finnpalm

The problem isn't that people are shooting each other in DayZ SA. The problem is that so many are doing it. I (and many others) would simply prefer to see a better balance between the two.

It's great to have books in the game, because if you're playing hardcore and on a server with a 1:1 time ratio (ie not server hopping, not playing on a fixed time of day server, not turning gamma up to see better in the dark) and you decide to wait for dawn, it's less boring if you have a book to read. Keeps you from going crazy with boredom. Also if they can be used to light fires in the future that's neat too. And if they introduce the need to take a dump and piss every now and then you can wipe your ass with the pages. Yay for books! :thumbsup:

Chill out. Kick back. Smoke a splint. Did I get that right? :huh: EDIT: I just got a hilarious image in my head of someone who's broken every bone in their body and this medic goes "I've got this!" and splints every freaking limb on the poor sod ending up in him walking like C3PO.

It doesn't matter if it's amateur armchair psychology. The Stanford Prison Experiment is valid, and we're all humans. Even if a professional psychologist might draw clearer and deeper conclusions from comparing DayZ to the SPE the effect is there. The point he's making at the end is valid. That the game in it's current state isn't thought through enough to create a realistic sandbox survival simulator. That might change once the game is finished however. Time will tell.

From my point of view the reason so many people KoS is: Currently zombies aren't that big of a threat. This in turn allows players to fairly safely scavenge for supplies and therefor easily survive, making survival also become a lesser threat. If zombies are created to be a bigger threat it will be harder to scavenge for supplies and surviving will be a bit trickier because you need to think and work harder to get a can of beans. And once you get that can you need to work harder to find something to open it with and even if you open it, finding a safe place to eat the beans will be trickier. In short, more numerous and aggressive zombies allow for an exponential scaling of the difficulty of the game. It's currently too easy. The fact that the game is a bit too easy leads to players getting bored, and looking for action elsewhere, namely in PvP. Which raises the number of players who utilize the KoS tactic. When someone who kill on sight say that they like playing that way it's often not because it's the only way they would potentially enjoy playing this game, but rather the only appealing way to play the game in it's current state. If or when the game changes the number of KoS-players will change along with it. It will never go away completely because those who actually just like to shoot other players will figure out a way to do it no matter if the game changes. And that's all fine. However, the current amount of players who kill on sight leads to it being very difficult to get into friendly interaction, and since players who would potentially enter a friendly situation are so wary of this, it eventually leads to resignation and "falling in line", resulting in freshspawns attacking everything they see with their fists and other strange behaviour. ----------------------- How to fix it: Well, I'm not going to pretend I have a definite answer or a fix up my sleeve, like some magician. But I would like to present my thoughts on the matter. More zombies. More aggressive zombies. More common loot (clothes, simple melee weapons, bandages or rags), and less rare loot (guns, military loot, ammunition). Rewards based on how long one manages to stay alive. One could also add (although this might make the exponential difficulty curve a lot steeper): Less food. More environmental hazards (other than the planned ones, like cardiac arrest, weather, diseases). Let me dwell on in what way these things would change the game: Apart from zombies which I covered above, more common loot would mean that you can faster get a simple melee weapon to defend yourself from zombies, clothes to shield you from the weather and bandages to stop bleeding. These are essential. Rewards for staying alive will help lower the amount of players with a deathwish which in turn will make fewer people get into a gunfight at the drop of a hat. More, and aggressive zombies will also help this to some extent since zombies are attracted to sound and movement. Less food and more environmental hazards will make the game even more difficult than it would potentially be with the prior additions detailed above, which will in turn make players more busy trying to stay alive just, and leaves less time to seek action, because there'll be enough action just staying fed and warm as is suitable for a survival simulator. All of the above will make it more rewarding to interact and maybe trade with other players. Not more rewarding than killing them and taking all their stuff instead of trading for a select few items, but more rewarding than it is now which will balance the two approaches better. Currently there is little gain in trying to trade with, give help to or trying to get help from other players because you can easily just scavenge the supplies needed on your own. But if guns were less common or ammo scarce people would more often take the friendly approach since it's so hard to try and assault someone with a crowbar and to interact in a friendly manner and potentially trade would be easier in such a case. -------------------------------- These are my thoughts on what changes to the game will affect player behaviour in what way. Luckily, most of those changes are on their way, and I have high hopes for this game. I love the idea of a hardcore survival simulator in a full PvP sandbox world and really hope they can pull this off.

