Why the skin system is fine...for now

[FLMedic Doc 16]

This is pretty much what we have right now

Bandit/Killed many/ Bandanna for bandit identification, does not show backpack

Survivor/ Somewhere in between/ No perks

Hero/ helped more than killed/ Hero skin for identification, bulletproof vest(tested), runs faster

Many think this is unfair as one the hero path offers more advantage

I believe that it is MUCH EASIER to be a Bandit than a Hero. Given the situation below, this is what would probably happen

You see a loner with broken legs crawling to the hospital, you would have approach to him if he wasn't carrying a big caliber weapon. instead you:

Bandit Path

Easy- Kill him

Not so easy- force him to drop weapons and rob him

Hero Path

Very difficult- force him to drop weapons, offer him aids, patch him up, give him some supplies (and hope that this survivor will not backstab you later on)

Yes i know there are dozen ways to solve this, but this'll have to do for the post

It is much easier to be a bandit, as you can pretty much do whatever you want, no morality, no nothing. because it is easier you suffer from the bandanna

Hero on the other hand, is a much harder path to go by since to become one you will have to actually trust and listen to other players in the game, you have to give some time and decide whether if this is a good idea or an bad one. Hence the slight advantages

I'm not saying that each path should be rewarded and/or punished in the SA, but since they got nothing else that can replace this as of now, this is as good as it gets.

what do you guys think?

Edited November 15, 2012 by FLMedic Doc

[Siberian (DayZ) 527]

hopefully the SA comes with various levels of skins for play styles..

such as field medic, murderer ( of various levels), mechanic, etc... and such..

just having a single hero/bandit skin to cover all the various reasons for having obtaining it (while working in the mod) isnt good enuf for a full retail game.

looking out long term people need reasons/consequences for their actions.

[Jamz 253]

Good idea, we should have had a poll on that 'other' thread :)

[blunt_zephyr 51]

It'd be nice to see a selection of different skins based on what role you're playing. (survivour, hero, bandit, more?) Perhaps like the male/female screen. Have difference bonuses/penalties for 'classes' (not into turning it into a rpg/mmo but..) Perhaps hero can go further withour food/water, bandit can put up with the cold better. idk, survivour has a bigger direct-chat radius or could "sprint" faster?

[Itsnotcrazyuntilchachacha 13]

>mfw there ain't no enough vaseline for all this butthurt

[xsean13 2]

It's actually VERY easy to become a hero. Blood glitch until hero skin. Success.

Nobody seems to care or recognize hero skins though, I still get shot at on site, and not necessarily from bandits.

Edited November 15, 2012 by xSean13

[Baka Survivor 20]

Hero skin mechanic is flawed IMO. I don't see why hero skin isn't just a medic skin in the first place as medical aid is the only way to achieve it. Not by helping others by giving food, equipment, killing bandits, zeds etc. Most probably achieve by repeatedly patching up their own clan buddies anyway. Unattainable to lone wolf who doesn't want to play medic.

[chakijz 174]

Offer aids. heheheehe

Edited November 15, 2012 by chakijz

[Erizid 56]

Bandit and Hero skins would be 100% successful in their intent if Humanity wasn't so easy to spoof. Because retuning fire and killing someone that shot at you but missed gives you a Bandit skin, its purpose is lost. I've had more positive interactions with Bandit skins than normal skins. Hero skin is the same problem. Anyone that puts the effort with a friend to get Hero skinned can easily shoot anyone they want and keep the skin by camping a hospital with a friend and repeatedly healing them.

I was a normal skin for my entire play duration until recently i got in a 3v7 gun battle and ended up with 5 kills and -11k humanity. I never would have killed anyone if they hadn't shot first. The only reason to take out bandit and hero skins is because the humanity system doesn't work.

Rocket said a while back that Humanity is the mechanic the game deserves, but doesn't need yet. This is spot on because it will only help the game if it works exactly the way it is supposed to.

