Basic idea is to make you value your survival. This would be achieved by granting debuffs for universally bad things that happen to you (aka falling, running on low food/water/stamina, getting wet, swimming/eating bad food on low rad perc or staying below 50 % rads, dying, perhaps a chance to recieve a debuff for bleeding for too long) and removing them in specific ways or by reaching vauge goals like perhaps staying fully hydrated or fed, the debuffs could be removed by regen (after full hp every 50 % health regenerated would remove a debuff if food use gets changed to increase during regen it would also make you use more food at that time as static food usage makes it easy to stock up enough food to never run out), killing a survivor (last one would be kinda bad unless it removed multiple as at that point most survivors would have debuffs due to hunting eachother)
Ideas for debuffs:
Less food/water on respawn, higher % needed to heal, the bar goes down faster.
Sprained leg making sprint and jumps still allowed but deal damage if done in succesion.
Inaccuracy reducing accuracy of shootable and throwable weapons
Concussion making your controlls switch up for milliseconds at a time at random intervals it would be a barely noticable change unless you need your character to do specific movements (idk walking on the top side of a wall or aim down your scope to shoot someone)
Weakness actions would happen slower melee does less damage, stamina max goes down and comes back slower.
1 Like
To clarify – is your suggestion that the current Broken Bones debuff (typically caused by fall damage) should be replaced with this idea instead?
Multiple levels of debuffs could be good. This first then Broken bones the next time you fall (ofc a high enough fall would give broken bones right away)
The extra debuffs between could be good for healing as its not that realistic for broken bones to heal right away after a splint gets used (might be pushing the realism tho. I guess a splint buff could let you run and jump untill broken bones heal or the splint breaks making you reapply it)
The debuffs i think are a neccesity are the ones suggested that would be made persistant on respawn making respawning less desirable. If ignored even with a base you would use more resources. Without one the debuffs could slowly go away by respawning without beds making people lose those debuffs without the previously mentioned ways to remove them (could take into account time survived when you respawn with lower time not removing any debuffs)
Alternative suggestion for penalties
If you drive everywhere put all your loot inside cars taking no damage it should be easy to stay ahead of the survival aspects, if you run constantly get shot use melee weapons while running around with a full inventory you should be forced to eat more drink more (making expeditions outside of your base harder on your resources).
Healing subsquent injuries should take longer untill if you overdo it you get passive damage (it would still benefit you to keep full food as that would counteract this damage) forcing you to heal if it becomes larger than regen by using items and not take damage untill your body heals. This passive damage debuff should stay after death, but become reduced to the same level as regen meaning if you take damage as a new spawn you wont regen health as fast unless passive damage starts to lower.
Ideas that would work well with the suggestion above
Healing items could increase food and water given regen for a set amount of time.
Regen (life and perhaps stamina too) could have multiple cutoff points that change the speed if this addition is implemented.