Suggestions to solve the biggest issues

[super pretendo 2]

1. Dynamic zombie spawn. Zombies should spawn in remote wilderness in packs, and lurch towards towns and ultimately the coast. Keep static spawns in towns, but tone it down. Let zombies pile up to an extent to encourage players to thin their ranks and make a difference in the game world by culling zombies, and creating a continuity between one group of players that clears a town of zombies and the next ones that walk through safe from a horde. Continuity and shared persistence of the gameworld encourages cooperation, and zombies just standing around not moving is boring. The threat of a swarm of zombies flooding over a place with a lot of players sometimes creates for fun and exciting gameplay. This sense of continuity between players and shared experience and fate will push it away from random killing.

2. To solve this problem without artificial "no pvp" garbage, let's look at parts of the game which are already divorced from player freedom and realism for the sake of abstract game balance: spawning. Give players with high humanity better spawns (nearer to cities which have better loot) and those with very low humanity get crappy spawns, sometimes in the wilderness where they may even be lost. I can't really see a problem with this, as re spawning isn't game breaking but is definitely a hassle. Let the very high karma players choose their respawn locations, within reason. Very high karma players could spawn with revolvers instead of makarovs, and a czech backback instead of a coyote, with a bloodbag in it. Karma is so easy to lose, they will have to make decisions to kill players if they want to lose their status. Very low karma players could have the opposite, with one less unit of food and one less magazine, and maybe even no backpack, which isn't outrageous since they are not difficult to find, and bandits are generally in a playstyle where they are roughing it as lone wolves, so it fits such a playstyle. With respawning, the game already uses non-realistic abstract mechanics to balance it. And perhaps a game's take on of karma and reincarnation.

3. Ways to foster player cooperation, such as a per-server "civilization rating". Higher rating increases spawns of vehicles, allows access to repair power-plants to light up cities, gives unique boat spawns or something, etc. Low player murders will increase this rating, but a server with no cooperation will lower it. Perhaps aiding players with blood packs and bandages will increase it. This rating could also be related to number one, where letting hordes pile up without getting rid of them harms the rebuilding of civilization. Giving players the ability to do cool things and work to civilize towns is one essential component of making players actually try to hold ground against a zombie invasion. The other component, is over course, roaming zombie hordes. But even if we had roaming hordes, players wouldn't bother going near them if they had no reason to defend anything against them.

4. Allow a gunless gesture, like holstering or raising both arms up, to show a lack of harmful intent, but also putting a cooldown on drawing weapons (maybe 1 or 2 seconds)

5. PC avatars staying in the game world for 5 - 10 seconds after disconnects, maybe increasing if they have zombies aggro'd or have taken/given shots recently.

6. Zombies, or a special class of zombies that dwell in big cities only, that are sensitive to gunfire. I think there should be a special type of zombie mixed in that is

a. tougher than normal zombies so it can take more hits

b. can climb ladders faster than players

c. and is much more sensitive to gunfire.

d. call the normal zombies once they are on a player if they are not killed quickly enough

Why not retool the "monkey" zombies into this role? This way players would have to make decisions as to fire their weapons at eachother indiscriminately (particularly, loud sniper) so the monkey Zs don't come and potentially snowball the vanilla hordes

Also, the upcoming fix of direct chat will really help prevent the game from being a deathmatch, since it humanizes players and encourages cooperation.

---

I'm a retard, move this to the suggestion forum please

[savini 587]

4. There is a "surrender" button. It's a quick animation of your character putting his hands on his head. I don't think it is bound to anything by default, but it is in the controls menu.

[shemashko 2]

All the ideas sounds very reasonable to me and should be implemented to see if they work. Number 3 though will probably need a little further tweaking as I have feeling it could be exploited. Personally I'd rather much prefer a bigger spectrum in the humanity models. As you gain more humanity your player model will change to allow other players you are trustworthy and same for humanity going down.

