Bounty Hunting (Suggestion Mainly for Standalone)

[valorous 2]

So yesterday me and my friend watched JackFrags video where he interviewed Rocket at E3 and once again I heard Rocket say how he wants to maintain the immersion and realism of the game and yet promote teamwork amongst players and try to get rid of a lot of the shoot on site mentality when playing DayZ.

After watching Saving Private Ryan, at about 3AM we decided to head off to bed, where we began to talk about the video and we began to brainstorm ideas for what we would want to see in the standalone until we stumbled across this idea which we cannot really fault. It would take a bit of coding ( as any suggestion would ) but we believe implementing some sort of function, like the one im about to go into extreme detail with, would one, promote the killing of bandits (bear with me) but in the long run, deter people from coming bandits at all.

We talked about a Bounty Hunting System, not so much with icons pop up on your screen "kill the bandit at Chernogorsk" but more in the sense of you see a bandit, you kill the bandit, and you get rewarded for this.

I have personally been playing the mod, since its early days last year where I remember the times of waiting about 30 minutes hitting refresh on the server browser for a space to become free in one of the 10 available servers. I am only saying this to let you guys know I am very educated in the way the game works.

The Different Rewards for the severity of the bandit:

As many of you know, there is a system already implemented into DayZ in which there are 3 ranks of bandit depending on how many lives the bandit themselves has taken. The first idea we came up with, seemed like the best. I played World of Warcraft for around 3 years and as soon as I think of a 3 tier system I think of their Green, Blue, and Purple loot system, also shared by many MMO's as it seems to be the best way to show people how good an item is.

Now what do bandits have unanimously? A Bandanna.

This could be the determining factor in identifying how severe the crimes of the bandit are. Referring back to the loot system, we came up with these ways of grading the bandit.

• 3 Player kills, grants you a plain bandanna like we are all accustomed to on the current version of DayZ
  

• 5 - 7 Player kills (Determined randomly, some people would get it on their fifth, others on their seventh, you know the way it goes) grants you a faded blue bandanna ( obviously fitting in with the games aesthetics yet obvious to players from say 10m )
  

• 10 Player kills would grant you a faded Purple bandanna.
  

• 14 Player kills would be the max, and extremely hard to obtain but would grant you a Jet Black bandanna.
  

This would not ultimately sway people from becoming bandits, the players I have met in DayZ and a lot of the bandit community seem to be set on killing players. This gives them a target to aim for, we want players to get the rush of adrenaline when they see the Black bandanna. The Black bandanna would be feared because its a way of showing the average player how capable and obviously skilled (and not necessarily for good) this player is. Seeing someone in a Black bandanna would make you squirm in your chair as you weigh the risk whether to fire upon the Bandit greatly risking your own life or go prone and hope he doesn't spot you.

Because you know if he does, he won't think twice about pulling the trigger.

Uses for the Bandanna's

We then began to talk about "well why would someone risk their character, and playtime just to take this one Bandit out?"

Then we came up with, and bear in mind this is probably the biggest implementation (as far as coding is concerned) that would have to be made, we thought of (seeing as it had been done in other parts of ARMA for example Wasteland) a AI controlled reward shop.

As far as the look and design of these "Shops" goes, we suggested it would be in a solitary house perhaps slightly underground and in a location which would not be able to be sniped over or camped by bandits trying to get their bandanna's back.

Now what I mean by reward, is simply a item in return for the bandanna or bandanna's you have acquired. Obviously, a better reward would be granted depending on the higher the rank of the bandit and also the the number of bandanna's hat you have.

What would be at these "AI Shops?"

Now, I know Rocket is very heavily set on maintaining the realism and we believe this also, we don't think this should be abused or used as an alternative to going to say somewhere like North West Airfield and finding a better gun than you would at Kamenka. We almost want it as a alternative to risking your life running into Cherno, for some basic weapons, loot and medical supplies.

For example, if you break your legs (as often happens) somewhere conveniently close to one of these shops, you could go and hand in that purple bandanna you've been meaning to hand in for a while to obtain a box of morphine and maybe some food.

As you know, many people plan their routes and destinations in DayZ, for example going from North West, to Devils, to Pobeda Dam. But the thing with this Bandit Bounty Hunting, given the right locations of the Reward Shops to be located, it could tie in seamlessly with a players plans for the day. E.g North West Airfield, to Devils, to North East Reward Shop. Obviously there would be multiple shops (we suggested 3) spread across the map.

Bandits Redeeming Themselves

Now, what we also came up with is that if a Bandit wishes no longer to be a Bandit, he can go and hunt for a equal or higher ranked bandit than himself. Thus enabling him to go to the shop and hand in the bandanna to redeem himself of his murders. It would be beneficial to the game if no matter what rank of bandit you are, say you are only very basic and have only killed 3 people, if you kill a extremely rare Black Bandanna player, you aren't going to be able to redeem yourself (and get loot as well) if you are a bandit, you can only redeem yourself with the bandanna you got from killing whichever bandit you killed. After that, you can partake in in the bounty hunting in return for loot of your choosing just as much as the next person.

Flipping it on its head

(this is only an add-on to the original suggestion, and something you guys could work with)

As you can imagine, all of this could be flipped around and changed into bandits looking for hero's as they also have 3 ranks depending on how good they are. All that we have talked about above applies the same but flipped on its head and perhaps only having 2 shops available for bandits to hand in the "head" of the hero to an "underground" (in the sense of it being off the radar and a bad place to be seen) shop. The head is the equivalent to what a bandanna would be but we wanted to give the sense that these bandits are so rogue that they are willing to to do anything to get that loot they need.

