Skill System in DayZ?

[Rastamaus 323]

great work by OP and some convincing arguments but, no, not in this game.

[joe_mcentire 2074]

i believe to speak as well for the OP that a Skill System is not desired for the sake a Skill system. And i think some have this conservative idea of a skill system as in almost every other game, as clearly that's not what we are longing for.

That's why i called it "miniskills" in the first place to somehow take the edge off this expression.

But by going through several threads i do see almost everywhere ppl questioning somehow the point of beeing a loner, or longing for more PVE and less PVP.

I also read so much about wanting realism to a ridiculously nauseating degree, that it is absolutely impossible to work everything out properly, quasi depicting reality 1:1.

There might be (as the infection system) some feature-elements sorted out quite realistically but not by chance all of them, naturally.

Also here this much discussed solution would quite work out, as many ideas would have its influence on the implementation, of course not to a high-realism degree, but to degree to add more depth by not overwhelming both, devs and players.

Edited January 22, 2013 by joe_mcentire

[dallas 5195]

You misunderstand, realism isn't the end goal, authenticity is.

What I don't like about this skill idea is both that it distracts from the authentic feel of progression being something personal and that it's only to curb people killing each other.

[m00tley 50]

You misunderstand, realism isn't the end goal, authenticity is.

What I don't like about this skill idea is both that it distracts from the authentic feel of progression being something personal and that it's only to curb people killing each other.

OK, we get it, but do you have any ideas on how to solve the two problems i that i described?

[GodOfGrain 191]

I have become convinced that disease and immunities is the answer to character progression (eg "skills") in DayZ. It does several things:

- Provides a very subtle way to "level up" characters.

- Provides risk/ reward system. I would imagine only two ways to gain immunity 1. catch the disease and survive it 2. Vacination (which also has risks).

- It also gives you incentive to try and survive what ever horrible disease you have.

- Makes character progression take time, and depend on cercumstance. Randomness/ Time = Value.

- Logically links your skills to a single life/reincarnation. This also = Value.

- "Gaming" or "grinding" this skill has some bases of belivablility. We "game" diseases in real life - chicken-pox party anyone?

- "Gaming" or "grinding" a disease may not be so easy when you don't know for sure what disease you are going to catch!

- Provides advantages to both non-PvP and PvP aspects of survival.

- Gives no direct advantage/disadvantage to PvP.

- Visual indicator: There will be a visual indicator of how likely a player is to have some sort of immunity. Veteran players (in terms of time spent alive) will have a distinct look compared to noobs.

[...]

I really like these two points Hoik has drawn our attention two.

These two mechanims (immunities & visual character changes over time) are

definitley suited to adress the overall issue which we try to solve here. (Increase player identification)

As Rocket has said in various interviews, regarding abundance of PvP:

He wants a) more stuff to do b ) have a structure in place which do not arbitrarily reward or punish a certain playstile,but to have

various mechanics which softly influence player behavior towards the "desired" way.

Desired way in the sense that players are inclined to immerse themselve in a survival context.

Player behavior on a large scale is always influenced by the game design.

The game design represents a structure which guides, lets say a culture of experiencing this game.

That's the opportunity and challenge of an open-world / sandbox game like DayZ.

It is operating without rules, but sets a structure with, yes, positive and negative incentives.

You don't want arbitrary rules to e.g. punish certain playstiles.

But if you have a close look, you will find all those structure elements already in place which facilitate

certain playstiles. To give an example, the bloodbag system. It gives an incentive for social interaction, at least for group play.

The blood bag element is not a rule, but one piece of a stucture which guides player behavior into the "desired" way.

So the argument "DayZ is a free world and everybode should decide in a free way how to play" is

not really valid. We already have those incentives as a part of game design.

What a "skill system" now does is add another layer in the game design to facilitate

a certain kind of behavior. It addresses an important question which has not been adressed by the game design so far:

An effective structure which facilitates player's identification with their character.

(To repeat the reason why this is important: 1. Game immersion; 2. Reduce PvP activities, as you will! die if you engange in PvP)

Hoik gave us two different mechanics which adress the same goal:

VIsual character progression and immunities.

As Rocket understands correctly, to influence player behavior without rules, you need to take an approach from many different angles.

If we have a combination of different approaches to .- in this case- increase player identification with their character,

it will have success.

In my belief one central part is a skill system, or "micro skills" as JoeMcentire suggested.

The core argument is that progression over equipment does not work, as it is so easily overcome by groups and hoarding equipment.

Micro skills, attached to your character's life and lost on death, would have a significant impact if we talk in terms of a game structure to guide

player behavior. (And, just in case, I repeat: "Guiding player behavior" is already an essential part of the game design in an open game world without strict rules).

Edited January 22, 2013 by GodOfGrain

[m00tley 50]

Awesome post. God! I just hope people will take their time and actually read and think about it.

[hoik 415]

Player behavior on a large scale is always influenced by the game design.

The game design represents a structure which guides, lets say a culture of experiencing this game.

