Making dayz harder and realistic - Thirst and hygiene.

[entomb 0]

Welcome! first off, dayz is one of the best mods i have ever played, and i dare to say one of the better games if i had to buy it!

now then. playing dayz gave me a lot of ideas, but i am going to mention 3 that i think are not so difficult to implement, though maybe hard to perfect!

First off;

1 - Soda

it annoyed me alot while playing that a soda can did the same work as 500cl of water(bottle) Soda should satisfie the need to drink, BUT it should not work the same as water. What i would love to see that it only fullfills half the amount of the need, but that might be a bit to much with the second thing i want with soda cans. Did you ever drink a soda can while really thirsty? no? me neither. Thats because there is alot of sugar in it wich in return makes you thirsty again. Soda is a really bad option to satisfie your thirst. Therefore i would really like to see that drinking soda increases the rate in wich you get thirsty for X time.

2. A cooking pan

now dont get me wrong, this is not to cook meat (a stick will do there) but this involves thirst.

While playing( and thirsty) i often would find myself searching for a pond on the ingame map. This is because drinking from a pond is ALOT easier then drinking from a well. Wells have zombies, are often in a city and brings risks. Ponds on the other hand, are easy to spot, often enclosed and no risk at all.

This is what i want to change. Water should come in 2 ways. Infected and not infected. I call it infected because, and again this might be TO harse, wells should have a 0.05% chance that zombies infected it. But the main reason is that drinking water directly from a pond should not be drinkable without a risk. And thus should be cooked before drinking.

This also goes nicely with point 3.

3- Hygiene.

Running miles and miles, crawling in the dirt, killing people and looting them, gutting meat. I dont know about you, but it makes me dirty and more important. I stink after doing it.

Thats why i think a new need should be added - to clean yourself.

This would add alot of interesting gameplay. Players need to clean themself in water wich makes them easy targets. Why? Because you cant clean yourself with gear on. Imagine, you are chasing a survivor or bandit and you know he has to clean himself soon, you wait for him to drop his gear ( should be made easier to drop everything, new model for "naked") and then he is vulnerable.

Also, being dirty means you stink, wich leads to zombies smelling you, wich gives you a harder time. Also being dirty should make you sick, wich then leads to higher antibiotic needs, and more pvp and risks.

I would like to hear the thoughts you guys have over this!

Thanks

Other peoples ideas i like;

AsheramK (lighter) http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=30349

Nexxtec Winter weather http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=30340

[crazedawg 1]

I like the drinking part, but the part about Hygiene, nah thanks, we dont play SIMS here! :)

[Evito 4]

Humans with good immune systems that get exposed to a healthy amount of germs dont get sick at all that easily mate, just rinsing your armpits crotch eyes mouth and hands is enough to go on for weeks without any serious risk of severe complications.

Water consumption will have to be tuned still, compared to time its being consumed at an alarming but when siding with distances generally travelled its not all that far off from a realistic figure although that too still requires some toning down still.

Fatigue is what still needs to be modeled more accurately, even winded you should be able to somewhat accurately aim while prone or propping against your legs while crouched.

But you sure as hell wont run for ten kilometers with a full assault pack on you no way and still be able to function normally.

[Dr. Toros 8]

Honestly hygiene the way you describe it would be borderline stupid in day z. You'd want to smell like dirt and zombie, not washed clean so your natural BO can float on the wind.

You'd wash your hands and possibly your ass (not in that order of course), but the rest you'd actually want dirty.

Also, RNG is generally bad for games. It shouldn't be introduced anywhere it isn't directly improving the game.

[enforcer1975 1111]

Shitting in your pants helps keeping the Zombies away...i heard spec ops didn't wash themselves days before an OP so dogs and the wildlife couldn't trace them when they entered hostile territory. They also caried their sh*t in a plastic bag in the packs in order to not leave evidence of them beeing there. :)

The chance for a zombie to trace a human should be higher if he smells more "human" meaning clean.

[ThomasTheCreeper 9]

Shitting in your pants helps keeping the Zombies away...i heard spec ops didn't wash themselves days before an OP so dogs and the wildlife couldn't trace them when they entered hostile territory. They also caried their sh*t in a plastic bag in the packs in order to not leave evidence of them beeing there. :)

The chance for a zombie to trace a human should be higher if he smells more "human" meaning clean.

Dont help all that much on dogs.. But helps you keep more warm if it's cold out. Also, every unit with respect for itself carries their shit while on ops ;)

Dont think the body hygiene system should be implemented. Like Evito said, its not much to it, so i dont think it's necessary to implement.

The two other ideas i really like, maybe add chlorine tablets for water purification also.

[Ultenth 12]

Drinking water should carry a small chance of infection unless you cook it over a fire. Or you can get lucky and find water purification tablets (I actually take them with me when I'm up in the woods IRL) and apply those to the water as well.

And what would be interesting is if Soda took off the same amount of thirst, but you get thirsty again faster afterwards, unlike with water.

Also adding alcohol would be fun too, you could use it to dull pain to a certain degree, and it would make you all drunk if you drink too much and you bleed faster when drunk as well.

I would also like to see a system of if you get too many limb breaks in too short of a time, morphine will stop working on you, and you will need to have someone do something more drastic. Clean water, combine with Hunting knife, use bandages and wood pile, and make a splint and reset the bone and do some minor surgery, using Pain killers or Alcohol during surgery. Afterwards for a day or two you would walk slower and more loudly, be unable to run as fast, can not crouch walk, but your ability to crawl would be unhindered.

I think a smell system is good, but if anything it should be the opposite. Maybe being clean lowers your risk of infection, and if you go too long without cleaning you can get infected, especially if you start bleeding while dirty. But if you're really clean the zeds would smell your new clean flesh and want to take a bite. But after you clean yourself it would be interesting to add some way to apply zombie scents that maybe you get off corpses to a rag that you carry or something, that would then serve to ward off zombies again for a certain amount of time.

Cleanliness should effect more than infection though, if your briefs and socks are dirty in real life and you go on a long run, you get ass chafe that makes it harder to move, as well as potentially trench foot that can be even worse in regards to infection and slowing movement. I think making you clean your undergarments at least would be an interesting addition.

Edited July 11, 2012 by Ultenth