KoS, an examination

[plrsniper 87]

The problem is people thinking there is a problem with KoS to begin with.

Rockets vision on the mod is exactly this, people will do what they WANT to do. Not what HE or anyone else wants them to do. DayZ is a game in it's own in this manner and it's built on another game that follows this principle too. ArmA 2 doesn't force you to play a certain way, the map editor and scripting engine allows you do make whatever you want of it. (as long as the hardware and engine can keep up of course)

Let's look at what DayZ actually is made of:

The Core

1. The ArmA 2 engine, featuring all the simulation necessary for a military simulator with ballistics, weather, day/night cycle, scripting engine and much more.
   
2. Chernarus, the map provided by the ArmA 2 game. A 225km² area with varying terrain. Not a product of DayZ but a component available from ArmA 2. (And there are more maps available, including community made ones)
   

The Mod

1. On the above mentioned map you define a list of buildings where certain items may be created. The buildings object ID is all that is needed in this listing and from there the game will populate the particular building with items based on a weighted loot table. There is a certain chance items will be created and there is a certain chance that each item created will be of a certain type.
   In essence, you populate the map with items of various rarity and players will naturally go look for better items as they do in any game that has loot.
   This in it's own is a feature enough to keep players occupied for quite some time.
   
2. Add enemies, in this case Zombies. Similar to items spawning, a certain number of Zeds are spawned in/near buildings where items may be present. The hardest part of DayZ development as these Zombies will shape the base difficulty of the mod in all aspects. Making them behave like Zombies and keep them from passing through walls and solid objects is hard enough. Adding to that, there is no highly developed AI for a Zombie entity and a simple animal AI has been borrowed and developed upon.
   ArmA 2 soldier AI is arguably quite a bit smarter but they cannot be used for this application for many reasons. Including performance.
   
3. Add hunger, thirst, status effects and illness. Drive players to visit zombie infested places to gather food and drink as well as medical supplies.
   In the case of medical supplies, they are only available at the coast to ensure players occasionally need to go to certain "hot spots" and thus face interacting with other players.
   
4. Add vehicles with a "crafting system" allowing players to fix them and utilize them to get around the HUGE map faster.
   
5. Add weapons in the loot tables and balance the weapons to be effective vs zombies and effective vs other players. Some are better at killing the horde and others are better against players.
   
6. Use the "humanity system" to differentiate players through their interactions with the game visually.
   

That's it for DayZ. Very short and simple really and the reason it's grown to such a huge success without any advertising.

There are no rules (besides cheating ofc) and your goal or "end game" is who stays alive the longest.

Thus, any problems are purely artificial and caused by players expecting the game to be something it isn't.

It's a sandbox and everybody plays in that sandbox on equal terms.

When players complain about zombies being glitchy it's not a game breaking flaw. You learn to survive even with glitchy zombies, maybe that is part of the difficulty in the game. Zombies are not just zombies, they are glitchy zombies and you just learn to deal with it as you would dealing with zombies that can take a tank shell to the face and survive.

Finally, players complaining about KoS... It's not a problem for the mod, it's a problem in the playerbase itself as players expect to be able to farm loot in complete security until they get bored and give up DayZ.

There is no problem with KoS, it's the way the mod is designed to work and you either learn to deal with it (learn to PvP) or you suffer from it as anyone else.

[jk_scowling 44]

Item durability should reduce KoS. Hopefully, bandits will attempt to "hold-up" players and make them drop their gear before executing them. That's always fun.

Interesting, hadn't thought of that.

[unkillable94 149]

The problem is people thinking there is a problem with KoS to begin with.

Rockets vision on the mod is exactly this, people will do what they WANT to do. Not what HE or anyone else wants them to do. DayZ is a game in it's own in this manner and it's built on another game that follows this principle too. ArmA 2 doesn't force you to play a certain way, the map editor and scripting engine allows you do make whatever you want of it. (as long as the hardware and engine can keep up of course)

Let's look at what DayZ actually is made of:

The Core

1. The ArmA 2 engine, featuring all the simulation necessary for a military simulator with ballistics, weather, day/night cycle, scripting engine and much more.
   
2. Chernarus, the map provided by the ArmA 2 game. A 225km² area with varying terrain. Not a product of DayZ but a component available from ArmA 2. (And there are more maps available, including community made ones)
   

The Mod

1. On the above mentioned map you define a list of buildings where certain items may be created. The buildings object ID is all that is needed in this listing and from there the game will populate the particular building with items based on a weighted loot table. There is a certain chance items will be created and there is a certain chance that each item created will be of a certain type.
   In essence, you populate the map with items of various rarity and players will naturally go look for better items as they do in any game that has loot.
   This in it's own is a feature enough to keep players occupied for quite some time.
   
