Accepted Localized damage/medical system overhaul

[M!NT]

Medical System Overhaul​

Before I discuss this, let me preface this suggestion with something that I wish could go without saying:
THIS IS NOT INTENDED TO REPLACE THE FUNCTIONS OF MEDRP AND THE EXISTENCE OF THE CIVIL MEDICAL UNION FACTION.
RATHER, it is intended to help streamline the faction & improve the standard of roleplay within.

What is the problem / Why the change?:
Currently, our medical system is very basic. Characters have HP, and when that HP depletes, they go into bleedout. There are a handful of medical scripts which can be used to revive someone from bleedout. The 'medicine' skill determines how effective your character is at using these items.

I see this result in people doing little to zero RP for injuries, as instead of going to the CMU, they can instantly fix their broken legs with a bandage or something and go about their day. I think this is partially due to laziness, as well of a (willing or unwilling) lack of understanding of how injuries affect people's characters. This is Fail RP but very few people seem to care.

However, there is no formal system to track a character's infliction, which means that every character is essentially in perfect health at all times. This is immersion breaking to some, as you'd expect many of the denizens to have some sort of condition. Yet, the people who correctly RP them are few and far between.

Again, I think this is because of a lack of information (especially for people new to serious RP).

How can we improve it?
It is because of this that I propose that we integrate a localized damage system. This will inform the player of their injuries and give them the information they need to correctly RP their conditions and how to treat them. The afflictions that they recieve will be added automatically (ex: getting shot, spore exposure, getting beat up, etc) or manually (by a GM). The actions available to the character, and the information given to them, will depend heavily on their 'medicine' skill.

On top of that, the injuries should have a lot more depth. More on this in the detailed summary.

As for the interface itself, two systems come to mind.

The Health menu in Project Zomboid:

And the excellent Arma 3 ACE Medical Menu:

How can this improve RP specifically?

The core experience of Willard is survival. Most characters should be barely getting by day in and day out; clawing and fighting to meet their needs. I think an in depth medical system could work really well with our existing complementary systems to heighten player's immersion.

Also, with a system as complex as this, few characters will understand / be able to use it effectively. This means that characters that are able to will be forced to go to the CMU. Resistance groups, refugees, etc. will require dedicated medical characters and more items- adding more depth to their economy and society outside of the union.

IMPORTANT: Yes, I know, people CAN & SHOULD just RP these things. However, many don't (or don't know how to), so that argument (while good in theory) falls flat.


How will it work?

