How to authentically strike the right balance of PvP in DayZ SA.

[soulesseye 35]

That's twisting my words, I meant a natural world in the way that it mimicks real life as much as possible, without any metagame influences.

 

 

Like others have said, the mod was an attempt to see what they wanted the game to become and what the community reacts to. They removed it because they don't want to effect artificially a players style of playing.

 

yet you say you don't want npc based stuff when mods like epoch were really really really popular due to the npc's...that is a double standard and its that kind of  lack of thought that will keep this game from ever being what it could be..

 

a narrow mind often only goes in one direction...and that is why dayz will never reach its full potential and stay an open world death match and will bleed players just like the mod did.

[Lancer 2-2 14]

Players don't need "punished" for killing , they should be rewarded for surviving and doing what's necessary.

 

The problem in the game right now is not exactly KoS, it is the KoS and griefing of un-armed fresh-spawns.

 

The only way to solve that is move military grade gear North and to the centre of the map, evenly spread out civilian grade weapons and spread out the spawns all along the coasts which will stop certain "spawn towns" becoming death matches and mass graveyards.

 

But I agree, zombies in the mod were really attracted to the sound of a Lee Enfield, so they should be even more attracted to gunshots in the full game and don't forget we will have wondering hordes of zombies too.. in theory.

[wgaf 251]

The only acceptable measure is to increase the stakes for dying.

 

The high stakes of being killed is what prevents "pvp" in real life. 

[Chauz 166]

Make stronger zombies ect.

 

Punishing people just because they play a part in the game that you don't like is bs.

[djporternz 644]

Firstly DayZ needs PvP. PvP is what has given the players that unique emotional connection with the game and their character that other games do not deliver.

I'm going to take issue with these statements.

 

Firstly, DayZ doesn't need PvP. DayZ is a sandbox game in the true sense, and PvP is just one of the many emergent play styles that players can adopt. It is IMHO one of the simplest play styles, and in contrast to your second statement, the one with the least emotional connection between player and character. If there is any emotional connection within this style of play, it is generally more between the player and the weapon. Just look at the forum posts from dead 'survivors'. They're almost exclusively more annoyed with the loss of a weapon than the character.

 

It takes almost no effort to play this way. Scavenge weapon; scavenge ammo; shoot weapon; scavenge ammo; shoot weapon; repeat until dead. This may be an over simplification of the style of play, but honestly, it isn't that much more complex than this.

 

Secondly, the emotional attachment to the game or their in-game persona is in no way unique to DayZ. Any game you play often enough with a single in-game persona will have exactly the same emotional attach-ability as any other. Case in point, I've spent over 1,100 hours in ArmA 3 with the same in-game persona, and I'm very attached to that character. I've only been in DayZ SA for 140 hours, so while there is some attachment to my in-game persona it isn't on the same level, yet.

 

So I'll grant the emotional attachment, but not that it is unique to DayZ, PvP or otherwise.

 

Your poll isn't very rigorously constructed and is biased towards your first assumption that DayZ needs PvP, which I would refute, and so will not cast a vote in the poll as it stands. But if I were pushed to supply an answer, I would opt for 'Add features that indirectly balance PvP (i.e. more zombies, more dangerous zombies, crafting or medicine that requires teamwork)', not for the reasons of balancing PvP, but because it would also enhance the PvE side of the game without inhibiting the PvP side for those who enjoy it.

 

Don't take anything here as an affront to PvP, it is a legitimate style of play and is an enjoyable mode to indulge in, but IMHO it isn't the raison d'être of DayZ.

[Gandolaf 81]

I beg to differ.

 

If zombies are numerous, fast and ultimately dangerous... shooting someone for the sake of shooting them, especially near a town, would and should get about 20+ zombies sprinting at you. They should be faster than your jog and if you aren't able to lose them in the X amount of seconds your sprint lasts (Im guessing it won't be infini-sprint forever), then your only choice is to unload all your ammo into them which could attract even more.. and you may die reloading because they are on your ass like white on rice.

 

If that happens a few times to people, suddenly risking all the cool shit you have isn't worth it. It won't STOP PvP (nothing should) but it will certainly change how people approach situations like that in the future

 

EDIT - Basically coming across someone in a city (like looting the same house and running into eachother) and automatically shooting them SHOULD be a death sentence for the shooter as well.. dozens if not hundreds of zombies should converge on that location and there's no escape. Would create a pretty cool dynamic actually. You run into someone and you don't trust them at all but you both acknowledge that shooting the other would mean death for both.

Right now that isn't even close to happening since zombies aren't a threat at all

Except maybe that weaponless newspawns have no chance against these zombies.

[LouisK 85]

No way anyone should be punished for playing any kind of style they want.

There should be consequences for anything you do, however. Third option is the best and if done correctly it WILL affect the way PVP and player interaction is given.

 

If there are 50 zombies (that also respawn) concentrated in an area you will stop seeing people sprinting across that road or field anymore, because it's simple common sense, one would not risk to get 25 zombies after himself by moving a bit in a town. The same idea can be applied to shooting. I wouldn't shoot somebody if I knew that my gun shot would attract a shitload of zeds that can certainely kill me in a few minutes. Hell, I would even try to avoid players as much as possible.

 

The zeds mechanics should be seriously given a LOT of work and should be the main focus of the alpha. Great, optimized, intelligent and numerous zeds is what should be given to us before the beta, after all, this is a zombie apocalypse survival enviroment and I expect zombies to be on the same place as humans.

 

I don't want overly powerful superman zeds neither, I just want them to be smooth and great to see and play with, as 'realistic' is not a valid word for them since they are not real anyways. If we're given numerous, optimized and intelligent zeds many will turn to another way of playing the game and will think better the consequences of their actions.