[Sutinen 635]

I want humanity in standalone, but no skins. I want custom clothes to be randomly found in buildings.

I think the heart beat when you aim at bandits should be one of those indicators. It needs some additional ones though.

I don't know about heroes though.

Edited November 15, 2012 by Sutinen

[son54 78]

Hero skin mechanic is flawed IMO. I don't see why hero skin isn't just a medic skin in the first place as medical aid is the only way to achieve it. Not by helping others by giving food, equipment, killing bandits, zeds etc. Most probably achieve by repeatedly patching up their own clan buddies anyway. Unattainable to lone wolf who doesn't want to play medic.

I got my skin by myself. I used to be a cherno city slicker, always around for action. I have found in my experience (literally atleast 10 times) random survivor groups form at the super market. I play with these guys and occasionally patch each other up. Eventually I got enough for hero skin.

[ZTrainz 21]

I don't know about heroes though.

Porn music... or "Stayin Alive"... or Meg Ryan in the deli.

[Brew78 27]

The skins shouldn't necessarily be taken *out*, but perhaps functionality tweaked. I have absolutely no idea how this tweaking should be done, nor the requirements to implement said tweaking. But a way to differentiate an unwarranted kill from an accident from self-defense would really be optimal IMO.

I'm reminded of something Penn Jillette said.. yesterday actually, on a show I was listening to in the car. The discussion was on religion and atheism, and he was complaining about people claiming a lack of religion and belief in an afterlife as also being a lack of any kind of moral compass. That without desire for heaven or fear of hell, what's preventing you from just going out and shooting people in the face?

His reply was something to the effect of "Well, what's making *you* WANT to go shoot people in the face, you crazy psychotic fuck?!"

Point being, in the case of a "normal" person who happened to survive the zombie outbreak due to luck or immunity or whatever, killing a bunch of people is going to take a toll and it will show to others you encounter. The number of true sociopaths who would take no toll is a fairly low percentage, and IMO can be ignored for the purpose of coding this game. I don't believe that assuming everyone on this particular territory is "normal" is unreasonable. Sure, you can argue that a sociopath would have an easier time surviving, but whatever, its still going to be a low percent of people.

I suppose, however, that if your life span and/or murder count reaches a certain threshold.. maybe you can revert back to a normal skin, having become a true sociopath? Or maybe you could go to Bandit Level 2, having turned into a total lunatic? Maybe have a coin flip where you go one way or the other?

[sausagekingofchicago 4711]

I hope they're reworking the entire humanity system for the standalone. Hopefully the devs will hint at some changes soon. I can't imagine it would be identical to the system we have now.

[Dreygar (DayZ) 178]

killing a bunch of people is going to take a toll and it will show to others you encounter.

People kill people all the time. There are no visual indicators that they are any different than you and I. If there was the judicial system would have a much easier job.

Every time you guys make statements like the above quoted, I can't help but picture this.

Just bear in mind this is hollywood and their objective is to be over the top on everything, but in the real world people can hide emotion very well. There are TONS of instances where people have killed other people and lived normal lives until forensics or some other evidence caught up to them... Maybe I'm the only one who can see how irrelevant humanity is in a game.

[-Guardian- 206]

The 'Skin' System is flawed to the max.

You need to add that the hero skin shows your backpack which is a flaw.\

Oh and this of course.

DID YOU KNOW???

You can get hero skin in 1 minute.

You can stack humanity using one bloodbag.

(20,000 humanity in 2 minutes)

You can literally get hero skin, stack humanity, and go on killing rampages without ever losing the hero skin.

Then spawn with it when you die!

Extremely broken.

Ive known of this for months now and it still hasnt been fixed

So now i am just going to broadcast it in hopes that the more people who abuse it,

the more attention will be drawn to it.

[Itsnotcrazyuntilchachacha 13]

A way to differentiate an unwarranted kill from an accident from self-defense would really be optimal IMO.

