pack.wolf

First of all, this one is about gathering ideas about how the respawn system can be improved so we can submit a well thought out suggestion in the appropriate forum further down the road. It is not a "bandits vs survivors"-thread. It's not about balancing or PVP. If you want to make your voices heard concerning any of that, there's quite a few threads around that cover these topics. A lot of people seem to think the respawn system is flawed. I count myself among them. But there is no apparent agreement on how exactly it is broken or how it can be fixed. ---------------------------------------- Here's my thoughts on the subject. It's exploitable and it doesn't make people care for their own life. There's three things I feel would add to improving the game which would not favor any play style (at this point I'd again like to remind everyone, if you want to discuss PVP this is not the place). 1) Add respawn time. A flat amount for everyone, no matter what you did, no matter how long you revived, there should be a minimum x minutes respawn timer before you can continue play after you died. It would make you value your life more, even if you only have shitty gear. I think that's what this mod should be about: Survival, by whatever means you deem appropriate and effective. At the moment your life has only as much value to you, the player, as the gear you have found. If I total my car in RL I'm not gonna be "well, might as well commit suicide", I'm much more like to be "holy shit I'm glad I'm still alive". I think this should be reflected in the world of DayZ too. 2) Add additional time if you die often. This would serve to encourage people to learn the game and get good at keeping alive. It is my believe that every case someone dies ingame, it's their own fault (or a bug, but well, it's alpha...). People should be punished for their faults. People should also be rewarded for overcoming their faults and learning the game, but I think the need to increase the value a player places on his newly spawned character through a flat minimum respawn time outweighs the benefits of rewarding them with no or lower respawn time if they smarten up. For every time a player has died within his last x hours of play, he should get y additional minutes added to his respawn timer. If he manages to stay alive for a while, it should be reduced back to the minimum amount. 3) Different starting equipment. The starting equipment should contain everything you need to survive for a short time, and everything you need to get familiar with the basic concepts of the mod. Which in my opinion means one of each of full canteen, tin of beans, bandage, painkillers, morphine, matchbox, wood plus the Makarov and 2 spare mags. Why do I think having a matchbox from the get go isn't OP: you'll still need to collect wood and if you want to hunt animals you'll still need to find a knife. Maybe add one flare, I'm not sure about that. What's your take on this loadout? ---------------------------------------- Something else I'd like to get opinions on: Would you like to see your spawning location change based on where you died? I'm thinking along the lines of halfway between the spot of beach you would normally spawn and the point of your death. It might be a nice feature if you venture far from the coast and don't want to have to travel for ages to get back to your buddies/gear/favorite loot location, but it might change the balance in favor of the survivors, so I'm not convinced it's a good idea. Here's one more (and final) reminder: this point might be especially tempting to start a bandit/survivor discussion. Please don't. Keep your answer to this one short and reasoned. Go all out on the other stuff if you must ;) ---------------------------------------- So here it is, ideas, suggestions, get at it! - Alex

What if there were servers where you only had a single life? How would gameplay change and would you enjoy playing on servers like this? It would work as follows: You'd have to connect before the mission is started. As soon as all slots are filled the mission is started. If you die, you can't respawn and noone else can connect until the server is reset again, so with every death there is one less player and no way to replace him. Would it cause the players to band together and protect each other to survive as long as possible? Would such a group turn on members that cause to much noise or are careless? Or would there be factions that are at odds with one another / players trying to kill everyone else to be the last man standing? I think it would be a nice addition to have such a mode. What's your take on this?

Ofc it would be really bad if such a change would keep you from playing because of lack of servers you were allowed to join. That's why I think it should not replace the current system, but be an alternative. In fact it could even help by adding a lot of new servers, since they would not have to be connected to the central database. Every server running this mode could be set up on the fly by everyone that happened to feel like it in a very short amount of time and without the need to coordinate with the dev team, since everybody joining the server would get a new, server-exclusive character. Exploring attachment of a player to his characters life is something the mod in it's current form does really well already (although not perfectly), but in my opinion allowing (for lack of a better word) 'non-centralized', no-respawn servers might provide a better perspective into what kind of social structures can emerge in a sandbox environment and other inter-player relationships. Why do I think that? An environment like this would offer two advantages. Every's players actions toward another player can never be undone and it would always be the same group of players on the server, allowing them to form much more complex and deeper relationships with each other than those you get on servers that are basically populated by different random people every time you connect.

