klar

Looking for a way to allow for people to engage in non-PVP encounters within a PVP environment DOESN'T MEAN THEY WANT PVE ONLY. In fact, that's what makes this mod unique, that it creates an environment where this is possible. Practically no other game does this, because the point of those games is PVP only. For example, there is a guy crawling around near a far north town, he needs medicine and is in trouble. I could have offed him and took his stuff, but instead I hooked him up with what he needed and said good luck. Later at the airfield, ran into another guy who was dealing with a horde, offed a couple of the zombies and said, "you keep to yourself, my group keeps to itself". He agrees, we all go about our business. Then finally, another player says, "who's a the airfield, let's meet up". we elected not meet up but saw him, turns out to be a trap, he was bait looking to draw people out and his buddy snipered all three of my group. Fair enough. But the reality is there is nothing to keep people from constantly pulling those kinds of moves, and over time I wonder if it will ruin the desire to engage in non-PVP actions, and encourage people to only shoot on sight. At that point, the mod becomes much like many other similar products and loses some of its uniqueness. This is in no way asks for PVP to be removed, it's just a point for discussion. Can we all please take a step back from screaming CAREBEAR at each other and consider that many people are not calling for PVE only.

I completely agree with the thrust the OP is making, I made a similar thread about incentivizing behavior. This game is interesting because most games are kill on sight, BF3, COD, etc. In those games, everyone is a wolf, the goal is the be the best killer to survive. What makes this mod interesting is the fact that it allows you to play as a sheep and survive among wolves. If it gets to the point where most people adopt a "shoot on sight" attitude, then the game becomes mostly wolves, and the very thing that made it cool no longer exists. Then it's just PVP with some NPCs as fodder. This is why the Humanity score and the bandit skin were cool, because it was a small incentive that allowed for people to play as sheep and gave you a visual hint as to who might be a wolf. Now that's gone, as is one of the few things that might encourage people to play as sheep. Yes, one of the points is that the mod allows for whatever style you choose to play. However, if it becomes only wolves, then it literally is like every other FPS shooter on the market. It's kind of sad that people can only see this argument as being "carebear", because that is not the point. If it is only sheep (PVE) it's boring, if it's only wolves (PVP), it's boring. The WHOLE POINT is to have an environment that gives both play styles a chance to thrive. It's not exciting to play a sheep if there are no wolves. By default, anytime you play a shooter, people will adopt the wolf mentality. That is exactly why I installed this mod, because I've never seen a game that allowed sheeps and wolves to mingle with some measure of success. If this is not preserved, the uniqueness is gone with it. Who knows what the best way to accomplish this is, but it's important to what makes this experiment special.

You're correct, I'm new just like everyone else, not trying to create divides. Just meant over the past week vs the weekend, there seemed to a surge in people coming in and playing it like a shooter. The final point you made is what I'm getting at. Removing the skin takes away the one thing (visual stigma) that might make someone hesitate from killing everyone on sight. I mean sure, people can play the game any way they want. But if it becomes the norm to shoot on sight and trusting people means letting someone get close enough to pop you and take your stuff, I think a lot of what makes this mod really interesting will be lost.

Also, the reason I mention the death match style of play, that has been done a million times over. Why did this mod blow up so much? Because it offers the chance to play a game with weapons but not automatically kill everyone you see. It offers you an interesting choice you can't get other places. It just seems like removing the bandit skin means people can more easily make the choice to kill everyone on sight and will not encourage people to want to try and work with strangers. Also, this is not in anyway suggesting one way is better than the other. I'm looking at it from the mechanics of what allows for an even playing field that neither encourages or discourages either style. It just feels like it already leans towards the easier choice being shoot first ask later, and remove the bandit skin pushes it further in that direction.

I understand the points about preventing a certain style of play, or that people can play how they want. But certainly there are rewards for playing a certain style, and that is controlled by mechanics of the mod. There's a reason that your skin becomes different when you kill X number of people, it means that people will know not to trust you on sight. Maybe you will anyway, but clearly that is there to provide a risk/benefit for that style of play. if you remove that, I just think it will move even further away from people wanting to trust each other. ray might be right and the abundance of banditry will normalize over time.

Sure, there are reasons to work together. Personally I dig that feeling of getting into the game and seeing someone, being nervous about approaching them, etc. Maybe it was just the weekend play, but it seemed like a lot of people were playing completely death match style. The point is, what's really there to prevent that? As I said, there is high reward for playing aggressively and it's instant gratification, I killed that guy and took his quality gun. Personally I get satisfaction out of playing survivor style and there are benefits. But from a mechanics perspective, if playing as a survivor doesn't have good rewards, things devolve into death match.

The sandbox nature of this game is really fantastic, very few games give the player almost total choice in how they want to approach the game. The real juice is meeting someone and trying to figure out if you want to trust them or not. However, maybe this is because of the big influx in popularity, but at first people were more inclined to ask if friendly or not, either in chat or with voice chat. But over the past week, it's seems like a lot of people are playing this like death match, shoot first and without warning. If this mod devolves into death match with zombies, that would be a bummer. There are plenty of games like that. With the news that bandit skins are being done away with, what incentives are there for people to be cooperative? At least with the skin you have a clue as to someone's play style, after the change it just invites more mistrust and solo play to avoid other people. Shouldn't there be an incentive to want to work with strangers, instead of almost rewarding people for shooting first without provocation? At this point there is a high reward factor for playing a bandit style, while trying to play as a survivor has high risk and low reward, other than your personal satisfaction and enjoyment. Going forward, shouldn't the mod lean more towards rewarding survivors? Otherwise if the mechanics provide high reward for a bandit style, it will devolve into death match and the idea of playing friendly will be non existent.