Chiefmon

I see forum members constantly posting about penalties against bandits. I notice a very wide schism between the Pro-PvP and the Anti-PvP. This post is an ATTEMPT at bridging the schism by explaining the underlying psychology and logic behind being a bandit and by showing the basic flaw in balancing bandits with survivors. NOTE: I posted this thread to both the survivor and bandit boards to get a better idea on others' ideas. As far as what kind of bandits, I'm referring to those who seek survival, not thrill killers. IF YOU ARE A BANDIT WHO KILLS FOR ANY OTHER REASON THAN SEEKING SURVIVAL, THIS THREAD DOES NOT CONCERN YOU. The biggest perceived problem with the Bandit issue, at least from what the other posters have complained about, is the disproportionate ratio of Bandits:Survivors. While I do not claim to know the exact ratio of bandit to survivors, the way the game is constructed makes it so that the bandit population would rise if the theory I am setting forth is true. I call it 'The Bandit Dilemma'. Here is Survivor Bob. He is scavenging and surviving. He sees a survivor across the street in Cherno. What can he do? He has 3 basic choices: Evasion, Diplomacy, and Elimination. Evasion: Simply avoid the other player. This is often not feasible since they will usually see you first or at the same time. RiskRelative chance of loss compared to gain :None Gain:None Loss:None As you can see, there is no risk in a successful evasion, but cannot be relied on, leading to our intrepid survivor to the other two choices. SUCCESS YIELDS NOTHING TO BOTH SIDES Diplomacy: Try and talk to the other and forge an alliance. This is, for many, the best outcome. Both players gain a better chance of survival, but at the risk of death on their first encounter. They could gain a companion, or they could be shot on sight. Risk:Med-High Gain:High Loss: Increasing relative to life length The loss in this one is unusual. If Bob is a new player with just a bandage and a flashlight, death is not a big loss for him. If He has a helicopter waiting outside of town, a gillie suit, and a GPS, death would be a huge loss. So, the more progress He makes in this game, the higher the risk with diplomacy. SUCCESS YIELDS GAINS TO BOTH SIDES Elimination: Attempt to kill the other player as expediently as possible. IF I fire first, I have a low chance of death. A n00b with only a Makarov can kill an experienced player with a rifle if they can get a good burst off before the other player has time to respond. This decision will prevent the other player from harming Bob. Also, the other player could have better loot on him. Risk: Low-Med Gain: Variable based on location Loss: Increasing relative to life length Bob open firing on the other player could yield excellent loot, especially if they are further inland where the better equipped survivors loom. This is not discounting the chance of a super player on the coast or a n00b on the NW Airfield, but is instead relying on statistical tendencies. The CHANCE of death is lower than risking diplomacy even though the loss is equally severe. If they BOTH choose elimination, one or both will die. SUCCESS LEADS TO GAINS FOR ONE, DEATH TO THE OTHER So, what should Bob do? Anyone who has taken a Economics class has surely heard of the prisoner's dilemma. It's the same as the Bandit's Dilemma. 2 prisoners are called on to testify against each other. If they both stay silent, they both get 1 year in prison. If they both talk, they both get 5 years in prison. If one talks and the other doesn't, the silent one gets 20 years and the talker goes free. Both are naturally inclined to talk to avoid the 20 year sentence, but they could both get the 1 year sentence if they work together. The problem is, much like with the Bandit's Dilemma, they have no idea what the other will choose. Early game, the logical choice is to work together. Even if you die, you lost only an hour of play. Late game, everyone will logically choose to kill each other. If you die, you lost 5 hours of play. I myself adopted a shoot-on-sight policy when I went to the NW Airfield because I didn't want to lose all my stuff. (Thankfully it was abandoned, so I did not have to kill anyone.) For the good of both, they should work together. Late game, an extra sniper providing cover fire is a great advantage. But what if he shoots you instead? He would get all your stuff and you'd respawn kicking yourself for trying to be diplomatic. Here's the flaw in balance: The more items a player gets, the more reason they have to kill anyone who