Sakinoko

Marshy and Oktyabr have good ideas and input, and I would honestly love to see the zombies be a bigger threat which would naturally cause people to be more likely to work together than be apart. The concept of this has been suggested numerous times though, and Rocket has said he likes the concept of the humans being the real threat and the zombies just being a minor, but constant, side problem in this world. I think this is why Rocket was interested in this idea of some sort of mental aspect with possible drugs (and their side effects). It doesn't rely on removing the human threat element, but it does add more depth to the game. A lot of arguments for the emotional aspect should only be between keyboard and chair is a good one, however, it really doesn't seem like adding more tension with more mechanics would ruin that... at least to me. I agree that the game is great as is, but would adding depth to it really make it less great? If you have to maintain a character's mental health does that detract from the game? I honestly feel that since we aren't personally in this situation it's a good simulation of handling if we were (regardless of how some people might think they'd handle it). Our characters are not ourselves, they are a template for us to project portions of ourselves onto, but they will never be truly us. We cant all fly and repair helicopters, jump out and take a crack shot at someone's head from 500 meters away, and then build a car from scrap parts we found (and carry around with us); since we can do that in game perhaps we can also have mental issues in game too? My opinion still stands, Budiak has the most balanced suggestion and it really adds something to the game without going crazy on one group or another.

I wont comment again on this as it is not within the spirit of the post, but I felt this needed some clarification. If you want to discuss it further make a post of your own (and point me to it) or PM me and we can go at it there. I love a good debate, I hate hijacking someone else's thread. I assure you there is no mention in my arguments or rant of how you or others would react to any particular situation. I merely stated how I would crack regardless of my current willingness to be alone. My mention of your statement about the African refugees was not as sweeping or as judgmental as I think you have taken it. I said that they are more accustomed to things akin a post-apocalyptic world because of their hardship' date=' which would better equip them for such events. I never mentioned that they would absolutely be able to handle any situation better than anyone from the western world, or that they would all handle it equally. I never told you (or anyone else for that matter) who you are or what you're capable of, I only said don't fool yourself into believing you know how you'd handle an apocalypse, until one has happened. As you say this was a rant, I made no argument's here so I dunno what argument you took from it. My initial post was only to say I love the new alteration Budiak made, the rest was just a rant about those on these forums who say "I could run around and kill people all day if this really happened, and I wouldn't feel two ways about it!" -- I say, once you've done it, then tell me how well you could do it, until then stop fooling yourselves. Hope this clears up my previous post a little and now, ON WITH THE MECHANICS DEBATE!

Because it is in hopes that this mod will become something more than it currently is (heck these suggestions could go into DayZ the game someday!) with more ways of identifying someone as friendly, to prevent friendly on friendly violence accidents. Salute is all well and good, but it doesn't put your weapon out of my face to let me know you don't intend to shoot after that salute. This is a small way of giving people other options, plus if someone approaches you holstered, you're much less likely to shoot them (unless you already intended to) than if they run up to you, gun raised, to throw up a salute. They'd probably be dead before they even reached you lol.

First I will say I was on-board with a version of the original idea, but Budiak definitely changed my mind on the whole concept and brought up an excellent suggestion as a way of dealing with the system. Too complex and probably not possible are words that come to my mind, but its still a way better idea to have a more dynamic system as described. (Below belongs in psychology forums, but I felt like writing it here anyway) Secondly -- to all you loners, emo kids, and anti-social folks who say they would thrive (without a doubt) in a post-apocalyptic world, devoid of all your current frivolities and wondrous technologies, give it a rest. I love being away from people and being alone just as much as the next anti-social guy, but in all honesty if a devastating plague, war, etc hit and all I knew was destroyed, all my friends/family gone, all my video games, tv shows, cell phone, air conditioning was all gone even I'd crack a little and need to find others that survived like I did. This world would make you harder and you'd lose a lot of that old humanity, but it wouldn't happen on day 1 or day 365, maybe after 5 years of wandering the wastelands, avoiding zombies, killer bandits, and killing a few people yourself (with a rusty knife watching their life seep from their eyes) then you can talk about how well you'd handle a lone wolf situation. Someone made mention of life in places like Africa, now those people would be more suited to an apocalypse. They are accustomed to death, destruction, and loss, but they didn't get that way overnight, they got that way being in that situation for hundreds (hell thousands) of years. So for those of you fooling yourselves into thinking you're super soldier Rambo and a post-apocalyptic world would be right at home for you, get back on your interwebs, read and write on the forums how cool you are, and think about a child in Africa or some other terrible place in the world. /rant