2. Add enemies, in this case Zombies. Similar to items spawning, a certain number of Zeds are spawned in/near buildings where items may be present. The hardest part of DayZ development as these Zombies will shape the base difficulty of the mod in all aspects. Making them behave like Zombies and keep them from passing through walls and solid objects is hard enough. Adding to that, there is no highly developed AI for a Zombie entity and a simple animal AI has been borrowed and developed upon.
   ArmA 2 soldier AI is arguably quite a bit smarter but they cannot be used for this application for many reasons. Including performance.
   
3. Add hunger, thirst, status effects and illness. Drive players to visit zombie infested places to gather food and drink as well as medical supplies.
   In the case of medical supplies, they are only available at the coast to ensure players occasionally need to go to certain "hot spots" and thus face interacting with other players.
   
4. Add vehicles with a "crafting system" allowing players to fix them and utilize them to get around the HUGE map faster.
   
5. Add weapons in the loot tables and balance the weapons to be effective vs zombies and effective vs other players. Some are better at killing the horde and others are better against players.
   
6. Use the "humanity system" to differentiate players through their interactions with the game visually.
   

That's it for DayZ. Very short and simple really and the reason it's grown to such a huge success without any advertising.

There are no rules (besides cheating ofc) and your goal or "end game" is who stays alive the longest.

Thus, any problems are purely artificial and caused by players expecting the game to be something it isn't.

It's a sandbox and everybody plays in that sandbox on equal terms.

When players complain about zombies being glitchy it's not a game breaking flaw. You learn to survive even with glitchy zombies, maybe that is part of the difficulty in the game. Zombies are not just zombies, they are glitchy zombies and you just learn to deal with it as you would dealing with zombies that can take a tank shell to the face and survive.

Finally, players complaining about KoS... It's not a problem for the mod, it's a problem in the playerbase itself as players expect to be able to farm loot in complete security until they get bored and give up DayZ.

There is no problem with KoS, it's the way the mod is designed to work and you either learn to deal with it (learn to PvP) or you suffer from it as anyone else.

The mod may have been designed to work, but that doesn't change the fact that when everyone kills on sight, not just a small portion of the community, that eliminates other key aspects of the mod like non-hostile player interactions.

[plrsniper 87]

The mod may have been designed to work, but that doesn't change the fact that when everyone kills on sight, not just a small portion of the community, that eliminates other key aspects of the mod like non-hostile player interactions.

No it doesn't...

You still have to fire up ArmA 2 (Core 1), travel the map (Core 2), Go to item spawn points (Mod 1) to find stuff, Avoid zombies around said spawn point (Mod 2), Depending on if you survive the first 30 minutes or so you need to eat and drink (Mod 3), If you want to get around the map quickly you may want a vehicle (Mod 4), to kill other players you need a weapon (Mod 5), your actions are affected by the last point in the list. If you want to be a hero then don't PvP! (Mod 6)

That's EVERYTHING in DayZ covered by PvP.

Arguably you can do PvP without using vehicles though.

But then again, if survival is your cup of tea then you can do without mod points 2, 4, 5 and 6 completely... To just survive you don't need anything at all with you.

You can run into a town, grab food and drinks and run out again without being hit once by a zombie or other player.

Then you can watch trees grow while you eat and drink once every hour or so.

Now who is playing the wrong game?

[unkillable94 149]

No it doesn't...

You still have to fire up ArmA 2 (Core 1), travel the map (Core 2), Go to item spawn points (Mod 1) to find stuff, Avoid zombies around said spawn point (Mod 2), Depending on if you survive the first 30 minutes or so you need to eat and drink (Mod 3), If you want to get around the map quickly you may want a vehicle (Mod 4), to kill other players you need a weapon (Mod 5), your actions are affected by the last point in the list. If you want to be a hero then don't PvP! (Mod 6)

That's EVERYTHING in DayZ covered by PvP.

Arguably you can do PvP without using vehicles though.

But then again, if survival is your cup of tea then you can do without mod points 2, 4, 5 and 6 completely... To just survive you don't need anything at all with you.

You can run into a town, grab food and drinks and run out again without being hit once by a zombie or other player.

Then you can watch trees grow while you eat and drink once every hour or so.

Now who is playing the wrong game?

I have no idea what you're trying to get across or how it relates to the fact that the more people kill on sight the less non-hostile interaction there is.

[Dickhat 99]

There should be a PvP/PvE switch/flag. If I want to go PvP I turn it on, if I don't I leave it off. People who have it off would have nametags when you hover your aim over them.

PvP is a part of the game but sometimes you just don't feel like it so why not make it optional? If the person wants in then let them in, if they don't let them do their thing.

