope that at least this one gonna be useful to explain it)   I believe that the implementation of these statuses, could drastically improve the game in the sense that they could become an extra tool to making some threats more dangerous without changing the things (like for example infected quantities and predators). They would sometimes strongly affect the character, and sometimes only indirectly.    Introduction (you can skip it) People (and almost any living complex organism) are affected by a wide array of factors during their life cycle (understanding here the term "survival" as the unconscious need of every organism to complete this cycle and make it as long as possible). This factors can be divided in a couple of main groups, all of which create a reaction in the organism depending on the threat every one of them possess to it, : Physiological factors (external) - The ones that directly affect us in the environment, and that our senses evolved to detect and measure (temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, light/sun quantity/exposure, physical/chemical variables that affect the organism, etc) Psychological factors (internal) - The responses that our brain develops in response to the physiological factors and that direct our behavior towards our survival through a complex system of hormones, nervous impulses and mind/conscience mechanisms. (instincts, emotions, mental health,etc) Social factors (kinda mix of the previous ones) - This one only affect humans and other "social" living beings, where the survival of the specie as a whole was shaped thanks to groups of individuals interacting and helping each other, since every individual as a lone being is too weak to make it against other species or the environment. Because of this the brain of every one of us have like engraved in the deep of its core the dependence of the status of our relationship with other individuals as vitally important for our survival. All this groups interact one with another creating complex responses to every kind of issue that affects us, giving direction to our thinking processes, decisions, behavior, etc. Where any pulled string affects 3423423423423 others.  In DayZ we have the first one very well (or starting to at least) implemented. We have responses to weather conditions, biological factors (diseases), etc that affect our gameplay, shaping our behavior in the game. But the other 2 are totally ignored, although they have a strong impact on human behavior (sometimes even beating the first one in hierarchy) and should strongly affect our gameplay too. In this topic, I will explain how and why this could/should be implemented and taken in count by the devs, creating a more immersive, realisctic, and full of challenges gaming experience.    Psychological Factors I was thinking about describing everything with a lot of detail and fundamentals, but I think this will become some sort of doctoral dissertation, so I'll avoid it and try to go straight to the point: Every person (or character if applied to the game) has a mental status that varies depending of a number of variables and that directly affects our behavior (one can even say that it creates it). In game it could be represented by 5 scales (i'll detail them below, don't jump to conclusions only by the name XD): Happiness scale Fear Scale Social (loneliness) scale Moral (initial/decreasing importance) scale Mental Sanity All of which are constantly calibrating and at some point affect each other, and have some dependency on health statuses. Some of them would have an effect on gameplay.   Happiness/Sadness Scale   This would be the general status that would be always seen. It's affected by the rest of the scales and also by some individual factors.  Value (as example) 10000, where: 10000 - Happy 0 - Deep depression.  Depends on: Fear Scale Social (loneliness) scale Moral scale (only at the beginning, read why in the explanation for this scale) Mental Sanity scale Hunger scale Health scale Some in-game actions (music, musical instruments, books) How this dependence is expressed? When one of these scales are lower that a certain degree, they start to affect the happiness scale: If they're all "good", the happiness scale increases by a certain value (lets say +5 every X minutes per each scale) Once they start failing, happiness is reduced by a certain value, depending on the impact of each scale (Moral scale for example, would only have an impact at the initial periods) Some ingame actions, like listening radio music, playing/listening musical instruments (if added) , reading books time,etc would increase happiness by a X value every Y minutes of action. Gameplay effects Happiness scale at MAX.: Stamina and fatigue levels decrease less, your character has more energy Complete tasks/actions/soft skills a little bit faster depending on the level of happiness Other scales are less affected by some events (fear scale, social scale, mental sanity) Happiness scale at MIN: Depression kicks in, its effects would vary widely, some of them might be: Reduction of stamina at increasing rates, your character gets tired really often Color saturation is affected by the severity of depression (similar to blood loss) Tasks/actions/soft skills would perform slower or even interrupt from time to time with the character refusing to do them Depressive messages start popping up on the screen (I don't think my life has value, Everything is the same, There's nothing to do here, etc) (well this can be omitted, it could affect the player also XD) If depression reach the limit of 0 happiness value, your character starts trying to suicide, till after a