Tried to jump back into DayZ...

[Target Practice (DayZ) 1335]

So, 1.8 is out, and looks like it's made DayZ potentially interesting again, so I figured I'd update and give it a whirl. In all honesty, I never really had a problem with DayZ that made me stop playing it, I just felt like I'd done more or less everything there was to do at a point, and that I'd sit out for a few months to let the burnout pass. The one thing I did have an issue with was the frequency of KOS, and not just 'two guys meeting in a supermarket, one shoots first to make sure the other doesn't' KOS, I mean the 'minding your own business as a fresh spawn, BOOM you're dead' KOS.

 

Anyway, I found a quiet server (7/60 or something) and got to playing. Initial impressions were good - loot availability seemed about right, within half an hour I'd managed to scavenge up a couple of cans of drink, a hatchet and a small backpack - enough to keep me alive. Zombies seemed tough but fair (ish - obviously the walking through walls and ultra-speed notwithstanding. :p), and I could actually feel myself starting to enjoy DayZ aga.... BOOM.

 

Shot. Didn't kill me, but broke my legs. I frantically looked round, trying to work out where I needed to crawl from, and there, clear as day about 50m behind me was some dude standing right out in the open, big conga-line of zombies behind him, is some dude with an assault rifle.

 

This, for me, is DayZ's biggest problem right now. Unprovoked, unnecessary KOS in situations where firing a gun should be a near death-sentence, used only as a last resort when you're already swarmed by zombies, and you need to clear space to get away. The problem is, I don't know how it's going to be fixed - the other problem is, it's only going to get worse - eventually, non-KOS players are going to get fed up swimming against the tide and either start shooting first or just quit altogether, and you're going to find even fewer players out there who won't think twice about putting a bullet in your brain to say hello.

 

I'm aware this may sound slightly like a whining/crying post - it really isn't. I actually don't have a problem with KOS in moderation - in a server with 50 people on, having one or two maniacs who keep things interesting will increase tension and therefore enjoyment. The problem for me is that it's the wrong way round - there's 48 lunatics running round without a single fuck given, and 2 poor guys expecting every step to be their last.

[dulix11 731]

Uh huh, and what else is new?

[Target Practice (DayZ) 1335]

I'm not saying it's a new problem, I'm saying it's a severe problem, and it's one that perhaps needs looking at by someone actually involved with the game rather than just complaining about on the forums by the likes of me. :)

[dulix11 731]

They are working on trying to prevent the KoS mentality in the standalone, what with the item degradation when you are shot. Hopefully people who KoS will think twice before shooting you dead.

 

However, I have a question. Whats stopping people robbing you without firing a single shot, and then shooting you dead once you are robbed?

[p4triot 207]

They are working on trying to prevent the KoS mentality in the standalone, what with the item degradation when you are shot. Hopefully people who KoS will think twice before shooting you dead.

 

However, I have a question. Whats stopping people robbing you without firing a single shot, and then shooting you dead once you are robbed?

 

Nothing, being killed after being robbed will be a common fact. But point is, if you don't surrender to the robbery they will kill you anyway, so you have nothing to lose risking being robbed, and they may kill you afterwards, but they also may not. However, if you have a wait out (IF), then run. There's more chances to survive.

 

[Target Practice (DayZ) 1335]

Oh, I'm not talking about robbers. This guy had no interest in robbing me - it would have been plainly obvious that unless I was carrying an ACU full of heroin and gold bullion, I had nothing that was going to make killing me a worthwhile proposition. He was just killing me to kill me. He didn't care about the zombies that were surrounding him or the zombies he was going to attract by shooting me, he just saw another player and everything that wasn't killing that player ceased to exist.

[Gwraspe 318]

One does not simply jump back into DayZ

[Inception. 9443]

Well, think of a solution then.

[dgeesio 1034]

THERE ISNT A SOLUTION TO KOS DEAL WITH IT FFS ! :lol:

[toxicsludge 406]

I don't think people will give a shit if they shoot a hole in the bandage you are carrying, therefore my prediction is KoS will be as prevalent in the standalone that it is in the mod. The fix? The only thing I can think of is if ammo is rarer than Mountain Dew, which I hope will be the case.

Oh, and why didn't they add a non-lethal gun (such as a dart gun or something) in the new patch? You aren't giving us an option to NOT kill someone if confronted!