1. Localized Damage
   1. A character is split into many areas (aka: left/right hands, left/right arms, left/right legs, left/right feet, abdomen, chest, neck, head, left/right eyes)
   2. Each area has its own affect over a character, and damage to individual areas can result in different symptoms. Here are just a few examples:
      1. Eyes
         1. If one eye is damaged, their vision is heavily effected. Meaning that weapon accuracy is dramatically reduced, for example.
         2. If both eyes are damaged, a character can become nearly blind (like if a character has bad vision and takes their glasses off currently) or completely blind.
      2. Arms
         1. If either arm is damage, strength is heavily reduced.
         2. If the character's dominant arm or hand (aka right arm/hand) is damaged, their weapon accuracy is heavily affected.
         3. If its bad enough they might not even be able to equip a weapon, do crafting, etc.
      3. Legs
         1. If either leg is damaged, the character's movement speed will be affected based on the severity.
         2. Depending on the severity, a character might not be able to jump and/or crouch.
         3. If it gets bad enough, they might not be able to walk at all- stuck in place, and requiring to be carried by others to get around.
      4. Head
         1. Moderate damage to the head could result in a concussion, making someone's intelligence, vision, strength, etc. all impaired.
         2. Major damage to the head could make these afflictions permanent, and could cause a hemorrhage which, if not treated by someone (a character with specialized equipment and a high medicine skill) could result in death.
   3. In addition to symptoms being specific to the damaged area, some things will happen regardless of the area in which the damage occurred. Ex:
      1. If a character is shot in the arm lets say, then depending on the caliber, penetration, etc then their arm would have specific damage as described above.
      2. In addition to that, certain things can happen to that area that work the same way as everywhere else:
         1. If there is no exit wound, then the bullet fragments will remain in the wound. Requiring a character (with the proper level of medical skill and equipment) to remove them for the wound to heal correctly.
         2. There is a chance a bone is hit and fractured, or an artery is struck. The latter resulting in immense bleeding, the former resulting in the requirement of intense treatment.
         3. The wound may require suturing before it can ever heal correctly.
         4. If the wound is not properly disinfected, has its fragments removed, sutured, and bandaged, then it will never fully heal. It may develop an infection as time goes on (more details to follow)
2. Infections, diseases, and other afflictions
   1. If a wound is not treated correctly, or if a character is exposed to a pathogen, then they can develop an infection and/or disease.
   2. Depending on what it is, it can affect them in many ways:
      1. High spore exposure can cause all kinds of problems to the host body, and can eventually become fatal.
      2. If a gunshot wound, laceration, etc is not treated, a character can get some kind of infection which will gradually wreck their strength, speed, agility, intelligence, and everything else. If it goes untreated for long enough, the affected limb might have to be amputated. Eventually this will result in death as well.
3. Amputations, prosthetics, and other related items
   1. This system could also allow for their to be IG prosthetics for characters who have had limbs amputated. Depending on their quality, they can restore some or all of the original function of the limb.
   2. If they are developed, we can even work on adding proper augmented appendages which can be crafted and installed by characters with the resources to do so. These augmentations can have anywhere from minor, to major increases to various things such as:
      1. Augmented eyes:
         1. Thermal vision augmentations (a near-end-game item that few, if ever, will have access to)
         2. Heightened perception.
         3. Replacement for characters who were previously blinded.
      2. Augmented arms:
         1. Higher strength, better accuracy, etc etc
         2. Replacement for characters with amputated/damaged arms
      3. Augmented legs:
         1. Faster speed, running is less drain on stamina, higher jump, can fall from higher before they get fall damage, etc.
         2. Replacement for characters with amputated/damaged legs

SUMMARY / TL;DR
To heighten immersion and roleplay quality, we should add an in depth localized damage medical system similar to that of Project Zomboid, Arma 3 ACE Medical, etc.

 

[Belgg]

Someone has been playing a lot of tarkov recently...

 

[Rabithunter]

As the CMU lead and having spent a many months within the medical union now, can say for certainty that NO ONE outside of those who actually want to RP their injuries correctly (Which are few and far between) actually do so with a great willingness or intention. I fully support the idea of a medical system such as those demonstrated and outlined from other games within this post. Too many people go through the MedRP then walk away from the clinic, seemingly as though it never happened or to a much lesser extent than it should be.

This being said, I have seen a few people in the past dong everything they can to illustrate the injuries their character sustained. Notable examples are Furious, with his VA character for District nine. The character broker their arm, and in the description of the character, a simple notation was written in brackets to denote the arm being in a sling. I myself have done similar things in the past. If anyone knew of a character called Laurentia Berrycloth, you would know how far I took my characters ailments and disabilities. They suffered from brain damage, causing their speech to become impeded, loss of motor functions in one arm and hand, along with a slower pace of walking.

I wouldnt expect anyone to go quite as far as I did, but it proves the RP can be done to a greater extent in a serious environment, and quite frankly needs to be thought of for our server in general. As Mint said, its failRP to shrug off injuries and conditions, just for the sake of "not being bothered to RP them" or for any other reason those who chose not to can conjure up at the time. Anyway, Rabihunter we're done here!

 

[Belgg]

As the CMU lead and having spent a many months within the medical union now, can say for certainty that NO ONE outside of those who actually want to RP their injuries correctly (Which are few and far between) actually do so with a great willingness or intention. I fully support the idea of a medical system such as those demonstrated and outlined from other games within this post. Too many people go through the MedRP then walk away from the clinic, seemingly as though it never happened or to a much lesser extent than it should be.