gets near them. The less they have, the better reason to be diplomatic. So we are stuck in a world where, through natural selection, Bandits are well armed and the diplomatic are either constantly killed or are forced to take up banditry as a form of self defense. If EVERYONE stopped being bandits, everyone would prosper. But now we are moving toward a exclusively PvP world. When the ONLY way to become fully armed is through banditry and shoot-on-sight tactics, the bandit population will only grow. THE ABOVE IMAGE WAS NOT MADE BY ME. I FOUND IT WHILE SEARCHING THE FORUMS. IT DOES NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE TRUTH, BUT I FOUND IT TO BE AN AMUSING VISUAL AID. IT IS NOT SCIENTIFIC IN NATURE. Back to survivor Bob: B=Bob S= Other survivor D=Diplomacy E=Extermination BD/SD- Both call out friendly and salute. They team up and exchange supplies. The other survivor is low on food but has tons of soda, Bob has tons of cooked meat, but is low on water. They both benefit and continue on, covering each other and scavenging. Working together, they eventually get a car repaired and set off on a grand adventure. BD/SE- Bob waves and is promptly shot in the face. Bob dies. BE/SD- The other survivor calls out friendly and Bob empties a M1911 into his chest. The other survivor dies and Bob picks his corpse clean of supplies, making out with more food and water than he could consume. He comes across a repairable car later, but doesn't have the time or inventory space to repair it. BE/SE- They open fire on each other. Bob kills the other survivor and survives with 1000 blood and a broken leg. He doesn't last long against the zombies that heard the gunshots. That is the Bandit's Dilemma in a nutshell. This does not take into account the jackasses who kill for fun. Seriously, those guys are asshats. WHO KILLS A SURVIVOR 5 SECONDS AFTER HE SPAWNS!? YOU HAD NO REASON TO WASTE A SNIPER ROUND ON ME!* Also, for those interested, just gonna put this here: Yeah. I AM NOT ARGUING FOR THE OMISSION OF BANDITRY FROM THE GAME. I am simply suggesting that the current situation is not preferable. This is also meant as an analytic piece. The problem is that, IF the current trend in increasing lifespan holds true, banditry will get worse and the game will become almost exclusively PvP. To which I reply, do we not act logically in a game as we do in real life to reach our goals? I am omitting the morality from the equation completely and am putting a variable on the value of the individual's life. Why do you kill? If it's for the thrill, then this does not apply. This is all in context of seeking survival. UPDATE; After doing some continued thinking, I realize that the above problem could lead to the collapse of Day Z as we know it. If we think about the Bandit vs. Survivor issue in terms of Natural Selection, there is a massive problem. Imagine, if you will, an island in the middle of the ocean. On this island are always EXACTLY 100 bunnies. The bunnies are born either docile or violent. The violence is a relatively common mutation that occurs around 25% of the time. Every time a bunny dies, their descendant replaces them instantly. So, the violent bunnies will seek to kill ALL other bunnies, docile or not and doing so will help them survive against other violent bunnies. If we start out with only 10% of the bunny population being violent, it's not that bad. Some bunnies die, but the natural order is kept in place. Over time, the dead bunnies are replaced by their descendants. If the violent bunnies have a natural advantage, then they will live while they kill their brethren. So we have slots being taken up by the veteran violent bunnies, with no room for the new docile baby bunnies who will be slaughtered upon spawn birth. Eventually, when the ONLY way to reliably survive is by being violent, none of the bunnies will be docile. Those that are will keep dying until their descendants become violent. The happy bunny island is now a massive bloodbath. When players see only bandits flourishing, they too will become bandits, if only out of self defense. Right now, it's not so bad, because there is a steady stream of new players flowing in, keeping the balance. I've noticed that few veteran players are pacifists. When the flow stops, we will be stuck with servers full of people who all want to kill each other for resources or out of fear of being killed. Once again, I am not arguing for the omission of Banditry. It just needs to be fixed, fast. If EVERYONE is PERCEIVED as a bandit, everyone becomes a bandit to