PC Make the zombie plague persist through "death"

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Limdood

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The zombie plague, and the infection and curing mechanics are really cool in A18. The infection is threatening...the slow creep of % ticking your life away. The relief when you find a cure item, or are able to get back to your base to use one. The tense stress when that infection is climbing and you're frantically searching for stumps or medical supplies.

But a lot of people simply decide "meh. who cares. if it starts bugging me, i'll just walk back to my bedroll and stand in barbed wire" and "POOF!" infection gone.

With the HUGE amount of time that the infection takes to kill you...that seems unnecessary.

The game has established that when your health reaches 0, you don't really DIE....you just suffered a "near death" - so why is infection gone?

What if health hitting 0 only removed 30% or 50% infection (to a minimum of 0.1% so that "near death" could never actually completely cure it).

Those people who play dead is dead, who already deal with significant risk from infection, would have no change at all...this change would never affect them.

Those who don't though...this would make infection significantly more problematic. I think the devs have been trying to make infection dangerous, stressful, and ominous, but NOT make the game tedious, frustrating and boring (like it did when the infection reduced your max stamina and stamina recovery), and this would fit that design direction. infection would become something that you always HAVE to deal with....eventually.

Sure, people could repeatedly kill themselves every time they hit 30% or 50% infection, in order to reset it to 0.1%, but that would be a player death every 2 hours or so, and you can bet even those players would feel some relief when they finally find some honey.

 
Oh, I wanted to. =P

Like, take off 50 or 60% of infection on death. Simple and reliable.

Later in the game it barely matters, though.

With decent armor and medication you can easily deal with it.

 
I don't think I've ever been worried about the infection. Honey and other ways of curing it are so plentiful in the world that if I do get infected it usually makes it up to 0.3% before it is cured. They first need to make the infection a lot deadlier. Maybe making it kick in faster and if your character dies from it then it leaves behind a special zombie that you must kill before you can get your stuff back. Then with reducing the amount of things that can cure it to make people worry even more. I would suggest getting rid of honey as a way to cure it because to me that doesn't make as much sense in the world. Make only the two different antibiotics can cure it and then make them very rare.

 
Oh, I wanted to. =P
Like, take off 50 or 60% of infection on death. Simple and reliable.

Later in the game it barely matters, though.

With decent armor and medication you can easily deal with it.
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This isn't meant to be a burn or anything, but later in the game a ton of stuff doesn't matter. It's almost impossible for early game threats to even be noticeable in the late game, or late game threats to do anything but completely steamroll us in the early game

Sure, in my game, I have 1 antibiotic and 6 honey sitting in my chest on day 10...but I might not have it.

It won't be guaranteed to make the plague more deadly for everyone...but it might give several people some more of those great stories and experiences in early or mid game, like many of us read in This thread. I'll be honest, that thread was partially responsible for thinking up this idea.

It's not going to be a big deal for most people. But I'd imagine that for some, getting the plague, dying, and then respawning, still with 0.1% infection, will lead to some epic "oh S***!" moments.

 
Then again as much as I'd hate myself for dying on purpose to cancel a debuff... to each their own ? Next you'll want your food/water bars to go back to their values before you died, and so on. My point being that if people feel like suiciding in a survival game instead of trying to find a solution to stay alive... well, let them, it doesn't affect your game.

 
Then again as much as I'd hate myself for dying on purpose to cancel a debuff... to each their own ? Next you'll want your food/water bars to go back to their values before you died, and so on. My point being that if people feel like suiciding in a survival game instead of trying to find a solution to stay alive... well, let them, it doesn't affect your game.
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but suiciding would still get rid of the debuff....

you don't actually suffer from it until it hits stage 2...so it isn't a debuff until then, its just a timer. Suiciding would still cancel the debuff, and reset, but not remove the timer.

plus I never said this was meant to be a punishment for others. -I- have died of unrelated causes (mostly zombie birds) while infected...and it kinda took away from the whole feeling of tense, impending danger that the plague was causing...I felt disappointed that the infection was gone just because a vulture got a few lucky hits on me cuz it bounced around too much to hit.

 
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Oh yes, I was wandering about this too. Infection SHOULD persist through dead, at least with a partial % lowered.

Early game the non-armored player has a higher chance to get it, and might not have looted cure in time, nor the ability to craft it. But the knuckles helps a lot to avoid it in melee combat, and the player should resort to ranged combat more often. All in all, it'c balanced enough for me

 
I see a small problem. From 15% infection on you are slightly impaired by the infection (-25% stamina recovery) and from 58% on strongly impaired (-35% stamina recovery and -1 to all attributes). This could lead to a death loop if you die from the infection, then respawn with 50% infection and immediately go looking for antibiotics again.

It is also not done with a single antibiotic if the infection is already over 25%. Antibiotics only heal 25%. For 50% you need 2 antibiotics, for 50.1% already 3 antibiotics. Honey heals only 5%. Therefore one would need 10 honey for 50%.

So if you are between 50 and 55% infection it would make sense to just step on the nearest landmine to get down to under 5%.

 
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Also, if the infection was more dangerous, then Fortitude would start becoming more of a requirement.

Balance. Its good.