This being said, I have seen a few people in the past dong everything they can to illustrate the injuries their character sustained. Notable examples are Furious, with his VA character for District nine. The character broker their arm, and in the description of the character, a simple notation was written in brackets to denote the arm being in a sling. I myself have done similar things in the past. If anyone knew of a character called Laurentia Berrycloth, you would know how far I took my characters ailments and disabilities. They suffered from brain damage, causing their speech to become impeded, loss of motor functions in one arm and hand, along with a slower pace of walking.

I wouldnt expect anyone to go quite as far as I did, but it proves the RP can be done to a greater extent in a serious environment, and quite frankly needs to be thought of for our server in general. As Mint said, its failRP to shrug off injuries and conditions, just for the sake of "not being bothered to RP them" or for any other reason those who chose not to can conjure up at the time. Anyway, Rabihunter we're done here!

As Jun, his head got scratched by a player headcrab while saving someone from his army and I've had that in my description since me good rp

 

[M!NT]

Too many people go through the MedRP then walk away from the clinic, seemingly as though it never happened or to a much lesser extent than it should be.

+1

This being said, I have seen a few people in the past dong everything they can to illustrate the injuries their character sustained. Notable examples are Furious, with his VA character for District nine. The character broker their arm, and in the description of the character, a simple notation was written in brackets to denote the arm being in a sling. I myself have done similar things in the past. If anyone knew of a character called Laurentia Berrycloth, you would know how far I took my characters ailments and disabilities. They suffered from brain damage, causing their speech to become impeded, loss of motor functions in one arm and hand, along with a slower pace of walking.

I don't think this system would neccesarily prevent this from being allowed. If someone wants to do this, admins/gms can go in and directly add/remove/modify conditions in the system to create conflict or to give wounds to characters that sustained them in a way that the system was unaware of (such as s2rp, etc). Or, if someone just wants to do MedRP manually without the help of a system, I see it following similar rules of people crafting things outside of the crafting system. Aka: Its allowed, but it has to be in the right context and be done correctly.

 

[M!NT]

Someone has been playing a lot of tarkov recently...

never played it

 

[ShadoWiz4rd]

Medical System Overhaul​

Before I discuss this, let me preface this suggestion with something that I wish could go without saying:
THIS IS NOT INTENDED TO REPLACE THE FUNCTIONS OF MEDRP AND THE EXISTENCE OF THE CIVIL MEDICAL UNION FACTION.
RATHER, it is intended to help streamline the faction & improve the standard of roleplay within.

What is the problem / Why the change?:
Currently, our medical system is very basic. Characters have HP, and when that HP depletes, they go into bleedout. There are a handful of medical scripts which can be used to revive someone from bleedout. The 'medicine' skill determines how effective your character is at using these items.

I see this result in people doing little to zero RP for injuries, as instead of going to the CMU, they can instantly fix their broken legs with a bandage or something and go about their day. I think this is partially due to laziness, as well of a (willing or unwilling) lack of understanding of how injuries affect people's characters. This is Fail RP but very few people seem to care.

However, there is no formal system to track a character's infliction, which means that every character is essentially in perfect health at all times. This is immersion breaking to some, as you'd expect many of the denizens to have some sort of condition. Yet, the people who correctly RP them are few and far between.

Again, I think this is because of a lack of information (especially for people new to serious RP).

How can we improve it?
It is because of this that I propose that we integrate a localized damage system. This will inform the player of their injuries and give them the information they need to correctly RP their conditions and how to treat them. The afflictions that they recieve will be added automatically (ex: getting shot, spore exposure, getting beat up, etc) or manually (by a GM). The actions available to the character, and the information given to them, will depend heavily on their 'medicine' skill.

On top of that, the injuries should have a lot more depth. More on this in the detailed summary.