[super pretendo 2]

4. There is a "surrender" button. It's a quick animation of your character putting his hands on his head. I don't think it is bound to anything by default' date=' but it is in the controls menu.

[/quote']

Oh really? Does it put a cooldown on grabbing your weapon?

[LanceUppercut 7]

why do you want to punish bandits?

[gator (DayZ) 22]

I'm all for PvP and think it would ruin the game if there was not full loot PvP wherever you go. I agree with OP, however, game mecahnics need to be implemented to prevent what I discuss below.

After playing last night, I began to realize that there is a bit of a point to some of the posts regarding pvp.

Please read this before you just post "go home noob."

The game at its core is a post Apocalypse zombie survival game where life is brutish, nasty and short. People kill each other for a can of beans because that is jsut how life is in this world. That is the essence of the game and should not be changed.

However, what has begun to occur is that people have stopped playing the game as a post Apocalypse zombie game and have, instead, begun playing the game as a COD sniper death match game. What I mean is, people have played the game, found the weapon spawns, explored, and are now bored. They have now started camping noob spawn points, sitting in towers shooting random (everyone) people, etc., not for beans, or survival, or anything else, but just because they are bored.

This takes away from the zombie survival aspect and turns the game into something entirely different, just another COD death match round. Zombies are just a mild annoyance to keep an eye on, while you go off trying to kill everyone in sight for the highest score (lowest humanity).

I do not want any restrictions on PvP put in place. That said, however, I think GAME MECHANICS could be implemented that dissuade people from going on psychotic serial killer rampages for no other reason than they are bored. If you kill someone for beans, thats cool. But killing massive amounts of people for fun just turns the game into something it is not supposed to be, a COD deathmatch round.

I dont really have any suggestions for a game mechanic, maybe someone else does. However, if this is not fixed, interest in the game will decline or those looking for a zombie game. People will play it as a death match game until they are bored, then the mod will die.

[LanceUppercut 7]

why not just pretend they killed you for your beans?

[super pretendo 2]

why do you want to punish bandits?

I AM a bandit. Bandits punish every other player, and being a 15 year old tryhard killing everyone you can shouldn't be the end all be all of this game. of course, this should be a playstyle, but there should be hurdles for those players. I am proposing something extremely mild that doesn't actually change or limit gameplay

[gator (DayZ) 22]

I could play COD and pretend they shot me for my beans, doesn't make COD a post apocalyptic zombie game.

[oktyabr 53]

Some good suggestions in this thread so it's getting moved to the SUGGESTIONS section.

Keep replies ON TOPIC (yes, that's a warning).

If you want to *politely* discuss PVP in general there is ONE thread for that back in general discussion.

Thanks.

[Leechman 8]

this should be a playstyle' date=' but there should be hurdles for those players. I am proposing something extremely mild that doesn't actually change or limit gameplay

[/quote']

You want there to be hurdles that don't limit gameplay...

I'm sorry but the entire meaning of 'hurdle' is something that provides a hindrance.

There is no rationale behind giving unequal advantages to one playstyle over another. Ultimately, your solution will devolve to bandits exploiting the system for their benefit.

I agree with all your other points except 5.

The DC escape issue is a tough one. I see solutions like this ending up punishing players who legitimately have connection issues rather than discouraging combat tactics that are not in the spirit of the game.

3. I really like the core idea of. However instead of improving spawns/loot etc. I would rather see it have environmental effects with good and bad consequences. For example, your idea of lighting up cities so you can see at night, however the lights would attract zombies. Cities could become more fortified somehow, resulting in lower zombies inside the city, but reduced loot spawns. Roads could become clear, but Jerry Cans become rarer etc.

Of course my ideas run away with themselves and dynamically changing a server's environment wouldn't be the world's easiest coding challenge.

[super pretendo 2]

You want there to be hurdles that don't limit gameplay...

I'm sorry but the entire meaning of 'hurdle' is something that provides a hindrance.

