[X-posting from Reddit]How to fix the Bandit, Hero, and end game content in DayZ with 3 changes.

[danlegend 16]

A few months ago, I was ambushed by several players, they engaged me for trespassing their encampment and in an effort for survival I killed some of them. There were one or two heroes among them, and in killing them I lost a significant amount of humanity.

5 months later, I still am a bandit. I don't ever really kill anyone unless they are a threat to me or someone else.

The problem is that I am constantly distrusted by players. Heroes know that they don't lose humanity for killing me and they don't want to take a chance with me. I am being constantly punished for a mistake I made 5 months ago.

For me to restore my humanity, I would have to give a hundred or two blood transfusions. This is virtually impossible.

The system has to be changed to allow players to shift their humanity with a reasonable amount of effort. There should be a minimum amount of humanity to prevent situations like the one I had, say -10000, and Heroes should lose humanity for killing any player when out of combat, bandit or otherwise.

Also losing humanity should not be based on the enemies humanity. It should be a flat rate like -750 per bandit kill, -1000 per survivor and -1500 per hero killed. You should also lose humanity for other actions, such as looting too much stuff (by measuring what the player needs and detecting if he is too greedy).

Humanity also needs to slowly crawl towards zero, at the rate of, for example, 1 humanity every fifteen seconds. This forces heroes to maintain their image and forgives bandits over time.

Please upvote this if you agree so someone on the community dev team can see, I gain no karma for it.

TL;DR: Humanity is not an effective measure of a players ethics, and it's too hard to get out of negative humanity. Change the way humanity is measured and make it neutral over time. Not doing so ruins the game for even some of the most humane players and creates a strange hierarchy.

Well, there was bandits, then there wasn't, then they make a return with an accompanying hero skin, problem is, a hero is no more than a pvp groups medic because being a medic is all the hero system accounts for. While it does make for interesting cases to where a group could have a Walking Dead's Governor person have a hero skin while everyone else he rolls with is a bandit and he is the one that meets and greets other people until his friend unleash holy hell, I think the mechanic just needs to be re-worked.

What happens after bandit skins are removed? People whine that they have no way of knowing that the obvious bandit that just killed 30 noobs on sight is a blatant bandit. So the only solution if we don't want this roller coaster ride is to re-work the system. Make being a bandit wayyy harder.

1. Killing other negative humanity (-1 counts) players while in negative humanity (-1) at all should have no point (negative or positive) awarded.

2. Lower negative humanity bandit requirement to -2500.

(These two make it really hard to become a bandit)

3. Put a cap on lost humanity for hero kills (Who gives a crap if you just killed freakin' Spider-man, its a freakin' zombie apocalypse and he was about to give a morphine to a noob while u just crawled your way 2 miles and have him in you line of sight. Cap it at half the negative humanity it would take to get to bandit status, -1250.

There I just fixed bandit play entirely. In the situation in the OP where he decided to fire on the group with slightly trustworthy heroes instead of run or salute, he still becomes a bandit, Why? Because in that situation that's the line. He did just enough at 0 humanity to become a bandit. If he has any positive at all, he's still a civilian. Humanity regained for time should happen on 24 hour intervals, as much as you would get now, but only at a 24 hour interval. Same for changing back into a hero, not for changing into a bandit however, that is instant.

As for heroes, they need to also be re-worked so someone has to do hero things, that probably won't be possible til stand-alone when the game can be programmed to interpret when you just saved someone from zombies AND let them live. Maybe a star system that the other player can give someone else, however that star is removed upon a total (combined from different sessions) 2 hours spent within 50 meters of each other in a 168 hour period and reputation removed (This will eliminate bandit parties from starring each other). Also you can only give out 5 stars (each to a different person only) per life and 20 in a 168 hour period regardless of lives. Stars would be like completing a quest for a hero but players have it. Other things get you points to, but just imagine the social aspect of trying to become a hero via doing quest for noobs to obtain their awesome stars, which put you onto tiers of heroes.