As for the interface itself, two systems come to mind.

The Health menu in Project Zomboid:

And the excellent Arma 3 ACE Medical Menu:

How can this improve RP specifically?

The core experience of Willard is survival. Most characters should be barely getting by day in and day out; clawing and fighting to meet their needs. I think an in depth medical system could work really well with our existing complementary systems to heighten player's immersion.

Also, with a system as complex as this, few characters will understand / be able to use it effectively. This means that characters that are able to will be forced to go to the CMU. Resistance groups, refugees, etc. will require dedicated medical characters and more items- adding more depth to their economy and society outside of the union.

IMPORTANT: Yes, I know, people CAN & SHOULD just RP these things. However, many don't (or don't know how to), so that argument (while good in theory) falls flat.


How will it work?

1. Localized Damage
   1. A character is split into many areas (aka: left/right hands, left/right arms, left/right legs, left/right feet, abdomen, chest, neck, head, left/right eyes)
   2. Each area has its own affect over a character, and damage to individual areas can result in different symptoms. Here are just a few examples:
      1. Eyes
         1. If one eye is damaged, their vision is heavily effected. Meaning that weapon accuracy is dramatically reduced, for example.
         2. If both eyes are damaged, a character can become nearly blind (like if a character has bad vision and takes their glasses off currently) or completely blind.
      2. Arms
         1. If either arm is damage, strength is heavily reduced.
         2. If the character's dominant arm or hand (aka right arm/hand) is damaged, their weapon accuracy is heavily affected.
         3. If its bad enough they might not even be able to equip a weapon, do crafting, etc.
      3. Legs
         1. If either leg is damaged, the character's movement speed will be affected based on the severity.
         2. Depending on the severity, a character might not be able to jump and/or crouch.
         3. If it gets bad enough, they might not be able to walk at all- stuck in place, and requiring to be carried by others to get around.
      4. Head
         1. Moderate damage to the head could result in a concussion, making someone's intelligence, vision, strength, etc. all impaired.
         2. Major damage to the head could make these afflictions permanent, and could cause a hemorrhage which, if not treated by someone (a character with specialized equipment and a high medicine skill) could result in death.
   3. In addition to symptoms being specific to the damaged area, some things will happen regardless of the area in which the damage occurred. Ex:
      1. If a character is shot in the arm lets say, then depending on the caliber, penetration, etc then their arm would have specific damage as described above.
      2. In addition to that, certain things can happen to that area that work the same way as everywhere else:
         1. If there is no exit wound, then the bullet fragments will remain in the wound. Requiring a character (with the proper level of medical skill and equipment) to remove them for the wound to heal correctly.
         2. There is a chance a bone is hit and fractured, or an artery is struck. The latter resulting in immense bleeding, the former resulting in the requirement of intense treatment.
         3. The wound may require suturing before it can ever heal correctly.
         4. If the wound is not properly disinfected, has its fragments removed, sutured, and bandaged, then it will never fully heal. It may develop an infection as time goes on (more details to follow)
2. Infections, diseases, and other afflictions
   1. If a wound is not treated correctly, or if a character is exposed to a pathogen, then they can develop an infection and/or disease.
   2. Depending on what it is, it can affect them in many ways:
      1. High spore exposure can cause all kinds of problems to the host body, and can eventually become fatal.
      2. If a gunshot wound, laceration, etc is not treated, a character can get some kind of infection which will gradually wreck their strength, speed, agility, intelligence, and everything else. If it goes untreated for long enough, the affected limb might have to be amputated. Eventually this will result in death as well.
3. Amputations, prosthetics, and other related items
   1. This system could also allow for their to be IG prosthetics for characters who have had limbs amputated. Depending on their quality, they can restore some or all of the original function of the limb.
   2. If they are developed, we can even work on adding proper augmented appendages which can be crafted and installed by characters with the resources to do so. These augmentations can have anywhere from minor, to major increases to various things such as:
      1. Augmented eyes:
         1. Thermal vision augmentations (a near-end-game item that few, if ever, will have access to)
         2. Heightened perception.
         3. Replacement for characters who were previously blinded.
      2. Augmented arms:
         1. Higher strength, better accuracy, etc etc
         2. Replacement for characters with amputated/damaged arms
      3. Augmented legs:
         1. Faster speed, running is less drain on stamina, higher jump, can fall from higher before they get fall damage, etc.
         2. Replacement for characters with amputated/damaged legs

