Discussion : KoS Mentality and how to keep it to minimum

[LeoIvanov 27]

First post on these forums - hooray!

 

Let me first introduce myself - real name's Lev, born in Russia. My username mainly consists of my nickname (Leo) and real lastname (Ivanov) mashed together. Heard about DayZ long time ago, when it was still in it's "early" stages. My friend told me about it, as he was a great fan of both Arma 2 and Zombie games. Being a cheap skate (but a very great zombie fan) I started watching Chkilroy youtube's channel where he posted DayZ footage. About year and a half I've purchased Arma 2 Combined Operations on steam and tried DayZ for myself. That's how I got dedicated to it. I am also an active member of Project Zomboid community and even took the honor to translate it to Russian for my homelanders. So, hello! Let's finally get to the point of this discussion.

 

WARNING : POTENTIALLY BIG WALL OF TEXT!

 

A couple of months earlier I've watched Dean Hall doing a very interesting devblog. The topic in it went to the point where he was talking about potentially toning down the KoS mentality by adding damage to items in victim's clothes, that the person shot at. Since then I closely followed DayZ's progress and wanted to see if KoS mentality was really going to be any less than it ended up being in the mod.... Now, december came - release got out, and... There isn't any less KoS. On the coastline, maybe - but not as high to even mention that small gap.

 

What did Dean do wrong? Did he even do anything wrong? Well, there are a couple of things that is worth noting :

 

1: People aren't shooting on sight ONLY for the loot. It has always been a "reward" for shooting people - you get more stuff because you shot someone, how cool is that?

 

2: Dean underestimated the players that are buying DayZ Standalone - they are either coming from the mod, or buying into something new. The new buyers will likely be too distracted figuring the game out and trying not to die - they are most likely not going to KoS. The problem, however, lays within the mod players themselves.

 

 

I'll explain. So far I've figured about FOUR reasons why people shoot each other on sight.

 

- Loot.

Yeah, even though I've said earlier that people aren't only shooting for loot, there are a certain percentage that see the temptation of killing stranger/your partner who is geared up pretty good and is shouting "Friendly" at you. You can just kill him and take all the stuff - and you'd never even have to waste countless hours looking for it! So, the KoS for "looters" has been lowered down a lot - Good job at achieving it, Dean! Item damage did it's job, and now people have to think twice, before shooting someone in the back, and where to land the shot so their loot doesn't get destroyed.

 

- Paranoia.

Paranoia has been a good topic for writers that do the post-apocalyptic novels involving interactions between the human nature. In DayZ, players feel paranoia because of how much time they spent finding all the stuff they currently have. They don't want to get shot at all just because they trusted a random "Friendly!" guy who ended up just going for his gear anyway. No matter - melee, empty pistol, raised hands, restrained or barehanded - You'd better kill him off first than have him by your side looking for opportunity to kill you at any moment. People that put so much time into their character don't care about the dead guy's loot - they are there to protect their own asses, if it means killing off potentially dangerous player - they go for it. Paranoid people usually keep to the "you kill first, or you get killed" policy.

Edit 1 : There is an amazing topic that explains in detail why people KoS because of paranoia. http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/158046-sa-why-we-kill-on-sight-kos-super-long-post-no-tldr-section/ As a short summary : People kill other people because it's safer than trying to talk/hide/team up with him. It also has some good suggestions about how to make it more riskier to KoS and how much more benefit you get if you talk/team up with the person instead.

 

- For fun!

People play games to relieve stress and boredom, it also involves having fun. DayZ surely relieves a lot of boredom, it has the aspects that keep you interested in playing it. You run around to find a weapon, you loot nearby houses for food to survive, it's kind of really catchy and might pull you in for more than several hours. So, until you get pretty much everything - you are having fun by looting houses and going town to town for supplies. What happens when you reach a point where there is nothing else to look for - You've got food, you've got water, you've got weapon, lots of ammo, super protective gear - Yeah, you decide to relieve boredom by hunting and killing other players. You don't care if they have loot or not - you just want to squeeze maximum fun juice out of the game for it to keep you entertained.

Edit 1 : What I meant by "you want to squeeze maximum fun juice out of the game" is : There is nothing else to do once you are loaded up with gear, or have found most of it before getting killed. Always "looking for stuff" gets boring. People turn up to kill people on sight because you can't do anything else in this game.

 

- Revenge/Getting really pissed off.