 

I agree that different kind of zombies should be added. As an example we could have hordes. These should not be fast or very intelligent, yet would make the looting of an area impossible, since if you get near the horde that would mean having 30 zombies jogging onto you and destroying the building you are in if applies. On the performance hand the horde could share one main AI and even be a LOD of the actual single zombies.

On the other hand we could have single zeds not attached to hordes, these would be more fast and intelligent and should "alert" zombies that they come across while chasing you. These could join the hordes or dynamically create new hordes as they walk around an area.

Having zombies spawn per building in random offsets (mod) is something I never liked as it doesn't feel very very smooth, I would rather have them spawn per area in perimeters and not per buildings, so they would be scattered around all the area.

 

And how would this affect PVP you say? Let's say there are two roaming hordes in cherno and 20 single zombies in an small area. You met a player and shoot on sight. Both of the hordes should now start moving towards the shot area. Zombies near the area of shooting should roam towards there and form a sort of perimeter in that area. Zombies in the area of shooting should instantly go and investigate the noise. If the shooter suddenly gets all the single fast zombies in an area heading towards him and then two hordes and a shitload of zombies heading towards his area then he would become essentially trapped. If you also add the lack of ammunition to this fact then the shooter will risk too much by shooting someone when they could have talked it out peacefully.

 

This would of course work if zombies respawned unless completely wiped out (area wiping) and would even make people think before going into big cities. Same concept for military bases. There should be defenitely wild zeds and wild hordes that could spawn after a gun shot (for higher performance) or permanent spawned hordes and zeds (lower performance).

 

Awesome zeds combined with a more harder way of obtaining military stuff and fixes for exploits and mechanics of the game (such as combat logging and such) will be the great objective for avoiding indiscriminated KoS and PVP, and don't get me wrong, I am all up for PVP, infact so far I've been shooting anyone with a gun that I've come across, and this is because two main reasons:

 

1) I don't know if the player will try to combat log or ghost me as soon as I engage him and;

2) I've got a shitload of ammo and I wont have consequences after shooting my really loud gun other than other players hearing it, and since there's nothing obstructing my way I can easily rapidily leave the area.

Edited January 4, 2014 by LouisK

[Zeds_Undead_baby 8]

I'm going to take issue with these statements.

 

Firstly, DayZ doesn't need PvP. DayZ is a sandbox game in the true sense, and PvP is just one of the many emergent play styles that players can adopt. It is IMHO one of the simplest play styles, and in contrast to your second statement, the one with the least emotional connection between player and character. If there is any emotional connection within this style of play, it is generally more between the player and the weapon. Just look at the forum posts from dead 'survivors'. They're almost exclusively more annoyed with the loss of a weapon than the character.

 

It takes almost no effort to play this way. Scavenge weapon; scavenge ammo; shoot weapon; scavenge ammo; shoot weapon; repeat until dead. This may be an over simplification of the style of play, but honestly, it isn't that much more complex than this.

 

Secondly, the emotional attachment to the game or their in-game persona is in no way unique to DayZ. Any game you play often enough with a single in-game persona will have exactly the same emotional attach-ability as any other. Case in point, I've spent over 1,100 hours in ArmA 3 with the same in-game persona, and I'm very attached to that character. I've only been in DayZ SA for 140 hours, so while there is some attachment to my in-game persona it isn't on the same level, yet.

 

So I'll grant the emotional attachment, but not that it is unique to DayZ, PvP or otherwise.

 

Your poll isn't very rigorously constructed and is biased towards your first assumption that DayZ needs PvP, which I would refute, and so will not cast a vote in the poll as it stands. But if I were pushed to supply an answer, I would opt for 'Add features that indirectly balance PvP (i.e. more zombies, more dangerous zombies, crafting or medicine that requires teamwork)', not for the reasons of balancing PvP, but because it would also enhance the PvE side of the game without inhibiting the PvP side for those who enjoy it.

 

Don't take anything here as an affront to PvP, it is a legitimate style of play and is an enjoyable mode to indulge in, but IMHO it isn't the raison d'être of DayZ.

 

It's weird that you think the poll comes across as biased towards option 1 as my own personal opinion is actually option 3. If you take a look at the results you can see my vote. :-) I tried not to bias it towards my own personal opinion so maybe I pushed it towards option 1 (against my own view) too much in an attempt to give the poll balance.

 

I think there are some different views on what PvP is. For me there are many types; KoS due to fear, KoS for griefing, and genuine banditry. I agree that several of these playstyles take no effort but there is a PvP play style that does take effort and thought that is listed in my previous sentence. Out of interest my play-style is usually as a lone wolf avoiding contact with others. If I do come across people who see me first I try to communicate and if they are aggressive I shoot to kill. If they are friendly then I leave them alone or help them. If I see them first I usually try to avoid them. I have on a few rare occasions killed another player when I had the drop on him and he had better gear than me. It is rare that I do this however and always feel bad afterwards.

 

I agree any game with permadeath is going to give you this emotional connection to the character / gear. If there is no fear of death in the game (due either PvP or PvE) then that connection goes away. At the moment the fear of PvE is almost non-existent and so PvP is required (IMHO). If Zeds were more deadly then maybe PvP would be less important. As I've said in a previous post I'd like the emotional connection to be less about the gear and more about the character (maybe adding learned knowledge, skills would be a  way to achieve this).

 

As I've said on a few previous posts DayZ for me is about the consequences of your actions. At the moment the consequences for griefing and KoS due to fear are not significant enough and the balance of PvP hasn't quite been struck yet....