SUMMARY / TL;DR
To heighten immersion and roleplay quality, we should add an in depth localized damage medical system similar to that of Project Zomboid, Arma 3 ACE Medical, etc.

Funny I'm pretty sure I recommended a very barebones version of this a few months ago and it got downvoted into oblivion,

+Support

About time we had realistic medical system added.

Either Terranova or Nebulous had something akin to this Aswell so it'll be nice to see it implemented as opposed to mag dumping someones head point blank and them being able to keep going at you (Without a helmet even mind you)

 

[rob]

Localized damage would be fantastic; instead of guessing where my character was hit, I could check my character's state and see where he/she was harmed when I go to the clinic. I recall seeing this technique in use on Clockwork servers more than 8 years ago, so I'm sure it's not too difficult to implement.

 

[ShadoWiz4rd]

Localized damage would be fantastic; instead of guessing where my character was hit, I could check my character's state and see where he/she was harmed when I go to the clinic. I recall seeing this technique in use on Clockwork servers more than 8 years ago, so I'm sure it's not too difficult to implement.

Would eliminate a bunch of fights in ooc/pk appeals too because admins would be able to go through logs and see
"Joe Disch was shot in the lower abdomen with a 9mm pistol"
-5 minutes before /me's could be seen showing them to be the aggressor.

Would cut down a lot of red-tape as far as injuries go for both Combine players and Rebels alike.

If you're a rebel and you fire a few shots at a CPs unprotected lower portion they can't turn around and go "It misses and 1 shot hits their hand".

Combine this system with giving body armor weight and utility say "A helmet gives you more resilience to gunshots to the head" (To an extent lets be real a pulse round is going through a steel helmet and probably even Kevlar at close range.)

 

[Belgg]

Combine this system with giving body armor weight and utility say "A helmet gives you more resilience to gunshots to the head" (To an extent lets be real a pulse round is going through a steel helmet and probably even Kevlar at close range.)

Not if my T3 can prevent it

 

[𝔄𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔮]

YES! This is one of the many changes the server needs. Max support.

 

[uknight]

Having it be more of a roleplay aide than a super complex system would be better

 

[Ash]

I am an advokate.

Please remove people who spam bandages.

 

[Ozzekiel]

Each area has its own affect over a character, and damage to individual areas can result in different symptoms. Here are just a few examples:

1. Eyes
   1. If one eye is damaged, their vision is heavily effected. Meaning that weapon accuracy is dramatically reduced, for example.
   2. If both eyes are damaged, a character can become nearly blind (like if a character has bad vision and takes their glasses off currently) or completely blind.
2. Arms
   1. If either arm is damage, strength is heavily reduced.
   2. If the character's dominant arm or hand (aka right arm/hand) is damaged, their weapon accuracy is heavily affected.
   3. If its bad enough they might not even be able to equip a weapon, do crafting, etc.
3. Legs
   1. If either leg is damaged, the character's movement speed will be affected based on the severity.
   2. Depending on the severity, a character might not be able to jump and/or crouch.
   3. If it gets bad enough, they might not be able to walk at all- stuck in place, and requiring to be carried by others to get around.
4. Head
   1. Moderate damage to the head could result in a concussion, making someone's intelligence, vision, strength, etc. all impaired.
   2. Major damage to the head could make these afflictions permanent, and could cause a hemorrhage which, if not treated by someone (a character with specialized equipment and a high medicine skill) could result in death.

