Turn Off Passive Humanity Increase

[adrianscholl 2]

I am a bandit. Unless I know the player is entirely trustworthy, I will shoot on sight any player I encounter. My current character has 4 murders and 4 bandit kills (it should be at 7 murders, but 3 were reverted after a server crash). A few of those murders came from just today. Yet I logged off a moment ago with a non-bandit skin.

The passive regeneration of humanity completely destroys long-term records of a player's unique playstyle. There is no way to know if a player is a player-killer or not, unless they have just committed a murder, because in just an hour or two of walking around, your humanity will be positive again. As such, the humanity system does not seem to be working as intended: to clearly mark player killers for other players to instantly know they are not trustworthy.

My suggestion to entirely remove passive humanity increase may seem harsh; however, there are currently ingame methods to actively replenish humanity if a player becomes a bandit and wants to switch back. Blood transfusions (and I believe bandaging and allowing people to take out of your pack) increase humanity actively. These active mechanisms should be the only ways to increase humanity. They should be balanced to reasonably allow a player to work back up their humanity if they choose to do so.

The side-effect of this might actually be a drop in the overall amount of PvP, as players will have to start considering whether or not they want to be actually be displayed as a bandit for a very extended amount of time AND it will mean that non-bandits are very likely actually non-bandits, so you can probably trust them on sight.

Any further comments on the suggestion are fully welcome. Also, <3 if I happened to kill you. = D

[LanceUppercut 7]

pretty much everyone would become a bandit

[rocket 16567]

Open to suggestions here. Interested to hear peoples experiences and see what they think.

Another option is a "high humanity" skin, but the whole humanity/bandit gambit is still leaving a really bad taste in my mouth at the moment. I'm sort of just leaving it "as is" at the moment in the hopes that things spontaneously solve themselves or a better approach comes along.

[griffinz 2816]

I'd say leave it as is, until the wierd -50,000 points, or the -1000 points in self-defense bugs are resolved...then only those who truly hunt people want to be be bandits, and wont need a passive increase

[adrianscholl 2]

Open to suggestions here. Interested to hear peoples experiences and see what they think.

Another option is a "high humanity" skin' date=' but the whole humanity/bandit gambit is still leaving a really bad taste in my mouth at the moment. I'm sort of just leaving it "as is" at the moment in the hopes that things spontaneously solve themselves or a better approach comes along.

[/quote']

Before patch 1.5.5, I was actually hoping the bandit system would be removed, because it was extremely buggy (freezing players mid-gun fight, spawning players in ocean, deleting backpack, etc). I want to give tremendous kudos to you and your team for eliminating the vast majority of problems with an almost seamless bandit switch. Seriously. That big of an improvement with just one patch completely makes me want the bandit system to stay ingame (I believe the visual indicator of playstyle definitely adds positively to the game). Just wanted to let you know that people are absolutely blown away by how quickly you and your team is improving this mod!

[Jester. 6]

Open to suggestions here. Interested to hear peoples experiences and see what they think.

Another option is a "high humanity" skin' date=' but the whole humanity/bandit gambit is still leaving a really bad taste in my mouth at the moment. I'm sort of just leaving it "as is" at the moment in the hopes that things spontaneously solve themselves or a better approach comes along.

[/quote']

Unfortunately, nothing will fix itself. People who don't want to become bandits are bandits, and people who want to be bandits randomly kill so they can keep their skin. I think there should just be an option to opt out of the skin.

[nexerius 0]

Why do people shoot everyone they see? How about trying to avoid them?

I even took a chance yesterday, saving one guy hat had zombies afte him. He thanked me and left. We really dont need more bandits, as more than half of the server are pretty much bandits now.

[-Tier1- Gilion 0]

This might be a bit off-topic, but still relevant imo.

In my opinion the humanity-thing is a fun mechanic. The problem I have (had?) with it was the bugs in the transition between bandit and normal. I hear people saying that is fixed now.

Another thing that is worth to bring up for debate is should not killing people be a viable option? Running and hiding from a sniper is possible. Its hard, yes, but possible. But the second you get in close quarters with someone you have to defend yourself, and there is a chance you will become a bandit if you come out alive, even if you just defend yourself. Would a possible solution be to add a "stun" weapon? Like a teizer, with short range, that doesnt kill the target, but rather knocks him unconscious for a minute to let the other guy run away? That way the pacifist can get out of a tight situation without loosing humanity.