There is no rationale behind giving unequal advantages to one playstyle over another. Ultimately' date=' your solution will devolve to bandits exploiting the system for their benefit.

[/quote']

But there is. Killing a bandit SHOULD solve the problem for more than a few minutes. If bandits get equal spawns with high humanity players, the problem is not solved, it is only displaced. They will kill recently spawning survivors, and even if they get OUTCLASSED MORE THAN THEY KILL (shitty bandit) they will still continue to respawn in places with high player density; the bandit problem will never even be solved through fighting back.

And it doesn't limit gameplay by any reasonable definition of gameplay. Gameplay is the mechanics, the player interaction and player abilities. Getting a negative reincarnation because of shitty karma isn't a gameplay limitation, it's a clever use of an already non-gameplay and 100% abstracted balancing function. Respawning was always a balance function; players respawned at random for balance (no choosing the same spot to meet up with friends or camp somewhere) and everyone starts with the same loot. This is just the continual use of an already abstracted function to nudge gameplay towards something that brings more fun, immersion and realism to zombie survival sim. In fact, this even less of a limitation than the skin concept (which I think is good too). In the real world, you would not have 15 year olds running around spraying bullets at everyone for the fun of it in an apocalyptic survival situation, most people would want the social benefits of cooperating with others and not just killing like retards. Though there would definitely be dickass bandits, but those people would have to make a tough decision. Bandits are great, I am one, but there need to be methods in place to nudge gameplay towards something FUN and resembling a world where people stick together as groups to stnad against an unthinkable cataclysm.

[gator (DayZ) 22]

Perhaps an easy to implement solution to this is to spawn much more zombies, stronger zombies, zombies that are attracted to gunfire easier, and zombies that climb stairs and ladders. Silences weapons should be removed or made very very rare.

Doing this would make a person only shoot another if he "really needed those beans" because he would be risking alerting a massive wave of zombie attack.

I have noticed that servers have much less deathmatching if there are a whole lot of zombies because you cant just camp and shoot people at will because zombies will be after you.

Just a thought.

And if this mechanic "hinders" the bandits gameplay, then "bandits" would essentially be arguing that this should not be a zombie mod but a COD deathmatch mod, which is fine, but is not what I thought this mod was going for.

[super pretendo 2]

I'd specifically like to hear feedback on the karma respawn idea... ther eis absolutely no reason not to have it as far as I can see

---

Perhaps an easy to implement solution to this is to spawn much more zombies' date=' stronger zombies, zombies that are attracted to gunfire easier, and zombies that climb stairs and ladders. Silences weapons should be removed or made very very rare.

Doing this would make a person only shoot another if he "really needed those beans" because he would be risking alerting a massive wave of zombie attack.

I have noticed that servers have much less deathmatching if there are a whole lot of zombies because you cant just camp and shoot people at will because zombies will be after you.

Just a thought.

And if this mechanic "hinders" the bandits gameplay, then "bandits" would essentially be arguing that this should not be a zombie mod but a COD deathmatch mod, which is fine, but is not what I thought this mod was going for.

[/quote']

I definitely agree, firing indiscriminately for joy kills should have serious risks with zombies. I propose a special class of zombie that is sensitive to sound and can climb ladders quickly, and is a little bit tougher to kill.

[Capital 5]

5. Yes please X100000

All other suggestions sound good and as someone pointed out there is a "surrender" option.

[Leechman 8]

Ok, I'll ignore the whole argument about whether or not there needs to be a punishment for banditry and look at it from your point of view.

You're not trying to remove banditry, you're trying to make it more challenging to do effectively, and discourage indiscriminate killing. Your proposal to this is to punish ALL the players choosing a low humanity (bandit) playstyle, not just your target group, by adversely affecting the respawn locations of ALL bandits.