That's the opportunity and challenge of an open-world / sandbox game like DayZ.

It is operating without rules, but sets a structure with, yes, positive and negative incentives.

I think of this is in the terms of a movie - Given that DayZ is a sandox, we are the directors of the story. The game desgin takes on a more subtle but equaly significant role that impacts how the game/movie is percived (and therefore how people play it) which I belive is simular to being a cinematographer. I don't know, this might not be the best comparison :) .

Heres some thoughts on utilising our "gamey" impulses to add intrest and depth to the game.It lets players satisfy their natural impulses.

From here: http://dayzmod.com/f...sa/page__st__60

Basicly, I think you can take the "gamey" impulses of players (KoS, greifing etc) and use them to add interest, depth and authenticity to dayZ. Leaderboards/bragging rights are prime examples of "gamey" reward systems that appeal to our competative impulses.

But:

- If "leaderboards/braging rights" were something that only existed in game (with no offical list/ranking system), and...

- You could only "advance" by preforming certain actions (eg: "phyiscaly" removing a ear from a corps), and then...

- Make these actions a important part of player interaction (eg: A cut up corpse is a indicator of the type of players in the area).

- Then these actions are no longer simply ways to advance up a lader. You have now integrated a playstyle into the game.

Of course there needs to be other options like paying respect to the dead (eg: marked grave) and these would also be indicators of the attitude of players in the area.

I think this idea is interesting because it adds value to the game across a large spectrum - PvP, PvP-self defence, Survival and Atmospher/Story.

While I fully understand the role a skill system can fill, I am still reluctant to say yes! Giving players a reason to value themselves, as well as those around them is complex, and I think there can be a less obvious and more satisfying solution.

P.S

This thread has been great by the way :) .

Edited January 22, 2013 by Hoik

[Wep0n 532]

oh boy now it gets really exciting, i thing we got some things boiled down and added new branches to the discussion.

alright we got some interesting points here.

YES player progression is a good thing. how can a character "progress"?

general things first: all character progression should be visualized in some way, as a clear indicator of how progressed someone is.

no invisible mathematical numbers which affect the character whitout him knowing it.

while gear and basebuilding are self explanatory, the passive skills defenitely require some visual feedback.

getting gear:

Positive Aspect:

works really well for a fresh start. Getting better stuff constantly, and having to make tough decisions what to carry is a key point of DayZ

Negative Aspect

can be broken if you are in a group which hoards gear. No real "loss" of gear

countering that negative aspect:

-Guns require maintenance and therefore attention. a lot of micromanagement/preservation measures hinder hoarding a bit.

-Looting bodies (for example the teammate) will have alot of consequences, including sicknesses.

-Sicknesses can wipe out whole groups. (assuming the groups hoard alot of medica treatment, a sickness still can ruin a group, as you do not recover instantly, and there is always a chanche of death even with medecine)

Building Bases:

Positive aspects: a long term goal. it requires permanent expansion and maintenance. fuel needs to be brought, base needs to be defended, vulnerable versus sabotage.

negative aslects: i dont know... could lead to overpowerdness, but on the other hand it is a tough job to keep things running, and it is a target by many people who like sabotaging stuff.

Visual Character progression:

positive aspects:

A character who survives longer will become distinct from newly spawned ones... grows a beard... gets scars as a sign of a brutal event in the past... visual indications for immunity...

Negative aspects:

People start caring about surviving longer, which is good i guess... but they might even activly try to manipulate their behavior just to get a certain look, which could be a gamebreaker.

someone who lets him wound by zombies just to get scars, and has friends around to aid him.

Possible solution:

To make this work, there needs to be a balance between gain and loss. and if you intend to "get a scar" there should be a real chanche to get critically wounded and die, no matter how many friends try to aid you.

and don't think about being able to get your loot back. noone wants to touch your rotting corpse which is filled with all kinds of diseases!

Character progression by Passive abilities gained trough life:

now this is a tough one, and the main discussion on this thread

Now let me cut this down into two parts, there clearly needs a distinguishment of two ways to deal with it:

Gaining of passive skills with a heavy trade off. happens randomly, difficult to exploit:

Hoik gave us two different mechanics which adress the same goal:

VIsual character progression and immunities.

As Rocket understands correctly, to influence player behavior without rules, you need to take an approach from many different angles.

If we have a combination of different approaches to .- in this case- increase player identification with their character,

it will have success.

an example for this would be an immunity against a sickness.

this immunity is heavily balanced, because people might not want to exploit this. infact, it is a sign for something very negative which happened to you and made you stronger.

this is especially something which we will not be able to see in large groups, because noone wants to be infected. the risk of death and permanent loss of gear should be just too high to make this profitable.

