petward

Disclaimer: Keep in mind that these are simply suggestions meant to encourage intellectual discussion regarding said suggestion. Also keep in mind that these do not necessarily have to strictly apply to the ArmA 2/3 engine. However, I do invite you to utterly rip apart, berate, and effectively challenge the features I have proposed... if you dare. Now, on with the show! Introduction: I had a bit of a backstory suggestion before in my Skills Suggestion thread, but I felt like I needed to expand on it. I've learned a little from making that suggestion. Some of those things include: 1. Some people on the forums are idiots. 2. Rambling makes things a lot less clear. 3. And that I should cite my intentions before going into detail to avoid confusion and to appease people from point 1.Now, this suggestion revolves around the backstory, world building, and immersion in DayZ (Obviously.). This is a very simple idea and there are other's like this on the forums, but I wanted to make one that had essentially all of it in one, organized thread. So without further ado I will move on with this. Intentions: If you read anything in this thread, read this! 1. Build upon subtle immersion by using backstory elements. 2. Create an increased attachment to your character by adding a VERY GENERAL reason for appearing on the coast. 3. DO NOT CREATE A STORY LINE. Only a backstory. 4. Keep the players in the dark until they find things in the world that hint at the backstory. 5. Atmosphere must be maintained.The main goal of this is to increase immersion, enhance the atmosphere, and further cement the world. With these thing in mind I will continue on into more detail. Character Backstory: I felt like I needed more of a reason to cut my wrist every time some douchebag shot me as I tried to rob the hospital. In layman's I want to become even more attached to my loot character. To solve this I suggest making a sort of "character creation" intro. Revolutionary, I know. As simple as this would be to implement it would increase the immersion aspect as I realize that is Prime Directive 1. The first way is to have a very general backstory that only tells how you managed to wash up upon the beach. Example:After a storm capsizes your boat you were trying to escape on you find yourself washed ashore with nothing but a flashlight, bandages, and a few painkillers. With your hope for escape from the devastated Chernarus on the bottom of the ocean and your lack of companionship the familliar land of Chernarus calls to you, challenging you to survive... Yes I know it's terribly written. It's 4 am here, fuck off. Something like that would give players a very general identity to how they washed ashore in thier general location. Note the word general. The tactic behind this type of intro is to give the player as little info as possible so that they can craft their own adventure (Prime Directive 1.5, maybe 1) to the fullest and feel like they aren't playing a game about survival, but actually becoming the character. The biggest question I had when I thought of this would be how to get this information to the player? Not through a fucking pop-up message, a-la fallout style, that's for sure. No, what I had in mind is a journal-like menu system... Journal System: After arriving on the beach a player experimentally hits "X" and it causes his character to pull out a tattered, old composition book out from his pack (Maybe a pen/pencil as well.) The explanation from above shows up, scribbled onto the page (Possibly have character write it into journal when it opens.). A very simple addition that isn't an immersion breaking UI. There are many, many functions for a journal system. A lot of them have already been posted on the forums. For the most part these suggestions revolve around the general act of being able to write (Freely!) in a journal and if you happen to die your killer/random survivor would be able to pick it up and read of your adventures. Thread 1 Thread 2 A picture of what it may look like... except with words of course... But there is also another function for the journal I would like to suggest... Which leads to my next point... World Building: This, like the character backstory, is very finicky in terms of what does work and what won't work. I have written quite a lot in my short time on this planet (That doesn't make me a writer, but I understand basic writing skills and have analysed enough entertainment to know what is good and what is bad.) and I believe this is one of the few areas I feel confident in when talking about game development. Writing a story is a balancing act, depending on the style of story you are writing.... Actually let me re-phrase that. Storytelling is a balancing act, depending on the style of story you are telling. This is simply saying that how much you show the reader general sways from genre to genre and is paramount in keeping a good flow that entertains the target audience. The ENTIRETY of the story/world should be built and structured, but how much is reveled to the reader should be limited depending on the genre/type of story you are weaving. For instance, romance. The world/setting/characters/plot should