No idea if this is a good idea, but it does bring an option to the table for those whos really afraid of becoming a bandit.

[Felix (DayZ) 21]

Much too easy to farm humanity, the passive increase is way too much/fast. You could at least drop it down to 150 every 15 minutes which puts it at pretty much a free murder per night for normal players. And even that might be too fast.

Its not a radical bump, so it'd be an easy start to see how it impacts humanity ratings across the board.

For those just into banditry blood packs are an easy way to get back out, it would take a lot for those going deep into bandit to get back using blood packs though.

Another possibility would be to have 2 bandit skins to differentiate between deep bandit and barely into it, possibly self defense, bandit. The same double skin could work for high humanity as well.

A possibility there would be to force all average non-bandits to the white shirt texture, and after a certain humanity switch them to the black shirt texture. That might even be enough of an incentive for some to go into higher humanity.

[MR DELICIOUS 297]

I think appearance is a nice little metric for player morality, as this is a video game and not all our senses are available to us as in real life.

I think that it would be a good idea to set up a scale of humanity, with three skins or so in each humanity tier to differentiate a player. As such, players would look different and it would require player memory and skill to correctly identify who they are actually looking at.

Similarly, hard colours should only be present on the basic survivor model, with humanity increases or decreases manifesting themselves in a more hardbitten camo look.

For example:

Justice would be 25000 - 27500 humanity.

Of the three skins, each would appear in green camo, with some body armour visuals (to distinguish silhouette), with minor visual differences, but each character has an "Ace" card on his helmet/hat.

If the Justice kills one "innocent", he forfeits his position.

Friendly would be 2500 + humanity.

Each character would be in green camo fatigues without body armour. Perhaps the standard array of US operator skins.

Survivor would be -750 - 2500+ humanity.

Dressed in the current gimpy Ash Ketchum getup.

Bandit would be -750 - -95,000 humanity.

Dressed in current skin but in green camo (why desert camo in a Russian wilderness?), with varying home made additions to the skin (like the Taliban skins but without the obvious ethnic headdress).

Warlord would be - 95,000 - -100,000 lower humanity.

The selection of skins would be quite apocalyptic-ragtag, but perhaps with gas masks and other dehumanizing helmets. They should also have the body armour silhouette differentiation. There are some really nice evil bandit looking models available.

Essentially, in this way, players are easily able to see who is really good, who is really bad, who is completely new, with the middling ground being much more difficult to identify. Similarly, the really good and really bad players are rewarded with one of three unique looks, but are also differentiated by their silhouette.

Lastly, passive humanity increase should be turned off. Player actions should designate whether or not that player is to be trusted. Control has been taken away from the player in their depiction, and so should be given back to them with regard to whether they stay with it or work their penance off.

[Ralith 0]

Open to suggestions here. Interested to hear peoples experiences and see what they think.

Another option is a "high humanity" skin' date=' but the whole humanity/bandit gambit is still leaving a really bad taste in my mouth at the moment. I'm sort of just leaving it "as is" at the moment in the hopes that things spontaneously solve themselves or a better approach comes along.

[/quote']

I, for one (and I'm a survivor, not a bandit) would prefer to see the bandit skins gone. It removes much of the tension and uncertainty of encountering new people, and encourages people who have started PVPing to never stop, as they will have to go to a significant amount of effort to not be walking around with a shoot on sight sign taped to their face.

But whatever you do, don't remove the humanity regen. At least as it is right now, people who PVP but don't continuously murder will end up with a survivor skin, thereby retaining at least some of the uncertainty, mistrust, and tension that lend the game so much atmosphere.

Really, I think things will be much better when direct voice is fixed; as it is, it's very hard to communicate your intentions quickly and clearly, and in lieu of good communications, the safer option is always to shoot an oncoming player. I'd rate the brokenness of direct comms as one of the biggest standing problems with the game, and am curious why it's been a standing problem for so long. It used to work fine, and was only broken by the attempt to restrict side/global chatter--which, ironically, still work fine.

[Tiger205 48]

I would simply like to have the ability to choose my skin somewhere, either ingame or maybe here on the site if it's somehow possible (doubtful). This would allow to remove the humanity system and also remove a lot of bugs related to them like disappearing items from backpacks.