Edited September 18, 2013 by ToxicSludge

[Target Practice (DayZ) 1335]

Well, think of a solution then.

 

Hell, if I could come up with a solution to a problem like this one, I sure as hell wouldn't be giving it away for free on here. :P

 

I'm not saying I have all the answers. Hell, I'm not even saying I have any of the answers. What I'm trying to say is that whereas before I was just convinced that it was a passing fad that would pass in a few months when the short-attention-span guys get bored and move on to the 'next big thing', I'm now not so sure that's the case, and I'm legitimately concerned that this could negatively impact on the whole DayZ experience, and that perhaps the developers need to consider looking at it again. Despite all the complaining and whining at the time, it now seems to be fairly well agreed that the removal of the 50 cals was a pretty positive thing for game balance. Perhaps the next logical step is making ammo rarer than rocking horse shit, so at least the KOS brigade will likely save it for a target that's actually worth killing.

 

THERE ISNT A SOLUTION TO KOS DEAL WITH IT FFS ! :lol:

 

What a superbly helpful, reasonable and well-thought-out post. I'm glad you decided to share that with us all. Now please either contribute something worthwhile to the discussion or leave the thread for people who actually have something interesting to say.

 

EDIT:

 

I don't think people will give a shit if they shoot a hole in the bandage you are carrying, therefore my prediction is KoS will be as prevalent in the standalone that it is in the mod. The fix? The only thing I can think of is if ammo is rarer than Mountain Dew, which I hope will be the case.

Oh, and why didn't they add a non-lethal gun (such as a dart gun or something) in the new patch? You aren't giving us an option to NOT kill someone if confronted!

 

Heh, you must have posted this while I was typing my reply. This is the problem for me - damaging loot is all well and good if the person doing the killing gives half a shit about the loot. The fact is, it seems like a not insignificant number of players don't even care about what you're carrying, they will simply shoot you because that's what they feel like doing at the time, and in that situation, the risk of damaged loot isn't really going to be a deterrent. Sure, it'll make hold-ups more common and just killing someone because you want their gear a little less common, but I'm not sure it addresses the problem of the idiots running round the countryside like Rambo because they've got an M16 CCO and 20 mags' worth of STANAG rounds.

Edited September 18, 2013 by Target Practice

[thelonewarrior 886]

I hear you, here's a short story from my first time playing dayz 1.8

Spawn, head north ASAP away from pvp central, make a small stop at the hospital in cherno and find a dead guy with an m14 and loads of ammo

I check out the hospital roof, but using the staircase near the apartments to make site no I e is camping there, I see 2 bloodbags on the roof and after searching inside I head up and take them

No the shit hits the fan

Bang bang bang bang bang at me from multiple directions, I dive into prone, having been hit once by an ak

There's a guy on the hill tree line a good 300m away spamming at me

I have a hero skin by the way

His friend is running in an open field, straight at me with an m29 saw and slows to a walk and fires at my position

Next a shitload of zombies, at least 50 run towards the m29 guy, he gets hit a lot and ignores them

I take the chance to get off the roof as his friend throws a grenade to clear the Zeds off his dead friends body (to get the m29 I assume)

I run into the woods and escape, not fancying my chances or even wanting to have such a loud gun

I make it to nwaf with 7-8 people now on the server

I spend a good deal of time creeping and not aggroing, using my hachet when needed and don't find much there except an m4cco with 2 mags

As I'm leaving I'm hit and knocked out by a dmr round, zombies ignore me and go after the shooter and while unconscious I hear spam after spam of dmr mags going off,

A death message appears and the shooting stops, I awake and make a fighting , bleeding retreat to the body to find a fully geared gilli , but don't have time to loot and have to fight off zombies, and sadly die trying to get his body

On respawn I did meet 2 Freindly ish guys at balota but didn't want to hang around too much as I suspected they might have shot me later

My point is, most people are acting like idiots and losing decent gear or just plainly dying and being stupid because they don't care a about zombies, but them complain about it on here saying how they are op

Your right in that it won't change, the same way I'm right that 95% of murderers are idiots who just hang around camping for kills and get killed and gain nothing, potentially losing everything just to say they got a kill on a player

There are some decent bandits out there, but not many

Edited September 18, 2013 by Regulator Lone Warrior

[Hetstaine 10852]