be structured to the fullest. However, the reader/viewers should only be viewing the plot and characters. That is not to say that the setting and world shouldn't be hinted at, it's pretty inevitable that it will at some point. It simply means that the plot/characters should be fleshed out the most leaving the world/setting to sit in the background. If we can agree on anything it is that DayZ is a post-apocalyptic setting. The world has gone to shit which has then hit the fan. Themes involving horror, survival, betrayal, trust, companionship, fear, and loneliness prevalent. For most post-apocalyptic literature the most fleshed out part of it is generally the character/over-arching plot. The reasons why the world went to shit and what the current state is is obviously hinted at, but, like a romance story, the stay predominantly in the background, giving the characters/plot a solid base to work off of. So why this the general way post-apocalyptic literature plays out? While you have some stories like "Alas, Bablyon" where the world/setting is rather in your face, that is really only because the plot itself plays around the central apocalyptic event depicting how it was before, during, and after. However, most are not like that. Most present the story many years after the event, depicting only the aftermath and it's effects. So, again, why is this the general way it plays out? Well that is because of the themes that are generally inside post-apocalyptic stories. I will not repeat the themes as I have already listed them, but when you look at them you don't immediately attach them to an action movie that involves kicking the zombles back to hell or whatnot. The themes attach themselves to stories revolving around small groups or even only two characters. Take for instance "The Road". A Boy and his father trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world (Sounds similar doesn't it?). While the story has to give hints about the world/setting to give a good foundation, the characters and their development are what drives the story. How they adapt to survive and whether or not they commit acts of murder or stick to their morals. This is the basis for the DayZ experience. Creating your own post-apocalyptic story revolving around a small group or even one player. The catchphrase "This is your story." proves that. Now FINALLY onto my suggestion. Subtlety... Subtlety. Subtlety! SUBTLETY!!! This is what makes a post-apocalyptic experience amazing. The subtle hints at what once was always hits hard and puts the situation into perspective. I will give a detailed example of this in another game. Fallout 3. The player can find audio logs left behind from the recent or distant past. The most interesting ones were the ones that depicted life before the bombs dropped or what happened during them. The one that sticks out in my mind is the keller family holotapes. To make a long story short a military guy got a code to get into a bunker and gave one to each of his family members so that they all had to show up to get in. For each family member there was a holotape recording the their number and showcasing why you find them dead in front of the bunker's doors. While there was a nice weapon as a reward the way it was implemented was subtle and very intriguing. More so than some of the main quests. Not only was it entertaining to follow, but it immersing, further expanding the horrors of what happened when the bombs dropped and painting a clearer picture of the bombed world. What I feel DayZ needs to match this type of immersion is essentially the same thing. Scattered notes,audio logs, and other memorabilia of a time before or during the events that started the infection. These can easily be showed in the journal when obtained or simply used as an item itself. These would be a nice sort of... collectible that could be implemented. However, more than that they would help with immersion and help make the world more realistic. With my intentions from before still in mind these pieces of lore/story MUST be subtle,incomplete,and not take away from the story you're creating yourself. It should only serve to add to the game. So completely forgot this example when writing this, so here it is: http://soundcloud.co...dio-logs/tracks This is an amazing example of what you could possibly find. Though I don't like how close it is to the players present time, but that's just me. I made the actual suggestion itself short and concise... because... it didn't take much to explain. If you've stuck with it this long then well done! However, I felt that the explanation of the DayZ themes and stuff was needed to make sure we understood what DayZ was and is generally trying to accomplish. I hope this has helped the developers in any way possible and that they are good ideas/suggestions. God forbid that I give you a bad idea that you for some reason implement and it ruins the mod... As for you other forum lurkers feel free to rip this shit apart until I go cry in a corner. And to Rocket thank you for creating such a wonderful mod. I speak for everyone when I say that you have created something that has given me many memorable experiences in gaming.