defend themselves. There is too much potential to have the situation snowball and cause the PvP in the game to explode. It will no longer be PvE with some PvP, it will just be a massive free-for-all in a sandbox... with some zombies. For those of you who think that would be awesome, it'd suck for the bandits too. You will no longer have easy prey. Every survivor you come across will fight back. It's a classic example of too many predators, not enough prey. What should we do? I have no idea. I wish I could claim to have the perfect solution, but I can't come up with a single answer that would please everyone. Also, if anyone has any statistics from the past concerning the bandit concentration, PLEASE TELL ME. It would be great if I could graph this out and figure out an approximate logarithmic formula to go with it. Found some: http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/32425-week-of-stats-show-interesting-pvp-trends/page__hl__vipeax I was very surprised by the statistics. It is definitely worth having a look at. I do feel that the influx of new players would contribute to an atypical sample, but it is still solid evidence against my theory. Found some more courtesy of Vanchelon. This may appear to be an encouraging trend, but I must say it is not. IF we assume my Bandit's Dilemma theory to be true, then we can assume that MOST of the new players coming in would not be bandits at first. This throws off the math of this experiment MASSIVELY. The theory includes that the better a player gets at surviving, the bigger the logic behind banditry. I wish I could see a chart of players who have played longer than a week in terms of banditry rates. The fact that the banditry rate DIDN'T completely plummet when the population of DayZ doubled due to incoming new players is worrying. In my experience, THE VAST MAJORITY of new players start off the game trusting others and few jump directly into banditry. This means that last week's n00bs are turning into today's bandits. When the incoming pool of new players dries up we are looking at a classic example of an Economic Bubble. What I am saying is that it DOES support my claim. This is me clarifying how the data relates to my theory because, at first glance, it appears as though it is contrary to my theory. Please note that this whole theory is based on the following postulate: players start off inexperienced and don't immediately jump into banditry. THIS COULD BE WRONG AND I ACCEPT THAT. Secondly, to wait for the problem to appear is to be ignoring the purpose of prediction. To do what you are saying would be like, and this is hyperbolic comparison, to demand that we wait for water levels to submerge america before we decide whether or not the sea levels are rising. I am working with the data I have to draw my conclusions: game theory, logic, basic psychology, banditry rates over time, population rates over time. Thirdly, the current banditry rates, as of 9:34 PM CST is at 17.28%. This is APPROXIMATELY 1 in 6. Do you think that 1 in 6 FIRST TIME PLAYERS kill another player in that life? I personally doubt that. THE FOLLOWING IS SIMPLY AN EXERCISE IN MATHEMATICS: If I had a good estimate of the banditry rates of first time players, then I would have much more evidence for my theory, but for the purposes of this exercise, let's ASSUME that it is closer to 1 in 12. Now let's assume that first time players make up 10% of the current population. The math leaves us at a basic experienced bandit rate of 17.59%. THIS IS NOT A BIG DIFFERENCE. However, the variables I am giving are hypothetical. My point is this, we are dealing with a system that has evolving variables. The way most people would view the statistics are as flat rates, but with a growing base value it leads to deceptively** low rates. Another hyperbolic example: There is a virus that takes 1 week to gestate before symptoms appear. It appears in a town. The town has a population of 300 people. 3 people, or 1 percent have symptoms appear every day. Suddenly the town's population doubles. Now there are 600 people but the rate is still 3 people a day. You would claim that the virus's infectiousness was going down. I would claim that it would catch up in 2 weeks. THIS IS THE POINT I'M MAKING. **Before any English-Major smartass points it out, yes, I know that 'deceptively' is a meaningless word. However, it is contextually meaningful in this situation. *This is meant as ironic humor by introducing a burst of emotion into an otherwise ambivalent post. If you didn't catch the humor, I'm sorry.