Personally, I don't like the idea of this fallout-esque limb system. Augments are also kinda weird, and seem too cyberpunky. In general just unneeded things to develop

Would there be a bleeding system that drains health over time? How long will it take for someone to die from bleeding, infections, etc.? Stuff like this needs to be considered because rather than encouraging medical RP, it'll be: "I need scripts or else I'm fucked", or CMU being pressured with "Holy fuck this person is going to die because of me, scripts first RP later"

Having it solely be an indication without complicated gameplay mechanics and overhauls people need to worry about to avoid dying is the best option for just about everyone. Devs don't need to worry about all these buffs and debuffs, players won't feel obligated to hoard medical scripts, and CMU won't have to rush their RP

 

[Ash]

Visible damage indicators when a player is looked act, or they leave a small blood decal on the floor if they are actively bleeding with no health impact.

Solely so people can see that your character is injured and bleeding, so players can't hide it.

 

[Conundrum]

Make it so players have to acknowledge they are injured. Seeing someone 'Near Death' acting fine is always an interesting experience.

 

[JakaSmith]

The damage system on this server is already very silly. Get shot by a shotgun, use 2 disinfected bandages and you are good to go!

A reform of the damage system is all but welcome, I'd be glad to see some change in it.

 

[Rabid]

I am once again baffled at the fact that these incredibly complex (and often bloated) mechanical systems will usually get universal praise and support from all levels but minor RP changes are stonewalled or sneered at.

I don't think anyone wants to see the actual reality of not being able to play your character properly for a week (or several) because the system decides you got crippled from being shot in the leg once, or that you can't craft until it heals or equip weapons, etc etc. People would genuinely just stop playing.

 

[M!NT]

I don't think anyone wants to see the actual reality of not being able to play your character properly for a week (or several) because the system decides you got crippled from being shot in the leg once, or that you can't craft until it heals or equip weapons, etc etc. People would genuinely just stop playing.

Gunshot wounds are crippling, life changing experiences. Currently people treat them like papercuts, and it breaks a lot of people's immersion.

No amount of asking people nicely will ever solve this.

The reality of the situation is that (in most cases) you are playing a mortal, fragile human character. If your character decides to get in a firefight and gets shot, as a consequence, the character's leg is broken and requires some work to fix; time to heal. If your character gets shot in the right hand then they can't shoot a gun until it heals. I.. don't see why that is a problem. People should already be RPing that but they're not.

 

[M!NT]

Augments are also kinda weird, and seem too cyberpunky.

Transhumans are a thing. They are already augmented people walking around every day (such as OTA). This has been a thing in HL2RP for a decade.

Having it solely be an indication without complicated gameplay mechanics and overhauls people need to worry about to avoid dying is the best option for just about everyone.

People are already indicated of their character's injuries and they continue to be ignorant to them.

Would there be a bleeding system that drains health over time? How long will it take for someone to die from bleeding, infections, etc.? Stuff like this needs to be considered because rather than encouraging medical RP, it'll be: "I need scripts or else I'm fucked", or CMU being pressured with "Holy fuck this person is going to die because of me, scripts first RP later"

There is currently a bleeding system which, once you go into bleedout, you only have a few minutes until your character dies.

Its a tricky thing- allow me to compare this to hunger and thirst killing people.
If you allow people to go forever without eating then it allows people to ignore something important to their character's survival. So, we have a system which reduces your stats steadily as your character gets hungrier/thirstier until eventually your character dies.

Nobody cares about this- clearly its an inconvenience sometimes but it makes sense. So how come it is unfair to have the medical system kill someone's character if that character has been bleeding out from a huge gunshot wound for hours?

I understand there is a balance here but, at the same time, there must be consequences for life changing injuries that characters get- so they don't just shrug them off. Just like hunger and thirst, it should have various consequences until it eventually results in a PK.

The specific details will have to be specifically set by the balance team so that characters have enough time to get to a doc to get patched up, but not so long so that they can go do a workshift while their arm is blown off.