True, but again, it obviously isn't the focus of the mod. Easter egg territory is perfect for this. As far as wiki goes that is going to happen with any and all entertainment in the modern age. this would not defeat the purpose at all. Simply make it more applicable online. It would still be interesting finding it in game. Not to mention I don;t know many people that would go out of their way to spoil secrets like that for themselves...

Exactly! That's the kind of stuff that helps make the world believable and interesting without shoving the story down the player's throat.

I don't remember enforcing "rules" to my thread... Sorry if it came across that way, that was not my intention. I merely wanted to clarify your post because, going to be blunt here, didn;t make much sense to me.

... Not to be rude, but did you even read the whole post? And if you're regarding the character backstory then I have to say that is something I would be okay with them not implementing, but I believe if they went about it in a VERY GENERAL way as I explained then it wouldn't hurt the "create your own story" gameplay. I'm sorry, but that completely contradicts what you just said... Plus I'm totally against any type of laid-out goals/objectives. There should only be the ones you set yourself.

Yeah, not one of my more significant suggestions, but I felt it needed to be thrown out there , as Rocket himself has said this is the "experimenting phase". Obviously there are more prevalent things to worry about, but most of them just involve too much conjecture and "what if"'s that it is almost beyond being constructive. they do give ideas to developers, which is always a plus. Actually, one of the things I intend on suggesting is a way to implement the Underground City system. It has been talked about a lot, but I've never seen someone REALLY expand on it like I've done here. Anyways, thank you for your feedback :).