From this view, the biggest problem I see with your proposal is that you are implementing the deterrent AFTER the undesired banditry has occurred, utilising a system that directly targets the playstyle of ALL players who have acted as bandits in the past. If someone wants to switch playstyles it becomes hard because they are stuck with the adverse affects whist trying to remove their past 'indiscretions'.

The better solution would be to use simple gameplay mechanics (i.e. zombies) to discourage indiscriminate banditry BEFORE it occurs. Don't take anything away, just increase the risk of certain generalised gameplay aspects.

Gator's idea was along the correct path for a 'solution'. Zombies that become more attracted to gunfire, perhaps on an increasing scale (i.e. the more gunfire within a certain period the greater the aggro radius) are a good deterrent to your stereotype of "15 year olds running around spraying bullets". You could spawn more zombies in if X number of shots were fired within Y seconds, reducing "spraying" and encouraging directed, considered firing. You could also improve the rate at which zombies which are aggro'd onto one player will switch to another if he is also firing or within a certain radius. This would reduce PvP gunfights whilst one player is being attacked.

You could target camping behaviour by spawning zombies around a player who has not moved or moved a small amount (I believe the servers can track distance moved?) in a certain period of time. You could increase military zombie spawns around players who are frequently (X shots within Y seconds again) firing military-grade weapons as bandits tend to carry these weapons. Ammo for those weapons tends to be more valuable due to the rarity and military zombies are more difficult to kill, acting as a deterrent to "spraying".

These ideas would be far more effective at achieving your ideal of increasing the challenge for those who wish to pursue continuous bandit behaviour while discouraging indiscriminant killing. They don't unfairly favour one playstyle over another. Instead they affect all players and give them greater choice and challenge about pursuing different playstyles, giving better immersion and gameplay experience. They don't limit switching between playstyles because they are based on how you are playing in the moment, not how you have acted previously.

Also, please stop using your "15 year old immature CoD player"/"CoD deathmatch" references and your judgements on real life apocalypses scenarios. The first is inappropriate, offensive and irrelevant and only detracts from your arguments. The second is highly opinionated, has no factual evidence and also irrelevant.

[Jester. 6]

To elaborate on #2, maybe bandits can just spawn somewhere more remote.

[super pretendo 2]

Having a deterrent or FUTURE CONSIDERATION does prevent banditry just like having an IMMEDIATE PROBLEM does, just in different ways. I don't see a problem with both, having more responsive and challenging zombies forcing players to make decisions for the immediate, and having the respawn system weighted for humanity to make players have at least minor considerations in the future if they are just going to play to grief people's gameplay. Right now the threat and survival aspect of this game is overwhelming the pvp aspect, with zombies being environmental hazards. It needs to be nudged towards a game where seeing a player more of a sigh of relief than the worst thing in the world that it is now.

Bandits SHOULD fear retribution. If they do, it will encourage players to band together and fight back and actually end a problem.

And the CoD reference and the survival realism points are both pertinent. This game should be mainly a game of zombie survival, not "don't become part of timmy's l33t killstreak".

For anyone that's wondering if i'm some sort of anti-pvp busybody, you couldn't be more wrong. I AM a bandit. But now what I mostly do is hunt bandits, because there are so many random PKers.

[oktyabr 53]

Right now the threat and survival aspect of this game is overwhelming the pvp aspect' date=' with zombies being environmental hazards. It needs to be nudged towards a game where seeing a player more of a sigh of relief than the worst thing in the world that it is now.

Bandits SHOULD fear retribution. If they do, it will encourage players to band together and fight back and actually end a problem.

And the CoD reference and the survival realism points are both pertinent. This game should be mainly a game of zombie survival, not "don't become part of timmy's l33t killstreak".

[/quote']

I agree. I like this part the best:

It needs to be nudged towards a game where seeing a player more of a sigh of relief than the worst thing in the world that it is now.

Couldn't have said it much better. Be so weary and scared from fighting zombies all over the place (I want zombies in the woods too) that when you *finally* see another player it's relief you feel rather than panic.