Plus, after you turn your PvP flag on you have to wait like 15 minutes to start shooting and doing damage to someone. You can only turn it on/off every 6 hours meaning you have to deal with the consequences of having it on/off and so you can't plan ambushes by moving up to someone and then turning it on to kill them.

[Siberian (DayZ) 527]

I have no idea what you're trying to get across or how it relates to the fact that the more people kill on sight the less non-hostile interaction there is.

save ur breath, KoS'r simply dont understand anything else..

people who pvp in dayz all the time, could care less if theres no PVE community..

its the same issue that pops up in every game that has pvp mixed with PVE (but no region locks, or other ways to stop greiving) the pvpers wanna be able to do anything/everywhere, but the PVE community get left with either joining them, or basicly GTFO.

which obviously isnt good for a game shefllife long term.

but like i said, PVP'rs dont care about that, they just want more targets.

[Marvins 3]

To be fair the main reason people (well mostly babi's and fresh spawn) KoS is trust, you could make it so zombies are as tough as nails and need a small army to kill but without trust its not going to happen. Sidechat helps (apart from "sniper in such and such a place), you can talk and chat crap to other players without being near them, make "friends" as such and so on but not all servers have side chat.

When i started (in december) i had a simple policy, no KoS, that changed after my first day. Personaly i dont blame players who have been around awhile, when you've been there and done that a few 100 times it gets old. I could give a few ideas about KoS but no doubt they have been said befor, again and again.

This is after all just a mod of a game, simple as that. there are limits to what can be done and until standalone dont expect things to change until then. Yes we get to test some feture that will make it into SA (tho in a more polished unbuggy way), yes sometimes getting sniped its annoying but lets face it, Welcome to Dayz.

Its unforgiving, unrelenting and will punish you over and over, yet we come back for more.

Each death i learn something new, now i know to traval via woods, move fast across open plains (if i cant avoid it), sometimes the longest route is better (even tho longer) etc etc and so on.

At the end of the day we bought and own Arma II and OA and we play a mod. that is a choice we all made (even tho i think arma II is fantastic and well worth every penny spent). When stand alone comes out most likely there will be more of a PvP/PvE devide but as it stand the mod is more PvPvE with little devide. as im sure the devs would agree, there is a limit one can do when making a mod.

Well thats my badly put to paper 2 cents.

P.S sorry for any simple spelling mistakes, not got time to read this though again, blame my mother shes the one who passed on dyslexia (and the colour blindness lol).

P.P.S btw this isnt intended to be aggressive incase any of it comes across that way.

Marv

[irl-calibre 744]

i'm sorry, when the advantage has been with a player to kill someone and they make a conscious decision not to pull the trigger and instead engage the other only for them to turn round and kill them, that is not PVP, that's just being a dick.. Learn to differentiate between the two. Same as someone who kills someone else who is unarmed. Now you can try and justify it as much as you like to yourself and the community, but it just doesn't wash. The majority of sane people view such people as Wankers, short and simple. Now ,maybe you like people to think you're a wanker, but me personally? nah i've a bit more self respect than that..

[ShokeR (DayZ) 29]

The last update did absolutely nothing to encourage players to work together. Making the zombies harder until it worked wouldn't accomplis anything but push away a large part of the DayZ audience.

The only way to encourage players to work together is to make the game hard enough so one player can't survive alone, but this will cause some problems because some people like to play alone.

But you can't stop KOS, maybe lower it for a bit but you can't stop it.

[unkillable94 149]

The only way to encourage players to work together is to make the game hard enough so one player can't survive alone, but this will cause some problems because some people like to play alone.

But you can't stop KOS, maybe lower it for a bit but you can't stop it.

If you make the game so hard that you have to work together that will put casual or moderate gamers off, leaving only the ultra-hardcore minority.

[ShokeR (DayZ) 29]

If you make the game so hard that you have to work together that will put casual or moderate gamers off, leaving only the ultra-hardcore minority.

This is exactly the problem, game too hard - people leave, game too easy - people KOS and hack.

[unkillable94 149]

This is exactly the problem, game too hard - people leave, game too easy - people KOS and hack.

That's why the devs have to find that balance, which is hard to do because some people want to be spoonfed and some people want to not be able to accomplish anything due to the sheer difficulty. They need to completely cut out the outlying voices and listen to the majority of the community which isn't easy to do either, hence why I'm telling as many people who are KoS to go play Arma or wasteland, if I want to do some unrestrained killing I go play a couple domination rounds on vanilla arma and its like getting killed all those times never happened.

[GenTroy (DayZ) 22]

What I would give to see an original topic on this forum...just one.......