This example prooves, that indeed, passive abilities may work under certain circumstances. but just for the fact that there is a big payoff for this ability, and is very difficult to intend to get a certain sickness and then survive it. (depends on randomness, luck to survive, and will cause possible isolation from a group)

similar passive abilities can be:

resistance to cold:

bathing in cold wather/exposition to cold temperatures. high risk to become sick, and maby even die. noone wants to risk his whole life just to get a tiny chanche to resist cold. "resisting cold" surely is only a small aspect of surviving, and will not be desired by many players, because the gain is mostly smaller than the chanche to loose all your character's progress by dying.

and surely, there will be people constantly getting into cold areas, constantly dying, and maby sometimes get away with it and become hardened.

but those guys deserved it, because they invested alot on that. there needs to be some visual feedback for the character that he got hardened.

it is something rather random that occurs, like sicknesses, resistances and such. it is not a guaranteed mathematical ladder of clear progression, but a difficult path of trial and error.

the effect of "becoming hardened" by random is the same thing like finding a ghillie suit by random.

it may or may not happen, it is depenend on luck. you can increase chanches by risking more (going to the airfield vs. climbing a cold mountain)

and i am pretty sure that the "resistance vs. cold" ability will have a higher death rate than visiting the airfield.

Gaining passive skills/progression by doing stuff. not dependent on a random chanche/event. (let's call them micro skills)

In my belief one central part is a skill system, or "micro skills" as JoeMcentire suggested.

The core argument is that progression over equipment does not work, as it is so easily overcome by groups and hoarding equipment.

Micro skills, attached to your character's life and lost on death, would have a significant impact if we talk in terms of a game structure to guide

player behavior. (And, just in case, I repeat: "Guiding player behavior" is already an essential part of the game design in an open game world without strict rules).

for my part these kinds of passive skills can be very bad and lack authenticity.

the fact that there is no trade off, and a guaranteed mathematical chanche that people advance by doing actions which require no risk at all just ruins it.

If these skills really want to succeed, they really require some risk and visual feedback on progression, and a random factor which keeps it away from exploiting.

gaining passive skills by running around, which doesn't involve any form of trade off or difficulty is just not the way it should be.

the only trade-off there might be is the greater hunger you get, which requires to eat more beans, which depends on the gear you find.

but the people who actually came up with that idea, were the guys who criticized the progression trough gear in the first place, so i don't see any logic in that argument.

Micro skills by defenition of it's creators are supposed to lead the players in a certain direction.

this is artificially maintained by rewarding people who behave that way with additional boosts on that skills.

examples are:

repair vehicles, give people blood transfusions, run around, chop wood, swim

now i do not understand in what way this should direct people to go in the desired area.

people repair vehicles because vehicles transport them to a certain place. the goal the person has is to actually drive that darn thing, and not to "be good at it".

the appeal of something shold be it's effect, and not an imaginary skill you get over time.

the reason there is bloodbags is to heal people. and not to train something.

training your character by doing the same actions over and over again, whitout any risks is just dull.

why would anyone want to do that? gaining microskills is by definition nothing else than grinding.

gaining skills has to be something very difficult, random, and NOT be something people want to willingly achieve.

the motive of something has to be the effect your action causes, and not a skill you gain. these microskills completly miss the point in guiding the people to the desired direction, by removing authenticity and adding an artificial mechanism which does not represent the player's own skills, but the character's grinded skills which require no effort at all.

i do not want to feel inferior to someone, just because that character lived longer and grinded a skill, even though that other character might be alot less skillful as a dayZ player than me.

the reason team fortress 2 works, is because casual people are rewarded points for doing actions beneficial for their team. (more or less, i know that pro players do it differently)

casual people care about stats, and team fortress is a arcady game. it doesn't live from its authenticity. the fact that there is a leaderbord doesn't hurt most games, because they are not meant to be authentic.

but DayZ is a game which depends highly on authenticity. this is one of the highest goals rocket has set to himself. and one of the biggest reasons why it is so popular as a game.

and microskills are in no way helping to shape that authenticity, instead the make it feel artificial and unintuitive.

Edited January 22, 2013 by Wep0n

[GodOfGrain 191]

wow gj! I am impressed, good summary.

I especially like the part where you anticipated a certain argument from me:

"the only trade-off there might be is the greater hunger you get, which requires to eat more beans, which depends on the gear you find.

but the people who actually came up with that idea, were the guys who criticized the progression trough gear in the first place, so i don't see any logic in that argument." (weap0n)

Let's see if I manage to use it anyway ^^

Edited January 22, 2013 by GodOfGrain

[GodOfGrain 191]

Ok, I have read your post once again, keeping an open mind.

I have to say, the distinction you have made between immunities / visual progress

and microskills into two different kinds of mechanics - those which have a trade-off and

those which have not - is very good.

"The motive of something has to be the effect your action causes, and not a skill you gain"

That is true. If players would think about processing in skills that would be bad for DayZ,

as this would be negative for game immersion.

And after reading your statement I became more careful about the possibility that this could indeed be the effect.

Lets say you know about this skill "gutting animals". Then you're incentivised to kill every animal you see and gut it,

to gain exp. Same for repairing... people might carry around repair parts just to use them on a random vehicle to

boost their mechanic skills. If they are lucky to find 4 bloodbags, they might start thinking: Perhaps I keep two

and use the rest to train my med skills.