I've never read any statement by rocket that he removed the bandit skin because of 'bandit tears'. I've also never read any topic where bandits whined about having a bandit skin. But then again, I've only joined the forums recently, so I may have missed that. Maybe someone can point me to one of those. Until then I'll just continue to assume that rocket removed it because he thought it was best for the game. Coincidentally, I happen to agree despite still having killed zero other players.

I don't think there would be excess griefing, since as soon as someone dispatches a griefer, he's gone for good. Since the by far larger percentage of players is not interested in that but only in legitimate play I don't think griefers would be able to do much damage before someone eliminates them from the equation. Ofc if you think bandit equals griefer, then you may have a point. But I'd strongly disagree with that, since as soon as the bandits killed all the survivors for all their loot, there's noone left to go after. So even bandits would (to some degree) be interested in most of the people on the server surviving. Maybe they'd form some kind of more aggressive faction, while more survivalist oriented players would form a more defensive one. It's exactly that social dynamic that I'd like to be able to explore, since honestly, idk what would happen. I also think it would be very much in the spirit of the mod as a social experiment. Think of such a modification of the mod as similar to the different versions/iterations of the Milgram experiment.

Actually our positions differ somewhat. The (semi)random spawning location is the thing I'm least sure about, since it might open another possibility to exploit the respawn mechanic (respawn until you end up where you want). And I don't think starting gear should be customizeable, just slightly different from what we have now (but the same for everybody). But it's good to see lots of people bringing forward ideas. In the end we're all just brainstorming to provide rocket with some ideas :D

Since the servers only offer a very limited amount of slots I can't really approve of this. I can never get onto one specific server, I just pick the first one with a free slot. That has lead to me not even knowing the name of the server I'm on while playing. But I agree that server hopping is a problem. Maybe it would be worth a try to have two databases, have one part of the servers connect to the first and the other to the second? That way you'd still be as (un)likely to find a free spot and people could provide feedback if something like this had a positive effect?

Afaik both Zs and loot spawn as soon as you get close to a spawning location. I don't know if they despawn after you leave, but I don't think so.

Could you expand on that a bit? I'd like to know if you dislike the idea of a less harsh respawn penalty for new players or a respawn penalty in general. Since you quoted my later post where I proposed some ways to lessen the penalty for new players I'm guessing the former. Also, what are your thoughts on capping the respawn penalty for new and experienced players/just new players?

Every time before climbing a latter you make sure you are holding something that requires two hands.

The details are not set in stone in any way. You are making a good point in such a system scaring away new players. Probably should have used seconds instead of minutes. Details like that are probably best decided by the people implementing the stuff, i.e. rocket. Maybe some sort of new player protection could help with that. So for your first x deaths you don't get additional time, and for every death from the xth to the yth you don't get the full penalty but only an increasing fraction of it. Something among those lines. Plus, it could be capped. So no matter how often you die, you never have to wait longer than z. This could also be lower for newer players. Ironing out faults like this is why I need your input, so thanks for your response ;)

"Time survived"-timer on the death screen sounds pretty cool. You should make that a suggestion on it's own. You'd definitely have my support. I agree that "waiting for server/receiving data" is some kind of flat respawn timer, but for one I hope that gets fixed and also it lacks the psychological effect a "you died. now you got to wait"-timer has, because it's perceived as just a technologically induced annoyance. My basic reasoning for a flat respawn timer is that I think the free starting equipment shouldn't be free. If you were alive it would take time to gather the stuff you get given by the game. It's basically a reward for dying, I'd like to see it the other way round.

Sorry if my initial post was a bit harsh in language absynth. I was in a bit of a bad mood earlier today and let my posts be influenced by that. Now I feel a bit bad because I think it's a really neat idea. But don't worry, I've got a big ego, I'll get over it :D