I think you didn't read the post, there was a suggestion of a cap in the amount of time you could be locked out, not a never ending, progressively worse, lockout. Also I made the suggestion that this lockout timer resets daily and is only meant to make death harsher to make people consider their actions more firmly before committing to running around sprinting through towns. Everyone will quit you say, for not being able to play for a few hours (which only happens if you are so terrible at the game you die 13 times in the same day)? I wouldn't quit, and I'm pretty sure the OP wouldn't quit, are we not part of everyone? I believe if a person dies that many times in the first day of a character they probably wont stick around regardless as the game is too hardcore for them.

Well you're just making more of a case for this timer with every post, if we give you a death timer you cant immediately return and start PK'ing just cause you died to a glitch, and this might give you the time needed to calm down. And if you decide you NEED to play NOW and kill someone then you buy another ARMA key and Bohemia makes more money.... WIN WIN! I like the idea personally, it does exactly as stated, makes life more valuable so people think harder about their actions and is light enough to account for learning curve and glitches. If a zombie glitches through a barrel and kills you, you have to wait 8 seconds, is that really too much for you to handle? If this happens 15 times in the same day then it's more a question of if the glitches are ruining your day (by making you wait) or if you're too dumb to not hide behind barrels when zombies are chasing you as you learned with your previous deaths.

I'm on-board with this idea completely, a slight delay between drawing and firing as a side bonus would definitely allow non-hostiles to show their intent, and would make hostiles at least think about how to approach a situation to where they can draw their weapon and kill without being shot first. This will honestly only delay a kill by making you talk to someone before you gain their confidence, redraw your weapon (for the coming fights as a team of course), and blow their brains out while you let them lead you around. That delay alone is enough to make me feel like "I was an idiot for trusting this guy" rather than "welp I better shoot him before he gets a good sight picture on my head" while he's typing "friendly?!" On the flip side this also makes everyone seriously consider their approach to others, if they come in hostile the person will be ready to blast their ass, but if they come in disarmed the other person may just be a bandit too, and blow their ass away. Fixing local voice chat will go a long way to helping this mechanic, if you meet someone around a corner and you both have guns drawn you could easily run around the corner, say friendly in local voice and come back out weapon holstered to show intent. Also perhaps adding a bonus to holstering in which you can move slightly better so if you do holster and things go south you can possibly escape the situation. This also has the effect of allowing you to move around the world with your weapon holstered to move easier, however there is still that delay which makes you seriously consider how you approach every situation.

I like the idea of a mental status, both to encourage cooperation and to discourage rampant killing sprees... I like the idea that every murder in cold blood should affect a person's mental stability (though the murder mechanics would have to be HEAVILY worked on before this would work) and that isolation should have a much lesser, but tangible effect. The idea of someone muttering to themselves after long periods of isolation doesn't seem extremely disruptive (although it does seem realistic, even I've muttered to myself on a 40 hour solo car trip), and after very long periods of it a light dementia setting in (a la castaway) that would be subtle, yet still give a certain desire to control. This would not severely punish lone wolves, but would make it realistically necessary to find other ways of maintaining their sanity when isolated from others for so long other than just running around in the woods and occasional towns. The idea that there are more than one means of dealing with this could also ease the tension of lone wolf players as they don't feel like it's find drugs or be crazy. Drugs could be the stronger solution that works for longer periods, but can have either a dependency mechanic or a side effect mechanic when taking too many or taking them for so long. The drugs could allow the player to go longer periods without any problems from the isolation, and could also bring them back from a much further deteriorated state of mental health. The other option could be less medicinal and more like tangible objects (photos of a happy place, luck rabbit foot, hell a teddy bear) that would lessen the effects of mental decline, but at a much reduced rate with no side effects like drugs. There is also the argument that over time a person who holds on to their lucky rabbit foot or what have you will grow too attached to the object and suffer other mental trauma's associated with it (or its loss), but that is more for a psychology forum than a game forum.