I'm intrigued by that idea. So intrigued I'd like to see it tested out to figure out what it brings in terms of gaming experience. Yeah, they suck. I don't think anyone would reminisce about the good times when they had a heart attack. :lol:

What you're describing is not KoS. :)

Being able to get scurvy would be interesting to have in game. I'm all for it. Fresh fruit and vitamin bottles would prevent it. Symptoms (copied from Wikipedia): Early symptoms are malaise and lethargy. After 1–3 months, patients develop shortness of breath and bone pain. Myalgias may occur because of reduced carnitine production. Other symptoms include skin changes with roughness, easy bruising and petechiae, gum disease, loosening of teeth, poor wound healing, and emotional changes. Dry mouth and dry eyes similar to Sjögren's syndrome may occur. In the late stages, jaundice, generalized edema, oliguria, neuropathy fever, convulsions, and eventual death are frequently seen.

If I didn't want PvP, I wouldn't spend my money on a PvP-game. It's pretty simple really. If people are chased away from the game because of something that's a not a part of the game's nature, then that needs to be fixed. However if people are chased away from the game because of a part of the game's nature, then they've chosen the wrong game. In this case people are put off by the risk of getting shot, which is part of the game. People being put of by combat logging is an example of the former statement. It needs to be prevented.

Why does someone play this game if they don't like PvP? This is a full PvP-game. Choose a different game.

Explain to me how you play the game when not logged in, please. EDIT: And it's combat logging even if you're not planning to shoot them. Although I don't blame anyone for shooting someone who tries to log during a hold up.

Combat logging equals "not playing". What part of that do you not understand?

I had one person combat log on me and he laid down on the ground as I told him and then disappeared. So maybe I should instead say "This is a robbery. Spin in circles while standing up". There should be a more obvious way to tell if someone is logging is what I'm saying. EDIT: To all this blah blah blah play however you want. The problem is that a combat logger isn't playing the game. They're quitting. You can't play ball by walking off the field.

It's not like they get a notice that the person is logging. If you hold someone up and say don't move it's pretty easy for them to log without you knowing it, even if you're beside them pointing a gun at their head.

Yeah some people speculate that it is the same zombies as in the mod. Either way it is a step in the right direction, and they have said that it's a simple respawning mechanism that they're testing out. That sounds a whole lot like a wip, meaning even if it was the same zombies as in the mod it very well might not be when they're done with them. If they are using the same code I don't even see a problem with it. Otherwise it'd be like "Hey, my Maserati feels hella good in corners now 'cause of the grip on these new tires." "It's the same tires as on that old Lada over there." "Ffffffuuuuuuu.."

Take a guess: Am I talking about the mod, or the standalone? Points for most irrelevant post.

There are plenty more stuff being implemented other than hats and a farming hoe, if the experimental servers are anything to go by. I just now got chased by a shitload of zombies, faster and more aggressive than before. Had to drop my shotgun because it was empty and take out my revolver. Unloaded all kinds of hell on them but got swarmed and had to abandon my shotgun and run for cover to bandage. Then ran back down to the shotgun to pick it up. Got swarmed again, ran for cover to bandage again. Took me four tries just to pick up that shotgun. Thought I was gonna die. From zombies. When did you ever think you'd die from zombies last time? Ran into the woods and logged out, because I had to calm down a bit. What a rush!

