Human/zed progression discussion

[Vinnie]

I was gonna post this on the issue at github but i think it's better to do it here so more people can chime in.

As this feature is conceptionally quite complex and tricky to balance, i feel some brainstorming is in order. I'll start by dumping some unfiltered thoughts here.
Potential perks for zombies:

- HP increase
- Stamina increase
- Jump height
- Unarmed Damage (levelled up should be a good alt for chainsaw as you can also punch while moving while chainsaw has stunlocking which is kinda lame. Might be good to nerf chainlocking if possible. Would open up more active skills for zeds without being an instant guaranteed kill like stuns and grabs into chainlock)
- wall climb (imagine a nerfed /fly thats slower and only works when facing a wall)
- bite (similar function as before)
- combust (zed kills itself, spraying infected juices on survivors in an aoe effect, infecting them, dealing dmg until cure. Alternatively corrosive stomach acid does hp dmg over a finite length of time)
- stun
- grab
- call horde (spawns strong and fast npc zombies that chase players. Could be permanent pets like skellies for necromancers that follow player around and respawn when killed after some time has passed)
- disguise/stealth (change player name to a white color or hide it entirely for a period of time, even on radar. Maybe allow for blending in with npc zeds so you dont know which is which)
- lifeleech (unarmed damage to humans heals zed for a % of dmg dealt)
- Dot (unarmed dmg deals dmg over time, stacking to upper limit)
- Hobble (disable jumping for a time, bhoppers beware)
- vomit (projectile dmg to player in range)
- damage engine (turns off engine and stops it from being started for a period of time)
- borrowed strength ( sacrifice hp for a boost in dmg)
- borrowed speed (sacrifice hp for speed)
- cornered (passive, become stronger and faster when hp is below threshold)

Humans ( i think it would be interesting and sensible for human progression to be tied to items more than powers)

- hp
- stam
- str (melee dmg, defo need to nerf chainlocking for this to be remotely viable i think. As it stands melee weapons for humies are obsolete except for npcs)
- jump height (weaker than zed jumps)
- scavenging (better rarity and quantity)
- different ammo types (HP, AP, incendiary, nerve toxin(debuff enemies)
- throw net (stun)
- stun resist
- grappling hook (climb wall, item)
- scrapyard mechanic (use less scrap for anything that consumes scrap)
- radar (detect lifesigns on map, item)
- gas grenade (smoke that deals DOT, debuffs)
- martial arts (be able to swap between the martial arts you can learn in the game, maybe deal different dmg depending on style)
- molotovs
- armoured vehicles ( use scrap to reinforce car, increasing hp, make it more resilient against disable engine(resulting in a dice roll to determine if disable engine is a success or not)
- group cohesion (being near other players increases combat effectiveness, so higher dps)
- pilots manual (ability to use helicopters)
I'm more or less spent with ideas at this point.
I think not being able to get all skills and having to choose between 2-3 per level would be probably good. This will result in different builds, etc
@burridge with the idea of so many skills being introduced, i find that the idea of standing still to type /skill in combat to be kinda bad. Would it be possible to introduce hotkeys or i guess an alternative would be macros/ahk?

On another note, how would we counter players abusing the leveling system? One could make multiple accounts and kill their throwaway over and over to get xp. Or make an agreement with another player to help eachother level up doing essentially the same strat. I suppose they would show up on logs? XP penalty would make it so that one would have to lose x amount of times until a level up before they swapped roles so they should be more visible on the logs. Gonna stop rambling here for now.

[burridgedan]

- Stamina increase

I haven't been able to find a library that allows this sort of thing, at least not a good one. There are libraries which add a staminia stat, but it doesn't override the default behaviour GTA:SA behaviour which means there's a hardcap to stamina that affects running at least. You could have custom stamina for other actions potentially...

- Unarmed Damage (levelled up should be a good alt for chainsaw as you can also punch while moving while chainsaw has stunlocking which is kinda lame. Might be good to nerf chainlocking if possible. Would open up more active skills for zeds without being an instant guaranteed kill like stuns and grabs into chainlock)

This is something I did want to implement and remove the chainsaw alltogether. We have a plugin and library in place already for custom damage, health etc. (Weapon-Config) It's really just a case of playing with balancing.

- call horde (spawns strong and fast npc zombies that chase players. Could be permanent pets like skellies for necromancers that follow player around and respawn when killed after some time has passed)

Love this idea however, we are limited by the amount of NPCs we can add to the server. The current Open.MP server still only supports 1000 maximum players and each NPC you add takes 1 of those slots away. Not a problem early on if we decided to say use 100 slots for players that would give us 900 NPC slots but limits us for any future growth, at least until player slots capacity is upgraded on the Open.MP side.

- Hobble (disable jumping for a time, bhoppers beware)

This might be possible, not something I ever thought about. I might look at the code I used in ZOTDM for anti-C bug as I could make it work but for jumping instead.

@burridge with the idea of so many skills being introduced, i find that the idea of standing still to type /skill in combat to be kinda bad. Would it be possible to introduce hotkeys or i guess an alternative would be macros/ahk?

Yes it is. I remember an old version of ZORP had a hotkey for opening the inventory (alongside /inv).

On another note, how would we counter players abusing the leveling system? One could make multiple accounts and kill their throwaway over and over to get xp.