[Victim187 23]

There should be a PvP/PvE switch/flag. If I want to go PvP I turn it on, if I don't I leave it off. People who have it off would have nametags when you hover your aim over them.

PvP is a part of the game but sometimes you just don't feel like it so why not make it optional? If the person wants in then let them in, if they don't let them do their thing.

Plus, after you turn your PvP flag on you have to wait like 15 minutes to start shooting and doing damage to someone. You can only turn it on/off every 6 hours meaning you have to deal with the consequences of having it on/off and so you can't plan ambushes by moving up to someone and then turning it on to kill them.

It would never work because squads would have 1 guy with PVP turned off running around scouting before they moved anywhere. Would you want some idiot with pvp turned off chasing you around giving call outs to his clan? I sure as hell don't.

[BwobBwub 660]

PvP is fun. Well for the player who wins that is.

[jubeidok 495]

Hands up if you KoS because you feel everyone else KoS?

See all those hands? That's the problem with KoS, weak minded people.

I get a kick out of comments that refer to killing on sight for the "lulz". Seriously, lulz? Hey, that guy over there doesn't see me. This will be fun. One second later, click. Wow, that was fun. Hey, this guy sees me and he's not shooting at me. Let me get behind him, this will be fun. One second later, click. Wow, that was fun. Hey, look at this guy. Lulz, seriously?

People like that are only cheating themselves out of the real fun, different experiences. The extent of their imagination limits their possibilities and they find themselves stuck in a loop. Doing the same thing over and over and using your rage to fuel their fire, keep them going. Even though they know the experience has fallen flat.

The next time you run into someone in game, just stop and think for a second, is there something different I can do here?

[svisketyggeren 662]

Wether ppl call it a pvp game or survival game...its a sandbox at the end of the day and metagaming is vital...any attempt at regulating KOS or any other player made scenarios is stupid.

The reason why ppl complain about KOS is because they dont have the patience to look around the corner before crossing the street, dont wanna scout out a location before heading down to it...generally ppl want easy mode gameplay...which is already evident with all the 3rd person, custom starting gear, million vehicles, cross hair on, daytime only-servers out there.

I swear the next time I see any of u titties in this thread...I will shoot u before u can say "frien...".........now deal with it

Edited February 25, 2013 by svisketyggeren

[unkillable94 149]

Wether ppl call it a pvp game or survival game...its a sandbox at the end of the day and metagaming is vital...any attempt at regulating KOS or any other player made scenarios is stupid.

The reason why ppl complain about KOS is because they dont have the patience to look around the corner before crossing the street, dont wanna scout out a location before heading down to it...generally ppl want easy mode gameplay...which is already evident with all the 3rd person, custom starting gear, million vehicles, cross hair on, daytime only-servers out there.

I swear the next time I see any of u titties in this thread...I will shoot u before u can say "frien...".........now deal with it

No, people don't like KoS because how are you supposed to have player interactions, a big part of the game, if every player you meet shoots you in the face before you can even say friendly? It's not KoS itself that is inherintly bad, its the fact that everybody in the fucking game is KoS, just like with banditry. A few doing it adds a bit of depth, everyone doing it gets old fast.

Edited February 25, 2013 by Col Brown

[Siberian (DayZ) 527]

No, people don't like KoS because how are you supposed to have player interactions, a big part of the game, if every player you meet shoots you in the face before you can even say friendly? It's not KoS itself that is inherintly bad, its the fact that everybody in the fucking game is KoS, just like with banditry. A few doing it adds a bit of depth, everyone doing it gets old fast.

like i said, the KoS crowd, simply cant understand that..

[Tek (DayZ) 95]

like i said, the KoS crowd, simply cant understand that..

More like you fail to grasp the concept behind KOS. Those of us who do understand KOS understand the game better than those who are closed minded about it.

[unkillable94 149]

More like you fail to grasp the concept behind KOS. Those of us who do understand KOS understand the game better than those who are closed minded about it.

Please enlighten us on how killing everything that moves makes you a better player.

[svisketyggeren 662]

djez the wuss factor is so high amongst u players...u all wanna play Daisy...not Dayz...I find it hard to believe most of u came from a hardcore game like arma...or was it pokemon online?

Only question im left with is..

Do u guys even lift?

[unkillable94 149]

I'd say it takes more balls to stare down the barrel of a gun and not flinch than to shoot someone in the back with an AK.

[svisketyggeren 662]

I'd say it takes more balls to stare down the barrel of a gun and not flinch than to shoot someone in the back with an AK.

no...u dont shoot because u want friends in a scary world...it takes big hairy zombie ballz to shoot everyone u see and be alone at the campfire afterwards enjoying the beans u coldblooded shoot someone for.

Edited February 25, 2013 by svisketyggeren