You sir, seem to be the person I've been looking for.

To be entirely honest with you, I really don't know what you're talking about for like, 85% of your post, but this quote makes me think you can give me an answer:

So how exactly does one justify that measures are god-pooped upon the players?

I mean, you're in a zombie apocalypse when BENG survivor appears. You pew pew him for whatever reasons, be them legit or not. And then what?

Whatever measures the game takes by itself, out of the blue or by the force of the holy spirit amen entertainment upon players are justified by either

1. Delusion -> Stop fooling yourselves already, like now. You could not spot a murderer in a 5 people group. The fact you live in a 1st world country, never seen a murder only speaks of the bubble you live in. /discussion

2. Moral Boolsheet -> So the guy's a bandit, kills players. So f#@%ing what. What do you expect from PvP? You bump into someone, call friendlyOHOHOHYOUCAN'TKILLMENOW,CALLEDFRIENDLYLOL. What's your ideal situation? Having people taking their hats off at you as you pass by? ''Good morning, fine sir.''

My question, again, is: How do you justify that measures are taken upon murder?

EDIT: Reading your post again, I think what you're pointing out there is the question of why would anyone just shoot you on sight. Well dude the answer is very simple.

BTW I'm saying this having killed as many as zero players ever, and having been shot on sight a couple times:

a ) I want to live, and regardless of what you say, you're a potential threat.

b ) Your company / cooperation /gibberish interests me ZEROES!

That simple. You're out there, I perfectly ignore your intentions, but know what: it's 50/50, and I'm not gonna run with the risks on a freaking 50% chance of eventually getting blown.

And that's pretty much it. Not as if you were a real person, rather than a lot of 0 and 1 with a backpack.

Edited November 16, 2012 by Itsnotcrazyuntilchachacha

[blunt_zephyr 51]

Comparing an others pov to his own, ridiculing or jealous that "He's 1st World"

One sentence out of an entire 'post of thought', throwing around words like delusional. C'mon guy, there's 'some' who dont see a PC and zombie the same. There might be even more who'd want to actually cooperate with others, form groups and "make their entertainment", rather than deny others theirs.

and if we're being honest, I dont understand 99% of what you post..well I understand 100% why you delete your own post saying you dont know what you're talking about, asking mods to delete, but. :emptycan: piss in this, instead on others (just for having a different view of what the game is to him, than it is to you.)

[Itsnotcrazyuntilchachacha 13]

One sentence out of an entire 'post of thought', throwing around words like delusional. C'mon guy, there's 'some' who dont see a PC and zombie the same. There might be even more who'd want to actually cooperate with others, form groups and "make their entertainment", rather than deny others theirs.

and if we're being honest, I dont understand 99% of what you post..well I understand 100% why you delete your own post saying you dont know what you're talking about, asking mods to delete, but. :emptycan: piss in this, instead on others (just for having a different view of what the game is to him, than it is to you.)

Pal do you know why it says ''Quote'', in the quote button?

Because I'm the Queen of Equestria, that's why.

Exactly. For Quotation.

Well now that's settled, I'm going to need you getting a bit more in depth on all that ''asking mods to delete a post''...?

And putting everything aside, denying others their entertainment. Well I'm not quite sure of how much of an MMO player you're, but the thing is... you don't exactly play a PvP/E MMO without denying other people's entertainment, eventually. It happens when you, you know win over them. Like 50% of the times in a global average.

You see, PvP cannot work only in the rewarding way, when you're all geared up with 5 friends and give poo if you get to meet a player and accidentally shoot him. Sometimes you just are the one who gets shot.

Those who complain about the curve are usually those who can't get past it ;)

[leettari (DayZ) 133]

hopefully the SA comes with various levels of skins for play styles..

such as field medic, murderer ( of various levels), mechanic, etc... and such..

just having a single hero/bandit skin to cover all the various reasons for having obtaining it (while working in the mod) isnt good enuf for a full retail game.

looking out long term people need reasons/consequences for their actions.