However, a kill only represents a single step further in going up the ranks in banditry or heroism, no matter how higher level the bandit and no matter what level hero you are, you would still only receive the same amount of humanity gained/lost for the kill. The main difference and incentive being the loot you obtain from the different level bandits.

In conclusion

This in theory should encourage:

• Teamwork to bring down a group of bandits
  
• Bandits to strive for the trophy of having a Black Bandanna
  
• (Perhaps) Bandits aiming to get those "bloody hero's"
  
• Bandits trying to relinquish their crimes
  

It should also discourage:

• Shoot on site incidents with non bandit players as players are wary of being shot when they turn into a bandit, they also realise they can get better loot if they are good.
  
• It will make Bandits be more feared and realistic yet the bandit player will feel hunted and vulnerable at the same time. A worthy price to pay for killing someone?
  
• Players killing for bandanna's as we though about maybe cello-taping them in to the new journal system, so that if you die, the bandanna is gone, people cannot take it off you, thus stopping once again people killing on site in the thought they might be able to get a bandanna.
  

[fluxley 2228]

For me one of the core ideals of Dayz is that everything that happens in game is player driven, this to me means no quests and no AI,

Its not a bad suggestion in itself but i dont think it fits in with type of game that dayz is.

Also, theres no stages of banditry in the mod, Dayz Origins has this i think, not Dayz.

[mr_chabowski@live.co.uk 2416]

With the progress being made and the direction it's heading, we could have something along these lines, but a LOT simpler.

If player-journals (or another form of personal identification) are lootable from bodies, they could be used as proof, for claiming bounties.

Bounties could be set by players, in-game. Rewards could simply consist of ANY item in-game that another person would find useful or valuable.

The social side of DayZ would benefit from this too, so it's a two-fold effect.

Of course, you have to take a leap of faith when it comes to trusting someone to pay-up, or claim rewards legitimately. But that only adds to the experience IMO.

I think the more DayZ steers clear of complex systems and control/direction of player-actions, the better it will be.

Edited June 17, 2013 by Chabowski

[Fraggle (DayZ) 15720]

This is a nice suggestion.

However, something very similar will eventually be possible without actually having to mess with the game in order to contrive it. The strength of DayZ IMO is that it give people the freedom to use their imaginations and develop their own stories and play-styles. Of course in the MOD that's fairly limited but in the SA, as more content is added the world will open up.

I see nothing stopping anybody setting up a bounty hunting business in the SA with what will already be available to them, the one thing that is missing is proof of the kill but maybe player diaries will solve that.

[OrLoK 16182]

Hello there

Giving bandits achievable levels will promote wannabe "bad asses" killing on the beach to get their "cool" bandana.

Any Ai controlled store will be a focus for snipers/satchels and general griefing.

Imagine the "LuLz" that "D00dz" will have on sniping a guy who's dragged himself on broken legs *just* as he reaches the store.

That's not to say the core of your ideas are bad just you have to remember we're dealing with "Joe Public" here and in general he's a douche (as our American cousins say)

I think any bounties should be metagames and handled externally.

Rgds

LoK

[valorous 2]

For me one of the core ideals of Dayz is that everything that happens in game is player driven, this to me means no quests and no AI,

Its not a bad suggestion in itself but i dont think it fits in with type of game that dayz is.

Also, theres no stages of banditry in the mod, Dayz Origins has this i think, not Dayz.

Im pretty sure I got told that it was added in the latest patch, it isn't a noticeable change like on origins yet but it would only take some adding of exceptions for example if player is below -6000 humanity then change to (example white bandit) and the same with other levels just with even less humanity, it would be so simple to code and would just mean designing 4 different player models with different colour bandanna's

Hello there

Giving bandits achievable levels will promote wannabe "bad asses" killing on the beach to get their "cool" bandana.

Any Ai controlled store will be a focus for snipers/satchels and general griefing.

Imagine the "LuLz" that "D00dz" will have on sniping a guy who's dragged himself on broken legs *just* as he reaches the store.

That's not to say the core of your ideas are bad just you have to remember we're dealing with "Joe Public" here and in general he's a douche (as our American cousins say)

I think any bounties should be metagames and handled externally.

Rgds

LoK

We did take this into consideration and Satchels we have no idea about unless it could be coded that they don't appear/are un-placeable at the set locations or within a 50m radius or something, you also have to consider is Rocket even going to put things like satchel charges in game? I wouldn't as that is not in keeping with DayZ the same as AS50's and the like have now been removed, the average Chernarus survivor would not know how to make a complex C4 Satchel Charge . We thought about positioning the Stores on top of hills as well, to make more use of the many hills in DayZ making it impossible for snipers to snipe over them. We also debated automatically lowering your weapon on top of the hill. All though that would be immersion breaking/ hard to control if someone was shooting from the outside in. Like I said, this is all just an idea, something we thought up.

[OrLoK 16182]

Hello there

I was not deriding your idea, rather pointing out some issues. obviously they could all be combatted but the more one combats the problems the more the game is removed from what dayz is all about.

Having safe areas just, for me, not in DAYZ scope. (excuse the pun)

Rgds

LoK