 I used to play DayZ..now i play HideZintheforestZ

 

[Target Practice (DayZ) 1335]

Personally, I think it's a twofold issue - one, there's currently not enough gameplay to go round for the amount that people are playing it. That's not a criticism, and I do understand that this is simply a constraint brought about by the fact DayZ is a mod, and also that the Standalone will be looking to fix this. People know where the good loot is, and the spawns are frequent enough that you can die, gear up enough to clear out the zombies and get yourself to a military loot spawn inside an hour of play. Once you've done that, your options are either try and find and repair a vehicle/heli (which you can spend hours doing and then find it's vanished/been 'borrowed' when you log back in), or you can go hunt something slightly (although not always) smarter than zombies to pass the time. Mostly, it's the latter.

 

Secondly, (and related to my point about being able to be tooled up inside an hour) at the moment at least, there doesn't actually seem to be any downside to just murdering everyone you see - if you die, you respawn, run back to your body (or the nearest military base) and just find another assault rifle and get right back to it. A 'survivor' player has to balance all the stuff that goes with their playstyle (avoiding zombies, staying alive, finding loot, making sure you're well equipped for as many situations as possible) AS WELL as avoiding getting shot in the back of the head for walking round the wrong corner at the wrong time. A murderer (let's not call them bandits, as there is a clear definition between a 'bandit', who will rob you for your stuff and let you walk away, and a murderer who will just shoot you because... well, because he has a gun, and that's what you do with guns, isn't it?) doesn't really have any of that. Their playstyle involves finding a gun, finding a high player traffic area, and maybe a good hiding place if they have a long-range gun. Kill, die, rinse, repeat. There's probably quite a few players out there that have never played DayZ any other way, and that is abhorrent.

Edited September 18, 2013 by Target Practice

[dgeesio 1034]

Target Practice

 

 

your name your post how to stop kos :lol:  kinda sums it up.

 

reason i put the short and basic response is you cant change it ! its not a game function its a people mehanic ! so try whateerr you want you cant change people as some want blood lust to dominate to win be the best. so regardless of what you try it wont make one little bit of difference.

 

also this topic has been done to death and if it could of been solved it would of been already?

 

 

funny thing is how standlone is being set up kos will actually increase ! :lol: 

 

 

more items to collect more need to collect more people on a server equals more kos ! :lol:

 

so you make weapons less scare does that mean people wont attack if they have a gun or weapon no they be even more confident in killing people because of the reward against risk of the other person having a gun. so its all aload of bs and down to human behaviour not thegame you cant solve it forget it. trying to cripple the game just to try and curb kos will actually make people either mad or increase killing as it will be even cooler to kill if you not supposed to ;) 

[Target Practice (DayZ) 1335]

Target Practice

 

 

your name your post how to stop kos :lol:  kinda sums it up.

 

reason i put the short and basic response is you cant change it ! its not a game function its a people mehanic ! so try whateerr you want you cant change people as some want blood lust to dominate to win be the best. so regardless of what you try it wont make one little bit of difference.

 

also this topic has been done to death and if it could of been solved it would of been already?

 

 

funny thing is how standlone is being set up kos will actually increase ! :lol: 

 

 

more items to collect more need to collect more people on a server equals more kos ! :lol:

 

so you make weapons less scare does that mean people wont attack if they have a gun or weapon no they be even more confident in killing people because of the reward against risk of the other person having a gun. so its all aload of bs and down to human behaviour not thegame you cant solve it forget it. trying to cripple the game just to try and curb kos will actually make people either mad or increase killing as it will be even cooler to kill if you not supposed to ;) 

 

 

So what you're saying essentially is 'it's going to be really hard to do, so we shouldn't even try'?

 

That's a pretty lousy way of looking at it, however you slice things. As I said in my initial post, I'm not completely against KoS. In some situations, I'm actually in favour of it in small enough doses - for example, I have no issue with being shot at on sight around/near the NWAF - it's an extremely high-value loot spawn, anyone there is almost certainly going to be looking for a high-powered weapon, and there's no way of telling if they're going to be using that weapon to defend themselves or to kill someone else - hell, I've shot first and asked questions later on more than one occasion up there.

