AtomicUs5000
Surviver
I've always thought that there should be an endurance meter as well as stamina.
Then, you make it so that it requires stamina to tread water and swim. If you run out of stamina, you start sinking. Your stamina can go up as you sink for a few seconds, allowing you to surface again, but your endurance will take a big hit and if you don't get out of the water in a reasonable amount of time (maybe a couple game hours), and this happens too much resulting in your endurance being completely drained, you eventually get too tired and drown because you can no longer regain stamina. No more treading water to avoid zombies.
There are probably other scenarios that could be made interesting with endurance. The only other thing I can think of at the moment is that too many encounters/missions in a single day without good food could be some new thing to worry about.
Importantly:
Nothing should ever have a constant drain on endurance. It is fine to lose endurance when performing exhaustive actions, but in a resting state, endurance should always increase even if just a very tiny amount due to disease/injury/malnutrition otherwise you end up in a situation where you cannot regain stamina at all. The only reason why this does not apply when swimming is because swimming is a constant stamina drain, which in turn can result in endurance not allowing stamina to regain fast enough to avoid drowning.
- Short rests replenish stamina up to the current max stamina as usual.
- Endurance drains a tiny bit as stamina is used and constantly replenishes, but much more slowly than stamina.
- If your stamina bottoms out, your endurance takes a larger drainage hit.
- The more endurance you have, the faster your stamina returns.
- Exposure to bad weather or radiation, or being injured or diseased slows endurance replenishment.
- Good nutrition and health replenishes endurance at a higher rate.
- Boosts could be adjusted so that things giving you instant stamina, gives a hit to your endurance.
- Perks could affect endurance as well.
- Endurance can play a role in disease tolerance. If you are too worn out, it raises the percent chance of getting some disease when hit by zombies or eating/drinking contaminated things.
Then, you make it so that it requires stamina to tread water and swim. If you run out of stamina, you start sinking. Your stamina can go up as you sink for a few seconds, allowing you to surface again, but your endurance will take a big hit and if you don't get out of the water in a reasonable amount of time (maybe a couple game hours), and this happens too much resulting in your endurance being completely drained, you eventually get too tired and drown because you can no longer regain stamina. No more treading water to avoid zombies.
There are probably other scenarios that could be made interesting with endurance. The only other thing I can think of at the moment is that too many encounters/missions in a single day without good food could be some new thing to worry about.
Importantly:
Nothing should ever have a constant drain on endurance. It is fine to lose endurance when performing exhaustive actions, but in a resting state, endurance should always increase even if just a very tiny amount due to disease/injury/malnutrition otherwise you end up in a situation where you cannot regain stamina at all. The only reason why this does not apply when swimming is because swimming is a constant stamina drain, which in turn can result in endurance not allowing stamina to regain fast enough to avoid drowning.
