On game design, "progression through equipment", and a system of micro-skills

[indominator 95]

well, i have almost nothing to say, you defend a perspective without a theme to build around, when desiging a game you should focus on a opv or a theme, a phrase sumarizing the game, to rocket it seems to be desperation, sickness and survival, so he will change it from the way it is now to something very different, it will change a lot and most of the fans will notice that it has become a different experience but with the same focus... trust the designers, they know what they are doing.

[Wep0n 532]

After reading trough the posts, i have to get some things off my mind.

of course, the progression of the player by learning certain mechanics by yourself is the key of being good at dayZ, and that should be expanded alot more.

i am really up for more "simulation". if you heal someone, you have to find the wound, and do proper treatment. if you repair a car, you have to check the enginge, see what is broken by yourself, and fix it.

i dont think that an artificial skill should represent your ability to be good at these things.

BUT: i also really appreciate the idea of the character progression visually, and mechanically.

rocket mentioned, that if you lie in the grass for a while, your pants will become green/muddy.

cool things are also scars, and beards, which can also be seen by people around you. creates great story material and distinctions.

now all the scars, and immunities and similar indicators for the "toughness" of the character should really only happen when the character was truly ill or injured, and his chanche of survival is low (lets say 80% of people having that degree of injury die, which is defenitely not something people want to grind/achieve and artificially cause that to happen)

now to the skill idea:

I really love the idea that it can simulate a gunshot wound pretty well.

if you get shot, and get healed, you still need a while until your character is truly healed.

instead of starting at 50 "points" you could just say you start at 100% vitality or whatever you want to call it.

that value can drop due to wounds and sickness, makes you slower/carry less items and whatever.

this meter can also be negatively affected by thirst, hunger(or if you eat too much!), temperature, negative effects from medecine, and it should be visually reflected.

so instead of making the hud more complicated, replace it with visual effects where you can see what your character suffers from.

also positive effects from energy drinks or whatsoever might minimally rise the normal value up to 105%.

and if your character gets some points by surviving, fine, aslong as it doesnt affect it too much (lets say 5%) i'm okay if it is balanced well, and doesn't act significantly.

adding some randomness, like dropped meat steaks and severity of certain effects make the game more authentic, in a way that you can not metagame and just calculate the damage and such.

if you shoot someone in the chest with a makarov, you may kill him instantly, but you can also cause a minor wound not really affecting the character at all.

Edit: there is a need for some way of character progression other than gear. my clear favorite is visual progression and maby some immunities if you survived a tough illness with a low survival chanche. gear should be really difficult to hoard, and looting should cause heavy drawbacks like infections and such...

Edited January 28, 2013 by Wep0n

[GodOfGrain 191]

yea, as you say wepon,

character progression in another way than gear is a must.

It does not have to be mirco skills. Visual progression and immunities are different mechanics

which adress the same purpose. But I feel it is not enough, there need to be some more elements

pushing in this direction. While I think that micro skills are a good solution, realistic and very subtle,

I don't press this idea just for the sake of it...

If the community or devs come up with other ideas to increase player identification I am just fine with it.

I am just afraid that we'll end up like in DayZ mod after a couple of month, a big deathmatch with long

waiting times. Not only this, the low importance of death is a problem in itself...

We have seen this in this alpha test, and we should learn from that observation.

Currently not many known features of the standalone adress this issue in some way.

[joe_mcentire 2073]

from what i've read so far, there are also rpg-attracted guys in the dev-team and by the introduction of the Hero system, which is in fact not even subtle as a skill-mechanic, i am quite curious in which direction everything will drift.

[Dreygar (DayZ) 178]

I think books should be found throughout the world. These books can be traded and burned. Though the purpose of these books are to study whatever material that is inside of them, and in turn your character will develop the knowledge to do whatever task. Now, not to be confused with insta-skill books these are something that will have to be activated and stay inside your inventory for a certain amount of actual game time (You do not learn while offline) before you "learn" said skill.

