Colour HUD according to humanity + proper body inspections + zombified survivors

[Shifty_Pete 11]

I've seen the latest GUI updates and it gave me an idea. Perhaps the colour of the GUI could change based on your humanity? For example, a fresh survivor's GUI would be a pale green. If they do evil things and become a bandit, it will slowly morph to orange/red. If they're a goody-two-shoes and be a hero, it will slowly morph to blue or a brighter green.

I remember when the GUI had an icon for humanity - instead of an icon, how about just plain text hinting at what kind of player you are? If anyone here has played TTT in Garry's Mod - it had a karma system where you had a title below your name when people looked at you which changed according to your karma, eg. "Dangerous, "Trigger-Happy", "Reputable", "Trustworthy". I propose a similar system for DayZ, where either you can see it on your HUD, or perhaps other players can see it when very close and looking right at you (along with your name).

Speaking of TTT, another thing that springs to mind is body inspections. Currently, there is limited body inspection in DayZ - "His name was Shifty Pete, it appears he died from-" isn't good enough. Here's what I'd like:

- His/Her name was [name].

- It appears he died from [reason] (Gunshot wounds (head/body), Melee wounds, Blood loss, Broken Limbs, Starvation, etc.)

- It appears [weapon] was used to kill him (If applicable, eg. Stabbing/slashing weapon, .556 firearm, .45 firearm. Determinable by the bullet found on the corpse and bullet/stabbing wound.)

- He died approximately [time from death] ago. (This can assist in determining if the area is still dangerous or not.)

This is valuable information which would benefit gameplay greatly. Obviously you can't see this information at a glance, so it should take time to examine the corpse, giving anyone around a chance to sneak up on you. This was suggested more in-depth previously in another thread

Finally, I suggest that survivors killed by zombies have a chance of re-animating as a zombie after a certain period of time - Not only would this help prevent players from sprinting to their corpse from spawn, grabbing all their loot and soldiering on like nothing happened - but it would also mix things up a bit. You could kill a zombie and have a pleasant surprise when he's got more supplies on him than usual. This would also give players in general more incentive to loot and inspect zombie corpses.

Thank you for reading my suggestions.

Edited December 23, 2012 by Shifty_Pete

[rossums 2190]

All brilliant ideas that have been discussed before, I'd like to see them all implemented depending on how the game advances.

The only problem I'd see is the humanity related one, it was discussed previously that Rocket and the DayZ team trying to avoid adding elements to the HUD and were planning on using more 'in-game' indicators for things they are adding such as disease.

Rather than have any visual (HUD) indicator they would cough, lose focus, bleed etc.

On 'easy' type servers that have the hover type nametags it would work perfectly - there may have to be another implementation for the 'veteran' level players to check though - perhaps an examine option when you are close, similar to the death examination.

[Michaelvoodoo25 3120]

I like the idea of a coloured HUD for humanity, however how would you know what colour everyone else is? When you press P for example?

Take out the concept of humanity and let players dress how they want and play as they want. this will solve the humanity problem. People don't know in RL who has a negative stature unless you personally know them, so in game you should not need another standard Goodie V's Baddies mechanism. Seriously, being good and bad can be more grey than black and white.

[Shifty_Pete 11]

Take out the concept of humanity and let players dress how they want and play as they want. this will solve the humanity problem. People don't know in RL who has a negative stature unless you personally know them, so in game you should not need another standard Goodie V's Baddies mechanism. Seriously, being good and bad can be more grey than black and white.

I agree, however I think having your own HUD change colour would be a nice subtle effect - nobody else has to see it or know what your disposition is (except perhaps in the regular servers). It'd also be a bit of fresh air after having this vomit green colour the entire time.

[radrussian1 (DayZ) 23]

i think there should just be visual clue to figure out how someone died. and knowing their name just from looking at them is preposterous. as far as the humanity i still really like how bandits have a heart beat and heroes have a bulletproof vest. alot of people dont and that probably because they are filthy murderous peasants. risk versus reward is a huge part of this game and both the hero skin and the bandit skin reflect that. being a bandit you can simply kill someone and take their loot but you are branded as an asshole. being a hero you have to show restraint and trust, and from this you receive a badass pair of jeans and a bulletproof vest.

[Armaggedon97 33]

I like all of the ideas except the humanity one. I prefer the paranoia of trusting a survivor of killing him. Other players should only identify you from skin as a bandit survivor or hero, nothing more, nothing less. As for yourself, a personal stats screen, seperate from the in-game UI but easily accessible from the esc menu would be nice to see your exact stats whenever you want, and does not subtract from the immediate gameplay. Maybe even an option for sth like the debug monitor as an HUD would be nice, like you have 3 options, default (no HUD, just the in-game clues of your stats, basicaly what Rocket is planning on doing), classic (the icons we already have) and board (exact statistics in a box, basicaly the stats menu I mentioned before, but compact, with only the important stats shown, in other words... a debug monitor).

[TheSushi 28]

Maybe its just realistic you don't know what you look like to other people though. I think it adds drama.