You've spent about 4 real days collecting loot and taking careful steps around zombies, you've been pretty much having a lot of blast from being overly cautious and staying out of the "go for X place to find all the good loot!!!1" league. You made your own game by gathering a lot of supplies from less populated areas. Suddenly, you see another person that is geared up. You decide to say "Friendly!" and maybe exchange some supplies with him. Instead of friendly "wave" you get a raised gun and about dozen bullets put in your body. The fucker didn't even hesitate! That's it! No more friendly behaviour - any person I see will be shot or hit on sight. They'll see how it fucking feels!

Revenge/Anger is basically the point where you "Twist" and stop caring about human interaction anymore. You mark any player a "threat" and kill them when you see them. Doesn't matter if it's a half-naked human holding a banana up in his right hand - you kill them, because you want them to suffer just as much as you suffered when you got killed by that "douchebag".

Edit 1: "Getting really pissed off" may include people who are frustrated with the way other people are playing. For example : You are trying to play bandit that doesn't KoS, and instead of complying and letting you cuff them (or trying to run away/fight) people simply log off. So, since people log off as soon as they see you, you might aswell just shoot them on sight now. 

 

 

DayZ community. I know that there are better and more greater minds than me right there, so instead of giving half-assed suggestions that I made up, i'd rather have you lending me a hand with this. WE NEED TO KEEP KoS MENTALITY TO MINIMUM! How do we do that? For EACH point that I've described above we need to do something that counters it.

 

For example : To counter "For fun!" KoS type, there just have to be more things that keep player entertained throughout the game. Building houses, listening for your own in-game mp3 player - anything goes.

 

 

I can't bring this suggestion without your, DayZ community's help. If we want to eleminate KoS mentality, we need to think through about how to do this. I gave 4 reasons why people Kill on Sight. 1 person can do 1 good suggestion to counter one of it, and another can do the same to another one. Combined, we might end up building 1 BIG suggestion that will keep KoS as minimum as possible, or even completely remove it. Dean Hall already adressed one of these reasons, let's think about how to take care of the rest.

 

Any Russian replies are also welcome, if DayZ modders allow it. I'll try my damnest to translate the best suggestions that comes from Russian players.

 

DayZ SHOULDN'T BE ALL ABOUT PvP!

Edited December 24, 2013 by LeoIvanov

[krihelion 175]

kos is a part of the game, i will never stop kos'ing, its just how i play the game

[Derpy_Hooves (DayZ) 4521]

kos is a part of the game, i will never stop kos'ing, its just how i play the game

 

 

Yup, you can't stop it nor hold it back. People play the way see fit and if that means pulling the trigger or swinging the axe with no questions asked then so be it....

 

 

WELCOME TO SURVIVING IN DAYZ! 

[Death_Dealer 3155]

old news

[LeoIvanov 27]

Yup, you can't stop it nor hold it back. People play the way see fit and if that means pulling the trigger or swinging the axe with no questions asked then so be it....

 

 

WELCOME TO SURVIVING IN DAYZ! 

 

Instead of trying to argue, I'll just ask - out of all 4 reasons I posted above, what reason is YOURS to KoS? I never stated that, for example, "Paranoia" type of KoS is bad. It increases the tension, tension is good in survival horror games.

[Derpy_Hooves (DayZ) 4521]

I kill because i can.

 

Plus i wasn't arguing. Just stating a well over used piece of knowledge that stems back to the first days of the mod.

Edited December 23, 2013 by Derpy_Hooves

[LeoIvanov 27]

I kill because i can

 

So you kill "For fun". I see it now.

[Derpy_Hooves (DayZ) 4521]

I kill because it's the damn aim of the game. big hint in the game description.... "SURVIVAL"..... usually means do what ever it takes to be above the next guy in line. 

[whatup2003 67]

I've said it a lot of times and I will say it again.

One of the Major reason of KOS is LACK OF OTHER THINGS TO　DO

 

After you get past the survival stage(which is not too long even for new players), what is there to do? Some people like exploring, but after that what's left? You have guns. Zombies are dumb. There are people running around. You figure out the rest.

[Death_Dealer 3155]

First, killing on sight is a part of the game. Zombies aren't a threat, nor are they scary. Players however, are a huge threat (when they KoS), and they've made me shit my pants a couple times. They give DayZ the adrenaline factor that everyone plays the game for

 

Second, you cannot completely remove it from the game. You could make guns and ammo the rarest things in DayZ, but I'll guarantee you a player will still go on a killing spree when he finds said guns and ammo

 

One of the Major reason of KOS is LACK OF OTHER THINGS TO DO

 

Look at epoch - you have a metric shit ton of things to do, yet it's basically team deathmatch

 

Plus people are eventually going to have done all those "things" and will get bored of it, regardless of how many cool features they add

Edited December 23, 2013 by Death Dealer

[LeoIvanov 27]

I've said it a lot of times and I will say it again.