More difficult skills take longer, etc.

It would bring meaning to your character if he was pretty knowledgable in weapon smithing, engine diagnostics, insert whatever skill you want... It would also make him value his character more because if he died all that knowledge is then lost.

Also, you could study the book and then trade it off to someone else (or just trade it if you don't want to bother learning it) so that they can learn it as well... Or, you could simply destroy the book so that you create a smaller niche of experts of said skill.

When/if a crafting element arrives it will play a real big role as two players might be knowledgable in weapon smithing but one has also learned advanced weaponsmithing and can offer weapons with perhaps better quality or better features...

Or... we can just scratch all that and simply use "equipment" as player progression which changes nothing from the mod.

Edited January 28, 2013 by Dreygar

[Dreygar (DayZ) 178]

from what i've read so far, there are also rpg-attracted guys in the dev-team and by the introduction of the Hero system, which is in fact not even subtle as a skill-mechanic, i am quite curious in which direction everything will drift.

What is this 'hero system' you speak of?

[Dreygar (DayZ) 178]

After reading trough the posts, i have to get some things off my mind.

of course, the progression of the player by learning certain mechanics by yourself is the key of being good at dayZ, and that should be expanded alot more.

i am really up for more "simulation". if you heal someone, you have to find the wound, and do proper treatment. if you repair a car, you have to check the enginge, see what is broken by yourself, and fix it.

i dont think that an artificial skill should represent your ability to be good at these things.

BUT: i also really appreciate the idea of the character progression visually, and mechanically.

rocket mentioned, that if you lie in the grass for a while, your pants will become green/muddy.

cool things are also scars, and beards, which can also be seen by people around you. creates great story material and distinctions.

now all the scars, and immunities and similar indicators for the "toughness" of the character should really only happen when the character was truly ill or injured, and his chanche of survival is low (lets say 80% of people having that degree of injury die, which is defenitely not something people want to grind/achieve and artificially cause that to happen)

now to the skill idea:

I really love the idea that it can simulate a gunshot wound pretty well.

if you get shot, and get healed, you still need a while until your character is truly healed.

instead of starting at 50 "points" you could just say you start at 100% vitality or whatever you want to call it.

that value can drop due to wounds and sickness, makes you slower/carry less items and whatever.

this meter can also be negatively affected by thirst, hunger(or if you eat too much!), temperature, negative effects from medecine, and it should be visually reflected.

so instead of making the hud more complicated, replace it with visual effects where you can see what your character suffers from.

also positive effects from energy drinks or whatsoever might minimally rise the normal value up to 105%.

and if your character gets some points by surviving, fine, aslong as it doesnt affect it too much (lets say 5%) i'm okay if it is balanced well, and doesn't act significantly.

adding some randomness, like dropped meat steaks and severity of certain effects make the game more authentic, in a way that you can not metagame and just calculate the damage and such.

if you shoot someone in the chest with a makarov, you may kill him instantly, but you can also cause a minor wound not really affecting the character at all.

Edit: there is a need for some way of character progression other than gear. my clear favorite is visual progression and maby some immunities if you survived a tough illness with a low survival chanche. gear should be really difficult to hoard, and looting should cause heavy drawbacks like infections and such...

The biggest problem with all of this is that it really doesn't progress your character. If at any point you dislike something, maybe you get a disease or an infection or you can't carry as much stuff because you were wounded... A player will just kill themselves and start over. There needs to be something that makes you value your characters life, but all I've seen is things that make someone not value anything and would just wipe the slate clean.

