by Mr_Bober » Tue Mar 19, 2019 1:43 am So let's start with an old quote from one of our beloved devs:
jorb wrote:Hearthlings spreading diseases will happen at one point or another.
Before I enter into the details of my idea, I'd like to point out that I don't have a medical degree, and these mechanics are not necessarily 100% realistic. I'd be more than happy to receive suggestions from any medical professional in our community, as well as ideas from everyone else.
What would this mean for players?
- Players interaction would be affected, making a sick hearthling a danger for everyone. Having an ill individual in your village would require quick response before everyone gets infected
What would the consequences of catching a disease be?
- Similarly to infections, diseases would affect hitpoints and get worse if left untreated. Diseases could have stages, meaning not only you keep losing hitpoints, but you also get new symptoms (as in negative bonuses to stats for example) the further it progresses. Death should be the ultimate consequence of not treating a disease, but it should be slow to come, allowing players time to deal with it. Such slowness would also make it easier to spread, since infected targets wouldn't just die in a day or two. There should be a visual component to it, allowing players to recognise you as a health risk.
What should the treatment be?
- We want diseases to have more depths than wounds, so ideally there should be two kinds of medicine: treatment and cure.
Treatments should be quite easy to craft, not much different than most medicine we have right now. A treatment would work similarly to Soap, removing the symptoms of a disease for a period of time; after that time, the symptoms come back. Some diseases could require a few applications of the treatment before most the symptoms (malus) vanish.
Treatments are a temporary solution to the problem. The host would become less contagious, and the disease should not progress while the treatment is active. We still want SOME malus related to a treated disease, or people will just spam treatment and never bother with a proper cure.
A cure would be a permanent removal of the disease. It should be something expensive, maybe requiring rare components like Ancient Roots or similar items that decay, prevent anyone from stockpiling it. The cure should decay over time, if not applied. Application should work similarly to most medicines, having the disease slowly fade away.
A cure could make you immune to the same disease for a period of time, preventing you to catch it again for a few weeks.
This distinction would allow anyone to craft a treatment, and survive long enough to either craft a cure or trade for it.
What kind of diseases are we talking about?
- Infectious diseases, mostly. We want something that isn't just another wound, it must be able to spread to others. We could consider different "levels" of diseases, depending on the source. Rarer sources should bring rarer (and more deadly) diseases. I'd suggest airborne diseases, making it easier to explain how they can spread to anyone around you.
What could cause you catching a disease?
- I see mostly two options: contact with a carrier, or having a weak immune system (*more details below)
Carriers could be some animals (famously rats, fleas, and birds, but why not some larger ones too, even trolls), or an infected hearthling. Handling such animals would have a chance of infecting you. Carriers could also be decaying bodies, like the corpses of animals left there for too long (or cabinets of death, like those filled with dead rabbits and chickens).
*What does "a weak immune system" mean?
- This would be a new feature, a sort of health bar that shows you how prone to illnesses you are. Your gameplay would affect your immune system; prolonged absence of sunlight, a diet that doesn't include most food groups, severe wounds and infections, other health effects like poisoning (adder/quicksilver) or starvation, would all be things that reduce your "immune system bar". On the contrary, a healthy diet and plenty of sunlight could help restore it. Low energy could contribute to lower the immune system, while high energy would restore it faster.
What needs to be avoided'
- Despite the title, diseases shouldn't be exactly like the plague. We want it to spread fast, but not kill fast, in order to allow players the time to react to it. It's not supposed to be easy to get completely rid of it, which is why cures should be expensive, but we don't want players to feel like they are doomed if they get one and can't afford a cure immediately, which is why treatments should be considerably cheap.
We don't want extended immunity after a cure is applied, or in 6 months we would see most players being immune to everything.
Players shouldn't be able to forcibly infect someone (no bio-warfare). Infection should be a random event, when standing close to an infected character (working like chances of being aggroed by an hostile animal, but maybe less likely).
What else do diseases bring to the table?
- Medicine would become a lot more relevant than it is now. The Medic role could become a thing, and with it a whole new credo could come. New tools could be implemented (like a plague's doctor mask, to prevent/reduce risk of infection when dealing with sick people, or a syringe to inject a cure). New plants could be introduced, especially bushes and herbs, making foraging even more important and turning gardening and bushes' planting into something more relevant. Interaction between villagers could get an interesting twist once a few get infected.
Last but not least, it would bring a new component to the survival aspect of the game. Especially for crafters, there is almost no risk out there. Starvation is barely a thing, animals are easily avoidable (so are dungeons), and high-sea travel is quite safe with knarrs. PvP is the only real risk for anyone, but living inside your village's walls keeps you safe from it most of the time.
