The most elegant solution to playerkilling on SA and possibly dayz mod

[alanford 13]

So, we all know that banditism is rampant in DayZ and that the nm.1 cause for death is death by sniper and other players.

Now, this severely limits the survivalism aspect of the game, because the only viable thing is to hide and hope not to get shot down by military gear.

Here's the thing though, I am willing to bed you whatever that when rocket envisioned dayz, PVP was not even closely on the top10 of things he wanted for dayz to be. But sadly, with the lack of endgame content, the only real option you have is to gear up, go pvp and bambihunt with snipers, die, repeat.

This all could be solved incredibly easily: make survival much harder.

Right now zombies probably cause about 10% of deaths if not less. Why is that? Did humanity go extinct because they were so bored of the zombies? I dont think so, so why are the zombies on easy mode?!

If the zombies were to pose a very real threat, and food would be scarce, than a couple of things would happen:

1.) people would be forced go group up just to survive

2.) bandits would have a much harder time, because only looting the survivors would probably not yield enough food/drink to survive.

3.) players would suddently focus on surviving and not killing each other

And with the new server side zombies that wouldn't even be hard to do.

And than another improvement I'd recommend: add a zombie spawn filter which says that whenever a zombie cannot access an area it cannot spawn in it. So for example fortifying an area would actually keep the area clear of zombies. This would further encourage group play.

And with the new bigger chernarus map there could be space for many more bases, like prisons or castles, which people could encamp in, because of the harder zombies

EDIT:

Another thing: reward people for helping others. Maybe something like Finding a way for the game to determine when a player is stuck (swarmed by zombies and stuck in a house, maybe add a checkpoint on entry, exit to house and determine whether the player can get to that point or whatever) and than if someone helps the stranded player he gets rewarded.

Edited March 12, 2013 by izver

[-Gews- 7443]

Right now zombies probably cause about 10% of deaths if not less.

I agree, this is a zombie (okay, infected for you pedants out there) game, and I am never killed by zombies these days. Never ever!

They don't even present any sort of danger by themselves. The only time I try to avoid aggroing them is if I think another player might be watching.

[solidice 24]

Yeah. Well they are improving the infected, their AI is being improved, their pathways have improved alot and they don't popup when a player is nearby. This should change things.

Survival will be harder as well; more ways to become diseased you will need to gather more suplies and build more stuff etc etc.

However, I do hope they make them a bit harder to kill as well. Still I do not wan't to bed you, you may be a nice guy and all but you didn't even offer me a drink.

[Dancing.Russian.Man 1631]

The only viable thing is to hide and hope not to get shot down.

Isn't that survival?

To survive to live another day?

Smartassery aside -- Reading your post now.

Edit; Okay, so. Pretty much a general suggestion that some people before you have also suggested.

Here's why I have my hopes up for the Standalone:

- All loot is spawned at the start of the server. This means that certain parts of the map will run out of supplies like they would in real life, making it pointless doing multiple trips to cherno, elektro, etc.

- All zombies are spawned at the start of the server. Meaning, we can clean them out, as they (from what I recall reading) only spawn in waves every couple hours if even that often.

- Loot will be harder to find as it no longer spawns in a single pile on the floor.

- Zombies no longer walk in-doors, and hopefully deal more damage to the player.

- Infections and disease. Over 10 types of sickness, each with their own real-life symptoms and treatments. Also feces.

- Natural water sources are polluted by disease (and dead bodies?)

- Possibly no more magic-morphine that regrows bone tissue in a split-second.

What I also hope is that above all else, they make AMMO more scarce out of all things. (I'm almost certain that they will.)

And, even though I say "is" and "no longer," I don't actually know if any of those features are implemented yet. But I believe most of them are confirmed to be in the Standalone sooner or later.

Edited March 12, 2013 by Dancing.Russian.Man

[o-richardson@live.co.uk 34]

The Z's atm are easy to kill becos there buggy, if they continued to run at the normal speed towards you,m would be much harder to hit....

There so easy to HS right now because of the heads bugging about alot.

Unless your one of the ammo hoarders who use more than 1 round per zombie.