[Wep0n 532]

well looking differently than the newly spawned survivor is a great value, and personal progression (having grown a beard) whitout breaking the spirit of dayZ!

gaining immunities after surviving a sickness only 1 out of 5 people would survive is a lucky achievement, and you can be proud of yourself.

clothing will add a huge amount of value, as your choiche is VERY customized, and also depends partially on luck.

and it is in a way personalized, because after you die you got blood, bullet holes and sickness all over the clothing, so yeah, its gone.

also they can add attributes wich make sense. good shoes make you quicker, a better backpack might help you carry more weight and so on.

makes all the other less authentic ideas like "books" redundant.

books should be made by real players, and contain real information which can help you. it can also contain wrong information to lur you in a trap, and that is the exciting thing: everything in it is real and authentic. nothing artificial which makes you magically better.

Edited January 28, 2013 by Wep0n

[GodOfGrain 191]

The biggest problem with all of this is that it really doesn't progress your character. If at any point you dislike something, maybe you get a disease or an infection or you can't carry as much stuff because you were wounded... A player will just kill themselves and start over. There needs to be something that makes you value your characters life, but all I've seen is things that make someone not value anything and would just wipe the slate clean.

Within this system only "fitness" skill could be affected negatively.

Low fitness would effect every other areas negatively,

but over all you keep progressing over time in meds, tech, survival stuff etc.

Once you recover from being shot/ illness, the character performs better in these things again compared to a fresh start.

Edited January 28, 2013 by GodOfGrain

[CreepySalad 108]

well looking differently than the newly spawned survivor is a great value, and personal progression (having grown a beard) whitout breaking the spirit of dayZ!

gaining immunities after surviving a sickness only 1 out of 5 people would survive is a lucky achievement, and you can be proud of yourself.

clothing will add a huge amount of value, as your choiche is VERY customized, and also depends partially on luck.

and it is in a way personalized, because after you die you got blood, bullet holes and sickness all over the clothing, so yeah, its gone.

also they can add attributes wich make sense. good shoes make you quicker, a better backpack might help you carry more weight and so on.

makes all the other less authentic ideas like "books" redundant.

books should be made by real players, and contain real information which can help you. it can also contain wrong information to lur you in a trap, and that is the exciting thing: everything in it is real and authentic. nothing artificial which makes you magically better.

This...

This I wouldn't mind.

[slivniku@gmail.com 93]

It seems to me most people that suggest/support skillz because they want people to care more about their character, so there would be less PvP - while this may be a solution for the mod, it is not (IMO) important for the SA - PvP in the mod is rampart because it is the only thing left for the majority of people playing, we've done everything we could think of, we know where to get ammo & weapons so they are abundant, and there haven't been any updates/new stuff to do.

SA wil lhopefully be differetn and it will again take us months to figure it out, and all the time new stuff will be added which will keep us interested, rocket said he would make it a lot harder, I really hope there willbe no more duping, so there will automatically be less PvP, and as Wep0n pointed out:

gaining immunities after surviving a sickness only 1 out of 5 people would survive is a lucky achievement, and you can be proud of yourself.

clothing will add a huge amount of value, as your choiche is VERY customized, and also depends partially on luck.

and it is in a way personalized, because after you die you got blood, bullet holes and sickness all over the clothing, so yeah, its gone.

also they can add attributes wich make sense. good shoes make you quicker, a better backpack might help you carry more weight and so on.

makes all the other less authentic ideas like "books" redundant.

If you character is immune to cholera and doesn't have to worry about geting an infection from looting corpses, trust me, we will care about it way more than if he would make a fire quicker

the only real problem I see atm is that we're all so used to KOS that we might it to SA - but on the other hand, as Dallas pointed out numerous times, that't the beauty of DayZ - if you remove it, what's the point?

[dallas 5195]

There are two components to murder.

The perpetrator and the victim.

There's the player that either deliberately kills anyone or anything he sees, then there's the paranoid situations that escalate or the friendly encounter that develop because of greed. Whatever the reason or motivation that leads to someone pulling the trigger, the victim plays an important part in the situation too.

I've meet more survivors than bandits in populated areas, who apparently conduct themselves with total disregard for their own safety and belongings. These guys I meet them everywhere, they just say "friendly" and continue looting with their backs turned away from me. Completely surrendering their lives to the whim of the people they meet.