 

I'm not trying to stop players killing other players. Hell, I could not possibly imagine a worse move for DayZ - the threat of other players is exactly what makes DayZ the tense and gripping experience it is. What I'm trying to work out is if there is a way of making it a less appealing option - as I said in the post before yours, right now there doesn't really seem to be any reason NOT to just shoot everyone you see, and long-term, I think that's going to hurt DayZ, as players like myself (and I presume quite a few others) who can live with getting shot in the odd robbery gone wrong or by a surprised looter in a supermarket will just get fed up of getting shot in the head every time they go within 300m of a town/city and go play something else, and DayZ will just end up as a giant open-world deathmatch with a few zombies and survival elements mixed in, which I don't think is what it's intended to be.

Edited September 18, 2013 by Target Practice

[dgeesio 1034]

you should not even try and stop kos its a human mechanic not a game mechnic the more you try and stop it more people will do it !

 

majority of gamers widest audience = teens hell bent on rebelling.

 

 

you cant kos young one it agianst the rules . first thing a player does fook you ill play how i want and kill the first person ingame to prove they cant be controlled.

 

as said the whole game also revolves about killing things zombies infected and spending time gathering many items . it takes less time to shoot someone to get the gear than it does to collect everything. thats one of the main reasons aswell.

 

so you have human mechanics you cant change , and game mechanics which based on time played favour killing over being nice. you cant wont change kos and minute you try youll ruin the game !

 

the human world isnt nice its not fluffy buny world holding hands its grimey people would kill in similar situation and many situations or media shows this. your trying to present a dream of a idilic world that just wont doesnt ever happen. forget about it move onto game breaking features or things that can be solved cause KOS is here to stay !

Edited September 18, 2013 by dgeesio

[Hetstaine 10852]

 I don't see any way around kos besides the players themselves. That's us :) I don't kos and my partner does not either..we are just too damn nice and end up paying for it about 50% of the time still. We are of course a lot more wary than we used to be and we  always cover each other really well now, have little fire areas and fall back places when it all goes to shit as it often does. But our general mindset is simply no kos. I don't think you can change a mindset or ingrained playstyle with some mechanic.

 

 Patience is pretty much our best asset, we can kick back as long as it takes if we think or know someone is in the area, see how they act, if they are alone, try and weigh up the odds if it is worth contact..then of course it is still a risk when you do finally get to the greet and meet stage.

 

 I kick myself in the face every time someone we give a chance shoots me or her in the face but really you just gotta take it in your stride. We still bump into enough people that do not kos that it makes our playstyle worthwhile.

 

 If we only had sticks as weapons and hitting someone wrecked any chance of looting the body for elusive loot then certain types would still branch everyone they met on the head.

 

 It's the few that that don't twig your eye out on the spot that make the game cool :)

[thelonewarrior 886]

Actually KOS can be changed

In the good old dayz, when my clan had something like 120 members(now its just me after many waitin for standalone or board of dayz or annoyed by hackers so they left)

Many times we held down 3-4 servers at a time, policed the cities, hunted bandits (and recruited ex bandits who saw the light) and basically made some areas safe for people who complied

When you have 20 members of the same group spread into sniper teams, assault, flanking groups (with clan tags off so the enemy never knew our real numbers )

It's surprising how many people and friends we made

There were still bandits, most of the time on the run and being hunted by us so there was still plenty of firefights

Except we were winning for a while until hackers took a liking and stalked us across servers for months so many have up trying

It can be done, I've seen it first hand so don't say it can't

In the standalone, those days will return

[Target Practice (DayZ) 1335]

See, I can't really take this 'there's nothing you can do about it, it's here to stay etc' answer, because no-one's ever tried, so how can we possibly know that there's nothing we can do to mitigate it? As mentioned earlier, the closest we've come was when the .50 snipers were removed, and despite all the crying and whinging at the time (mainly by players whose DayZ experience amounted to sitting on sniper hill with an AS50), DayZ came out the other side a better balanced game.

 

I'm not trying some ridiculous campaign to eradicate KOS from the game, and I'm certainly not suggesting that if we just push one magic button that we can make the nasty people go away, what I'm trying to push is that too much KOS is potentially a severe enough problem that it could move the focus of players away from the 'survival' aspect and towards the 'combat' aspect, and that (as Hetstaine quite rightly points out), it's the interactions with the players who don't say hello with muzzle flashes that are when DayZ is at it's finest.