One of the Major reason of KOS is LACK OF OTHER THINGS TO　DO

 

After you get past the survival stage(which is not too long even for new players), what is there to do? Some people like exploring, but after that what's left? You have guns. Zombies are dumb. There are people running around. You figure out the rest.

 

I've put it in the "For Fun" section, just afraid that I haven't made it obvious enough. When you are sick of just looking for stuff or have your backpack FILLED with food, weapons and ammo, there is just nothing else to do. DayZ has "looking for stuff to not get killed" as a thing to do. But once you don't want/have to do that anymore, there is nothing else. So you kill people, for fun. Sorry if it wasn't clear in my message, I'll edit it now.

Edited December 23, 2013 by LeoIvanov

[diznoid 12]

Another KOS thread?  Couldn't you have used one of the many others?

[LeoIvanov 27]

Another KOS thread?  Couldn't you have used one of the many others?

 

I'm sorry >_>'

 

After posting this threat, it was almost instantly sucked to the second page of the forum by the new replies to other, hot topics. I didn't know if it was worth bumping potentially old thread just to have a moderator show up, saying "This thread is old, I'll just lock it" and having to create a separate one, so I skipped that stage.

 

Again, SORRY if KoS discussions are too popular, atleast I haven't seen any on the first page that had a "hot" toolbar beside it. I just want to help the game develop in the right direction, and have community help me achieve it.

[whatup2003 67]

Look at epoch - you have a metric shit ton of things to do, yet it's basically team deathmatch

 

Plus people are eventually going to have done all those "things" and will get bored of it, regardless of how many cool features they add

 

Never played epoch myself. 

I said having-nothing-else-to-do is ONE OF THE MAJOR REASONS that people KOS, not the only reason though.

[Hero of Suburbia 40]

I think that the KOS part of dayz is a unique game feature. What do I mean by that? Well there are several things (and I will try to explain them), and it gets more interesting with the more features they add. Now the people that do not KoS but instead restrain someone, take what they need and let them go with enough supplies to live on are sort of like the ricks of the world. They want to get what they need to better the odds of their survival and the survival of their friends with minimal damage to others. But they take a huge risk trying to detain people and then letting them go. What if that person is part of a larger group? What if they return with more men and more firepower? Sure they probably won't stick around to find out. But there is also no gaurantee that they won't stalk you and alert their friends of your position (paranoia). So this sort of paranoia spurs people, and I would say most people, to not trust other people. There is simply too much to loose and not enough to gain, and so these type of players (which I would say would be most people) either avoid human contact with strangers to stay safe, or they kill strangers on sight as a means of survival like the governor. One way is not above the other. It's just a unique part of human nature woven into a game like I have never seen before. I think once we are able to build bases it will provoke more human interactions that don't end in death. It will also provoke wars between neighboring communities like we saw in the walking dead, and that is what makes this game so great.

The fact that people will kos makes trying to detain them and take blood from them so much harder,,you can just tell a geared up player to freeze unless you really know how to do it and get away with it. You have to stalk people for miles sometimes just to make sure their alone and then go in for the steal or kill. Dayz would not be as adrenaline pumping without the majority of people killing on site.

All that being said there are still trolls out there who kill noobs for fun and they gain little from it. No loot. No chase. Nothing.

[IcyBlade 48]

I don't KOS but I don't often get hit by KOS players either.

I have seen a lot of people complaining about its someone elses fault that they KOS.

I don't think many players consider their actions are plausibly resulting in them being targeted.

 

I used to play arma 2 with a group called 16aa, excellent bunch of guys.

During that time we all put effort into playing the game with substantial realism, especially when it came down to moving and engaging opposition.

I tend to use element of the same behaviour when searching for loot and as a result I will often see other player before they see me, giving me the opportunity to determine how things will go rather than leaving it to them.

 

The biggest flaw I seen in other players behaviour is a massive lack of patience, constantly running makes you extremely visible.

I tend to walk more than most players even over large distances and I have lost count of the number of players who have come up behind me in a forest and completely missed me because I wasn't moving fast.