Tier 1: Access to medic clothing in Standalone (you can pick things out one time in a special menu). (Current humanity level needed for hero skin)

Tier 2: Access to cop clothing in standalone (you can pick things out one time in a special menu). (x2 Current humanity level needed for hero skin)

Tier 3: Paramilitary clothing access. (x3 Current humanity level needed for hero skin)

Tier 4: Official clothing access, think the Governor from Walking Dead. (x4 Current humanity level needed for hero skin, Humanity is capped here, no more additional, avoiding silly noob killing since he would have too much humanity, instead killing just one noob loses him his teir and forces him to help someone in return.)

Tiers 5 and above: Create more new things as needed to keep players with endgame content.

As people progress up these tiers of Heroes they still don't provide any more negative karma if killed, providing a great sense of "should I continue this quest for a silly tier when everyone who kills me AT MOST loses 1250 humanity?" or "Fuck, I really need this next skin tier for my group so we can run around as bandits and I meet and greet our prey" and a million other different thought process' that I won't go into. But in the process the guy in situation B just helped so many noobs, and he is probably only going after big PvP groups with his bandit group led by a Tier 4 hero anyways. Not only that, but the star system I feel would provide end-game content and something to achieve (tier 4) as opposed to just shooting noobs from the top of a hospital. These quest would also give a way for unjustly accused bandits to fix their humanity in a way that would have real world implications in a zombie Apocolypse ("Hey Mark, that guy in the bandit skin in town helped me get to you, he ain't so bad" "Yeah, you're right Tom, I'ma let people know.")

I have no idea what the points for a star should be, maybe 500, yea 500 humanity. Also, if you give someone a star and kill them you lose twice as much humanity as you would normally for the kill, this is the only way to become a bandit with one kill, as a civie that shots a hero in the back after giving him his star will instantly bear the mark of the beast.

TL;DR: People have DO WORK to become a hero. People have to DO WORK to become a bandit. Everything else is fair in love and war.

[behzad@motaghi.dk 8]

I never understood why we needed a humanity system. DayZ is supposed to be a zombie apocalypse simulator. If I shoot 10 people, I won't magicly wear other clothing.

If people see someone they don't know, they should talk to them (just like you would in a "real" zombie apocalypse), and take it from there, or shoot them on sight because of whatever.

Note: I am a bandit, but I never lie and say I am friendly just to shoot you in the back.

[Corpselooter 16]

I don't let skins determine my actions towards a player and I don't openly engage them ever if possible. I observe from a distance and stalk them not to kill the but to see if they have camps close to my tents and also to observe them interacting with others. If I see them killing noobs I will intervene. I am not a bandit I am a hermit I skulk out in the dark silently watching and scratching by solo. You never know who is watching as you're crossing that open field. It's just as fun to avoid and stalk players as it is to get into a fire fight.

[Xianyu 820]

I never understood why we needed a humanity system. DayZ is supposed to be a zombie apocalypse simulator. If I shoot 10 people, I won't magicly wear other clothing.

If people see someone they don't know, they should talk to them (just like you would in a "real" zombie apocalypse), and take it from there, or shoot them on sight because of whatever.

Note: I am a bandit, but I never lie and say I am friendly just to shoot you in the back.

Because there is barely any interaction even WITH bandit skins. It's not 'survival', it's a CoD deathmatch except you don't start with any guns and the maps are 100 KM wide.

It's this way so that the people who treat the game like a deathmatch are at least maked as such. You know that person has killed a lot of people. It's a flawed system, but without it, the game devolves even further.

Personally, I agree with a 'negative limit' to humanity. People will always abuse the system to get the hero skin just so they can then go out and be cunts. You shouldn't be realistically permanently a bandit for killing a hero that decided to kill you.

Though, losing humanity for killing bandits? Nu-uh. I shoot bandits on sight. I see a rag-head, I pop it. Why? Because generally speaking, bandits in this game are glorified greifers.

[behzad@motaghi.dk 8]

Because there is barely any interaction even WITH bandit skins. It's not 'survival', it's a CoD deathmatch except you don't start with any guns and the maps are 100 KM wide.

It's this way so that the people who treat the game like a deathmatch are at least maked as such. You know that person has killed a lot of people. It's a flawed system, but without it, the game devolves even further.

Personally, I agree with a 'negative limit' to humanity. People will always abuse the system to get the hero skin just so they can then go out and be cunts. You shouldn't be realistically permanently a bandit for killing a hero that decided to kill you.