Survivors really need to stop making other people responsible for their lives and get out of the line of fire, until they've had a chance to exchange a few words to gauge the intentions of the people they meet.

Edited January 29, 2013 by Dallas

[Wep0n 532]

If you character is immune to cholera and doesn't have to worry about geting an infection from looting corpses, trust me, we will care about it way more than if he would make a fire quicker

there are alot more sicknesses than just cholera, so there will still be a chanche to get the other sicknesses trough looting.

if you want to be immune from all sicknesses, lets say there are 10 sicknesses, the chanche that you survive all of them and gain total immunity is (0.2)^10, if we assume that every fifth sick player survives.

that would be one out of 10 million. so thats pretty impossible to be able to loot a corpse whitout any possible drawback.

immunities are not so overpowered, but are still a good reward for people who survived long and were lucky.

its like xcom: out of ten people, 8 will randomly die, but the 2 who survive will become a bit stronger. those survivors will still be very vulnerable, as they only gain one tiny advantage towards a sickness.

and it still is prefered to heal yourself with antibiotics, than risk to gain immunity, because you do not want to risk your life for something like that.

although if you got lots of food and water, you should have a higher chanche to survive. (if you got cholera and you are out of water, you will most certainly die. if you drink something, well then maby you can survive)

[slivniku@gmail.com 93]

My point was, that if you are lucky enough, not even depending on time spent in game, the motive to keep your character alive can be even higher;

but i just realized now, immunity is kind of a perk, and could be called a "skill" as well...

makes me wonder though, if there will be outbreaks of 6 different sicknesses, imagine the death toll and the carnage near the hospitals...

[Wep0n 532]

makes me wonder though, if there will be outbreaks of 6 different sicknesses, imagine the death toll and the carnage near the hospitals...

this is going to be so much fun :D

[logan23 118]

Summary

"Progression through equipment" is a core part of DayZ.

But in itself it is not sufficient to increase a player's identification with his character.

This low value of life & death can be seen as one structural reason for the abundance ov PvP.

This post will discuss this issue and how the introduction of mikro-skills could be an important part in the solution.

While I took care that there are no repetitions within the text, it was not possible to keep it short.

This thread is meant as a summary of a long discussion I had with many forum members in our previous

thread: "Skill System in DayZ?"

Special thanks to joe_mcentire, Hoik, m00tley and wep0n for the discussion and critical remarks.

Progression through equipment

"Progression through equipment" .......................................................................

.....................................................................

This system is not gamey.

There are numbers working in the background, but that's it.

You won't see anything from this system besides what you can observe from your character ingame.

Everything what makes DayZ great today will remain in the game. No + in "gutting animals" will make tactical awareness

anything less important, nor communication, navigation, decision making etc.

If you meet someone in game, and perhaps in a hostile encounter, every fresh spawn will be as good as an experienced character.

Interesting Post-

I like the idea that the longer you live, the player has a higher chance on not getting sick from certain diseases or the player will just have a chronic condition verse death.

With the concept of doing something-bandage or fix a car can increase a factor related to the action.

To make this work what you do is say Bandage 5 times will increase the action in some small way but you can't increase it more until you are on your 3rd week alive.

This will keep players from shooting each other a then bandage after, plus your idea of a wound has a chance of infection- this will keep players from shooting each other to get this increase.

I can see this also working with the cars but I don't like the idea that fixing a car can get you injured, its like running on stairs can lead you to falling down them.

I agree that non of these should touch the area of combat.

I can see the main focus is to see that having a player who lived for 4 weeks as a valuable asset since they have better skills in certain areas due to the fact they have been out here living/surviving longer then a fresh spawn. These should never be something you can actually track in a menu just that the player will see/notice them getting faster at bandaging or cutting out better grade of meat from the Cow/animal.

Edited January 30, 2013 by logan23

[joe_mcentire 2073]

but why quote everything?! don't you see there is to little space left on the internet?!