[Gerandar 212]

I dont care what he adds to try and get me to stop kosing, if i see someone im going to shoot them even if I damage all there loot I dont care the fun in kosing is forcing the other person back to the coast and ruining all there loot.

[Mallow88 110]

Can we start banning people who makes KoS whining threads? There are already countless threads just like this. Every noob that gets killed wants to make a thread, and I'm sick of sorting through all this bull.

Edited December 23, 2013 by Mallow88

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Trying to find ways to "minimize or remove" killers from DayZ is counter productive. It is the presence and commonality of indiscriminate murder that adds tension and drama to everything else that happens. 

 

Looting a high-value target is exciting not because of the loot I might find, but because I might find another player there who wants to shoot my pretty face off.

 

Trying to eliminate the chance of KoS from DayZ is like asking a girl on a date and then trying to find ways to eliminate your chances of having sex with her.

 

You certainly could, but why would you? 

[doctorbadsign 645]

What exactly is it that people don't like about KOS?

 

How is it any different from dying of starvation or zombies?

[LeoIvanov 27]

Can we start banning people who makes KoS whining threads? There are already countless threads just like this. Every noob that gets killed wants to make a thread, and I'm sick of sorting through all this bull.

 

Did I forget to mention that I haven't bought DayZ yet and only watched countless streams on twitch? (Just like, you know, Dean Hall actually suggested.).

 

I am not "yet another noob that gets killed". Hell, did you even read the introduction of my post? I am guessing you are one of those people who sees the title and instantly goes to blame me for it, instead of taking the time to read through.

 

To the others : I know that KoS is what makes DayZ right now. But, as I stated in my post, there is a bad and good side of it. And ALL I'M TRYING TO ACHIEVE is to minimize the BAD side of the KoS.

 

Killing someone because you are Paranoid is NOT BAD! Killing someone because you are enraged/pissed off is sort of acceptable! HOWEVER, Killing someone FOR FUN - isn't okay, Killing people at the coast that just spawned isn't okay, especially when YOU just spawned.

 

You are missing the point of this thread completely, I am not whining about KoS, I am trying to minimize it to the point that people will stop senselessly killing each other because "They can". 

 

It's like playing "Monopoly" with a bunch of people. But instead of doing it by the rules, every opponent smacks the board around and throw cards at each other. It's fine when 1 person does it - you can make him stop and teach him to play by the rules, but when majority plays like this and everyone else accepts it - it's just sad.

[andrestor 78]

Did I forget to mention that I haven't bought DayZ yet and only watched countless streams on twitch? (Just like, you know, Dean Hall actually suggested.).

 

I am not "yet another noob that gets killed". Hell, did you even read the introduction of my post? I am guessing you are one of those people who sees the title and instantly goes to blame me for it, instead of taking the time to read through.

 

To the others : I know that KoS is what makes DayZ right now. But, as I stated in my post, there is a bad and good side of it. And ALL I'M TRYING TO ACHIEVE is to minimize the BAD side of the KoS.

 

Killing someone because you are Paranoid is NOT BAD! Killing someone because you are enraged/pissed off is sort of acceptable! HOWEVER, Killing someone FOR FUN - isn't okay, Killing people at the coast that just spawned isn't okay, especially when YOU just spawned.

 

You are missing the point of this thread completely, I am not whining about KoS, I am trying to minimize it to the point that people will stop senselessly killing each other because "They can". 

 

It's like playing "Monopoly" with a bunch of people. But instead of doing it by the rules, every opponent smacks the board around and throw cards at each other. It's fine when 1 person does it - you can make him stop and teach him to play by the rules, but when majority plays like this and everyone else accepts it - it's just sad.

Well said

[Vicco 123]

When spawning on the coast, you've got nothing to lose anyway.  Spawn killers can only cost you a few minutes.

After that, keep your eyes open and avoid other players unless you're in a position of superiority.

That's the game, and the challenge.  If you play it that way, there's no worry.

You can't lollygag about in this game.

[Gdaddy22 299]

Another KoS thread, and again I have to say the same thing over and over. To even think about reducing KoS, we need to add more things to do in the game once we've reached endgame. 

 

Maybe some day all those people will understand that if we want DayZ to be a good game we have to do something about KoS. 

Edited December 23, 2013 by Gdaddy22

[xX_fr0st-w0lf_Xx (DayZ) 343]

Every day theres a new topic on this bullshit. 

 

KOS is like the sun, you can't get rid of it, stop trying, rocket did nothing wrong.