 
The whole "killing yourself because you've become infected" thing is a huge trope in the zombie genre. It would be a shame to get rid of that.

And yes, I know that death doesn't mean game-over and the other players having to deal with zombie-you; so it's not exactly the same. But I still like the fact that it forces you into a decision - do I persist and hope for a cure, or put myself out of my misery and take the death penalty instead?

If the infection lasts through death then it takes that away. Instead of an interesting decision It just becomes a boring slog trying to find a cure while suffering the symptoms and - if you die in the process - continuing to try to find a cure while suffering both the symptoms and the death penalty.

 
Also, if the infection was more dangerous, then Fortitude would start becoming more of a requirement.
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Once you go into melee, it's a necessity anyway. Only players who only use ranged weapons can afford not to invest points in fortitude.

Balance. Its good.
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That's funny. Every time when it comes to making life harder for players, it's balancing. When it comes to making life a little easier for players, it's whining.

 
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Yeah.. I don't see what's fun about punishing a player who died infected by keeping them infected. Dying and losing exp/potentially your items is the punishment for death. I can't see in any way how trying to punish other players for "taking the easy way out" to be fun.

 
So if you are between 50 and 55% infection it would make sense to just step on the nearest landmine to get down to under 5%.
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This is already "the best option"....in fact, currently, this is "the best option" at 15%

I see a small problem. From 15% infection on you are slightly impaired by the infection (-25% stamina recovery) and from 58% on strongly impaired (-35% stamina recovery and -1 to all attributes). This could lead to a death loop if you die from the infection, then respawn with 50% infection and immediately go looking for antibiotics again.
It is also not done with a single antibiotic if the infection is already over 25%. Antibiotics only heal 25%. For 50% you need 2 antibiotics, for 50.1% already 3 antibiotics. Honey heals only 5%. Therefore one would need 10 honey for 50%.
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A fair point, certainly, and one i thought about as I typed up the original post, but didn't include any thoughts there as it was already quite wordy.

What if infection dropped by 30%, or 75% of whatever it was when you died, whichever is greater (40% is the switch over). So someone who died with 25% infection would be at 0.1%. Someone who died at 35% would be at 5%. Someone who died at 44% would be at 11%. Someone who died at 88% would be at 22%, and someone who died at 100% would be at 25%. Now you have 33%, or roughly 2 real time hours to find a cure, with only a minor stamina penalty, rather than 8%, or 30 real time minutes.

Or what if, upon dying, IF you were infected, the infection just resets to 0.1% - no matter what you were at?

In any case, the point isn't to punish how people choose to play....honestly, in the two to three real time hours it takes to get 50% infection, you can easily get rid of the 10% xp penalty from dying. We already have people killing themselves because they're hungry, or thirsty, or have a broken leg. I'm no proposing any changes to those...I don't blame people for not wanting to play the game at a crawl for an hour while they wait for a leg to heal. The point, instead, is to make infection feel relevant....REALLY relevant...early game especially, since that is when it's already a threat. But it'd also be something you can never fully ignore

 
I really never cared about infection. The moment you find a pill shop or a hospital, infection will never be an issue to you. There is no need to die by purpose.

 
This isn't meant to be a burn or anything, but later in the game a ton of stuff doesn't matter. It's almost impossible for early game threats to even be noticeable in the late game, or late game threats to do anything but completely steamroll us in the early game
Sure, in my game, I have 1 antibiotic and 6 honey sitting in my chest on day 10...but I might not have it.

It won't be guaranteed to make the plague more deadly for everyone...but it might give several people some more of those great stories and experiences in early or mid game, like many of us read in This thread. I'll be honest, that thread was partially responsible for thinking up this idea.

It's not going to be a big deal for most people. But I'd imagine that for some, getting the plague, dying, and then respawning, still with 0.1% infection, will lead to some epic "oh S***!" moments.
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It seems to me that it is intended that at a certain gamestage the game becomes less about survival and more about tower defense. With the demolishers that will eventually come I don't think gameplay wise you can be forced to struggle as much as you do the first week or two which are mostly based on survival and still be able to gather the resources and build the base you need to survive the larger gamestage hordes.

 
Good thread. "Zombie Dead Player on infection death", that should be a clickable option on server settings.

as well as "Infection resets to 1% on death, until cured" should be another.

 
The point, instead, is to make infection feel relevant....REALLY relevant...early game especially, since that is when it's already a threat. But it'd also be something you can never fully ignore
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If I look at some 7 Days streams then most the players take the infection quite seriously. Only one of those I watched committed suicide, but he was already at 80% and couldn't find any antibiotics. So at least he tried.

I know there are players who commit suicide for all sorts of reasons. Some even seem to have used this as a way of fast travel. But should you let such players define the game?

By the way, I have madmole once suggested that a broken leg should be preserved even after death but he has rejected it because it would lead to a death loop.

If he hasn't changed his mind I doubt your idea will become part of the main game but you could ask JaxTeller718. He is one of the developers of the Ravenhearst mod and might be open to the idea.

 
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I like this idea. I don't mind getting infected in the first couple days of the game and having no immediate way to cure it. But I hate the feeling I get that I'd rather just die to be rid of it. Dying shouldn't be a boon.

 
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