I applaud his maturity in accepting his mistake and correcting it.

PLEASE GO TO THIS UPDATED THREAD: http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/40043-the-bandit-dilemma-an-inner-look-at-the-economics-and-psychology-of-banditry-and-the-inevitable-collapse-of-day-z/ I see forum members constantly posting about penalties against bandits. I notice a very wide schism between the Pro-PvP and the Anti-PvP. This post is an ATTEMPT at bridging the schism by explaining the underlying psychology and logic behind being a bandit and by showing the basic flaw in balancing bandits with survivors. The biggest problem with the Bandit issue is the disproportionate ratio of Bandits:Survivors. Right now I would have it pegged at 6:4. This leads to what I would call 'The Bandit Dilemma'. Here is Survivor Bob. He is scavenging and surviving. He sees a survivor across the street in Cherno. What can he do? He has 3 choices: Evasion, Diplomacy, and Elimination. Evasion: Simply avoid the other player. This is often not feasible since they will usually see you first or at the same time. RiskRelative chance of loss compared to gain :None Gain:None Loss:None As you can see, there is no risk in a successful evasion, but cannot be relied on, leading to our intrepid survivor to the other two choices. SUCCESS YIELDS NOTHING TO BOTH SIDES Diplomacy: Try and talk to the other and forge an alliance. This is, for many, the best outcome. Both players gain a better chance of survival, but at the risk of death on their first encounter. They could gain a companion, or they could be shot on sight. Risk:Med-HighGain:High Loss: Increasing relative to life length The loss in this one is unusual. If Bob is a new player with just a bandage and a flashlight, death is not a big loss for him. If He has a helicopter waiting outside of town, a gillie suit, and a GPS, death would be a huge loss. So, the more progress He makes in this game, the higher the risk with diplomacy. SUCCESS YIELDS GAINS TO BOTH SIDES Elimination: Attempt to kill the other player as expediently as possible. IF I fire first, I have a low chance of death. A n00b with only a Makarov can kill an experienced player with a rifle if they can get a good burst off before the other player has time to respond. This decision will prevent the other player from harming Bob. Also, the other player could have better loot on him. Risk: Low-Med Gain:Variable based on location Loss: Increasing relative to life length Bob open firing on the other player could yield excellent loot, especially if they are further inland where the better equipped survivors loom. This is not discounting the chance of a super player on the coast or a n00b on the NW Airfield, but is instead relying on statistical tendencies. The CHANCE of death is lower than risking diplomacy even though the loss is equally severe. If they BOTH choose elimination, one or both will die. SUCCESS LEADS TO GAINS FOR ONE, DEATH TO THE OTHER So, what should Bob do? Anyone who has taken a Economics class has surely heard of the prisoner's dilemma. It's the same as the Bandit's Dilemma. 2 prisoners are called on to testify against each other. If they both stay silent, they both get 1 year in prison. If they both talk, they both get 5 years in prison. If one talks and the other doesn't, the silent one gets 20 years and the talker goes free. Both are naturally inclined to talk to avoid the 20 year sentence, but they could both get the 1 year sentence if they work together. The problem is, much like with the Bandit's Dilemma, they have no idea what the other will choose. Early game, the logical choice is to work together. Even if you die, you lost only an hour of play. Late game, everyone will logically choose to kill each other. If you die, you lost 5 hours of play. I myself adopted a shoot-on-sight policy when I went to the NW Airfield because I didn't want to lose all my stuff. (Thankfully it was abandoned, so I did not have to kill anyone.) For the good of both, they should work together. Late game, an extra sniper providing cover fire is a great advantage. But what if he shoots you instead? He would get all your stuff and you'd respawn kicking yourself for trying to be diplomatic. Here's the flaw in balance: The more items a player gets, the more reason they have to kill anyone who gets near them. The less they have, the better reason to be diplomatic. So we are stuck in a world where, through natural selection, Bandits are well armed and the diplomatic are either constantly killed or are forced to take up banditry as a form of self defense. If EVERYONE stopped being bandits, everyone would prosper. But now we are moving toward a exclusively PvP world. When the ONLY way to become fully armed is through banditry and shoot-on-sight tactics, the bandit population will only grow. Back to survivor Bob: B=Bob S= Other survivor D=Diplomacy E=Extermination BD/SD- Both call out friendly and salute. They team up and exchange supplies. The other survivor is low on food but has tons of soda, Bob has tons of cooked meat, but is low on water. They both benefit and continue on, covering each other and scavenging. Working together, they eventually get a car repaired and set off on a grand adventure. BD/SE- Bob waves and is promptly shot in the face. Bob dies. BE/SD- The other survivor calls out friendly and Bob empties a M1911 into his chest. The other survivor dies and Bob picks his corpse clean of supplies, making out with more food and water than he could consume. He comes across a repairable car later, but doesn't have the time or inventory space to repair it. BE/SE- They open fire on each other. Bob kills the other survivor and survives with 1000 blood and a broken leg. He doesn't last long against the zombies that heard the gunshots. That is the Bandit's Dilemma in a nutshell. This does not take into account the jackasses who kill for fun. Seriously, those guys are asshats. WHO KILLS A SURVIVOR 5 SECONDS AFTER HE SPAWNS!? YOU HAD NO REASON TO WASTE A SNIPER ROUND ON ME! Also, for those interested, just gonna put this here: Yeah. Also, please comment if you feel you have any additional insight on this subject.