I don't want to propose a system which leads people to such a behavior / way of thinking.

That's indeed gamey.

I thought that this wouldn't happen, but I start to see that it very well could go in this direction.

Why should I not kill that animal, there is no drawback, but I make some progress.

But as you pointed it out perfectly:

"The motive of something has to be the effect your action causes, and not a skill you gain".

I am persuaded. Good argumentation.

Maybe some future posts will change my mind again,

but for the time being I will let off from my idea of a microskill system.

At least it brought us to a point where we are able to distinguish between

"good and bad" progression mechanics, e.g. progression which has a drawback for players, and maybe be random.

Thanks everyone for taking part in this discussion!

(And maybe it is not finished yet? :) )

[Wep0n 532]

great conclusion GodOfGrain, you pointed the major things out ^^

and i am more than happy for this thread aswell.

It made us think about good and bad mechanisms, and the thread had some really good suggestions.

i am more than amazed with what people came up with.

[joe_mcentire 2074]

Et Tu Brute?! Revenge shall be mine!!

[JesusWatchesAnime 2]

I understand where you are going with this in a certain way, and please don't take this the wrong way, but this isn't COD. DayZ doesn't need 'perks' I mean the hero skin seems alright maybe, but there is a possibility, that adding any perks that you've suggested, OTHER than the blood bag 15% chance of infection, but even that would get annoying, but i could get over that so. XD

I'd have to say no for the time being.

[joe_mcentire 2074]

I understand where you are going with this in a certain way, and please don't take this the wrong way, but this isn't COD. DayZ doesn't need 'perks' I mean the hero skin seems alright maybe, but there is a possibility, that adding any perks that you've suggested, OTHER than the blood bag 15% chance of infection, but even that would get annoying, but i could get over that so. XD

I'd have to say no for the time being.

i can't accept your argument claiming that dayz doesn't need perks and in the same sentence you say that you're alright with the hero skin (system?!) which grants you at least two of these very benefits, which are in fact perks (running faster, bulletproof vest; if i'm not badly informed)?!

I ask myself, why do some cry out loud, that there mustn't be perks /skills but actually go along with the "perks" introduced by the bandit/survivor/hero system.

Edited January 22, 2013 by joe_mcentire

[dallas 5195]

I don't see how experience points and leveling skills can substitute DayZ's natural and rewarding learning curve and I still don't think this solves the underlying problem you take issue with.

Some people will always prefer the bandit/KOS approach to survival. They will ask you for medical aid, but nothing stops them from taking your big backpack off your corpse, when you've treated them. If fact medics might be their best targets, because medic's gear ought to be disease free. Even if your disease ridding corpse is unlootable, killing you is still a very hard to resist for some players.. No level of progression will prevent Cherno/Elektro from being bum rushed by people, willing to sacrifice their own average life expectancy for either some intense firefights or potential good loot. We need these players, we need unpredictable player encounters, because that's the essence of the genre. When people are desperate and there's no authorities to enforce the rule of law, you have to fear both the wicked, the sick, the desperate and the infected.

I see player progression as mastering the game mechanics and mastering these will automatically increase your life expectancy and motivation. For a long while I stayed clear of populated areas, because my own experience told me, these places were certain death, so I socialized only with players I knew and could communicate with over teamspeak. After some time boredom forced me towards the bigger cities and while I didn't go there to kill people, I went there for the thrill of the increased risk. As an old ArmA player, you know you constantly have to be aware of your surroundings, always move concealed and always have solid cover close at hand. After a few successful trips into Cherno, I learned that there were several "fairly" safe access routes into the city and the preferred sniper spots, where easy to bypass placing walls and buildings between them. I realized that if I constantly kept on the move, I could both lose zombies after turning two-three corners and present a very small and moving target for bandits. I also learned that some friendly survivors simply exposed themselves completely, only to hope saying: "Friendly," would be enough to keep them safe and alive. Constantly moving or using cover, seemed to make visiting Cherno an almost safe trip. And I considered myself to be a more experienced urban adventurer, than the players that would constantly get themselves killed in the same areas. Maybe this is also why I've changed my perception on PvP, because I've become better at avoiding it and better at surviving it. This fills me with a sense of achievement in the game and because I master these aspects of the game, I'm experiencing less demotivating defeats.

I got no problems with some kind of immunity mechanics, if it fits the disease, I just don't really see it as character progression, but rather a disease mechanics. What I consider character progression is the individual player becoming knowledgeable about the causes, symptoms and treatments of diseases. Character progression is learning to cook your water, instead of receiving an immunty bonus for drinking poop water twenty times. Learning that a heavy parka will dehydrate you faster on a sunny day or a thin windbreaker isn't the best for your health on cold rainy nights.

