Hopelessness

[Captain Australia]

In my life, I've learned a lot about hope. I'm a stage 4 cancer survivor, and although I was given six months to live, and yet somehow beat the disease (8 years ago), it ate away at my hope and my sense of place.

I was able to rebuild that, come back to life, long story (so far have walked roughly 12,000km around Australia, alone and unassisted dressed as a superhero for a kids cancer research charity), but in many ways that act of surrender allowed kindness (the antidote to sorrow) and hope (the absolute magic that makes anything possible) fill in the empty spaces.

Ages ago, I played a game called Lord of the Rings online, and it had a mechanic around hope - positive and everything was better, negative and performance slipped away.

My hapless non-survivor found and has been reading a skill book, and I noticed he was taking about an hour to read a page, which seemed dramatically slower than before. First reaction was "jeez mate, what's the glitch now ?!" because a while back he couldnt drink from sinks thanks to a mod conflict.

At first I thought .. oh he's reading in dim light. He can't read at all in darkness (was hunched in a basement reading by flashlight) .. that's a cool mechanic, dim light must slow down reading.

Then I realised .. oh, the poor bugger is miserable, he's lost all hope (funny, because reading a good book is the in-game remedy, and at a page an hour he really can't be bothered).

I'm sure it's a known thing to the player base (or I'm completely off track) that hopelessness slows everything down, but I quite like that mechanic, and I also like how it's kinda hidden away, and reveals a flaw in my own thinking - the first assumption that some boofhead broke something, when it's actually probably working normally and I'm the boofhead.

EDIT:
For anybody curious or not in the know - can confirm. Got non-survivor to read a comic book (Gorilla Truckerz Volume 81) and it cheered him up considerably. Once perked up, the rate of skill book reading (and sifting through his backpack) was back to normal.

[kingmagma111]

Depression moodle has an effect? I just ignored it. It's annoying. Cool that it does though, I agree, makes sense. Way to easy to get it though.

[Buscemi]

Also transfering items takes an eternity when the character is sad. Which makes perfect sense to me, as someone suffering from depression. Tidying up your place can be the hardest thing.

[Captain Australia]

Yeah, I'm pretty much gravy at the moment (although after a christmas break have to get back on the road in northwest part of Australia in the middle of cyclone season - so gorging myself of computer games while still at home) - but having gone through some pretty profound grief, loss and sorrow, it seems completely realistic to be standing there taking a half hour to move a few cans from cupboard A to cupboard B, and then to lose your trail of thought and forget what you were doing.

I might be off-base, but my sense is the tiers of sadness moodle each have escalating impact, on any action taken, slowing it down ...

Like - sad = 10% slower ranging to hopeless 100% slower, rando numbers example as 52% of statistics are made up on the spot

[Buscemi]

Yea I don't know the exact numbers but it seems about right! :) It has been a thing in PZ for a while, I remember it since I started playing over a decade ago.

[p3st|cIdE]

managing my ch's random sadness spurts can seem like a chore sometimes, but usually it comes from some halfway-sensible in-game repercussion from something I made the ch do... usually either hanging out near corpses, killing lots of zeds (way too many usually), looting corpses, or the most dreaded thing of all... just hanging out indoors, sifting thru containers, which gets ch so bored ch becomes saddened.
I didn't realize managing needs was such a fun mechanic. It's actually pretty easy to find a carton of ice cream or a comic book when I push my ch too far, and it gives me a reason to prefer to do things outside, which isn't such a problem once you understand why. Sunshine and fresh air must be mood boosters.

[p3st|cIdE]

I have set up a special book-reading chair outside on the balcony, with a lamp so I can read at night. I just climb out the window there to read books.

[p3st|cIdE]

on a prior playthrough, it was raining constantly, I set up a reading area under a porch, that's fine too. It just can't be indoors, inside walls.