Definitely.

I'd rather have more skins indicate more traits over just two, that completely opposite of each other.

There are various levels in between, like you might kill a survivor here and there but maybe you had your reasons? And now you want to focus on killing only bandits, hence that should't make you bandit.

[Darkwater (DayZ) 63]

In my opinion, the system idea is good, but it should be tweaked some more. I would like to see clothing changing depending on what level of humanity you get. The first level of Bandit can be less imposing and threatening, but does carry some indication of them having killed Survivors or Heroes. Atleast then you can relate to them because they might be normal survivors that haven't done anything but save their own asses in a firefight that they didn't start and use your own judgement based on how they act, play and what weapons they have and threat level to you at that very moment.

As for Hero skin, it should be harder to get. It's supposed to be an indication of you being trustworthy, that you don't shoot bambies on sight or visit Elektro/Cherno to fight and kill Survivors for kicks and thrills. But that could also be controlled by varying degrees of Humanity, however to get a positive humanity is far harder than getting a negative one.

In addition to this, I would love to see the ability to gather "trophies" from your victims. That is somewhat a Roleplaying aspect to that, but also it's something Bandit players can use to wave their epeen around for all to see. They themselves become a wandering scoreboard, but become increasingly at the risk of getting killed by Heroes that hunt Bandit trophies.

In the same way, Heroes gather the trophies from Bandits, burning it to earn more Humanity as I don't really see a Hero wandering around with personal effects belonging to other unfortunate Heroes or Survivors. As the Humanity increases, so does their Hero skin. Being a Medic should bring another skin entirely, in my opinion.. not that I know what that would be.

I realize that some people just kill to kill and couldn't care less about how they look, but this is just a general idea that I would like to see atleast in place of the one we have right now. It's either that or something completely different from clothing to show intentions.

[Brew78 27]

People kill people all the time. There are no visual indicators that they are any different than you and I. If there was the judicial system would have a much easier job.

Every time you guys make statements like the above quoted, I can't help but picture this.

Just bear in mind this is hollywood and their objective is to be over the top on everything, but in the real world people can hide emotion very well. There are TONS of instances where people have killed other people and lived normal lives until forensics or some other evidence caught up to them... Maybe I'm the only one who can see how irrelevant humanity is in a game.

"Tons" of instances, hmm? Care to quantify? And whatever number you come up with, what percent of these "tons" of people compare to the rest of the general population?

You and others in this thread seem to forget that when talking about numbers you NEED to be able to differentiate between totals and percents.

You can say "Wow, look, there were 1000 instances of something", but if there are a billion instances of something NOT happening, it means a whole hell of a lot less than somewhere else where there was only 100 instances, but also only several thousand instances of it not happening.

In short, your "tons of instances" is totally worthless and meaningless.

Also, chacha is full of shit. The apocalypse goes down, I guarandamntee that cooperation will start looking a LOT more preferable to trying to Rambo your way through whats left of your pathetically short life

[Dreygar (DayZ) 178]

"Tons" of instances, hmm? Care to quantify? And whatever number you come up with, what percent of these "tons" of people compare to the rest of the general population?

You and others in this thread seem to forget that when talking about numbers you NEED to be able to differentiate between totals and percents.

You can say "Wow, look, there were 1000 instances of something", but if there are a billion instances of something NOT happening, it means a whole hell of a lot less than somewhere else where there was only 100 instances, but also only several thousand instances of it not happening.

In short, your "tons of instances" is totally worthless and meaningless.

Also, chacha is full of shit. The apocalypse goes down, I guarandamntee that cooperation will start looking a LOT more preferable to trying to Rambo your way through whats left of your pathetically short life

Yes Brew, there are more instances in real life that people do not kill one another. Is that what you want to hear? No one is disputing that. Point is you could have a serial killer in the same room as everyone else and you wouldn't know the difference.