Right now hunting and cooking is very basic, learning these skills is just a matter of asking in side chat and it's easily explainable. Rather than being a level 1 hunter, I prefer, making hunting more complicated. Making animals scared, harder to catch and kill. Maybe domestic animals are more trusting than a wild animal, but that would also make them much more scarce. If all cows, sheep and goats are standing still, waiting for people to pat them on the head with an axe, there can't be many of them around. However wild animals will be thriving, because it's primary predator the humans are busy preying on each other.

Wild animals will need to have an expanded player detection and take off at full speed, when they detect a player. If a player manages to kill an animal, he'll need to remember to search the carcass for flees, maggots and other signs of disease. When you gut and loot the animal's carcass, you instead of 8 chunks of prime rib, you might get all kinds of meat and organs. Maybe animals have a loot table too. A skinny dear will have less steaks, a heart, guts, kidney or a liver. An inexperienced hunter might take all of it and cook it. A more experienced hunter would either know to leave the kidney and liver behind or know how to cook them longer. Rocket talked about how items can now break in the standalone, if a player takes a headshot, wearing NVGs, the NVGs might break. Maybe the more bullets an animal take, the less usable meat would be lootable from it's corpse. So an experienced hunter would try to either kill the animal with the first shot or follow a wounded animal until it bleeds to death.

As it is right now cooking consists of pressing the cook button and voilá the meal is done. I'd like to see a cooking mechanic, more like when a player uses a fireplace to warm himself at night. If you don't have the right utensils your food will burn much faster and you'll either have to chose between ruining your food or risk it being uncooked, which could result in food poisoning. A player with the correct utensils, would be able to cook the meat for longer, without risking to burn it and therefor be able to make sure the meal isn't under cooked. An experienced hunter/cook, would know which utensils to use or how to improvised alternative cooking methods and learn the different cooking times a rabbit and a half cow would require.

I'd rather have the mechanics become more complicated to figure out and if you don't perform the mechanics correctly, you'd either risk damaging your equipment or risking your health, rather than having players simply repeating a mechanics, until they receive an artificial bonus.

Edited January 22, 2013 by Dallas

[joe_mcentire 2074]

Ok for the sake of authenticity, a little Gedankenexperiment:

You are out there and come along a vehicle which would come in handy you know. Unfortunately the vehicle is in very bad condition, but as you have no idea what is wrong with it you'll have to move on leaving this little godsend back. Now depending on what follows you'll must probably think to yourself: "DAMMIT what if i somehow could have repaired it! If it were just a bagatelle to do?" Every time you get to a vehicle you would then maybe try to fix it as good as you can.

I agree on terms that it could be somehow based on a random distribution, as in real, you do not always gain or learn something form what you do. So let's continue...

Eventually you'll find another vehicle. This time around you try to find the problem. And you learn something. You learn..oh when this and that is not connected the engine wouldn't even start. Ok unfortunatly the vehicle has an engine damage XD.

You are pretty pissed but can't moan and move on again. The third time again you try your best, but quite rapidly you'll find out...hm again this seems to have the same damage, therefor you can't learn anything new from this one....

You see were i want to go with that.

What i was reflecting about now is this additional scenario. where you meet someone, also a loner and you team up with him. it seems you have a streak of luck and the both of you find another vehicle. and it seems, that the one with you seems to know a little bit more than you, so you learn quite something from him.

So what if the more (diverse) knowledge packed into one action would lead to a higher chance to learn something new, quasi the more the merrier! Would it bring yourself to value another char-life more?!

Eventually you go apart and continue your journey, when you finally meet a team of several players and they seem kind of hostile to you. But then you get a chance to start negotiating, "hey guys hear me out, i have some knowledge in repairing vehicles, i can be of value to you. How much of value we don't now, because i now some but truly not much. So what are you gaining or losing?"

What if the system would be more dynamic, as some things eventually fade away (especially those on physical base; but even on a mental level, by saying forgetting certain coherences). For some abilities you have to lay hands upon yourself continuously.

And this is also something i want to remention:

Now let's say there is some sort of randomness behind this whole system, so there is no ladder which says first skill A, then skill B is unlocked.

Let's just say, you get a little note like "a tiny step to better comprehend nature", therefore you'll notice "oh ok.. there's something going on", but that's just my single hint I get. i'll have to check out by myself what mircoskill i've just gained. Meaning i'll have to act more and more again with nature if i'm eager to find out which capability is lurking inside me.

This all could add up to something not to hard easy* to exploit as well as authentic. And after all! We were always speaking about losing EVERYTHING by dying. This fact alone is, for me, a very good protection to hinder exploiting / grinding to a certain extend.

*edited XD

Edited June 4, 2013 by joe_mcentire

[joe_mcentire 2074]

if i may quote some of your decent post :) :

I don't see how experience points and leveling skills can substitute DayZ's natural and rewarding learning curve and I still don't think this solves the underlying problem you take issue with.

