Critical injuries mechanic rework suggestion

[FranticDan]

Here's my ideas for what I feel would be an improvement to the critical injury system.

1) Being at full health gives you 100% critical immunity:
It is infuriating to get a stun, broken leg etc on the very first hit when at full health.

2) Make critical locations logical:
Can someone explain to me why my character was born with their brain in their leg? Getting stunned/concussed by a crawler makes zero sense!
How did that vulture give me a broken leg by pecking at my face?

3) Critical stages / Progressive injuries: 
Getting a break, concussion, laceration without the lessor injuries is unforgiving.
I'd like to see a progressive critical system. Examples:
Sore leg/arm > Sprained leg/arm > Broken leg/arm
Bruise > Abrasion > Bleeding > Deep laceration > Bleeding 2
Sore head > Stun (Sore head stage 2)> Concussion
Winded > Fatigue

First stage criticals are just warnings, they don't have any negative affects (including zero chance of giving infection) and allow for stage 2 to trigger if another trigger occurs for that critical type while stage 1 debuff is active.

4) Max health loss to make more sense. Also, to be % based, instead of whole number based:
First point: in the early game, a critical injury cuts off max health by a LOT, having 3 criticals is minus 75 max health, leaving only 25. Having max health loss be % based instead will help reduce the large loss in the early game, but will also make them just as hurtful when max health is 200.

Second point: It makes no logical sense that a sprained arm/leg and broken arm/leg lowers max health by the same amount. Lessor criticals should be halved.
Example: sprained arm/leg lowers max health by 8% and breaks by 16%.

[Riamus]

Regarding #3, I think this should be more circumstance based than tier based.  If you fall from 30m, you should be getting a broken arm or leg (at the least) instead of a sprain or sore arm/leg.  And even for normal attacks from certain stronger enemies or perhaps even if attacked from behind, I can see jumping to the top tier injuries.  But I do agree that profession for injuries in some cases makes more sense.

[FranticDan]

9 hours ago, Riamus said:

Regarding #3, I think this should be more circumstance based than tier based.  If you fall from 30m, you should be getting a broken arm or leg (at the least) instead of a sprain or sore arm/leg.  And even for normal attacks from certain stronger enemies or perhaps even if attacked from behind, I can see jumping to the top tier injuries.  But I do agree that profession for injuries in some cases makes more sense.

My idea of progressive criticals is through physical hits by enemies, other criticals caused by the player like falling is not what I had in mind here. I fully agree that criticals from falling, or drinking dirty water etc are to remain the way it is now.

In regards to stronger zombies, I will say at the very least, we should NEVER EVER get a critical hit when above 90% health, even more so when at full health.
I've lost count the amount of times I've gotten a critical from the very first hit in a new playthrough, and it's purely rage inducing!

Many many times I've gotta a broken arm/leg instantly from a hit, and the text above my toolbelt saying I have a SPRAIN, like the game has clearly bypassed the sprain, given me a break and says I got a sprain first before then saying I have a break right after.

[Riamus]

11 hours ago, FranticDan said:

My idea of progressive criticals is through physical hits by enemies, other criticals caused by the player like falling is not what I had in mind here. I fully agree that criticals from falling, or drinking dirty water etc are to remain the way it is now.

In regards to stronger zombies, I will say at the very least, we should NEVER EVER get a critical hit when above 90% health, even more so when at full health.
I've lost count the amount of times I've gotten a critical from the very first hit in a new playthrough, and it's purely rage inducing!

Many many times I've gotta a broken arm/leg instantly from a hit, and the text above my toolbelt saying I have a SPRAIN, like the game has clearly bypassed the sprain, given me a break and says I got a sprain first before then saying I have a break right after.

I'm not sure if they've done fixes for it yet, but I know they were having a bug initially in A21 with criticals happening when they shouldn't.  I think that you aren't supposed to get a critical at 100%, though I think it's meant to be possible at anything under 100%, even 99%.  So that isn't what you want but at least they don't seem to intend for you to get a critical at 100%, which is the main issue, I think.  And since you're not supposed to get multiple criticals from a single hit, when that is fixed, maybe that will create that progression in cases where you're seeing sprain followed by break when it immediately goes to break.  Not sure.

 

I agree with you about that being an issue.