time, you can't avoid it and he kills himself Character refuses to move at all at 0      Fear Scale   This scare would start at neutral, where some ingame moments would affect your character behavor or experience. Value(as example) 5000 5000 - Relaxed 0 - Panic Depends on: Exposure to people Exposure to infected Gunshots sounds Other players aggressive actions (attacking you) How the dependence would be expressed? Exposure to people would affect this scale for Y value depending on the total exposure time to people (the more you interact the positive and greater the value is) Exposure to infected would strongly affect this negatively, the decrease would be weaker with every hour of exposure you had to them (simulating adaptation)  Hearing gunshots would affect this value (or just give a gameplay effect) Being attacked would affect it too Gameplay Effects Meeting other players would give a sound of heartbeat, stronger breathing (if the scale is healthy this would reduce, your character would "adapt" to this world) Encountering infected will greatly increase the breathing of the character, weapons would sway a little more, strong heartbeat sound Hearing gunshots would increase heart beating, and affect the overall scale Being attacked would greatly increase breathing, weapon sway and heartbeat (the character would adapt to this too with time) Predators would affect this too (hearing wolfs howling, etc) Stamina would increase for a short time, making your character to move faster, but at the same time more erratically with the level of fear Movement blur would increase with the lower fear scale values simulating the real life confusion one experience when panicking  If it reaches the min level, your character could become paralyzed to dangers.   In min levels, character would refuse to go into areas with infected or run in the oposing direction from them when encountering one Same with gunshots and other players.     Social Scale    This scale will measure your time being exposed to other players, companion dogs/horses, and simulate the need for social interaction a human will endure in a similar situation. Value(as example) 5000: 5000 - Socially fulfilled (being in a community) 0 - Very lonely Depends on: Time exposed (communicating ingame) with other players Time exposed with companion dog (as in real life) Other things you do ingame (reading, playing instruments, crafting, fishing, hunting) How is the dependence expressed? The value of the scale simple increases or decreases at a given rate when interaction is happening (human, animal, object) Gameplay Effects This status would not have direct effect on gameplay, and will effect other statuses if it's low (happiness, mental sanity) If it's below 2500 it starts reducing happiness by X value (the effect would increase with lower values) Same with mental sanity     Moral Scale   This is a highly controversial scale, that has been discussed a lot here. I agree with the people that say it doesn't apply to Dayz World, but only partially.  The survivors are supposed to be starting to enter the post apocalyptic world, taking this in count, they still have vestiges of a moral system from the old world. Said this, "immoral" actions, should affect the character, but only at the beginning. Once he starts adapting to Dayz world, the importance of this status would strongly diminish, since all rules would be washed away. A thing that we can for example see clearly happening in TWD characters evolution through the seasons, where they become more and more "brutal". Value (as example) 5000: 5000 - I'm a good person 0 - What had I became?  Depends on: In-game actions Time being alive "negative" acts count How this dependence expresses?  Killing other players, or animals would negatively affect the status at the first hours of game Killing players that didn't attacked you, would greatly reduce the status Taking stuff from tents, stashes or people would also negatively affect the status Gameplay effects Since this would be only a temporary scale that doesn't directly affects the gameplay, the effects would be limited to: Messages dealing with the character moral dilemas ("I feel so bad for that man", What have I done, etc) Affecting moderately the Happiness and Moral Sanity scales (that would reduce with ingame time, and repeated instances) Character Adaptation: The more people/animals your character kills the less this actions affects him (there could even be a happiness positive effect after a certain threshold is passed) The more tents, stashes, players, your character robs, the less it affects him The more time your character is alive in Dayz, the less this scale afects other scales (after a determinated time, it would even become inactive at all)     Mental Sanity Scale   This could be not so much a scale, but a set of psychological statuses that give the character a mental disorder.  It could range from Maniac status, to schizophrenia, Depression (yes this could be triggered by the hapiness scale), etc. Like Kuru All of this statuses would depend on the level of the other ones as triggers for it. Each different status would have their effects on the character behavior, like: Hearing weird sounds  Having hallucinations blurriness Too colorful view of the world speaking to himself weird laughs  erratic behavior (like randomly using hand signals) panic attacks  etc This scale would need more detail depending on the diseases and I believe it goes beyond the thread.   Ok. Done with 1+hr writing and organizing my thoughts lol, hope this could be found useful for the devs or future modders that could implement this in-game for hardcore gameplay at least :)