[Fraggle (DayZ) 15720]

TBH the Z's in the mod are always going to be buggy because of the nature of trying to mod Arma to do something it's not supposed to do. Annoying but true. It's the same for melee combat, these things can only really be tackled properly by having access to the engine itself rather than trying to bend it to their will, that's why they moved on to the SA so quickly, it got to the point that instead of adding the fun stuff all they were doing was constant bug-fixing which usually turned up more bugs and so on.

That's why I chuckle when people say that the mod using the Arma 3 engine will trump the SA when in actual fact all it will do is open a whole new world of new bug's whilst looking prettier.

Regarding your idea, I like it.

Edited March 12, 2013 by Fraggle

[dgeesio 1034]

all sounds good in candy land but..... :lol:

people enjoy being bandits ! i dont get why people dont get this :o

yes zombies should be more of a challenge and big hoards around urban areas should be rife.

saying cause things are more scarce means people need to work together more is not going to work though and heres why.

a friendly bunny rabbit group who pick flowers and play nicely together harvest everything watching each others ass for weeks on end make a kind of base and what do they do with all there gear they ammased they get sluaghtere by rogue group who do the exact opposite steal all the hard earned loot and they just joined. thats what happens and will happen every day and every night.

some people like the we all nice vibe some just want to slaughter everyone . people need to understand its a game. its supposed to be fun it aint bear gryliss or real.

if it was real if i was hungry for eg and i had to risk going into a zombie ridden town or just shoot you im going to take you every day not risk getting eaten by 100 or more zombies.

ido agree end game needs to be worked on but people trying to make bandits not as much or other things to do isnt going to dilute banditary that will stay regardless .

Edited March 12, 2013 by dgeesio

[TheBambiAvenger 146]

I agree, but at the same time I believe it will only encourage more killing, as more people will waste ammo on zeds, consequently needing more supplies. I believe there should be some more perks to being a hero and maybe one perk for survivor (you don't want to give bandits perks, that just encourages more killing, but you don't want to give disadvantages. If you give hero and survivor more benefits then people will be more drawn to those playstyles). Also I believe that the humanity system should account for self defense, as when you have a lot of humanity you don't want to wait for a bandit to hit you before you shoot back.

[RooBurger 285]

a couple of things would happen

First of all, no one can say for sure exactly how people will behave until the changes have been made to the game mechanics. There is no certainty that people would kill each other less, they may kill each other more when resources are scarcer.

Second of all, zombies aren't going to be as dangerous once you learn to avoid and handle them. That's how it should be. I've got no problem with making them more difficult to deal with, but people will adapt to that too. It's when you let your guard down that you get your shit ruined.

Third, humans are the most dangerous animal on the planet, and they will remain that way even in the event of a zombie apocalypse.

[ButtHat 96]

I must admit, I opened this threat expecting to see another PVP sucks, give us a PVE option. From the dev blogs i've watched, it seems the intent is to make the zombies more of a factor. I really like the idea of being able to hold up in a house or fortify Devil's Castle and hold it off. It also would make for a REAL pvp event when a group of survivors wants the castle, nice the sniper on the hill by Elektro. Good recommendation...beans for you good sir.

[kumando 199]

1.7.51 made the zombies a threat, but then you saw walls of QQs on the foruns and the devs dumbed them down again altough they said numerous times they wil become more menacing again in some fart or near future...

[bogroll 35]

_{Right now zombies probably cause about 10% of deaths if not less.}

_{I remember seeing a breakdown of deaths a while back and death by zed was a lot higher if I recall.}

Edited March 12, 2013 by SAL_iOGC

[TheBambiAvenger 146]

Nice tags at the top but you spelled bandits wrong :P

[Hockeyguy 107]

Having other players trying to kill you is part of the survival aspect without it nobody would ever die because zombies are easy to avoid if you know what you are doing. There should be no reason to limit the killing.

[killzone_kid 51]

So, we all know that banditism is rampant in DayZ and that the nm.1 cause for death is death by sniper and other players.

Now, this severely limits the survivalism aspect of the game, because the only viable thing is to hide and hope not to get shot down by military gear.

Here's the thing though, I am willing to bed you whatever that when rocket envisioned dayz, PVP was not even closely on the top10 of things he wanted for dayz to be. But sadly, with the lack of endgame content, the only real option you have is to gear up, go pvp and bambihunt with snipers, die, repeat.