Update #1: So after having quite a few discussions I realized that some things are not clear enough, or even present, in the first post itself. That is to say people read the first post, make ignorant assumptions, and immediately freak the fuck out (Many examples can be found below...). So in hopes that I can clear up that problem I have added my intentions and elaborations on some of the more questionable parts of the system and what it entails. I also removed the backstory suggestion from this thread so it can be added on to something more relevant in the future. Now if only I can figure out how to rename the thread itself... Disclaimer: Keep in mind that these are simply suggestions meant to encourage intellectual discussion regarding said suggestion. Also keep in mind that these do not necessarily have to strictly apply to the ArmA 2/3 engine. However, I do invite you to utterly rip apart, berate, and effectively challenge the features I have proposed... if you dare. Now, on with the show! Introduction So for some reason I had one of those sudden bursts of creative energy and decided to put it to good use... by thinking of ways to improve a virtual world that will only serve to sap more of my time. I know it said for this section to have short/concise posts, but... I'm not very good at that sort of thing so to compromise I will highlight in a flamboyant color the sections that you developers (if you even bother reading this) are interested in. So go ahead, skip this introduction. It's just me rambling anyway. I digress.One of the first things I have seen that I felt like could have a solution my feeble mind could conjure up is the issue involving Bandit VS. Survivor gameplay and how the Survivors bitch about how Bandits need to be punished for their sins against thier loot God. So I thought of the highly original idea of adding a sort of skill/talent system that would give people benefits for being Survivors or Bandits so the whole forums could stop bitching (...that was a joke...). I know you have already heard of this before, hell, even Rocket himself (May his dictatorship be long and fruitful) has proposed the idea. However, when I searched through the suggestions thread I could not find a detailed one that had been suggested. So now here we are. :End Introduction: Intentions and Goals: If you read anything out of this whole thread, read this part! So this will list my intentions for the implementation of the skill system. Create BALANCED incentives to either be a bandit or survivor. Keep the game ITEM BASED. The skill system will be in the background, subtly balancing the game. Make the skill system ACTION BASED. Just like real life you learn and improve by doing. Skills used must be underwhelming so that they do not turn the experience into a grind for a certain skill. Subtle, insignificant rewards that can only really be noticed once you max out a certain skill line. Keep them so insignificant that you will still be killing other survivors for that nice rifle, not the 1 skill point in Predation. (SEE INTENTION 5) DO NOT CHANGE the current balance between Veteran survivors and New survivors. Which means no damage, blood, or other notable "PvP" boosts. DO NOT CHANGE the "Leveling through Items" system. The skill system must be second to that. Skills must fit in the DayZ style. Stat bonuses must also correlate to given skill line. To keep the play how you want to play and avoid pre-determined classes a cap has been set on the skill lines themselves (1/20) and the amount of skill point you can ever have (120 cap while every skill line combined has a total of 180). This will stop people from becoming overpowered, effectively balance between survivor and bandits, and balance the lone wolf vs. grouping. Keep the system's notifications subtle or non-existent. You should only be able to tell that you've gotten better in a certain skill by actually playing the game. Not looking at a character screen. Keep the DayZ realism, atmosphere, immersion. For obvious reasons when you die you will loose everything. EVERYTHING!!!! Alright, so that is all I can really think of that truly explains what I'm going for. Also keep in mind that the main focus of this is to balance out game play! This is not a skill system for the sake of having a skill system or making it more RPG'y. Oh and if your thinking,"THIS IS NOT WoW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", then first I would like to congratulate you on your astute observation. This system is nothing like any MMORPG skill/talent system out there. The most comparable system would be the one from Oblivion or Skyrim, except at a very basic, subtle level. You gain skills by doing the correlation function, not distributing points in a menu. Skill/Talent System (Developrs might as well just read all of it...) So now onto what I described briefly in the introduction. The Skill/Talent System. Before I move on their are a few things I used to restrict how these systems would work: Attributes such as health and damage were not to be tampered with whatsoever. This would ruin both the balance of players that lived for ever and "noobs". How the hell would you magically increase the damage you did with a gun anyway? Realism, bitch. (Prime Directive 2) Realism, immersion, and harshness has been kept in mind. That is to say you won't be seeing increased damage for guns (That's fucking right, I used the same example twice. U Mad?) The tight-rope balance between the veteran survivors and beginners has been held almost paramount as that must be maintained for a perfect world to develop. Veteran Survivors will get bonuses for being badass, but Beginners will still be able to kill them like they were beginners. (I know it doesn't make sense yet. Patience...) And finally the tighter-rope balance between Survivor and Bandit has been held on the highest of the highest of pedestals as that is primarily what I'm trying to fix here. Both sides will be getting benefits so that they both have their draws. This part will be broken down by the different system possibilities and my take on their individual effectiveness. "Why not just post your most effective?" Because this is my suggestion thread. In all seriousness, because my effective might not be what you think would be so I'm giving all of the possibilities that at least seemed moderately acceptable in my eyes. Now, we will begin: System #1: A system where you gain skill points for a skill line that correlates to the action you re gaining said points from. Because that was worded horribly here is an example. Player murder other player. Murderer gains point/s in the Murder skill. Each skill point in Murder decreases sound made, visibility, and chance of getting fear by a certain percentage. The Murder would have a cap that would make it so people wouldn't become invisible to zombles and become overpowered. This concept would be done for all the skills like Angelicism (For every person you heal blah blah;Could tie into medicine) ,Companionship(Group Oriented), Medicine(Group Oriented for higher than 10 points), Repair, Athletics, Survivalism , Dog usage?, Ect. System #2: A system where you gain talent points and must allocate them how you see fit. These are gained the same way as the method above. Another example. Player murders 5 other players. Murderer goes from having 4 points in murder to having 5 which grants them the ability to choose from three different talents. This trend continued for every 5 sill points until they reach the 4th tier of talents. Same concept of stats as above except with that you have to make a choice between the talents, you can only pick one in each tier. Verdict: Now, I said there were multiple ones, but I decided to narrow it down to only two that I think would fit best in the DayZ style. Now for my glorious opinion. both follow the general same concept, getting more powerful through actually doing the activities you get stronger in. Just like in real life :0. However, in my opinion I believe that System #1 would fit the best. The main reason for this is due to the development of "builds" when you compare it to the System #2. This will lead to many people using the same exact build because it happens to be the most cohesive. While this doesn't always happen if they are all balanced (...LOL... Oh wait... You're serious?) it doesn't have any chance of happening if you use System #1. "But that still doesn't balance the Bandit's VS Survivors issue!" That is why you will only have a set amount of skill points you can possibly gain. For example, with all of the possible skill lines each line caps off at 20. Let's say that all of them add up to 500. However, over the course of your short DayZ life you can only gain 250. Bandit's focused on killing may max out on murder, but not on something else and so on so forth. Example of Possible Skill Lines (NOT A TRUE SUGGESTION. ONLY USING IT TO SHOW HOW THE SYSTEM WOULD LOOK AND WHAT IDEAS FOR SKILLS WOULD WORK WITH IT. ALTHOUGH I TRIED TO BALANCE IT, IT IS NOT COMPLETE/FINAL.) Keep in mind this is using System #1 from the original post. Conclusion: So yeah... concise. Not really my thing. However I will keep this short. I hope this has helped the developers in any way possible and that they are good ideas/suggestions. God forbid that I give you a bad idea that you for some reason implement and it ruins the mod... As for you other forum lurkers feel free to rip this shit apart until I go cry in a corner. And to Rocket thank you for creating such a wonderful mod. I speak for everyone when I say that you have created something that has given me more memorable memories than any other gaming experience... Except for Deus Ex...