Though, losing humanity for killing bandits? Nu-uh. I shoot bandits on sight. I see a rag-head, I pop it. Why? Because generally speaking, bandits in this game are glorified greifers.

A better solution would be to make zombies much harder (like they will be in the standalone), so we wouldn't pretty much wouldn't have a choice but to team up.

I imagine big cities like Elektro, Cherno and Berezino having AT LEAST 10x as many zombies and being able to run in doors.

[slivniku@gmail.com 93]

We'll have to wait how (if) this is implemented in the SA

As the SA will have slots for hats and glasses and clothes etc I'm not really sure how the current system would be implemented - do bandits get a free balaclava that they can than throw away? or how you would visually recognize a bandit/hero when clothes can be changed...

+ this:

A better solution would be to make zombies much harder (like they will be in the standalone), so we wouldn't pretty much wouldn't have a choice but to team up.

[WiFiN 55]

I don't see any good in humanity system. YOu shouldn't be granted some items given to you by some magic fairy for being naughty or nice.

The only thing that would work is some heartbeat you can hear when approached by a murderer who killed alot of people. Your perception should fool you sometimes though so people don't rely on this completely.

Also, looting dead players should paint your hands and sleeves with blood until you wash them and clothes can become blood-soaked if you kill too many - that would be a good sign too.

Edited January 10, 2013 by WiFiN

[rubberman 8]

I would say the humanity system could use work but it is one of the ways that you can tell what a person's past is. You need a system since we don't have visual stimuli that would give you hints/hunch (aka the creeps) when meeting someone - ie i don't trust their eyes, mannerisms etc. I like the ideas of blood soaking, but think there's a better method out there in someone's brain - wish i knew what it was, I don't spend much time on game design. :S

[danlegend 16]

I don't see any good in humanity system. YOu shouldn't be granted some items given to you by some magic fairy for being naughty or nice.

The only thing that would work is some heartbeat you can hear when approached by a murderer who killed alot of people. Your perception should fool you sometimes though so people don't rely on this completely.

Also, looting dead players should paint your hands and sleeves with blood until you wash them and clothes can become blood-soaked if you kill too many - that would be a good sign too.

I like this suggestion a lot actually.

Ok humanity system aside, what did you guys think about a reward system players can use. A reputation system that is player driven, you only get reputation readings for players that the player that you meet has, creating a web. I just thought of something with my system that might not work. Threats, "Give me a star or I kill you" I'm currently trying to figure out how to allieviate this problem.

On the basis of threats, there should be a fully fleshed out system in stand alone for threats, interrogation, robbing, and detainment that is intuitive. Not shouting "Freeze" over mic and player says, "Don't shoot I'm friendly" (which he really is) but turns around with his gun pointed straight at you because in order to show you're friendly its going to take 30 seconds to put your gun up and the whole 9 yards and in the mean time you're dead.

[ruarz 739]

Don't think an artificial system like humanity is the way to deal with banditry at all. Instead 'real-life' considerations should encourage players to work together, i.e.make group play more rewarding and solo play harder.

[hoik 415]

About the "star" system: I like the idea of players being able to gift objects to eachother by way of grattitude. i imagine these objects would have little intrinsic value, but were more of a asthetic feature - and could act like a "memento" of the person who gave you it.

These momentos could replace "stars", and be more in line with the theme of the game. And because they are a token of a memory they can be both good and bad. So then it would not be possible to hold someone up for a good memento - but I don't know how you could actually implement this in the game.

What if you can give a "memento", but it doesn't reveal its self as a positive or negative "memory" untill a set amount of time has passed - I was going to suggest also being able to give a direct positive or negative "memento", but then players would just demant a positive one, and kill you if you gave them an annonomus one.

All in all, I think this could work...

Edited January 11, 2013 by Hoik

[Very Ape 748]

1) remove humanity system.

[PigKiller 26]

I would like to see all bandits wearing black and white striped shirts, a small cap, a black mask and carry everything in a big sack with dollar sign on it. Heros would all wear brightly color long underwear with a red H on the chest and a cape. They would carry everything on a utility belt and be able to run at super speed.

You know, just how we determine who's good or bad in real life. By what they wear or how they look.