This all could be solved incredibly easily: make survival much harder.

Right now zombies probably cause about 10% of deaths if not less. Why is that? Did humanity go extinct because they were so bored of the zombies? I dont think so, so why are the zombies on easy mode?!

If the zombies were to pose a very real threat, and food would be scarce, than a couple of things would happen:

1.) people would be forced go group up just to survive

2.) bandits would have a much harder time, because only looting the survivors would probably not yield enough food/drink to survive.

3.) players would suddently focus on surviving and not killing each other

And with the new server side zombies that wouldn't even be hard to do.

And than another improovement I'd recommend: add a zombie spawn filter which says that whenever a zombie cannot access an area it cannot spawn in it. So for example fortifying an area would actually keep the area clear of zombies. This would further encourage group play.

And with the new bigger chernarus map there could be space for many more bases, like prisons or castles, which people could encamp in, because of the harder zombies

why dont you open up a server, tweak zombies and loot to make it harder and watch your server going from 50/50 to 2/50 within weeks. ive seen this happen. while it is true there are people that appreciate tougher zombies and less loot, majority find it too difficult. even if you make zombies only look tougher but give alternative ways of dealing with them, people still cry like bambies because for some reason they think you should be able to rambo your way out when 10 aggroed zombies are chasing you and all you have is crowbar.

Edited March 12, 2013 by Killzone_Kid

[Gradan 4]

The problem is as an old one you can't mix PVE content with PVP and satisfy everyone.

People who say zombies are not a threat now, don't deal with them alone (no other players in town, which bugs them out) or stay away from them.

Every player knows that every zombie, which hits you could be your death (knock out-> blood loss legs broke).

At the current state of the mod you are not really forced to go into town once you have certain stuff.

I think making food much rarer as well as animal spawns, increased hunger would force people to go to town and force them to deal with zombies.

In standalone with the improved pathfinding, when the zombies horde see you yo will be dead if you proceed to try to loot in town and no tools are given vs. the zombie threat.

There is no solution to playerkilling. You can enable or disable it, that's the only way to deal with it, if you really want to.

[Rage VG 4033]

ANY update that exists ONLY to cause:

1.) people would be forced go group up just to survive

2.) bandits would have a much harder time, because only looting the survivors would probably not yield enough food/drink to survive.

3.) players would suddently focus on surviving and not killing each other

...Is a terrible one.

There should be NO influence on what you do via the game. So there should be NO updates aimed only at manipulating players to play a certain playstyle. If there's a general update and that inadvertently ramps up the difficulty for a certain type of player, so be it. But if a player still wants to play like that, then don't stop them. That would just be alienating half of the playerbase.

[Pokey (DayZ) 103]

DayZ, the Standalone included, would be nothing without Banditry. It's an integral part of the game, and one that adds so much more than any amount of zombies, improved or not, add to the game.

Without PVP, there is no DayZ. It would just be "shooting-zombies-the-game".

Edited March 12, 2013 by Pokey

[rudeboy (DayZ) 4]

I try not to kill other players on my home server. If I want to do that I go to a pvp server or go play COD. I am a hero on my home server and not that it means anything but I just don't like to kill others.

That being said, the rush I get from this game is from other players. The thought of being seen or having a standoff with someone I don't know and surviving is intense. I have been held up once and it was glorious. The thoughts racing through my head on whether I should give it a go or not. Wondering if he had help or was going it alone. All that had to be processed in a matter of a couple of seconds. It was great. The closest I have ever come to that kind of feeling was when I played the first Resident Evil the first time.

Observing a town I want to loot and seeing a player or 2 or 3 there already and making a decision on how to proceed. Which way is he traveling, what weapon does he have, where do I want to go and will he be a threat to my advance. All this is what makes this game great. I would not want that to go away. I don't mind harder zombies and maybe that would curb some of the KOS but I really don't mind. Riding that fear is what keeps me sharp. If I am KOS, I was being stupid and became to comfortable. This game isn't supposed to be comfortable. If I am KOS I deserved it for letting my guard down. I imagine in a real apocalypse, there would be buttloads of bandit types who would kill me for my shoes if they needed them. Hell, we aren't even in an apocalypse and you can still get killed for your shoes.