No, you're right, what real-life is like is "I replaced a tire ten times and I've noticed I can easily patch up the tire itself instead of replacing it due to my experiences dealing with changing tires." That is what I hope this skills seems like. However, I agree that trying new things also boosts experience in any given field. Though I don't know how well that would translate into a game enviorment. I think I may have worded that weirdly... I'm a little tired given that it's 5:30 here... What I meant was that the difference between new Survivors and Vets. should be purely PvE and only situationally an advantage. General gameplay mechanics should not really be touched. This involves damage, health, that sort of things. The things that would make the Vets harder to kill. Take for instance stealth. A survivor would have no percentile decreases in the amount of sound/visibility they generate, but a Vet would have a slight decrease by 40% making them more apt at sneaking past the zombles. And I stick by what I said about the increases being almost inconsequential. I want to keep the Loot Based Leveling. I want the skill system to be primarily a very SUBTLE, balancing system that is completely secondary. Anything more would negatively influence gameplay, drives in game, and the DayZ experience itself.

I agree, keep in mind that the skills are mostly just to show off how the system would work in terms of progression with a few general ideas sprinkled here and there. Any stat system will fell gamey. Hell, the new addition of the visibility counter and the whole debug monitor feels gamey. So, in short I agree. Training is also a viable option, but I do think that when you do things constantly and enough times you should get better at doing said thing. That is just how real-life works and I see no reason why it shouldn't be implemented as well if they also did training. I'm actually glad you mentioned the backstory as I am writing another thread/suggestion about the very topic :). As for making the starting survivors worse at things I agree. However, these disadvantages should be absolutely minimal. See my list of intentions for reasons why. Anyway, thank you for your feedback. One post at a time we can create a better DayZ. :End Inspirational Message:

Not that I don't love the theorycrafting on the subject, I just feel like this is leading the discussion a bit off track. HIGHLY recommend making this idea a thread of it's own instead of burying it under a completely different suggestion.

To those interested in a Skill System, but not a Class System: Here. Now enough with selfish promotion. I for one am completely against the idea of classes. Does not fit into the... style? of DayZ.

That would certainly be realistic. Definitely a good suggestion. However, it is not necessarily the way it's implemented that I'm most worried about. What worries me the most with this is the whole concept of it. I believe the very "unofficial" way that grouping is implemented in DayZ now is exciting, authentic, and fun. Keep in mind this is assuming your meeting someone in game who you become "friends" with (We all know how that turns out...). When you add any sort of "official" party system it makes it so that you have their username. This sounds very trivial, but it ruins the... mystery behind the person. Ok, going to stop that abruptly because I've had somewhat of a stroke of brilliance. Or maybe I just stopped being stupid. Anyway, assuming the "official buddies" thing was an item. Not a UI thing or something. It does not save to profile or anything. Now what if, like all the rest of your items, it was removed once you died. All information gone from that person and blah, blah, blah. Maybe make it a pseudo item so that it cannot be saved in tents and shit. Now this would make him shooting you in the back still a very real danger. I don't know, I feel like this post is stupid and I'm just being very tired at the moment...

