Ok, first I'll say that I'm very new to this game, and I think one of the big problems is that FAR too much time is spent running around with nothing, searching building after building, finding nothing. I seriously just spent 2 hours running around w/ no map, searching building after building and found a few cans of soda, some bandages, and an empty 1911. That's not even enough to sustain. It's just irritating as hell to repeatedly find a pile of empty cans. So, of COURSE you're going to kill on sight are you kidding me? I just spent 2 hours and found nothing. I'd much rather yolo charge with the chance of getting some decent gear than just "friendly" the guy and hope he doesn't kill me. Even if I DO die, what have I lost? An empty 1911, 2 soda cans, and some bandages. Psh! On top of that, if you DO have gear, the bottom line is that you're not going to risk losing your stuff when you know there's a bunch of people out there not finding anything either. You're like a walking treasure chest. What, you're going to just cross your fingers that the guys not gonna shoot you, and send you back to square one? Point being: item scarcity PERIOD is the cause of the global kos policy. Why? Because it doesn't take half a brain to figure out that you're going to get way sicker gear, and have way more fun if you just merc up on the other players in the game, rather than endlessly droning around from empty can pile to empty can pile. Even if you do die, who cares? You had nothing to lose anyways. Also, it sucks 100 times worse to lose all the stuff you just spent 5 hours finding because some guy w/ a mak happened to catch you off guard. If you looted your stuff, you really don't care as much because you didn't scrounge for hours trying to find it. In my opinion, what they really need to do is change the way the items spawn entirely. Item spawns shouldn't be limited to certain specific places, like they are now. Of course, they would have to limit the volume hugely, but it's simply not fun to run from one farm, through a humongous forest, to another farm, and only encounter a few item spawns, which mostly have totally useless things. Ideally, if you play for 2 hours, you should have, at the very least, a decent amount of ammo, and supplies to sustain yourself without having to run through a really busy area. Far, far too much of the map is filled with useless fluff, which only serves as a trap for noobs who don't know that only certain areas are even worth visiting. This effect is exacerbated when you don't start with a map, and have zero idea where you are. These vast useless areas not only create a time-wasting noob snare, they funnel experienced players into the limited number of useful places. So fine, I can go into some busy city trying to find gear, and escape before someone unleashes montezumas revenge on me, but then what is the point of the egregious amount useless space between the few useful places other than to force me to spend literally hours traversing the map? Surely, there can be a better use for it's existence than causing players to spend time gaining nothing. Why shoulnd't I be able to find a few things on the way? Hell, maybe I find a rifle out in the woods on a very rare occasion. Maybe if it wasn't so difficult to find anything players wouldn't be constantly kos-ing out of pure desperation when they know they'd be lucky to find a can of beans in the next 20 minutes of scrounging. Reworking the item spawns could open up so many different kinds of metagame, and while players should feel desperate and greedy, at least then they could be confident that they'll find something useful while scrounging outside of big cities instead of just killing everyone they see.