[Leto (DayZ) 72]

I think the appearance of the survivors should be the opposite: When you have nothing, you look thin, dirty and sick. Has you find supplies, gear and transportation, you start looking healthier and cleaner.

Edited January 30, 2013 by Leto

[vaevictis 18]

Actually it could be both...

Day one:

If you are washed ashore, then you should be dehydrated, hungry, wet looking, maybe a tear or two, no jacket, only basic clothes, even without backpack etc. but normal build (as you have been cast ashore and lost everything).

If you play for many days and then eat a lot you should become fatter.

If you starve thinner.

If you get shot a lot, bloodier.

If you play in the woods a lot, then you should be muddier

If you swim then you should be more wet and clean in the process.

When you find a new jacket, jacket would be new.

If you wear the same jacket a long time, jacket would become older, more tears (the same with other clothes).

You should grow a beard if you would live longer, but if you find a kinfe or a razor you should be able to shave.

ps: No micro-skills, if you can do something in the real life, you should be able to do the same if you play one hour or hundred.

Maybe there could only be a handbook for flying helicopter, which would show you the controls for operating helicopter, however you could still fly without the book, but you would have to do the stuff from your head.

This handbook would be like simple in game manual (press that switch, turn the lever, etc.).

The same thing would be for fixing cars (repair manual), setting bones, giving transfusion (medical book), etc.

However the time of actions and probability of successful action would be the same without the handbook or with the handbook.

ps2: There should also be a kind of mini game, so that if you would like to change a tire, you should first remove the bolts and then put on a tire and then tighten the bolts, so that the whole process would mimic real life actions as possible (whole process would take less time of course) however the action would be as similar to real life as possible.

The DayZ SA would teach us, how to survive in the wilderness, repair cars, set bones etc.

The similar way it taught many of us how to navigate with compass or only just the watch.

Edited February 1, 2013 by Va3V1ctis

[nihilisst 43]

This is exactly what I've suggested many times here and on reddit.

But I've always been downvoted or haven't gotten many replies. Maybe because I've not explained it well enough, who knows. doesn't matter now.

I have a few things to suggest for additions/changes. (I hope I haven't missed them while reading over the OP and am repeating things)

- Categories and (Micro-) Skills:

each skill corresponds to one single action you can do. (bandage yourself, reload a revolver, clean a rifle, cook meat, repair a car wheel, ...)

a group of skills makes a category (medical, fitness, outdoor, mechanic, crafting, ...)

at character creation, you are only confronted with the categories (see below)

- Skill progression through "doing stuff":

As you explained, this can cause spamming, just to get better at something.

This can be prevented by limiting the progression per day/hour.

(let's say you gain 1 point for every time you apply a bandage, but at max 1 per hour (or so))

The best way to actually realise the skill progression is to assign probability of success/failure, speed and effectivity.

eg. reloading speed

time before a repaired engine breaks down again

number and quality (diseased or not) of meat you get

bandaging speed

time before a cleaned weapon starts to jam again

amount of wood/metal needed to build an item

durability of crafted items (makeshift weapons, barricades,...)

and chance of success/failure

...

- basic and advanced skills:

Basic skills are those that everyone can do (bandage, make a fire, reload a gun)

advanced are those that need special training (blood transfusions, rifle cleaning, gutting animals)

You can get a few advanced skills at the beginning, depending on your starting level in the corresponding category. (So, you don't know how to do a transfusion if you start with 25% medical)

You can still try to do these things (as you know that they are possible), but with a 95-99% failure chance.

To learn additional advanced skills, you need to meet other players that can teach them to you. (of course you still need to exercise before you're really good at it)

Rocket mentionned once that he would like to see players learn from each other.

- Custom Character creation / classes:

You don't necessarily start with 50/100 in every category, but can choose which to increase or decrease.

Of course, you can't simply decide to start with 75 in every category, but have to stay at the same average.

So, if you increase one category by 25 points, you have to decrease other categorie(s) by a total of 25 points too.