[capitol 2]

Im all for removing the passive regen, but most problems seem to come from survivors defending themselves in just a handful of instances and then being branded a bandit, most people who actively play bandit will rack up much more than a handful of kills.

maybe the humanity drop should increase as your murder count increases, this would provide a buffer for regular survivors who dont actively seek out and murder others but may have to defend himself against another survivor.

[Drake Sigar 9]

How about decreasing the regeneration rate?

[priestizzle 1]

I know how much of a headache the bandit to survivor (and vice-versa) transition was. Glad to see it petty much completely fixed. If the problem is easy to correct among a wide range of player models I would love to see 2 neutral models, and 4 bandit and 4 survivor models. All ranging in their degree of "evil" or "noble" looking. This would add a new element to the game. Truly bloodthirsty hunter bandits would be more difficult to play as they are easily identified (and in my opinion would make for a much more fun experience for this player as well).

The skins closer to "neutral" would be much harder to distinguish and each encounter would be looked at different from the next, further developing the meta game of "trust." As it stands now with direct comms being broken, bandit too easily gained, and only two skin variants, the best course of action is to shoot on sight (which is becoming a more heated debate among my group of friends because it is quickly becoming harder for us to justify communication over violence).

Some may say this will make the game less tense but I think the opposite. The neutrals will be just as hard to trust, and tensions will be incredibly high in those situations. Those who gained the top of the humanity ladder will be sought after targets for bandits, have to roll the dice each encounter with other survivors or risk their renowned skin etc. After a full release of the mod, with the possibilities of missions dependent on your skin could arise (ie. Bandit hunting down a goody two-shoes survivor, or a noble survivor ridding the world of a villain) with possible rewards as well. Of course this is much further down the line but alphas are great places to explore possibilities.

Like i said, I don't know how complicated it was to fix the bandit transition so I don't know if the addition of 10 skins would really be feasible or even worth the headache, but it's a thought.

Back onto the regen system, I think it's the only way at the moment to alleviate people becoming bandit in self defense going back to survivor. I don't know how fast it really is as I have yet to turn bandit, and despite my 200 zombie kills, bandaging friends, and all the other helpful things, I seem to be stuck at 2610 humanity. I don't really see any passive humanity generation at all in this range and I just assume it's intended.

As it's still only an alpha, there's plenty of ways to go about this, and i will assume more ways to lose and gain humanity will arise such as some sort of random mission system as stated earlier, or even a dynamic one when stumbling on certain areas of the map.

[Drake Sigar 9]

I fear if you start adding a spatula and Monopoly piece to a Rock Paper Scissors game, people might get confused. Ten models is vastly overcomplicated.

[priestizzle 1]

Just thought of this idea before heading to bed. If you came up with a system where when someone dies they get the option to start off from scratch on the humanity scale as well, or keep their current humanity, this could offer you the chance to remove the passive regen all together or drastically decrease it. People who are willing to kill off their own character, rather than working at a change, can get back to where they want to be at the cost of their inventory.

Only issue I can see with this is bandit griefing along the coast, killing with impunity for an hour with an easily obtained weapon, kill the character, change name, rinse and repeat. Griefing on the coast is already going on now though and not much would change.

PS. A reference to rocket's thread on "if this were to become an actual game..." As per my idea to a cash shop selling convenience and not power, you could have the humanity reset be option without losing inventory at a reasonably high price.

[sorophx 25]

the whole humanity/bandit gambit is still leaving a really bad taste in my mouth at the moment.

removing it altogether and making it a lot easier to identify certain players across all servers would be the way to go, I think. although, the fact that they can change their name at any time makes it a bit difficult :huh:

[tajin 17]

Remove the passive increase and let us instead increase humanity by killing zombies.

[pulse89 0]

I don't think killing bandits should have quite the high cost it does at the moment, maybe a decrease in say 200 instead of the 500 it is now. This, of course, would have to go hand in hand with the removal of the passive humanity increase.

[Winters (DayZ) 4]

Honestly I'm not a fan of the morality system at all. It's very black and white and doesn't really allow the 'shades of grey' that a post-apocalyptic world inevitably leads to. There are cases where people have to kill another as an act of self defence and end up with a big drop in humanity, and equally, people that literally do nothing but kill people for sport can easily recover their survivor skin.