Some people will always prefer the bandit/KOS approach to survival. They will ask you for medical aid, but nothing stops them from taking your big backpack off your corpse, when you've treated them. If fact medics might be their best targets, because medic's gear ought to be disease free. Even if your disease ridding corpse is unlootable, killing you is still a very hard to resist for some players.. No level of progression will prevent Cherno/Elektro from being bum rushed by people, willing to sacrifice their own average life expectancy for either some intense firefights or potential good loot. We need these players, we need unpredictable player encounters, because that's the essence of the genre. When people are desperate and there's no authorities to enforce the rule of law, you have to fear both the wicked, the sick, the desperate and the infected.

Of course YES!

I got no problems with some kind of immunity mechanics, if it fits the disease, I just don't really see it as character progression, but rather a disease mechanics. What I consider character progression is the individual player becoming knowledgeable about the causes, symptoms and treatments of diseases. Character progression is learning to cook your water, instead of receiving an immunty bonus for drinking poop water twenty times. Learning that a heavy parka will dehydrate you faster on a sunny day or a thin windbreaker isn't the best for your health on cold rainy nights.

This is the problem when you think of "skill" to be "skill" as you are used and hence almost forced to understand, that's why i meanwhile hate this expression.. It mustn't be, where you obviously just easy going grind all your way to each and every achievement. It has to feel more to an experience gaining process apart to the real experience one gains, but let me explain that later..

Right now hunting and cooking is very basic, learning these skills is just a matter of asking in side chat and it's easily explainable. Rather than being a level 1 hunter, I prefer, making hunting more complicated. Making animals scared, harder to catch and kill. Maybe domestic animals are more trusting than a wild animal, but that would also make them much more scarce. If all cows, sheep and goats are standing still, waiting for people to pat them on the head with an axe, there can't be many of them around. However wild animals will be thriving, because it's primary predator the humans are busy preying on each other.

Wild animals will need to have an expanded player detection and take off at full speed, when they detect a player. If a player manages to kill an animal, he'll need to remember to search the carcass for flees, maggots and other signs of disease. When you gut and loot the animal's carcass, you instead of 8 chunks of prime rib, you might get all kinds of meat and organs. Maybe animals have a loot table too. A skinny dear will have less steaks, a heart, guts, kidney or a liver. An inexperienced hunter might take all of it and cook it. A more experienced hunter would either know to leave the kidney and liver behind or know how to cook them longer. Rocket talked about how items can now break in the standalone, if a player takes a headshot, wearing NVGs, the NVGs might break. Maybe the more bullets an animal take, the less usable meat would be lootable from it's corpse. So an experienced hunter would try to either kill the animal with the first shot or follow a wounded animal until it bleeds to death.

As it is right now cooking consists of pressing the cook button and voilá the meal is done. I'd like to see a cooking mechanic, more like when a player uses a fireplace to warm himself at night. If you don't have the right utensils your food will burn much faster and you'll either have to chose between ruining your food or risk it being uncooked, which could result in food poisoning. A player with the correct utensils, would be able to cook the meat for longer, without risking to burn it and therefor be able to make sure the meal isn't under cooked. An experienced hunter/cook, would know which utensils to use or how to improvised alternative cooking methods and learn the different cooking times a rabbit and a half cow would require.

I'd rather have the mechanics become more complicated to figure out and if you don't perform the mechanics correctly, you'd either risk damaging your equipment or risking your health, rather than having players simply repeating a mechanics, until they receive an artificial bonus.

THIS IS IT! That is exactly what i want to express. It is plainly not solvable to implement all these ideas into this game. This would be the ultimate simulator of simulators! 230 games in one if you may say :) All these things you mention above however can be simulated by a elaborate "micros§$!=)F+ck!" system, and this with reasonable effort.

When you gut and loot the animal's carcass, you instead of 8 chunks of prime rib, you might get all kinds of meat and organs

I don't know how to implement this without an artificial gaining process?!

But what do i say, this community has so much ideas and maybe if we could all work things out in terms of modding there is nothing to stop us to get ourselves the perfect game ;)

If this all would be possible in a game we wouldn't need any skills whatsooever in any game!

Edited January 22, 2013 by joe_mcentire

[Wep0n 532]

@Dallas: Survival is indeed one of the mechanisms i want to see extended.

focusing more on that, and adding challenging ways to survive is a key element of DayZ.

the Question about "How am i going to survive?" is in the current state of the mod just minimalistic. basically eat and drink.

the extended medical system, and hopefully also an extended hunting/survival mechanism would add alot to the game and detract from PVP out of boredom in a natural way.

(not that i want to see PVP gone, but currently, lets face it: Cherno/Elektro/Airfield are nothing else but a deathmatch field with incredibly long respawn times.)

i can't accept your argument claiming that dayz doesn't need perks and in the same sentence you say that you're alright with the hero skin (system?!) which grants you at least two of these very benefits, which are in fact perks (running faster, bulletproof vest; if i'm not badly informed)?!

agree with joe here.