[The Killing Joke 43]

Here's the problem.

You cannot (CAN NOT) unfairly assign poor attributes to a single player group. It can't be done. Why? You will lose a section of your player base. From a developer's standpoint, that's money. (Sure, this mod is free, but that is beside the point.)

For example, the idea of giving 'karma' is an unfairly placed disadvantage. Let's say you're playing the game, and you're attacked by three bandits. They attack, and they SUCK. You kill every single one of them in self defense. You say, "whew!" when out of the blue comes a zombie horde, who heard the commotion. You die, and you respawn, in a bandit rich spawn, lighter on food and lighter on supplies.

Fair? I'd say no. Great care must be taken to keep the game fair.

You are right in some regard. The game could be overrun by COD deathmatch-minded players. But, chances are, they're going to enjoy their COD more. Beyond that, consider that part of the gameplay is WORKING AROUND them. Believe you me, it makes them just as angry as you, when you sneak up on them and take them out, or avert their 'trap' completely.

You'll grow. I'll grow. We will all grow to get beyond this challenge. It just takes a bit of time and patience. During that time, however, you should not look at giving any unfair advantage to ANY side. Bandits do NOT have any advantage that YOU do not already have. If their morals or reasons for gameplay are different, that is outside of the game, not in it.

TKJ

[super pretendo 2]

But you can assign different weights to different gameplay styles. We already do, in fact, we have skins for players, and that system makes a lot of sense. Players choose their gameplay and also choose associated challenges that come along with it. For hardcore griefers, one challenge is a slightly unfavorable reincarnation, in the wilderness a bit with one less can of food and mag, and not coyote pack. Then they have to walk to town and grab a winchester and czech pack like everyone else already does. Is having to do this a dealbreaker in a survival mod that's already 225 square miles of land that people travel on foot? If you think so, you have serious delusions or haven't really played this game. That's not 1/10th of 1/10th of the biggest challenge you can face in this game. Because I was fighting a griefer, I had to crawl back to a town with 600 blood with a broken leg. It took forever and I probably wasted time. But thats what this mod is, it's hardcore. Slightly weighting reincarnation for karma isn't even a slap on the wrist in comparison. Hell it will barely deterrent, probably. But it lets non-griefers actually fight back and solve PK problems and lets them feel satisfied about it, with closure. What we have no is just displacing the bandits with no resolution for the players that tried to do something within the game. So let's give players the power to resolve such conflicts themselves with this small change.

[Scriptwolf 0]

i like the ideas and i support them, and i am a bandit/goodguy i play what ever style suits me, and right now in my bandit skin i tend to sneak up and kill players as quickly as possible because i know they would kill me back given the chance.

but i dont see why people are saying other people are playing it like "CoD" cause i really dont see it, when ever i have played i have seen players roaming about and treating it like the game it should be.

don't punish the bandits because in the zombie sandbox its a legit play style i do like the idea of more bullets being fired the more zombies will be attracted, the biggest threat in the game right now is only players, in my opinion zombies are not the threat they should be and they should either be buffed up or spawned a lot more, i would like to see people spraying and praying swamped in abut 100 zombies, maybe instead of zombies being static when spawned they will move around in a bigger hoard gaining more and more zombies depending on where there is more noise coming from.

most of the time i would rather avoid killing other people unless i need/have to and that's the deterrent you have to make people become more attached to their weapons/gear, even now with my GPS im very careful and even when i decide to play bandit i always think about what im doing because i want to keep my GPS and other items, maybe also a much wider verity or making stuff rarer ( alot ) would force people to think about their actions i mean who wants to risk dieing just to kill a spawned player ? its boring i would rather hunt bigger game.