Ha, the sad thing is I played BF3 for a while and never noticed that. Regardless, that is very interesting. Definitely something to look at to implementing. Only problem would be the "grouping/party" bit. I for one am against any type of... official party system in DayZ. Like adding people through a UI or whatnot. It would have to be only on you. This would make things pretty fiddly. Combine that with the system up above and you may have a winner. I like where this discussion is leading :).

This has been suggested A LOT. However, I can never see ti being implemented like this for the same reason bandit skin's were taken out. It's un-realistic. You can't know someone's past/history by simply looking at them. I don't care how many acid tablets you take. It's impossible. Not only that, but there is the question of how in Rocket's name you would be able to implement that differentiation between Murder and Self-defense. I know almost nothing about programming and stuff, but I am positive that something like that is almost impossible. Please kick me in the balls if I'm wrong. In a perfect world where a game engine COULD tell the difference then that would obviously be the best way to add skill points (or something else) to the Survivor/Bandit trees. Unfortunatley our world is far from perfect. I'm going to be honest here, I personally love the idea of my character revolving around gear and loot. Ever since games like STALKER I have been in love with the realism it entailed and the different, but comparable depths it added to the game. I like the idea of not having to worry about my cooking level or woodcutting (Runescape reference...). I love having to worry about what's in my bag and how I should be hoarding and using it sparingly. It made me feel immersed in the world. Now I get to my point. Having to worry about what you have in your bag and on-hand is a realistic worry. Having to worry about a invisible skill that you have to is not. That is not to say that never happens. When your in a zombie apocalypse you are going to be worrying about what you have to survive rather than the skills you can work up to use those items more effectively. However, it can be a secondary worry and be completely realistic. Personally, I believe that the fact that it is Gear-Based make me feel like I AM the character. Not playing as one. If the game suddenly turned stat focused it would change my perspective. Because my mind works the way it does I would no longer feel like my character. I would be worried about working up my skills in a very... "gamey" way. Not only that, but Rocket himself has said many times before that he wants the mod/game to stay Item Based. I know it sounds incredibly hypocritical considering what I have posted before, but that is why my system is the way it is. Provide balance and immersion while staying in the back of the players head/in the background. Phew... Thank you for the feedback and sorry if I sounded too critical.

I'm glad I took the time to actually read this. While it is different beast than my own post on the subject, it is the same base concept and still has some of it's own merits. However, I do have a few points of advice. The Resistant, and the Weapon skills all break a pretty important point in DayZ. The balance between New Survivors and Veteran Survivors. The makes it so that Veteran survivors are harder to kill than fresh survivors. In my opinion the balance between the two should always be there. That is to say both are on equal... "getting killed" grounds. Now this is a somewhat more personal, but I personally do not like the idea of picking something from the start, as in the "background" of your character. Sure you were obviously someone else before the plague, but that should be reflected in your actions, not in your starting loadout. This is why I'm against classes or loadout features. Although it would help with people grouping up it would not fit into the idea of DayZ. Again, this point is pretty opinionated. Other than that a lot of your ideas are extremely similar to mine. It's like your inside my head O_o. I especially like the throwback to the fallout 1/2 skill system. I like percentages... I laughed at how mean your medicine and survival skills are. I can only imagine the river of tears as people fail to use that morphine.

Updated the original post to make intentions and goals clearer to those that don't read between the lines so well.

Yeah... Like I said before I did not spend hours upon hours refining what I posted (As far as the skills go.). It was mostly to give a general idea fo what it may look like and to SHOW THE SYSTEM ITSELF. However, I do believe the Bandit/Survivor skill that grants a similar bonus needs to be implemented if something like what I proposed was to be used as the whole point of this was to fix the balancing issues between the two. As always thank you for being reasonable and for your feedback!