This is all speculative. We don't know the exact deal Rocket has with Bohemia. We don't know what his paycheck looks like, or if he receives any bonuses, or if he got a one time sum or what. You're also assuming he didn't have the money saved to start his own studio even before he started to work with Bohemia on SA. Maybe he just didn't feel that the time was right yet? Basically there are so many what ifs and maybes that factor into this speculation that it is indeed pointless. I can, just off the top of my head, think of at least five scenarios that are plausible, although neither of them have been considered in this thread. It's all just "mimimi Dean stole all my monies".

Ah, so it's "light" beer. I thought it was some russian soda.

Yeah. This is a sandbox game. Your imagination sets the limits. I chose to explore. Check out all the nice scenery. It's pretty neat when you're strolling through the woods and suddenly - castle ruins that you can fall and break your legs on! Fortunately I had morphine and there were sticks on the roof to make a splint out of. By the way, does anyone know if your legs heal completely from morphine or only temporary? Because I noticed that I can still "fix broken legs" with a splint after taking morphine. It would make sense if that was the case. Like, you're able to walk on a broken leg while on morphine, but when it wears off you'll still need that splint.

It would be great if there were a server where you can actually test the new features for bugs and glitches without getting killed. Like for example enable god mode or something? I would love to contribute by reporting bugs and glitches and whatnot, but it takes forever to do that when players kill on sight even on the experimental servers. Make no mistake, I love the pvp on the regular servers, and I truly want people to have the choice to kill anything and everyone there if they so choose. But the time I need to spend to get the items that are new, and test them out thoroughly is just not worth it at the moment, since I have to start over and over all the time, especially since zombies are now more of a threat. On the regular servers that's part of the game, but on an experimental server aren't we supposed to test the new features before they are patched onto the regular servers? Or am I missing something? Heck, if someone came up to me and said "Dude, can I shoot you? I want to see if the bugfix to the long range scope is actually working" I would've gone "Sure, where do you want me to stand?". Basically, I'm not sure how this should be gone about. You need to be able to do everything that you can do on the regular servers to actually test for bugs proper. Any ideas on how to make it easier for us testers to actually, you know.. test?

I agree the zombies are better on the experimental. I was running around, blood pouring, chased by a zombie trying to find a place to bandage. Eventually I decided to shoot it. One bullet to the head and lo and behold, several more come running at me from the forest. I managed to bandage before they reached me however and then run away. Great experience. I'm not sure what the difference is between the experimental servers you guys play on and the one I use, but people are usually a lot more spread out where I play, simply because there just isn't any loot left in the coastal areas. I see people all over the place. And got shot in a small village in the middle of the map when I went to the bathroom for a few seconds, having hidden (or so I thought) my toon in an upstairs room in one of the buildings.

I see. Then I was mistaken. I thought we were supposed to do that part of the testing there. So the experimentals are basically a sneak preview for the players and a light stress test for the devs. :) Unlike what some here assumes I'm not going to places like elektro et al, on the coast. I even said so in a previous post. Anyway, back to playing on regular servers for me then. I don't need a sneak peek. :) Mods, feel free to lock this thread now that that's been straightened out.

Yeah, either that or you should spawn with the items on your character. To incite testing among the player base it needs to be easily available. Personally I can donate some time to actual testing, but I don't have time to work for to actually being able to test.

Um not really. The experimental servers I've played on have been full or almost full.And I go inland to have a bigger chance of finding the items needed. To be honest, on regular servers it would be my own fault if I died. On an experimental if I get killed by another player it's their fault imo. If there is something in the pvp you desperately want to test you can go down to the beach and make a deal with a fresh spawn who doesn't have so much to lose. But because of how full the servers are and how pretty much every house has been looted it becomes difficult to test any of the new features even without other players shooting you. EDIT: New idea! How about if you would spawn with gear on experimental? Spawning with all the items that have been reworked for the patch in a mountain backpack would allow you to immediately test out the new features.