Here's what happened. I was scavenging in Electro when I realized that I was being watched by 3 players with rifles up on the roof of a school. They ordered me to stop. All of their sights aimed on me. All I had was a Hatchet. I wait for the inevitable shot. Suddenly they speak. "We will allow you to live if you answer this question:" I brace myself. "What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?" "............ African or European?" They burst into raucous laughter and gave me a shotgun with ammo. THIS is how banditry should be done. I would have been fine if they had shot me after that. I want there to be some level of human interaction beyond ironsights. I died soon after to a bandit, but I got a good laugh out of it.

... I'm sorry, did I miss something here? Please, walk us through your thought process as you play DayZ.

What I am saying is that it DOES support my claim. This is me clarifying how the data relates to my theory because, at first glance, it appears as though it is contrary to my theory. Please note that this whole theory is based on the following postulate: players start off inexperienced and don't immediately jump into banditry. THIS COULD BE WRONG AND I ACCEPT THAT. Secondly, to wait for the problem to appear is to be ignoring the purpose of prediction. To do what you are saying would be like, and this is hyperbolic comparison, to demand that we wait for water levels to submerge america before we decide whether or not the sea levels are rising. I am working with the data I have to draw my conclusions: game theory, logic, basic psychology, banditry rates over time, population rates over time. Thirdly, the current banditry rates, as of 9:34 PM CST is at 17.28%. This is APPROXIMATELY 1 in 6. Do you think that 1 in 6 FIRST TIME PLAYERS kill another player in that life? I personally doubt that. THE FOLLOWING IS SIMPLY AN EXERCISE IN MATHEMATICS: If I had a good estimate of the banditry rates of first time players, then I would have much more evidence for my theory, but for the purposes of this exercise, let's ASSUME that it is closer to 1 in 12. Now let's assume that first time players make up 10% of the current population. The math leaves us at a basic experienced bandit rate of 17.59%. THIS IS NOT A BIG DIFFERENCE. However, the variables I am giving are hypothetical. My point is this, we are dealing with a system that has evolving variables. The way most people would view the statistics are as flat rates, but with a growing base value it leads to deceptively* low rates. Another example: There is a virus that takes 1 week to gestate before symptoms appear. It appears in a town. The town has a population of 300 people. 3 people, or 1 percent have symptoms appear every day. Suddenly the town's population doubles. Now there are 600 people but the rate is still 3 people a day. You would claim that the virus's infectiousness was going down. I would claim that it would catch up in 2 weeks. THIS IS THE POINT I'M MAKING. *Before any English-Major smartass points it out, yes, I know that 'deceptively' is a meaningless word. However, it is contextually meaningful in this situation.