 

Dgeesio, you're quite right - as long as there are at least two people left on the planet, someone is going to want someone else dead, and Hetstaine is right in saying that if you put two people in a small room with a plate of waffles, sooner or later one of them is going to die of suspicious waffle-related injuries - it's the ugly side of human nature, and no game is going to change that. I don't know where you keep getting this 'if you tell people they can't do it, they'll do it more' idea from, though - I've never once suggested telling people they can't do it, and I wouldn't ever propose such a thing. What I'm suggesting is just finding a way of making the 'murderer' playstyle less of the easy option it is now - at least find some way of having a downside to playing that way.

[-Gews- 7443]

Can it be changed? Yes. Should it be changed? Yes. There should be no forcing the issue though. No silly post-killing PTSD or other punishments. There has to be some other kind of incentive to team up. Right now there's no incentive.

 

 

What does the incentive have to be? I don't know, but I do know it has to be something equally (or more) fun than shooting every stranger one sees before anything will change... so put your thinking caps on...

[Target Practice (DayZ) 1335]

See, that's the sort of thing I was hoping for - this wasn't a thread I created just to have a bit of a whine about KOS, or to complain about all those horrible mean people who stop me from playing on my own on a multiplayer server, I'm genuinely trying to reach out to the wider community to see if we can't actually get our heads together and come up with a fair solution to the problem.

[dgeesio 1034]

See, that's the sort of thing I was hoping for - this wasn't a thread I created just to have a bit of a whine about KOS, or to complain about all those horrible mean people who stop me from playing on my own on a multiplayer server, I'm genuinely trying to reach out to the wider community to see if we can't actually get our heads together and come up with a fair solution to the problem.

hoping for ? he suggested nothing ! :lol:

 

 

this thread is just labled wrong . it should be how to stop kos, but.... you knew the score and knew it wouldnt lead anywhere so called it something different.

 

blah blah i want fluffy bunny world holding hands while running round churno this is not realistic or ever going to happen. watch any media where panic or infection grips and resources are scarce and what happens. all hell breaks loose people dont play by the rules because when the rules have gone ! there is NO RULES ! thats what people cant wrap their mind around.

 

this game isnt a govern system its a lawless one of survival. there arnt rules to go buy and the minute you add unrealistic rules you kill the game.

 

your trying to force your ways onto others who either dont want the ways like you or dont care . so no way is better so you wont get a one way of play . once you start to understand you cant stop kos then maybe youll just except that its part of humans and not the games problem.

 

people are suggesting take away weapons :rolleyes: so what we defend ourselves with against the inpending doom of zombies " infected " .

 

not going to argue any more or debate as its pointless and some just wont dont understand you cant solve KOS ! its not a dont try or its too hard its just not going to happen.

 

bookmark this if you want as this is how standalone will be

 

150 man server for eg collect 50 items one guy spawns in new spawn finds axe guy in electro shop bent over has everything you need could take you day or so to collect hes been spawned ten minutes walllop ! axe to head gear is yours ! that is dayz ! the whole dayz game is the problem along with human behaviour you can solve this. stop trying to. more people will kos than wont because its the most effiecient time way of playing.

 

youll probably ignore my post next guy will put one sentance no though but its wrong " thats the kind of answer i was looking for ! " :rolleyes: what answer? :huh: there was no answer no helpful input just a duuuh i agree.

Edited September 18, 2013 by dgeesio

[Inception. 9443]

hoping for ? he suggested nothing ! :lol:

 

Yes, he did.

 

What does the incentive have to be? I don't know, but I do know it has to be something equally (or more) fun than shooting every stranger one sees before anything will change... so put your thinking caps on...

 

 

OP- these topics have been done to death. They are more annoying than the KoS issue itself. 

Edited September 18, 2013 by Inception.

[Hicks_206 (DayZ) 4297]

I'm not saying it's a new problem, I'm saying it's a severe problem, and it's one that perhaps needs looking at by someone actually involved with the game rather than just complaining about on the forums by the likes of me. :)

For what its worth, I agree with you.

Not so much in the direction of against PvP, I believe it to be integral to the core experience of DayZ. However, making that decision to open fire on another player should definitely hold higher consequences.

Inception: I personally find discussion like this, as long as its healthy and not overtly negative to be generally productive.

 

Edited September 18, 2013 by Hicks_206