(I actually did not know that the hero skin has even some gameplay features ^^)

The whole humanity system was broken anyway, with or without these features. the skin was so overexploited. bandits were so easily able to give themselves more points by using bloodbags.

of the two or three hero's ive ever seen, all of them tried to kill me. (and managed to do so because i was naive and thought they were nice guys)

@joe: and to your statement about knowledge:

i think many things can be looked up in the wiki. so the people who are interested will know, the others will just either not do it, or let other people do it for them.

but there is also a skill element. such as proper sniping or driving helicopters. this is something you have to pratice, and a wiki page will not help you so much.

so you got both these knowledge and real skill elements going on. in a group, there will be the wiki nerd who knows everything, another guy is the sniper, and another one is a good pilot.

yo got something for everyone, and everyone is distinct from another.

i also believe that if hunting gets more complex, you will not only need a good wiki knowledge, but also experience in animal behavior.

only the truly patient survivalists will master the art of hunting. a complex enviroment allows for different playstyles and interests, which can lead to value of people based on their skill. being good in everything is almost impossible, and that is good.

Edit: @joe: no! microskills the way you mentioned them will not help these mechanisms to work at all!

To your idea with the note:

people will look up in the wiki what it could mean, and it would force them to check out different things to learn to know their skill.

but why would they have to do such tedious work for something they dont care about? they might not be interested in "nature" at all, but they surely want to find out what their skill is...

i'm not sure if that would satisfy the majority of the players... being good at something random... its like rolling characters for DnD... you would want to respawn if you get something crappy.

sure you could say that you find the notes at random times, and you might find multiple notes the longer you live, but that would just force the players to sit in a corner to live longer to get more skills. (i literally mean wait in a corner... go afk, feed them every now and then...) everything that changes your skills whitout a tough pay-off will generally lead people to exploit something, which is totally against the spirit

DoubleEdit: read the stuff GodOfGrain posted on page 8. this explains most of the things....

Edited January 22, 2013 by Wep0n

[GodOfGrain 191]

[...]

This all could add up to something not to hard to exploit as well as authentic. And after all! We were always speaking about losing EVERYTHING by dying. This fact alone is, for me, a very good protection to hinder exploiting / grieving to a certain extend.

this will definetly hinder grieving to quite a big extend.

Also - in many cases- you can add drawbacks to training skills.

But I have to admit, not to all of them.

While I can easily except that there will be like a small percentage of the player base actively training skills -

why should I care, skills don't effect combat -

I am now afraid that I myself would be subject to this "I do this in order to gain exp".

A good example is the skinning animals. I'd probably kill and skin every animal I encounter,

not because I need food, but because I know about this mechanic.

Although... would it be possible to find drawbacks for every skill?

I am just thinking, for instance regarding skinning animals...

Durability of items... Everytime you skin a animal your knife degrades.

And if knifes are rare...?

Same for chopping wood.

Medical supply...

To "train" medical skills you have to be wounded...

---> every time you are wounded you have a certain chance to get some kind of infection?

(especially in the case of blood transfusions...)

Ok, this stamina thing, perhaps we get just rid of that...

"Making a fire" skill - Matches supply super-rare?

Dexterity... a meta skill ... if all areas where you can train dexterity have a drawback than its fine...

Don't know if we can find something for any skill...

But perhaps...? Have to think about it some other day.

As we have learned so far from this discussion:

There has to be a drawback from training a skill,

so it is completely out of question to intentionally train a skill.

Maybe it could work out after all...

Edited January 22, 2013 by GodOfGrain

[joe_mcentire 2074]

so let us address the most urgent concerns up to now:

- grinding / exploiting

- forcing into a style of playing

did i forget something?

edit: why did i write grieving in previous posts instead of grinding and no one makes me aware of it!? XD

Edited January 23, 2013 by joe_mcentire

[joe_mcentire 2074]

So you feel a need to implement drawbacks, which leads to the point, that everyone should be on a same level, which reduces some, at least of my main issues to absurdity :D But as already mentioned, yes it can have, but it mustn't at all costs. this doesn't feel authentic to me neither.

We also agreed about the mechanisms as none game breaking: No game changing influences on combat defining parameters. There is also, at the moment, no actual trading mechanism or further use of it beeing. And at last the thing with dying {"you go to hell, you lose your well (of knowledge)" XD}

So grinding would not be as imminent as maybe feared. Of course this is some speculation by myself.

We already discussed, that everyone should do what they feel to do. As some mentioned you can and almost certainly will do things in the way which the game is offering you. Rocket e.g. says we define the game and decide what it should be. But that can only be true to some degree.

He also argued we should not complain, we better deal with it how the experience of the game develops itself, or better do something about it.

Now history has shown us over and over again that things do not work out that way quite easily. To be precisely: they never do.

There were always some sort of rules we applied to and distinct boundaries. Anarchy never lasted long.

And what is the current state of dayz? I ask myself, is the majority happy about in which direction we the players rowed the boat of game experience, the last couple months? Why was ther hero system introduced then, if we the players solely shall define what the game has to be...