You can either create your completely own custom character or choose from different classes (medic, mechanic, hunter, etc. each with his own skillset corresponding to his job)

The character creation would go through a few steps:

1. Gender

2. Appearance

3. Custom Class (that you can save in the case you die) OR Standard/Random Character OR Predefined Class

3.1. Skillset choice (custom OR class)

So, the skills (categories) you choose at character creation are as follows:

5 levels, very low - low - medium - high - very high.

corresponding to 20 - 35 - 50 - 65 - 80, the number corresponding to the level each (micro)skill has.

except for advanced skills, which are 0 - 15 - 30 - 45 - 60

(additionally, it could be that the higher your starting level is, the higher you can get. eg a total of 50 pts.

meaning, at 20 you can only get up to 70, but at 80 you can get up to 130.)

And of course, I agree completely with you that everything should be calculated in the background, without announcements, levels, perk trees, etc. Also that the character can't get overpowered, even after weeks of survival.

[logan23 118]

I think the appearance of the survivors should be the opposite: When you have nothing, you look thin, dirty and sick. Has you find supplies, gear and transportation, you start looking healthier and cleaner.

The image could be showing the change in clothing as it's durability lowers.

So you might have a beat up jacket but good jeans and shirt.

[GodOfGrain 191]

This is exactly what I've suggested many times here and on reddit.

But I've always been downvoted or haven't gotten many replies. Maybe because I've not explained it well enough, who knows. doesn't matter now.

I have a few things to suggest for additions/changes. (I hope I haven't missed them while reading over the OP and am repeating things)

[...]

nice to hear that you support that idea,

but actually I wouldn't like the direction you are going with that.

See, the way you describe it skills would have a major influence on gameplay and game-experience.

I imagine a system of micro-skills, which offer a somewhat noticeable progression over time,

but are not influencing the current DayZ experience.

Some players wouldn't even notice that this system is in place if they haven't read about it somewhere.

Regarding the aspect you brought up that you progress by actually doing things:

That was my first idea as well, but after a long discussion we came to the conclusion that this

wouldn't work out (false incentives). You could have a look at some of those links I provided,

especially the post from wep0n: Link

Edited February 1, 2013 by GodOfGrain

[nihilisst 43]

I imagine a system of micro-skills, which offer a somewhat noticeable progression over time,

but are not influencing the current DayZ experience.

Some players wouldn't even notice that this system is in place if they haven't read about it somewhere.

That's my idea, too.

Let's take "bandaging". You start with a skill of 50, and everytime you apply a bandage (which you can only do if you actually bleed), you gain 1 skill point. (maximum 1 per hour, though)

The skill affects the speed of applying the bandage, at 50, you take 6 seconds to apply one, at 100, you only take 3.

So, you'll only see a difference over a long time, it's really just minimal gradual progress.

(the numbers I use are quite random,they probably wouldn't be functional. And they only have a meaning for the programmers)

Of course, every skill would increase differently. Some increase faster than 1 per action (eg 5 per action), others slower (1 per every 5 actions).

In DayZ it wouldn't even be possible to grind skills.

You can't bandage a wound that isn't there.

You can't repair a car that isn't broken.

You won't make a fire over and over again with only 5 matches.

And the progression can be limited, like I said "maximum 1 per hour".

Of course, your skill isn't absolute. As you explained, other factors influence them. Hunger, thirst, weather, blood loss, wounds, fractures, concussions, infections... They all can cause penalties, and when treated correctly, disappear over time.

"Learning by doing" and "Improvement over time" are in the end very similar and would probably not feel any different.

But let's say you don't ever repair a car. would that skill, the probability to fail/succeed, increase too?

You survive for 50 days, but always stay in the same area, hunting, fishing, living off the land, rarely go into a small town and check some cupboards. You never see a car, until day 51, when another player crashes his car into the house you're looting. How skilled would you be at trying to repair the engine, fix the fueltank or change the wheels? definitely not better than 50 days before, because you never had the chance to try and understand how it works.