I really should just update the main post so that I don't have to keep referring back to replies to other people's comments... Anyway, I feel this should suffice for an explanation. As far as the situation you used as an example I am not proposing the skills I proposed. They are merely a way for showing how the system would work. You could replace one of the skills with this and still explain it: Shitting: Player gains 1 point per each shit made in-game. This line will increase ease of flow by 1% and pain/fear by 1%(maybe .5%). Maxed will have +20% ease of flow and -20%(maybe -10%) pain/fear. The skills I listed before don't really mean anything. Well... that a lie. I do believe that those would be a good start in thinking of the real skills. You assume that the challenge and fun of sneaking into buildings will be annihilated once you get the full perks. Keep in mind the most you can get for sound/sight is 40%. That's it. 40% and that's only when you are crouching/prone. I don't know about you, but making the trip into the hospital for the millionth time after surviving for 5 days with a little more assurance that I can get in would not break the game/ make it unbalanced/ make it not fun. You point out that this would push people into pre-determined "roles". Not to be rude, but did you read how you gain skill points? You gain them through doing actions. Just like if I fix a car in real life. I';m usually going to be a little more proficient with it when I've done it 5 times after that. Not only is it realistic, but it absolutely, in no way supports classes or roles. That is the one thing I didn't want to even remotely suggest. If you want to lone wolf it you can still do that. You still get bonuses from other things that people who are grouping up may not. Keep in mind there is a cap in the system so that you cannot max out everything. Hope this clarifies things and thank you for the feedback ;).

At this point I get a sense of sadistic pleasure when I piss someone off with a simple suggestion. Shows it has weight. You probably won't be coming back to read that (I can't say you will be missed.), but hopefully that will shed some light on what little you got from the article itself and not just the title.

Oh sorry about that. After reading it again I realized I must have had gone insane for a second while I was reading it the first time.The mention of skill screens was really only me rambling, not an accusation of any sort... That is to say the obscure comment was pointed at myself and not you, also in part due to my incessant rambling. However, the reload time mechanic is teetering on the edge of becoming unbalancing in terms of veteran's and survivors. I also think that the reload skill itself is almost totally useless (Keep in mind that this is going off of my own experiences so this piece of advice should be taken with a pinch of salt.). In any situation, infected or bandit fights almost never have me reloading a clip during the actual fight. I think it may have happened once in a house when I was funneling zombles in, but that is it. As critical as I'm being I actually like the subtly of the increase itself. I believe it is insignificant enough to be a nice stat to increase, but it may actually not be significant enough considering the other stats you could use (Weapon maintenance comes to mind.)

Some actual suggestion/critiquing! I knew there weren't only 2/3 actual helpful people on this forum!You can essentially read the above post without even reading the rest of this, but I will elaborate anyway. I dislike the idea of giving the veteran players boosts to base stats that would make them stronger or harder to kill. I believe that should revolve around the premise of Items. Not skills you can somewhat grind up. That is essentially the reason for how obscure some of the stat boosts are, even if they sometimes don't make sense (I tried my best :( ), I want to keep the skill system powerful enough so that you can subtly SOMETIMES notice that zombies are much easier to sneak by or that you can run slightly faster for longer. What I DO NOT WANT is people checking their "skill screen" (I DO NOT support a skill interface BTW) to see how far they are in thier Hunting skill line. It should fit absolutely seamlessly into the DayZ world and it's mechanics while sticking with the main idea of the mod.

... From the main article itself (I'm dumb and can't operate the quote system apparently...): Before I move on their are a few things I used to restrict how these systems would work: Attributes such as health and damage were not to be tampered with whatsoever. This would ruin both the balance of players that lived for ever and "noobs". How the hell would you magically increase the damage you did with a gun anyway? Realism, bitch. (Prime Directive 2) Realism, immersion, and harshness has been kept in mind. That is to say you won't be seeing increased damage for guns (That's fucking right, I used the same example twice. U Mad?) The tight-rope balance between the veteran survivors and beginners has been held almost paramount as that must be maintained for a perfect world to develop. Veteran Survivors will get bonuses for being badass, but Beginners will still be able to kill them like they were beginners. (I know it doesn't make sense yet. Patience...) Do I even need to elaborate on this one? I really do not like being rude, but you guys are not making it very easy. If your going to try and add something to the discussion PLEASE make sure you read the entirety of the article before passing judgement or critiquing. It's starting to make the ugly rumors I've heard about these forums true... Either way thanks for at least giving somewhat of a detailed response. Even if it did only lead to some clarification.

