Suggestions to Increase Teamwork

[WebCole 2]

These are a handful of ideas intended to make it more desirable to band together into survivor groups. The rationale behind most of these ideas is that if something functionally requires more than 1 person to accomplish, and it is desirable to do so, then you are encouraging teamplay.

Limit The Map etc Inventory Slots

As it stands you can carry a Map, Compass, Hunting Knife, Matches, GPS, and a Watch. As soon as you acquire the first 4 of these (in bold) you are set to go pretty much anywhere.

What I propose is limiting the number of these items that you can carry to 2 or 3. If you could only carry that Map + Compass you found, the natural solution is to get a friend for the Hunting Knife + Matches.

In short it gives groups a concrete reason to rely on one another, and a sort of dynamic specialisation of roles without implementing a class system.

(Problem: Players holding all of the utility items in their backpack and switching out for what they need at the time. It may have to be impossible for survivors to put maps etc in their packs, or some other solution to be found.)

Heavy Lifting

Make it so that those larger items, such as Rotor Assemblys or Engine Parts require 2 players to carry. This would mean that only survivor groups could easily repair vehicles, and should make it more desirable to find friends in the post-apocalyptic wilderness. :P

Note: I am not quite sure how this would be possible to implement, but I believe ARMA 2 already has certain things that need to be carried by more than 1 person.

The Act of Repairing

Change the amount of people that need to be present to repair a vehicle.

For instance, you can repair a motor bike by yourself, but in order to repair a car you need to have 2 survivors close to the vehicle.

For a chopper you would need 3 - or more - survivors close the vehicle (as they are a more powerful asset than a land vehicle.)

Again, this gives survivors encouragement to form groups and work together to survive and progress. Of course, it doesn't stop bandits from killing you or robbing you to get at your fancy toys ;)

[griffinz 2816]

They all sound ok, except the inventory slots. In reality, those items are small and can easily be slapped in to a pocket, which is why they are in that inventory section.

I know Arma can support multiple lifting (as seen in ACE mod)

[WebCole 2]

They all sound ok' date=' except the inventory slots. In reality, those items are small and can easily be slapped in to a pocket, which is why they are in that inventory section.[/quote']

Like it says on the tin, these suggestions are to encourage teamplay, not to be realistic.

I know Arma can support multiple lifting (as seen in ACE mod)

Thats good to know :)

[griffinz 2816]

They all sound ok' date=' except the inventory slots. In reality, those items are small and can easily be slapped in to a pocket, which is why they are in that inventory section.[/quote']

Like it says on the tin, these suggestions are to encourage teamplay, not to be realistic.

That goes against the Arma way...the only surreal thing in this mod is the zombies

[anzik 0]

I don't think its a good idea as I see no need to artificially enforcing teamwork. There are quite a number of YT videos showing people are even now capable of forming large groups. Its up to willingness and capabilities of individual person to join/create groups and play as a team.

Nothing more thrilling than to create a team with sole purpose to hunt down some a$$hole sniper in Elektro... :D

[lithiumfox.av@gmail.com 9]

What really needs to happen is a reward/punishment system. There should be a positive aspect of working in a group, because with that you also gain the negatives of attracting attention.

The positives of working alone should also be apparent, but the negatives more so when facing a large group.

Artificially enforcing teamwork is how Project Reality does it, and it just... doesn't... work.

[WebCole 2]

What really needs to happen is a reward/punishment system. There should be a positive aspect of working in a group' date=' because with that you also gain the negatives of attracting attention.

The positives of working alone should also be apparent, but the negatives more so when facing a large group.

Artificially enforcing teamwork is how Project Reality does it, and it just... doesn't... work.

[/quote']

Mechanics influence player behaviour, and there are more examples of that than PR. If you want your player to act, think, feel in a certain way, you change their interaction with the game to make that behaviour more desirable.

If you want your players to play a fast paced, bombastic kind of game you make the players death have little to no penalty. (Any modern FPS.)

If you want your players to have a more involved, careful, meaningful experience you introduce penalties for failure, e.g. permadeath. (Dwarf Fortress, DayZ)

Of course the failure state is not the only way to influence how players act, you can also encourage and persuade through other means.

A class system in any multiplayer game can be a basic building block of teamwork. A class system implies that there are certain actions you have to rely on other players for, e.g. healing.

If you want your players in an RTS to harass more you can lower the overall amount of resources and make it necessary to frequently expand to other resource locations. More sprawling territory will make harassment more viable and result in more micro-intensive gameplay. Or you could do the opposite resulting in more turtling and maxed out "death ball" engagements (Starcraft 2)

There are many ways of encouraging the behaviour you want from your players, and of course they are artificial, all gaming systems are artificial up until the point you have the 1:1 Game of Life. At the end of the day, artificial means nothing in this context.

The bottom line is, if you want the survivors of DayZ to do less DM'ing, less player killing or however you want to call it, you legislate for that. You encourage, you persuade, wheedle, demand, plead whatever.