[The Killing Joke 43]

But you can assign different weights to different gameplay styles. We already do' date=' in fact, we have skins for players, and that system makes a lot of sense. Players choose their gameplay and also choose associated challenges that come along with it. For hardcore griefers, one challenge is a slightly unfavorable reincarnation, in the wilderness a bit with one less can of food and mag, and not coyote pack. Then they have to walk to town and grab a winchester and czech pack like everyone else already does. Is having to do this a dealbreaker in a [b']survival mod that's already 225 square miles of land that people travel on foot? If you think so, you have serious delusions or haven't really played this game. That's not 1/10th of 1/10th of the biggest challenge you can face in this game. Because I was fighting a griefer, I had to crawl back to a town with 600 blood with a broken leg. It took forever and I probably wasted time. But thats what this mod is, it's hardcore. Slightly weighting reincarnation for karma isn't even a slap on the wrist in comparison. Hell it will barely deterrent, probably. But it lets non-griefers actually fight back and solve PK problems and lets them feel satisfied about it, with closure. What we have no is just displacing the bandits with no resolution for the players that tried to do something within the game. So let's give players the power to resolve such conflicts themselves with this small change.

A) The main idea of the game is not 'gathering stuff', it is 'surviving'.

B) If the spawning idea is fair to all, make it random for all players. (And, I would also ask that you refrain from attacking people's opinions with comments about being 'delusional'.) What you could call 'karma', one could say that your personal attacker could be rewarded for playing the game more successfully than you.

TKJ

[bjorn (DayZ) 1]

But you can assign different weights to different gameplay styles. We already do' date=' in fact, we have skins for players, and that system makes a lot of sense. Players choose their gameplay and also choose associated challenges that come along with it. For hardcore griefers, one challenge is a slightly unfavorable reincarnation, in the wilderness a bit with one less can of food and mag, and not coyote pack. Then they have to walk to town and grab a winchester and czech pack like everyone else already does. Is having to do this a dealbreaker in a [b']survival mod that's already 225 square miles of land that people travel on foot? If you think so, you have serious delusions or haven't really played this game. That's not 1/10th of 1/10th of the biggest challenge you can face in this game. Because I was fighting a griefer, I had to crawl back to a town with 600 blood with a broken leg. It took forever and I probably wasted time. But thats what this mod is, it's hardcore. Slightly weighting reincarnation for karma isn't even a slap on the wrist in comparison. Hell it will barely deterrent, probably. But it lets non-griefers actually fight back and solve PK problems and lets them feel satisfied about it, with closure. What we have no is just displacing the bandits with no resolution for the players that tried to do something within the game. So let's give players the power to resolve such conflicts themselves with this small change.

A) The main idea of the game is not 'gathering stuff', it is 'surviving'.

B) If the spawning idea is fair to all, make it random for all players. (And, I would also ask that you refrain from attacking people's opinions with comments about being 'delusional'.) What you could call 'karma', one could say that your personal attacker could be rewarded for playing the game more successfully than you.

TKJ

A)

To survive, you have to scavange, and thus gather materials (food, water, ammo). Thus it very much is about gathering. Thats what you do, you search for items...to gather, in order to consume and thus survive

B)

Karma already exists in the mod, it's a mechanic of the mod and can be developed further to balance out mindless shootings.

As for rewarding a player for playing better? How is the guy that spawned behind me by chance and shot me in the back of the head playing better than me?

There is more to "quality of play" than being able to kill someone, since it's so damn easy in this game.

I agree with most of the constructive posts here. Especially one about spawning Bandits closer to bandits and vice versa. I mean, in a sort of "nice" and "bad" part of town spawn area.

Or perhaps the lower your karma, the further inland you spawn, since you are so much "better" than the "noobs" that have good karma, you can handle yourself better in a more hostile environment.

Either way, random spawns on a small area of coast where both bandits and survivors alike can spawn mixed just makes the first 20 minutes of the game less immersive than the rest of it.

[The Killing Joke 43]

I'm sorry that you feel the need to hate on those who play differently, as we are all equals. Your ideas to further degrade a section of yhe player base is not appreciated.

TKJ