Additionally, I don't think killing people (or not) should define how you look. I'd much prefer the ability to choose my own appearance from one of the many ARMA2 guerilla or PMC skins; if I choose to dress like a bandit, yeah I'll look badass but as a result people will be wary; if I choose a friendly looking chap people might be more trusting.

[SamStrife 1]

Open to suggestions here. Interested to hear peoples experiences and see what they think.

Another option is a "high humanity" skin' date=' but the whole humanity/bandit gambit is still leaving a really bad taste in my mouth at the moment. I'm sort of just leaving it "as is" at the moment in the hopes that things spontaneously solve themselves or a better approach comes along.

[/quote']

I fear the biggest problem with removing the humanity system would be losing the morally grey area of the game. Banidts will always kill people, no matter what their skin is but there's currently a contingency of people sitting on the fence who are robbing and stealing from others rather than outright killing them. If there is no negative repercussions for killing people, the people who do steal and rob will just turn into bandits, as there is no reason not to.

I feel the grey area of the game is what makes it its most special and whilst it may not be lost by removing the humanity system, it could certainly hurt it.

If you stick with it, I'm sure you'll stumble onto the solution eventually.

That's just my 2 cents anyway.

[-Legion-xHawk 4]

I'm all for leaving the humanity system and turning off passive regen. Right now I am at the point where I have to decide what to do, I love the way the Bandit looks versus Survivor, however, it's not in my nature to blast every player I come across, something I'd currently have to do in order to keep the Bandit skin. It is of my opinion to leave Humanity in, and turn off the regen and it will sort itself out, if you are helpful and bandage, administer morphine, blood transfusions, etc a self defense kill here and there probably won't put you too far negative, however those who are Bandits will have to work their way up to Survivor if they really want it, and that will just add more tension to the game if there is no regen. Does the Survivor trust the Bandit stating he wants to do the transfusion so he can change back to a Survivor, or does the Survivor risk shooting first and becoming a Bandit as well and being stuck in the same situation.

[That Lamer 0]

xHawk' pid='13453' dateline='1336575958']

I'm all for leaving the humanity system and turning off passive regen. Right now I am at the point where I have to decide what to do' date=' I love the way the Bandit looks versus Survivor, however, it's not in my nature to blast every player I come across, something I'd currently have to do in order to keep the Bandit skin. It is of my opinion to leave Humanity in, and turn off the regen and it will sort itself out, if you are helpful and bandage, administer morphine, blood transfusions, etc a self defense kill here and there probably won't put you too far negative, however those who are Bandits will have to work their way up to Survivor if they really want it, and that will just add more tension to the game if there is no regen. Does the Survivor trust the Bandit stating he wants to do the transfusion so he can change back to a Survivor, or does the Survivor risk shooting first and becoming a Bandit as well and being stuck in the same situation.

[/quote']

Or, rocket can remove the stupid humanity system and get skin selection up and running, thereby decoupling the bandit and any future skins from actual actions, thus making encounters truly ambiguous and tense. Being able to simply select the bandit skin would then allow you and I who are enamored with it to keep it permanently without having to go down to the coast and snipe everyone in sight.

Yesterday I killed 2 people and shot at a 3rd before dying and got down to -9000. Today I haven't come across anyone and I'm up to -3500. I would prefer not to take my nice gear down to the coast and waste my ammo on fresh spawns, or get counter sniped and lose it all, just because I want to maintain my looks. I don't want regen gone because I travel in groups and often serve as medic. That is actively "hurting" my humanity. I just want the whole thing gone.

[Timberfox 2]

My wish for how the system will work 'down the road' is a web based interface where you can choose the skins available to you. When combined with the stat system, skins could almost be a sort of achievement system. However, i do fear that this could encourage people to grind for the reward, thus almost forcing an artificial structure/guidance into the game.

With that said; talking specifics about when/how skins should be available to people i think should only be done after looking at current player averages. Instead of just randomly picking a number of murders before someone becomes a bandit, make sure you are actually looking at player statistics to back up your positions. Perhaps more importantly look at cases where someone is trying to be good/bad but is constantly stuck around the middle ground. See if you cant find more stats than just murders to define a player's intended role.