Edit: Also, not many things scare me in the real world and I am not a badass by any means. The one thing that does scare me are people. Not in a sense that I don't want to leave my house but in a sense that people are capable of some morbid S**t. I would be less worried about a brain dead zombie than a demented, calculating human.

Edited March 12, 2013 by rudeboy

[attorney1977 311]

Without PVP, there is no DayZ. It would just be "shooting-zombies-the-game".

True, but without a credible zombie threat, then DayZ just becomes "generic shooting people game"

They need to get the balance right, that's all. Occupy enough of the players time so there's always something to do, but without restricting the option to kill people if so desired.

Edited March 12, 2013 by Horde

[intensity 157]

Because the genre of a game that DayZ is, there becomes two balances within the game. One being; the amount of PvP, and the amount of PvE, two; the amount of realism, and the amount of entertainment. Destroying either of the balances will completely set aside to what DayZ really is, and what it has become. Not to mention, there are also four different and large communities affiliating within each side. For example: Making it TOO realistic would have the probability of making it too hard for certain players, but on the other hand, making it TOO easy will demolish the play style for the realistic atmosphere.

[alanford 13]

Okay having read your replies I see the general consensus is, yes tougher zombies, but not too tough to cause pussy players to cry.

But Killzone_Kid, here's the thing though: right now people QQ because of the change. They are used for zombies to be super easy, and they cry about the change-- if the zombies were stronger to begin with they wouldn't. So thats one big point you should consider.

Also, I really like what TheBambiAvenger said: rewarding kind gameplay somehow - some perks or something.

Another BIG point I'd like to make is that making zombies harder can not only be achieved by making them faster/do more damage. You could make the zombies swarm the player, and get them stuck somewhere, like behind a door. So that the players could than be saved by others for a reward or something. Maybe achievements, whatever. That would surely encourage sp,e epic The Walking Dead moments, where you actually got saved by other players. Give players some incentive to help others. A way that helping others would be more lucrative than just shooting them.

Another way to make PvP harder would be to reduce the ammo found like tenfold, that way every bullet counts, and grouping up would be essential to go raid zombie infested towns. And sniping from afar would be near impossible, but for the most geared up bandits.

YES! Of course the thrill of the hunt will always be one big reason to go and snipe bandits. And I wont say I dont do it. The feel when you 1 shot a player in cherno from 800m is just so good, but like I said, give me a candy big enough, and I just might consider shooting the zed next to the bambi, instead of him.

Besides, that's in some ways even more epic, killing a zed chasing a bambi from 800. Like a guardian angel.

Just think about daryl in walking dead, even badass people can save people.

Edited March 12, 2013 by izver

[ButtHat 96]

True, but without a credible zombie threat, then DayZ just becomes "generic shooting people game"

They need to get the balance right, that's all. Occupy enough of the players time so there's always something to do, but without restricting the option to kill people if so desired.

Concur, it's a deathmatch game with zombie obstacles at the moment. I like the PVP, don't get me wrong. But the zombies are nothing more than an obstacle at the moment. A better environment and a credible zombie threat and I think you've got one of the most complete and unique games to date.

[Jamz 253]

PvP will never be removed or limited, I think thats a given so bandits need not worry about that. I think the idea is that zombies become more of a priority in the world, making survival more of a core mechanic in DayZ -imo Players should be trying to survive first and foremost, and PvP should occur around that. If for arguments sake a bandit group attacked a survivor group with guns for instance, there should be virtually a 100% chance of zombies getting invoved and being as much as a threat as the players.

I'd like to see teaming up with randoms (either bandits or survivors) being a more viable way of proceeding in the game and a harder baseline survival difficulty would encourage this.

[alanford 13]

Another thing I'd like to see adressed: right now most of PVP is sniper based. Thats fine, I LOVE snipers. Snipers are my favourite weapons by far. But as it is right now, dayz pvp is not viable unless you posses a sniper rifle.

--Of course you can sneak around and come from the back, but still you can't deny that sniper rifles dominate the PVP at the moment. One way to change this would be to make sniper rounds rarer.

Make rare loot ACTUALLY rare. Think about it, right now, some player who have military gear keep hogging and hoarding all the loot, while bambi's stand no chance. Ever tried raiding NWAF with a pistol? I did. It didn't end well.