Possible "solution" to the so-called "bandit problem"

[jason.jblackman@gmail.com 3]

Originally I was just going to continue to tell people to shut the hell up about bandits and stop whining, then I realised that they would never stop, and tried to come up with a solution.

I don't know if this can be technically implemented in to the mod, or if anybody actually thinks it's a good idea. If it is just a pile of crap let the thread get drowned in the sea of all the other ones.

Anyway, here we go.

I thought instead of punishing players for having bad humanity, why not reward those with good humanity?

First of all, I think that giving blood transfusions, pain pills, morphine etc to other players should give you a much higher humanity reward than it currently does.

Anyway, the main idea is - would it be possible for 'better' loot to spawn around players with good humanity? I don't mean restrict the good loot to the high humanity players, but rather give a better chance of loot such as NVG spawning to the players with higher humanity. Chances are, players with low humanity will already have some decent loot through being able to survive and from looting player corpses.

By doing this, players with a high humanity will have a better chance of survival, whilst players with a low humanity will not be punished for it.

Anyway, was just an idea. Sorry for the clunky formatting. Tell me what you think.

[Leechman 8]

Rewarding one playstyle while ignoring another is the same as implementing a punishment.

[jason.jblackman@gmail.com 3]

Rewarding one playstyle while ignoring another is the same as implementing a punishment.

I wouldn't like to think of it as a punishment, as I'm not suggesting something like players with a low humanity should only find tin cans, I'm just saying that the current spawning system should remain for those players. The chances are a bandit already has a lot of high level items.

I see where you are coming from, but as a bandit myself, I wouldn't really see this as a punishment.

[Leechman 8]

It's an unfair outcome no matter how you look at it. Rewarding one playstyle and deliberately ignoring and not equally rewarding another would be poor design.

[Freyar 8]

Even then, loot system doesn't seem to work like that. (Note, I just play the game, I don't work on it or anything.)

[SamStrife 1]

The thing people don't realise is that in about a weeks time all of this will be a mute issue because the people who have come on just to grief will have got bored and moved on. There will be a plateau shortly in the number of people hunting, the number treaming up and people who do both.

It's an issue that will solve itself within a week or so.

[DonWuerstel 0]

that method with survivors get better loot wont work at all.

bandits usually get the stuff the survivors carry when they loot their dead bodies.

so: survivors get better stuff -> bandits got better stuff.

also, the game is just not intended to be that restrictive.

i think a good way to cope with the current problem would be to change the way people become bandits. what if you become a bandit based on the humanity you have when you die?

you can kill people in self defense, but you would tend to help others right after that in order to get your humanity above zero as fast as you can if you don't want to become a bandit in your next life.

if you manage to kill people but stay alive, nobody will know you are a bandit.

nobody would know your humanity based on your outfit.

you can shoot a survivor (that is truly a bandit) and suffer nothing,

you can shoot a bandit (that is truly a misunderstood survivor) and you can suffer from it.

[Lady Kyrah 1109]

A good way to cope with the problem is to consider that it's not a problem, that the presence of players who behave as sociopath is an intented feature and that being "friendly" doesn't necessarily grant you the right to remain alive.

Strength in unity: Yes, but it all depend who you are banding with. Joining forces with someone who was a stranger 10 minutes ago is a gamble and should remain as such, trust grow with time, not by being enforced.

The cold hard reality is that in a wolf eat wolf setting, nice peoples tend to end up dead.

[DonWuerstel 0]

a good way to cope with the problem (there is actually a problem that changing skins while turning into a bandit causes bugs) would be to resolve it.

anyway, playing as a bandit is a way of playing. there is nothing wrong with that.

as i see it there are players complaining that they turned bandits in self defense.

and i personally think it adds to reality if you can't generally decide if someone is good or evil just by his clothing.

after all, if you're generally just messing people up you most likely are comfortable with bullets in the air anyway.

[Divinorium 1]

A good way to cope with the problem is to consider that it's not a problem' date=' that the presence of players who behave as sociopath is an intented feature and that being "friendly" doesn't necessarily grant you the right to remain alive.

Strength in unity: Yes, but it all depend who you are banding with. Joining forces with someone who was a stranger 10 minutes ago is a gamble and should remain as such, trust grow with time, not by being enforced.

The cold hard reality is that in a wolf eat wolf setting, nice peoples tend to end up dead.

[/quote']

Like i said. The problem is: So much reward for so little risk. Why i say that?

Right now i've crossed alot of times with "bandits" who just had a makarov and come shooting at me, he in a open field and i in a hill with a sniper rifle. I don't need to say most of time they just got a bullet in the head and i resumed my adventure. But the thing is, 1 or 2 times they got a luck shoot and killed my. They with, probably, 1~2 minutes of game(to just have a standard weapon) and my with hours.Why they did that? Easy."i'm going to lose my time searching in sneak mode for weapons? Hell no! just try the luck with the first person i cross path, i have nothing to lose anyway, maybe 1~5 minutes of gameplay"

Now lets think.

In a actual Zombie Apocalypse will have people who will do that? Of Courses!

But they are betting their own single life. They arent like these guys who just respawn and try the luck again. That's why. In the End of World most of survivor will stick together, because they arent going to bet their life just for a extra mag of ammo. Right, in a with bank of 50+ people, one guy with a revolver of 6 bullets can try to rob and no one reacts! Why? Dude i'm going to bet my life just for some random shit? of Courses not!

And that's why the immersion in this game is so broken by bandits right now. They don't actually have anything to lose while have a world to win with their acts.

Sorry poor Grammar.

Thx for the attention.

Divinorium

[jason.jblackman@gmail.com 3]

I'd just like to say now that I'm firmly against any real changes being made to the bandit system. However, if rocket does decide to change it, I think this one would be rather neutral, yet keep the survivors quiet about punishing bandits.

[enduin 4]

The solution to any supposed Bandit "problem" is one that affects every player and doesnt just simply punish those who play as a Bandit because Survivors dont like them. That includes rewarding Survivors.

The core of the issue is that the Zombie threat is an after thought and death in general isnt al that big a deal, for everyone. To deal with that you could make everyone respawn with even less gear to make character death even more dramatic. You could use temporary bans on players when they die so they cant rejoin that specific server for an hour or two after theyve died, neither of these ideas are all that perfect though.

Really the best way to limit and stabilize the PVP rates is to make the rest of the game a lot harder. More zombies, that are more aggressive, abundant and have more spawn points and reactions to players actions.

Make the zombie threat far more menacing. Make it so when a player fires their weapon, depending on a number of factors, noise, location, etc, theres a varying chance that small to large sized hordes of zombies will spawn a certain distance around them and then move in on their position.

So if you fire off your CZ on a player/zombie/cow 300 meters out, you have a 20% chance of a horde of 23 zombies from spawning somewhere near you in a 250 meter radius and they will start to move in on your position where you fired your shot.

This wouldnt simply affect Bandit but all players and would make it far more difficult for people to go alone, camp certain areas and simply not fear the zombie threat in the game.

Other things need to be changed as well since a number of players have found good camping spots at various popular spots like the NW Airfield, Hospital and other areas where they jump from server to server killing other players, strip the area of loot and then jump to a new server to repeat so other players dont even have a chance at any kind of retribution or revenge. Alt-F4ing is a similar issue. So things like that will require a more deliberate consequence and solution.