What i just wanted to say: we play as the world offers us varieties of ways to play.

Another question that presents itself to me is, if grinding in such an environment would be of use anyway?

One actual example was

A good example is the skinning animals. I'd probably kill and skin every animal I encounter,

not because I need food, but because I know about this mechanic.

Why shall the same rules here not apply? Do as the world around you allows you to. If you have a predilection for fur. If you can imagine to steal in such a manner indirectly food resources from other players, if you have the urge to become a legend, known to leave a wake of skinned animals of all kind, if you simply want to be of value in team-efforts..etc.

Why do bandits right now kill for beans? Why are some trying to kill everyone with hatchets, while playing a "psychic" melody..

"grinding" in their own way. doing repetitively to reach some sort of goal/desire.

And after all grinding leads to some sort of ultimate purpose. to level up e.g. But is there an ultimate goal besides surviving? As you eventually die sooner or later getting killed while "sitting in your corner and wait for books to spawn" and what not.

What about grinding to fulfill a more personal purpose. To be honest, with the mentioned basic rules applied, i feel no worry about ppl grinding in dayz.

And of course, at last, if you can distract more of the hackers into grinding, that would be nice.

Edit: Many seem to be afraid of introducing such a mechanism to a certain extent, maybe because they have other games in their mind in which skills and everything that comes with it lead to exploiting and vicious circles. I just think dayz isn't working this way, as it already has been proven to us. This game already works without it. others without such a mechanism simply wouldn't. That's why i'm not afraid...

Edited January 22, 2013 by joe_mcentire

[joe_mcentire 2074]

Edit: @joe: no! microskills the way you mentioned them will not help these mechanisms to work at all!

To your idea with the note:

people will look up in the wiki what it could mean, and it would force them to check out different things to learn to know their skill.

but why would they have to do such tedious work for something they dont care about? they might not be interested in "nature" at all, but they surely want to find out what their skill is...

i'm not sure if that would satisfy the majority of the players... being good at something random... its like rolling characters for DnD... you would want to respawn if you get something crappy.

sure you could say that you find the notes at random times, and you might find multiple notes the longer you live, but that would just force the players to sit in a corner to live longer to get more skills. (i literally mean wait in a corner... go afk, feed them every now and then...) everything that changes your skills whitout a tough pay-off will generally lead people to exploit something, which is totally against the spirit

DoubleEdit: read the stuff GodOfGrain posted on page 8. this explains most of the things....

Uhh..no you misunderstood me completely. :D

First of all, the "note" doesn't meant to be a physically existing note on paper or in a book, just a text popping up in the left bottom corner. Excuse me for maybe using the wrong expression.

Let's say we have, for a short example, 5 to idk main-experience valued groups (fixing, gutting, medical, taming, survival...) For each of these you'll get a none-telling message when you've experienced enough. like the phrase mentioned. So you get at least any feedback, but not too much.

Ok one could say, "what the hell was that...i do not care about at all!" or "you kidding, want me to find out what i've gained?!". Very fine! the choice is yours.

Have you ever experienced you are quite talented in something you absolutely do not care? ;) i think almost everyone has such gifts of caprice XD!

But i can imagine that there are some that say "wait what? you had my curiosity, now.." well what leo said.

Eventually you completely forget about, you were doing some serious experience-stacking stuff back in the day, when suddenly you'll notice "wait didn't i always get 4 pieces of meat out of that goat, now it is 5 / now i'll have fuckin' wool in my hands too?!"

Please do not pin me down on this specified arbitrariness i mentioned (or the wool), as everything discussed in here is of course abstract (yet ;) ). You'll could restrict specific achievements to a certain group of activities and vice versa so it wouldn't feel like a game of dice.

Maybe now things seem a bit clearer. I really had to re-read your post several times, because i completely lost the connection to my posts prior.

..because of a little missconception :D

but please forgive me father, for beeing english not my native language ;)

Edited January 23, 2013 by joe_mcentire

[GodOfGrain 191]

as soon as I have some time I'll think about it a bit more...

perhaps it is possible to make a mix of

a) drawbacks where it makes sense

b ) scarcity of resources to prevent grinding

c) high complexity, ergo no direct connection between doing X to gain exp in X

in combination with a well-thought out system of feedback on character progression,

so the system is as much in the background as possible but still motivating

You maybe right mcentire,

perma death, especially if you gain skills very slowly,

is a very good prevention of grinding. But the system needs to evolve a bit more I feel...

Edited January 23, 2013 by GodOfGrain

[joe_mcentire 2074]

But skills or not, this is what i like to read!:

Q: How do you plan on making lone-wolfing more interesting as well as player interaction?

A: I really want to increase the amount of activity in the game, such as hunting and just general surviving/traveling. I hope this makes the lone-wolf play more interesting, which in turn will add more value to any human interaction.

:thumbsup:

Edited January 23, 2013 by joe_mcentire

[Serious Stan 202]

this is dayz not ragged alliance.

BIG no from me, sorry