Kageru

I'm pretty sure history proves you wrong' date=' there Kageru. We may not have zombies in reality, but there have been plenty of instances where societies have disintegrated or come under such distress that all manner of law and custom disappeared. And I'm pretty sure bandits, pirates and warlords are the ones who benefitted most in those situations and "friendlies" suffered some of the greatest inhumanities in recorded history. [/quote'] In other words social groups. A warlord needs an army full of people being friendly, same for the others. The individuals are still "1" just with reference to their own group. Lone psychopaths or small groups of bandits would be hunted down by any group. The group that grows and dominates becomes stable and forms the basis for society and then has an army to stomp bandits on a professional basis. But the real challenge of a zombie apocalypse would be long term survival. Stored supplies start to rot or be used up, ammo runs out, you continually lose people to zombies and other groups (Which you see as bandits). The group with the larger number has a big advantage because survival is going to suck. ... although if these zombies rot or are localized it's only a temporary problem and things will stabilize relatively fast. I mean they're not really all that scary to a proper armed force. None of that is in Day-Z though. The barracks will never run out of guns and ammo and the supermarkets of food because it all respawns. Same for survivors when you think about it, you can kill them endlessly and there's always more washing up on the beaches.

He was pretty clear... PvP people like soft targets. You have a role to play in his preferred gaming style.

In practice if the zombies are a threat and society is complete disintegrating number 1 has the best chance of surviving. Banditry only really makes sense when there are re-spawning supplies, if you can survive the zombie threat (made easier by having numbers) you'll need to consider long term survival and that takes all sorts of skills and a lot of labor. Very few people would have the skills for 2 in the long term. Of course groups might well conflict over resources, rob or take over each other but each person will be option 1 to their group. It doesn't matter though. In game behaviour in Day-Z is going to be determined by what sort of gameplay the person likes and little else.

Chess is balanced... you don't get to play with 6 queens on the basis that you went and got some extras earlier. And you don't risk, you lose or win the game and start another because it's about the challenge and strategies. It's the same reason Counter-strike has been played competitively and "hidden, NVG, long distance ambush on unsuspecting target" isn't ever going to be. Arma-II might be, but never played it (it would probably be boring though, a large map plus high damage attacks from ambush enforce a very cautious gameplay).

The mechanics are hard-core PvP (FFA, no mechanical consequences, full loot, perma-death). Player behaviour will generally flow from the mechanics the game presents. Even if there wasn't a large player community who adores a game willing to support those mechanics (few commercial games will).

Hahaha... but they're no challenge, don't drop as much loot and there's no person having a bad evening in RL so no satisfaction. Just accept that it's a hard-core PvP game with a zombie skin and move on. Keep an eye on the patches or come back and check later.

Possibly, only one who knows that is Rocket since the design process seems enthusiastically ad-hoc. Judging from the removal of the bandit skin and the heartbeat having a stupidly low range it's quite possible he's happy with lots of PvP/PK. It does help conceal the lack of content after all.

... you could go play Arma-II? I hear it's pretty hard-core PvP but not so much about zombies. Oh, yeah, you might fight people with equal gear and organisation. Never mind then.

Risk? It's a game dofus. MMO PvP is generally all about using persistence, position, ambush and numbers to stack things in your favor. In an MMO it's at best a diversion on the side (with the exception of GW2 which is doing it right, set gear and instant max level). Good PvP happens when the two sides have equal gear, equal awareness and a balanced environment to fight over. Even better if you don't have to spend a lot of down-time between the action. Even if I wanted Arma-II style PvP I'd play Arma rather than this mod.

Heh, the hard core PvP players probably have enough looted weapons stashed (or get their gear back from their team mates) that death isn't much of a penalty. For a solo player though it's many hours of gameplay reset to zero.

PK's are motivated by the idea of proving their superiority and disrupting someone elses play-session. There doesn't need to be any in-game reward and they will expend a lot of effort to that goal. This is true of any PvP game and a thousand times that if full loot, free for all and perma-death are part of it. I'm largely done with Day-Z, I'll watch the patch notes and see if there's be a meaningful dis-incentive to just shooting everyone. I can get my PvP from something with more balance and less creeping around the under-growth. World of Tanks currently (shame it's pay2win, but oh well) and CS:GO when it comes out.

The end result is the same. It basically means if you play Day-Z you'd better be able to handle probably the must cut-throat and unbalanced full-loot PvP game. As long as people know what they're getting it's fine. But I think a lot of people expected a "zombie / survival simulation" and are in for a shock. If Rocket has some intention to keep these people playing stated intent and mechanic changes need to happen while he has a positive media buzz.

200 players, lol, Cherno would be awash with bodies fighting over the next weapon spawn.

Depends on if you are making a zombie survival game or a squad based PvP game. Some people mistakenly think this is the former.

I doubt it. That would be effectively advertising you might drop medical loot. I think even in modern armies medics don't wear obvious identification these days as it just makes them a priority target.

No non-PvP end-game, most of the gear is weaponry and mechanics of using it, limited ways of forming ad-hoc co-operation, no dis-incentive for PK, strong incentive for PK (safer, weakens a threat, causes some to cry at losing their gear, free loot if you are short), massive advantages to opening a conflict from ambush (+NVG, +sniper range). It's a PvP game for the forseeable future, take a break and keep an eye on the patch notes if that's not what you want.

The game hit a million murders and ~20% of the player base being bandit flagged. Is it possible to see whether this spiked with the removal of bandit skins or has been tracking player activity from the collected stats? It would be a useful metric as to how much inflience PvP has on the game through bandit kills and murders, much more so than player survival which has all sorts of causes.

... that post would make sense if zombies and PK's were in a contest for killboard stats I guess. Maybe they are.

Keep an eye on the patch notes, the game will probably evolve over time.

The first 6-12 hours when the world felt scary and full of potential.

Depends on if you want them to keep playing.

You can only do that if you have a game progession or you'll just make the game more punitive to new / starting players. It's already tuned pretty high plus the threat of PvP/PK while they are still working stuff out. The real problem is a good game would match progession of the zombie threat to the gear of the players and the rewards on offer. Hiding on the beach should have soft zombies because many players will be unarmed. The cities should be zombie death traps where only the well geared and organized venture to try for the best loot. Day-Z may become that game, but it certainly isn't now.

Rockets intentions don't really matter. Most of the recent changes have made ad-hoc co-operation more difficult and making you more PvP vulnerable while there is absolutely zero incentive against PK and potent incentives (it's fun, safer and free loot). When it's also the only viable end-game and most of the mechanics are about shooting people with serious military weaponry (you don't need NVG, Ghillie suit and sniper rifles for zombies!). The outcome was obvious. Especially to the many who cheered him on because it suits their play style. And that, actually, is fine. The only issue is people with expectations of the gameplay revolving around zombies when it doesn't really. If Rocket clearly stated "The endgame is about squad PvP, with zombies in the background", all good, If he said "it will be about zombies, but for now it's mostly PvP" all good. But the interviews and media are all about zombies and those first 6-12 hours of being an innocent noob (which is honestly good if you don't get PK'd).

Heartbeat is 15 meter range in a game where hostilities commence long before that, it's meaningless. 1 million murders and one in 5 players having the bandit tag. I suspect the fade in interest will be quite swift when players realise the game is a hard core PvP/PK game with some odd looking agressive wild-life. Which is good, because most of the PR paints a false picture of the actual game.