First off, I did not intend for the other thread to live. No one posted, then I realized I had put it in the Bandit forums and it should have been out here in General Discussion. Second, the problem is that the status quo of this game is ONLY working because of the ridiculous growth. Once it slows, then the bandit concentration will keep on rising until it's all PvP in mentality i.e. no hope for diplomacy. This is what is called a 'Bubble' in economics. When the bubble pops, the ONLY successful groups left will be banditry groups. The fact that the game has been built on the unstable foundation of fast growth will lead to it falling. Thirdly, of course I trust Rocket, but do you really think he even remotely expected this sort of popularity? Game design is hard, and ALL games need some balance. Now, I'm not saying this game needs much balance at all, it is an anti-game after all. But, it does need SOME. If it went for full on realism, then there would be no respawns, broken legs require two months real-time for healing, and a single zombie bite would be lethal. This is a mod made by one guy with one of the fastest growing fanbases I've ever seen. Right now, I think he needs to nip this problem in the bud before it gets out of hand. My Bandit's Dilemma theory deals with two survivors meeting each other and what they would choose to do in order to survive and how it would set the trend for the rest of their 'lives'. This is all working under my belief that this is a hardcore survival game. If you disagree, I would be happy to engage in a debate with you over some other medium than forum posting.

I actually fixed those mistakes in my other post, I had neglected this one.

I greatly disagree. If that is the core part of the mod, what do we need zombies for? I figured that the core is survival. Of course there is killing people, but coop can be a great substitute for that.

The point I am trying to make is that the game is structured so that experienced players have more reason to be bandits. This is like having a COD game where one team is composed of level 50's and the other team is only level 5's. This in turn makes the newer players WANT to be bandits.

The little rage there was meant as a little bit of humor. I was doing it ironically in stark contrast to the seriousness and ambivalent reasoning before it. I'm sorry that you did not pick up on it.

Oh my god yes. I am currently launching beans at you from a railgun. HERE ARE MY BEANS TAKE THEM! THEY ARE SMASHING THROUGH YOUR FACE AT MACH 7

It seems as though using a Movie as the basis for a reference on realism seems pretty ill-founded.

I am not talking about the collapse of the game, I am referring to the collapse of the current system. IF the current trends continue, Day Z will still be played, but zombies would no longer be the focus of the game.

Hmm? I looked at the post and it is backed up by the data. My post was simply operating under the assumption that game theory held true. I will definitely link this in the OP. Thank you.

I am not saying that bandits are inherently strong, I am saying that it's the players who chose banditry have a higher chance of NOT being killed by another bandit. The lengthened lifespan leads to better loot i.e. better guns. So if a virtuous survivors get killed early because of their trusting nature, all that will survive are hardened bandits. So the only people with helicopters and sniper rifles are bandits. So what does a new player do? Become a bandit to survive. It's natural selection at the core. I feel as though the inner structure of the game i.e. Survivors vs. Zombies vs. Bandits will collapse if this trend continues. It would descend into a sandbox free-for-all shooter... with some zombies.

You make an excellent point. I did not include group dynamics because with groups there is a tendency for disagreement and simulating the decision matrix would be difficult. The point I was making about the average life span is that it used to be only half an hour. This means that there has been an increase of ~66%. The point I am trying to make is that there is a logical motivator towards banditry AND natural selection is leading to even more bandits. I do not have a problem with the current bandit situation, the problem is the rate at which it is escalating. IF things continue at the current rate, we will be facing an exclusively PvP game, with the only teamwork occurring with out of game friends. That is a scenario that I do not want.

The problem is this: This game is played because it is a ZOMBIE survival game, not a PvP game. If I wanted to play a game with PvP, I'd play something else. I play this game for people teaming up and surviving. I'm not saying to remove PvP entirely, the point of this article is to point out how the game is constructed to encourage banditry, which I feel is contrary to the games intended purpose.

I don't always post my own threads, but this explains it pretty well: http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/40043-the-bandit-dilemma-an-inner-look-at-the-economics-and-psychology-of-banditry/

You have 4 gigs. In the immortal words of Jamie Hynamen, "Well there's your problem."

To which I reply, do we not act logically in a game as we do in real life to reach our goals? I am omitting the morality from the equation completely and am putting a variable on the value of the individual's life. Why do you kill? If it's for the thrill, then this does not apply. This is all in context of seeking survival.

Please do, I just want the word to be spread.