Nothing should be punished' date=' unless it's the cheating/hacking/exploiting I mentioned in the OP. If you're constantly getting killed by peopl erunning around on the beach, then you're the one who is doing something wrong. Claiming that people are stupid and griefing because they choose to run up and down the coast killing whoever they see is just more whining. Anyone who's played this game for more than a few hours should know where the red-zones are, and doesn't have any excuse for getting shot down while in those areas. I think you misunderstood me there. I've stated in multiple other topics that I am opposed to any humanity- or murder-based respawn timers / spawning equipment / whatever. With punishing stupidity/griefing I mean punishing people that die a lot. That is on the one hand survivors stupid enough to stay near the coast when they don't want/can't handle PVP and on the other hand griefers that exploit insta-respawn to basically get free blood, free Makarovs and free ammo to go on a rampage at spawn. If there's a group of bandits camping spawn and they are good enough to not die constantly: fine with that. Let them have their kills, I can easily outmaneuver them and get to some safer place. If there's a single guy spawning over and over again to use his free starting equipment to annoy others give him additional respawn time. Basically I'm of the opinion that in just about every single case someone dies, it's their own fault. If they die over and over again, discourage their behavior, because obviously it's stupid. Having high/low humanity or a high/low murder count is not part of the equation imo. A system like that would not favor any play style. It would just make your own life more valuable. If you survive through shooting other players: no additional respawn time. If you survive through stealth and looting: no additional respawn time. If you are just not up to the challenge: get your act together or face additional respawn time.

So if I CZ a bandit from 400m I somehow get blood on me? Actually the idea isn't that bad. Just change how you get bloodied to "whenever you loot a corpse, be it Z, survivor or bandit" and I'm all for it. Make it decrease over time and faster during rain.

+rep. It's an opinion post, and it's well written. You can disagree with it, but you can't prove it wrong. Spawning is broken and can be exploited by both survivors and bandits. Only removing bandits/only rewarding survivors will not fix it.

Most Geiger counters can't measure gamma radiation (granted, not that big of a deal since ingestion/inhalation of stuff radiating alpha is much more dangerous). Plus, they are not exactly plentiful. And you don't get dizzy or sick immediately. Takes at least some hours, and by then it's too late. Look up some real-world cases, there's plenty of well documented ones. It's simply my opinion that people think it's cool because it's never been implemented in a game anywhere near realistic. If it was there would be whining. I don't like gamey mechanics to be added. I also don't like frustrating mechanics. Therefore I don't think it would add to the game in a meaningful way. As I said -> opinion. You can disagree, but you can't change it.

It makes the game less fun for bandits, but not survivors. Therefore it's a punishment for bandits. I don't think bandits or the bandits way of life is OP, therefore nerfing them but not survivors doesn't make sense to me.

Well, I don't think that makes the idea any better. There's still no way to detect/avoid it, so it's random deaths and people whining about it. As for the low doses that don't affect you all that much: why simulate them at all if they don't affect you all that much? I still think it's unnecessary and only brought up because it's "cool". and how would you do this? I assume you just sit in towns and shoot random people like a COD player. There needs to be more lonewolf survivor gameplay, I'm tired of just shooting people all day. Make it hard.. seriously the game is SO easy, how to win: spin 360 degrees and watch for nametags, see nametag then fire CZ shot at them and take their shit. Repeat. Easy fix: play on servers with vet difficulty. No nametags there. Personally I think servers running this mod should all have nametags disabled.

No that doesn't work, since your DayZ character is tied to your game ID, not your profile. You can't avoid a respawn timer except by buying a new copy each time.

Have some rep. Excellent post.

I agree that banditry should not be punished. It's a legitimate way to survive. What should be punished is stupidity and griefing. Which means getting rid of the "spawn, try to kill someone with a Makarov, die, spawn, try to kill so with a Makarov, die, spawn, ..."-cycle. Spawn equipment should be reduced and spawn timer should increase with an increasing number of recent death. That punishes stupid behavior of both survivors and bandits, but doesn't favor one over the other (which most other suggestions on the forum unfortunately do).

I agree that it's too dark at night. For me that has 3 effects that I consider bad: NVGs are the most OP item ever People fleeing to daytime servers, which causes more strain on the server infrastructure it's unrealisticly dark I'd like to see it changed to a less extreme level. Maybe halfway between the current eternal darkness and the background picture of this forum. But since I can hop servers anyway it's not that much of a priority imo.

I never understood why people link Zs and radiation... Don't like the idea. Because if implemented in any realistic fashion what would happen is this: - You'll never even realize you have been exposed to radiation, since you can't see, hear, taste, smell or feel it - You'll start randomly vomiting, getting bloody diarrhea, be physically weaker - Then you'll die Radiation poisoning is a shitty way to die. And it doesn't lend itself to games, since it'll be just a lot of seemingly random death and people whining about them.