zuel

Just returned to DayZ after a long hiatus. It's still brilliant, but a couple of changes for the worse became quickly apparent. The first was the dramatically underpowered 9mm rounds, making them almost useless, but that's for another thread. The second was infection. I appreciate the concept behind infection. Prior to infection a suitably equipped survivor could avoid towns, zombies and most other players indefinitely. Having a mechanic that forces them into town - and into danger - is clever. But the mechanic as it stands is an enjoymnent killer, as many above have mentioned. Becoming infected now is effectively a death sentence, with the cost/benefit of securing anti-biotics within an hour making restarting a cheaper option. That's not a good gameplay mechanic. An infection that is 1) so easily caught, and 2) which kills in 60 minutes, and 3) can only be cured via an incredibly rare and difficult to acquire item, is three hard hitters in one. The revised mechanic suggested by R4Z0R is an improvement, but not enough of one. It only tempers the first of the three hard hitters. There are many revisions that could make it work though, by tempering one or all three to some degree. For example, make infection less likely. Or make it easier to prevent before it sets in. Or make it kill over 24 hours rather than 1. Or (my preferred) have infection cap your blood at 6000 until cured, making you generally more vulnerable. Or make antibiotics more commonly available. Hope infection remains in the game, but is tweaked to perform its role as a force driving people out of the wilderness on occassion. I think it can be done.

@ZedsDeadBaby - I love the idea of player-mediated reputation management. A bottom-up approach like this would clearly be superior to skin morphing. However, if such a system proved too difficult to implement, I still believe skin morphing could work as an effective reputation signalling mechanism. Not the only possible one, but a simple extension to the old system Rocket implemented.

Why are NPCs never going to happen? The zombies are NPCs, of sorts. Having a small military base fits with the post-apocalyptic theme: an outpost sent to contain the outbreak. They're hostile to all. It essentially ads another environmental threat (albeit a big one) to the game, with a reward for overcoming it.

I frankly don't think the realism argument that skins shouldn't "magically" change holds in this case. The bandit skin is a game mechanic that represents an element that is sorely missing at the moment: the ability to monitor reputation. In reality, we'd likely find other ways to manage reputation. But in the game world, we need to abstract. That's how games work. Wearing a bandit or militia skin is an example of costly signalling (look it up - useful concept) that can aid in encouraging cooperation in the game. Hence the suggestion. And of course the mechanic would have to be improved. But that's an implementation problem, which is separate to a discussion about the principle.

You really read that suggestion as a whinge about finding friendly players? Really?

(Not sure if it's been suggested yet - I've scanned a few pages of the forum and not seen it so far. If it has, count this as a vote in its favour.) To add to the post-apocalyptic environment, how about adding a small military base on the fringe of the map, manned by AI NPCs, that shoots any zombies or players on sight. The base would respawn its NPCs gradually over time, but at a rate that makes it theoretically possible for a well equipped group to raid it. The prize would be the military loot, and possible a military vehicle or two. High risk/high reward, and a good goal for end-game players and groups. Thoughts?

(Not sure if it's been suggested yet - I've scanned a few pages of the forum and not seen it so far. If it has, count this as a vote in its favour.) Currently all weapons operate at 100% functionality. That's not only wonderfully unrealistic, but misses out on another potential dimension to gameplay: weapon condition. If weapon condition could be implemented (it apparently exist in other ArmA II mods), it could represent the chance that a weapon will misfire, requiring a reload action to clear. This percentage would be very low for military weapons (say <0.5%), low for civilian weapons (say <1%) and would degrade slowly over time/shots. The rate could be set to realistic levels, but I don't have the numbers on hand. Condition could also vary randomly within a range when the weapon is spawned. This could perhaps be represented by a coloured bar on the weapon icon in the inventory. Improving the condition of weapons could be achieved with a new gun cleaning kit that is a rare civilian spawn and medium/rare military spawn. It could also be made as a consumable rather than reusable tool. In terms of gameplay, it would make combat a bit more edgy and risky, and make weapon maintenance more important. It would also make cleaning kits highly valuable, thus encouraging people to take risks acquiring them. Thoughts?

(Not sure if it's been suggested yet - I've scanned a few pages of the forum and not seen it so far. If it has, count this as a vote in its favour.) Auto bandit skinning is an excellent device to improve the cooperative dynamics in the game, if properly implemented. I'd like to add to this mechanic by suggesting a third skin: militia. This is the opposite of bandit, representing someone with high levels of humanity, i.e. someone who has killed several bandits without murdering. Certainly, it'd be difficult to achieve, but it would strongly signal that someone is a trustworthy cooperator in-game. It would also make them a high profile target for bandits, adding to the fun. Background: I happen to be a philosopher of biology studying the evolutionary dynamics of cooperation, and signalling is a powerful device enabling populations to rise above the Nash equilibrium of mutual defection (i.e. the rampant shoot-on-sight mentality we see at the moment). Reputation is one very effective way of signalling trustworthiness and enabling indirect reciprocity and cooperation. Skinning seems a great way of facilitating that, but at the moment we only have two modalities (if the feature ever returns): 'neutral' and 'hostile'. Adding a third for 'friendly' would significantly improve cooperation. It would also give 'good' players something to aim for, as receiving the militia skin would encourage others to team with them, particularly other militia, making them more effective than running solo. Thoughts?