It could even go a step further. That you have to exercise regularly to keep your level. (like in real life). But that would go too far.

and, about wep0ns explanation for "Gaining of passive skills with a heavy trade off. happens randomly, difficult to exploit:"

The "skills" he mentions (immunities, resistance to cold...), well I think they are a completely different factor than the "skills" I (and you) have in mind.

If you stay out in the cold, you maybe get sick. That's normal. And if you get over the sickness, you'll maybe be more resistant than before or even immune. that's normal, too.

But that has nothing to do with skill or character progression.

This feature can exist side by side, or without a skill system, but not "instead" of one.

PS: To all people repeating over and over again, that ArmA/DayZ Mod has already a learning progress, for orientation, weapon handling etc.

Yes, I agree. There are some skills, that are Player Skills. How good you are at estimating distance of a target, that you know how to navigate using the sky, that you know when to crouch or go prone to avoid detection, etc.

These are Player skills that are translated into the game directly by input. And they are enough for ArmA, which is a Military Simulation.

But DayZ is a Apocalypse Survival Simulation. There is more to do than move and shoot. There are Skills needed that CAN NOT be translated directly into the game.

And the fact that these are the same for every player make the "survival" not really "survival of the fittest", as every player is "fit" at the same level.

And that is boring. DayZ in it's current state is still too much "Military Simulator" than "Survival Simulator".

The only alternative to "artificial" skills, would be minigames. But really, everybody hates minigames. Either they're too easy and boring, or they're unrealistic or they're too complicated due to the limitiation of input possibilities with mouse and keyboard (have you played "Surgeon Simulator 2013" ?)

Edited February 1, 2013 by Nihilisst

[logan23 118]

In DayZ it wouldn't even be possible to grind skills.

You can't bandage a wound that isn't there.

You can't repair a car that isn't broken.

You won't make a fire over and over again with only 5 matches.

And the progression can be limited, like I said "maximum 1 per hour".

Actually players already grind with shooting each other and then blood bagging or bandage each other to get closer to a Hero Skin.

The only way to keep grinding from happen is that levels are majorly factored by how long your character is alive- in game time.

If you can only move up these passive skills in tiers of how long you are alive- Ex. 1st week, then 3rd week, then 6th week,..etc

This large amount a time will make any grinding pointless since you need to be alive for a long time before you can even increase that passive skill.

There should be passive skills that might affect your thirst or eating needs if you live to 3rd week.

This gives a progression but you have to stay alive. Once your character is dead then everything is set back to 0.

Also these Passive skills should never be told to the player- they simply notice it if they are watching for it.

Of course even if you live 3 weeks and your hunger needs have decreased - but you get sick or some other factor could spike this hunger back up do to your disease you have,.etc.

[nihilisst 43]

Actually players already grind with shooting each other and then blood bagging or bandage each other to get closer to a Hero Skin.

The only way to keep grinding from happen is that levels are majorly factored by how long your character is alive- in game time.

If you can only move up these passive skills in tiers of how long you are alive- Ex. 1st week, then 3rd week, then 6th week,..etc

This large amount a time will make any grinding pointless since you need to be alive for a long time before you can even increase that passive skill.

That's what I'm saying, you have to "wait" for a certain time before your skill can increase again. Even if you start bleeding and have to bandage yourself 3 times every hour, your skill improvement would be the same as if you had only bandaged once every hour.

Once your character is dead then everything is set back to 0.

Also these Passive skills should never be told to the player- they simply notice it if they are watching for it.

Definitely, I never questionned that.

Of course even if you live 3 weeks and your hunger needs have decreased - but you get sick or some other factor could spike this hunger back up do to your disease you have,.etc.

As I said, weather, disease and wounds influence everything. You need to drink more if it's dry and hot, eat more if you run a lot, etc.

Edited February 1, 2013 by Nihilisst