I understand the perceived implications when I say talent/skill system. It is a VERY general topic. When most any player thinks of a skill/talent system the MMORPG style immediately pops into thier head. This is quite understandable as it is a huge, almost overwhelming, feature in those types of games. DayZ is not, to that extent, an MMORPG and adding a talent system like what you find in games like WoW or Guild Wars 2 would not mesh with the rest of the formula. DayZ is not WoW and it shouldn't be treated like it, I understand that. That is why the system is NOTHING like any MMORPG's, or even general RPG's, I have ever played (I know, I'm so unique in my creativity.). The only comparable game I can find is the Skyrim system at it's base. However, even then the system I proposed is a lot more simple and subtle than it's. In fact, I purposefully made it so that it had VERY LITTLE IMPACT to the current game mechanics. Hell, the most profound change is the 40% decrease in sound/sight. If your going to try and reply, please make sure you actually read the entirety of the article and it's following replies...

I'm crying in the corner as we speak.

Not to sound condescending, but I don't think your understanding something. The point is not to appease the people whining about there being too many Bandits. The point is to simply make it so that there is both an incentive to focus on murdering people and an incentive to group up and be friendly. I may have been to focused on rectifying this one thing, but in response to your posts that is really all this is solving. This isn't a skill/talent tree for the sake of having one in the game. This isn't to make it so that you have some sort of character progression. This is simply a way to fix the complaint that Bandit's/Survivors are not balanced. Unfortunatley, for the most part, I agree with most of what you said. I'm gonna go off track here for a sec. The STALKER series is one of my all time favorite gaming series. Hell, it is almost on the same level as fallout 3 in terms of my favorite game of all time (And that's pretty high...). The thing that made it almost better than the Fallout series was the exclusion of a skill system/talent system. I liked the realism it entailed. I liked relying on the gear I found. To tie this in DayZ is almost a carbon copy of the game play mechanics... minus radiation and anomalies, but you get my point. I would love to keep the non-skill system that is currently implemented. However, I also want to see there be more of an incentive to be a survivor to make it balanced with the perks the Bandit gets. My realistic mind tells me that this is essentially not possible as it is always easier to be evil than it is to be good, an that crosses over into real life as well. The best way to make this "realistic" in DayZ is to make it so that you have a group role (Kind of fundamentally like the system you posted.). Unfortunatley this will only make the problem worse. Rocket once posted that the reason "Banditery" is becoming so effective is because the Bandits are teaming up. Adding group functions will only serve to turn the game from a free-for-all to a literal team-death-machine. The system I proposed is, in my opinion, the only way to "fix" this problem without turning it into a disaster. Making it so that you gain MINIMAL( So that they have little impact on the game.)perks for simply playing the game. You assume that the skill system would turn this into a skill based game. What I have in mind is simply not that. When the most "overpowered" skill you could possibly get only makes you 40% less of a target for zombies When you are already trying to stealth past them would certainly not make that the focus of the game. Most of the "perks" of these skill lines incredibly minimal. Not only that but you can't even choose what you progress in! If you want to become a medic you do not need to spend your points in a stupid talent tree. All you have to do is simply play like a medic. If your worried about veterans becoming too good then you are mistaken. I made sure that any veteran player can easily be killed by a newbie just as easily as before. The hardcore, tense PvP element is still there. Hell, the only time the skills even step into that territory is through the dog upgrades (Which I believe are the worst of the skill lines I proposed...). Phew! Alright. My point is this skill system is supposed to only affect the game in a far background sense. You will never find yourself killing a survivor for the skill point in your Predation skill. You will still be doing it to be a douchebag or for the items... At least if your intelligent. Obviously the idea of gaining even the smallest bit of reward for doing something will blind some of the more... inept? players. I hope I didn't come across as heavily defensive cause that is certainly how it look like. If you take anything away from this post it is that I'm merely trying to fix the Bandit/Survivor balance efficiently and subtly. Not for the sake of making a skill system. :End Desperate Defense: