Changing How Bleed Works

[Why Watt]

So currently bleed is handled as such:
A way to slowly whittle things down, prevent them from running away lest they bleed out, force them to stand and fight, and often an annoying, painful game of 'lets wait and see if I die or live.' Bleed resistance is a stat which caps how much damage can ultimately be inflicted by Bleed, and Bleed Heal is how much bleed is healed every minute.

My idea would be to make Bleed behave, well, differently, because as it stands not only does it greatly assist in any tracking but it also stops anyone from actually fleeing a fight. Say two Allos duke it out and things arent going well, neither can decide to abort because it will die to bleed if it tries to get away. In addition, fights involving bleed tend to be surrounding a target and just letting a lot of time go by between attacks you inflict. Its arduous and advantages dinos that do short-term damage. Also, even if you win a fight, you might simply bleed out, forced to sit there.

What I propose would be to make Bleed far more lethal in the short term, so increasing HP loss per tick, but each tick of bleed you take removes 1 bleed (bleed is always capped at 100). Tick frequency, as of now, occurs based on how much bleed you have, so naturally, higher level bleeds would very quickly become much lower, but those would then slowly wear off.

So how would this change? Well, dinosaurs that inflict bleed would now be able to dish out considerable damage, over the short term, instead of having to spend a hot minute baiting a prey item around. If the prey item manages to escape, it will quickly fall to very survivable levels of bleed, but of course, still be leaving a blood trail.

[Sargon The Grape]

I could see this working. Most dinosaurs can't inflict high bleed by themselves unless given a chance to repeatedly strike their target, so this gives loners a tracking mechanism and packs a way to end the fight quickly. If Giga ever gets that meat-grazing mechanic I've heard about, this would give it that extra "oomph" to compete with the other apex dinos.

[Kia]

Or you could adjust the lethality of a dino's bleed based on its preferred hunting method. So rexs/cerato bleed would have basically the same effect as it does now, mainly there for tracking whereas giga's bleed as you described would make things bleed out very quickly. The difference with that being that gigas would only have to apply the bleed once or twice to take down large creatures.

If I understand this correctly this would mean either things that are supposed to fight with base damage (cerato, rex, etc.) would need a bleed nerf or this could potentially make them EVEN MORE OP than they already are.

Another issue is it might make bleeder dinos disproportionately challenging. Allos/dilos/gigas are way more fragile than the tankier counterparts of their 'tier' so because they have to continuously stack the bleed in rapid succession, there's no margin for error but a lot of opportunities for you to ♥♥♥♥ up. Plus, if a rex isn't going to die from one stack of 3 bleed from a giga, it could just put itself up against a wall and be completely invincible. Depending on how lethal we're talking here I could support the idea since I'm not opposed to one hunting style being more high-skill than another.

[Evil Minіоn]

I think there should be something like "bleeding out your prey over a long period of time" instead of just turning bleed into a short term DoT. Other than that I agree on more upfront damage on bleed as it is simply more fun for attacker and victim.

Maybe the system could be combined with one that was mentioned on stream - not having a DoT but instead just dropping blood for easier tracking and (not explicitly mentioned there) preventing you from healing.

The whole thing also has synergies with other bleed ideas like the cap on bleed per bite (which aims to balance out lethality and "big game hunting" capabilities) and giving blood its own health bar (so taking more direct damage doesn't make you bleed faster).

In combination those could probably avoid the concerns voiced above.

[Rotiart]

I had a much similar idea a long while ago, Wyatt. I agree with your post alot. My own idea was that bleed should do a lot of damage, and have severely reduced heal while standing, however sprinting, walking, and jogging wouldn't do much extra damage at all from just baseline standing. Standing up from sitting will deal a large amount of damage tied to how much you're bleeding, so you won't have players sitting down, standing up, sitting down, etc, and if they escape, being able to sit down without the bonus damage would play into the whole idea of escaping being a more viable option. This will encourage things that are being bled to not just kamikaze and try to get away instead, as well as making confrontation less tedious should the animal getting bled decide to not run. Of course, the trade off is bleed should do just about no damage whatsoever when sitting and healing, so you won't escape a bleeder then just die 10 minutes later.

Another idea entirely would be to have bleed prevent healing, help tracking, do a very small amount of DoT, but the more the target is bleeding, you get a bonus damage against the target. I feel like this isn't as good of an idea, being as it throws the current meta out the window almost entirely.

[Why Watt]

Originally posted by Evil Minіоn:

I think there should be something like "bleeding out your prey over a long period of time" instead of just turning bleed into a short term DoT. Other than that I agree on more upfront damage on bleed as it is simply more fun for attacker and victim.

Maybe the system could be combined with one that was mentioned on stream - not having a DoT but instead just dropping blood for easier tracking and (not explicitly mentioned there) preventing you from healing.

The whole thing also has synergies with other bleed ideas like the cap on bleed per bite (which aims to balance out lethality and "big game hunting" capabilities) and giving blood its own health bar (so taking more direct damage doesn't make you bleed faster).

In combination those could probably avoid the concerns voiced above.

Bleed wouldn't last a short period, rather, high levels would last a short period and quickly, in a natural way, recede to lower values. Taking 100 bleed from a Giga on a T.rex, rn, is problematic but not the end of the world... whereas in this system that initial 100 bleed would in very short order fall to something like 20 bleed, dealing a pretty substantial amount of damage in that timeframe, bc again, each tick doing more bleed damage but each tick heals one tick. Therefore given ticks are higher frequency at high bleed, weak dinos would probably instantly die to 100 bleed, say, two Dilos decide to munch one another... but survive the initial moment and you will quickly get to a bleed level that can be survived.
But yeah, synergy with systems like you propose such as a bleed cap would improve such a design change.

Originally posted by Chaotic:

Or you could adjust the lethality of a dino's bleed based on its preferred hunting method. So rexs/cerato bleed would have basically the same effect as it does now, mainly there for tracking whereas giga's bleed as you described would make things bleed out very quickly. The difference with that being that gigas would only have to apply the bleed once or twice to take down large creatures.

If I understand this correctly this would mean either things that are supposed to fight with base damage (cerato, rex, etc.) would need a bleed nerf or this could potentially make them EVEN MORE OP than they already are.

Another issue is it might make bleeder dinos disproportionately challenging. Allos/dilos/gigas are way more fragile than the tankier counterparts of their 'tier' so because they have to continuously stack the bleed in rapid succession, there's no margin for error but a lot of opportunities for you to ♥♥♥♥ up. Plus, if a rex isn't going to die from one stack of 3 bleed from a giga, it could just put itself up against a wall and be completely invincible. Depending on how lethal we're talking here I could support the idea since I'm not opposed to one hunting style being more high-skill than another.

Having different types of bleed would be pretty pointless, while yes it serves a purpose, lower level bleeding for tracking would be as simple as giving dinosaurs who are not meant to rely on bleed, well, lower bleed values. T.rex & cerato already do this; They do not dish out much bleed at all, and that bleed would not do much damage.... each tick healing off the limited amount they'd do.

Meanwhile a Giga, Dilo, Stego etc? That would be incredibly dangerous amounts of bleed, going in line with some statements on stream like "You now have a 2m hole in your chest, congratulations, your dead."

@mentions of the "bleed that stops HP regen but doesnt do a DoT" as Rotiart meantions this ♥♥♥♥♥ all over the viability of almost every dinosaur. From a logical premise bleed isn't something that is passive, or minor. If any animal is bleeding a lot, regardless how amazing its ability to heal itself is, it will die before its body has time to mend. Quite frankly I just, don't like it in the slightest.

[Kia]

That basically amounts to the same thing I was suggesting, you're right it's just simpler. I'd be fine with giving bleed in general a lethality buff, then significantly nerfing the 'crusher' dinos, rex and cerato and to a lesser degree things like carno and diablo bleed. As of right now, 3 bleed isn't as much of a death sentence as it should be standing to certain creatures.

Cerato is really the only one I can understand, considering their stamina, hunger and speed are all utter crap so yeah you can't kill them but you have to be AFK to be caught by one anyway.

I think 2 bleed should be enough to make most dinosaurs be like 'okay, I need to sit down' with the exceptions of things that are meant to be exceptionally tanky, like cerato, maybe spino in the future. 3 bleed is 'okay imminent death I need to sit NOW'. If 3 bleed wears off too quickly it just leads to the problems I addressed; giga and allo being disproportionately more skill-based than their tankier counterparts, creatures being able to use trees/rocks and be invincible etc.

I think a fair solution to the current bleed problem is just giving bleed in general a buff, but nerfing the amount of bleed all dinos do per bite. So instead of a giga giving a rex 3 bleed in 3-4 bites like it does now it would be more like 7+, but once the rex is at 3 bleed its pretty much game over.

[Dimitris]

maybe the time you take to lose bleed lvls aswell
for example it should be faster to go from 100 to 60 than for 40 to 0 since the less the bleed the easier it is to survive with it and it becomes more of a tracking devise

[Why Watt]

Originally posted by dimi:

maybe the time you take to lose bleed lvls aswell
for example it should be faster to go from 100 to 60 than for 40 to 0 since the less the bleed the easier it is to survive with it and it becomes more of a tracking devise

dimi... That is literally part of the idea, idk how you missed that when I mentioned it several times in the OP & replies.

In The Isle... all a higher level of bleed normally does is, well, do ticks more often, aka, you take the dmg from bleed more often than you do otherwise. Low level bleed only does ticks... slowly.

So, Dimi, logic would dictate that at higher bleed, say 100, the frequency being so high and the core of my idea being each tick = - 1 bleed, but each "tick" being more dmg, ofc you would drop from 100 to 60 faster than 40 to 0. Its common sense!

[Dimitris]

yeah didnt plan on reading 3 paragraphs sunday night got lots of work for tomorow but i generaly agree with the idea