To avoid people using multiple characters at the same time to gain EXP I would look at introducing some sort of delay in gaining EXP after death. So for example, if Player A kills Player B set a variable on Player A to Player B's name or player id (or some other sort of unique identifier...) which means if Player A kills Player B again within a certain timeframe they gain no EXP reward, or a very limited amount. Of course we will eventually have logs for pretty much everything that happens in game, from chat to kills, and deaths etc. Of course, other ideas welcome.

I have only responded to the points that I felt required additional context. I like what is being proposed overall.

[Logan]

Maybe the leveling system can be manual in the sense that a Admin has to level you up once you achieve a certain criteria. Also the player score should be capped at max level, whatever that level is.

As for skills. I think they should have different levels that increase their effectiveness. Players shouldn't be able to max out all skills, maybe put a cap on that with only 1-2 skills being allowed to be maxed out at any given time and the player can only slot 3-5 skills at a time.

Coming up with a perk system like in Project Zomboid or having certain skills also give you a debuff could also be a good idea.

[burridgedan]

Maybe the leveling system can be manual in the sense that a Admin has to level you up once you achieve a certain criteria. Also the player score should be capped at max level, whatever that level is.

There is a theoretical level cap of 99 at the moment as that's all the EXP logic I have done. Easy enough to hard-cap, although tweaking how quickly and easy it is to gain EXP would need to be considered - lest players reach the maximum level way too quickly. Alternatively we could do something like what Final Fantasy 14 does where each expansion increases the maximum level cap as it adds new abilities etc. Not sure how "expansions" would work here but just an off the cuff idea.

As for the manual levelling by an admin - I don't like that idea. It requires someone else to be around and a part of what I would like to achieve is that playing on your own can also be a viable option. You also run into the issue (especially early on) where there might not be admins online to level you up, and even later on there might not be enough admins to cover all the levelling up that needs to happen. The script should be handling any and all game logic with the admins being there to adjudicate over fair play and keeping the server free from cheaters and the like.

As for skills. I think they should have different levels that increase their effectiveness. Players shouldn't be able to max out all skills, maybe put a cap on that with only 1-2 skills being allowed to be maxed out at any given time and the player can only slot 3-5 skills at a time.

I agree that a player should never be able to maximise all skills. Vinnie has started working on the usage of perk points, and I think there will be a lot of skills and as players only gain 1 perk point per level there is only a maximum of 98 available to one character across all the levels at the moment. I think making it fun and benefitial to focus on a few stats and make a certain type of character build would be a good incentive.

[Logan]

There is a theoretical level cap of 99 at the moment as that's all the EXP logic...

New players should still have a good chance of killing max level players. Here I am talking about factions that are allowed to PvP each other.

You can have different difficulty spawns.
1. Spawn with a few debuffs that last 24 hours until wearing off - Tradeoff, you get more exp for that period of time.
2. Spawn in Bayside with a decent gear set - Tradeoff, you get less exp for 24 Hours.

Some of these would be tricky do to players being able to trade items, so a 0 item spawn will end up being useless if that option is not also taken away for 24 hours.

Something extra. If the population of zombies is 10% higher than that of humans, and a minimum of 10 players are online, than human players get extra exp. This can also work in reverse. I suggest maybe a increase to 30-40% for zombie exp because people tend to play as humans rather than zombies.

As for the manual levelling by an admin...

Yeah, I get what you are saying

I agree that a player should never be able to maximise all skills...

Sure. Let there be character specialization.

[God Himself]

What do you think about a Project Zomboid/Rimworld-esque character generating system, where there are positive and negative traits that balance each other out?
An example being like.. Someone could pick a negative trait (Thirsty) and have their thirst bar drop slightly faster than normal, but that gives them points that they're able to spend on a positive trait such as (Hearty Constitution) that gives them a small HP bonus etc etc etc.

You could also have different backgrounds/prior careers that people could choose, each one coming with different perks. A mechanic could spawn with a higher vehicle repair stat, a police officer could spawn with higher handgun stats, a soldier with higher auto/semi auto stats..

https://www.pzbuilder.com/character-builder

I can see this working for zombie players too, letting them choose the kind of infected they want to be. Like an.. Older zombie that's falling apart could have lower HP, but a higher chance of infecting a human player.

[Vinnie]

What do you think about a Project Zomboid/Rimworld-esque character generating system, where there are positive and negative traits that balance each other out?
An example being like.. Someone could pick a negative trait (Thirsty) and have their thirst bar drop slightly faster than normal, but that gives them points that they're able to spend on a positive trait such as (Hearty Constitution) that gives them a small HP bonus etc etc etc.

You could also have different backgrounds/prior careers that people could choose, each one coming with different perks. A mechanic could spawn with a higher vehicle repair stat, a police officer could spawn with higher handgun stats, a soldier with higher auto/semi auto stats..

https://www.pzbuilder.com/character-builder

I can see this working for zombie players too—letting them choose the type of infected they want to be. For example, an older zombie that's falling apart might have lower HP but a higher chance of infecting a human player.

I do love Zomboid and RimWorld and their trait systems. Trying to imagine it, my initial thoughts are that this kind of trait system wouldn't have much impact on Deathmatch-style combat.

However, we do also have RP in the game. Historically, RP fights have always been plagued by metagaming and powergaming, often devolving into unpleasant arguments, followed by someone saying, "Fuck it, let's just DM to see who wins."

I can definitely see there being two combat systems here. We could introduce character sheets and dice rolls for players who prefer to resolve combat through RP. In that context, these types of traits would be much more impactful. Some traits could even have hybrid effects—boosting dice rolls and offering meaningful effects in Deathmatch or general utility in the game.