Player Identification and Classification System

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Back in the mod days, I posted a long thread about a potential "Player Identification and Classification system." 

 

I thought it would be a good time to revisit the idea and bring it up to date with the DayZ SA.

 

Rather than try to revive the old thread, I'll just post an updated version of the idea here.

 

 

Goal

Give players the ability to "Remember" other players that they have seen, provided they can get close enough to make a successful visual identification.

 

 

Philosophy

Two common comments or suggestions that show up here on the SA forum are 1) players really need a reason to value their characters and try to stay alive longer, and 2) it would be hugely beneficial to have some idea of another player's intentions when you meet them.

 

I wanted to think of a system that could be a win in both of these categories, but in a way that felt authentic for DayZ, and came up with the ability to remember things you witness. 

 

First, a memory of events you have witnessed would immediately make survival more valuable. The longer you stay alive, the more you manage to see and survive, the more information your survivor will carry and the harder you will struggle to survive. 

 

Second, it seeks to just be an authentic stand-in for real human memory. There's no magical all-seeing eye that delivers information to you about other players, and no Santa Claus of Chernarus who watches over everyone and keeps a naughty and nice list. The players themselves control the system because they are in charge of witnessing the events and making judgments about what they mean.

 

Last, but maybe not least, it also makes optics hugely valuable. Binoculars were already amazingly useful in the mod, but this would make them even more sought after.

 

 

How it Works

If you can get within 20m (or equivalent distance with a scope, binoculars or other optics) of another player and see their face, you can choose to "Remember" them, probably from the mouse-wheel menu or whatever in-game interface is available moving forward.

 

Once you "Remember" someone, you can assign them a tag and a category (these are all of your own creation, you don't record their survivor name) and perhaps make a small note or quip about them.

 

Later, if you see that player once more (again, from 20m or equivalent), and their face remains uncovered, you will see a small on-screen indicator of which category or tag you have assigned to that person.

 

For instance, if you're watching Chernogorsk from the hillside with a pair of binoculars and you witness a murder, you could "Remember" the assailant and assign them a category of "hostile" or "untrustworthy" with a note like "Cherno killer."

 

Likewise, if someone offers you assistance and follows through without chopping your head off with a fire ax before the episode plays out, then you could "Remember" them and assign them a category of "friendly" or "trustworthy" with a tag "Shared beans and stories."

 

Again, all of these tags are written by players - no automatic categorization takes place. Players have to decide what to call their tags and whether or not certain actions qualify to have players remembered in such a way.

 

Ideally, some color-coding system would be available, so you could assign tags colors as well, which would be visible once you "recognize" someone in the game.

 

The on-screen information could be basic and subtle; as simple as a small dot above a player w/ a color corresponding to the category to which you have assigned them.

 

I realize it's more of a HUD than Dean would like for DayZ, but I think it's worth it under the circumstances.

 

What if...

 

You die?

When you die, your memory is erased. You forget everything you've witnessed and recorded about other players, and will no longer be able to "recognize" them in the game. You will have to make new identifications. This should add value to survival.

 

Someone wears a mask?

Masks will effectively prevent identification. This has the simultaneously cool effect of making masks way more valuable and awesome, but also assigning a very clear in-game meaning to them. They're no longer just decorative head pieces, but true and earnest attempts by people to conceal their identity from others. You can make your own decisions about what that says about their intentions when you meet them (I suggest you assume the worst).

 

Someone I've previously identified dies?

This is a tough one. My instinct is to say that they're erased from everyone's memory because that "makes sense," but of course this allows a simple exploit where psychopaths just occasionally suicide in order to start with a "clean slate." So, I think to be effective your memory of someone will persist through their death, but not yours. I think it makes the system less exploitable and more robust, without stepping too far outside the bounds of realism (if you can buy that people get reincarnated instantly upon death, then you can buy that I know what the 'new them' looks like, deal?).

 

 

Other Thoughts

• Maybe classification requires a pen and notebook carried on the player? Or this allows "notes" to be added, which is otherwise impossible.
• Injury or sickness could make players "forget" some of what they have remembered. More reason to stay well and well fed!
• In the future, cameras or recording devices could allow us not only to recognize players ourselves, but to share what we've seen with others (granting them information in the process - imagine trading information about other players in exchange for food or water!).

 

 

Here's a link to the original thread, if you want to read the discussion there. There are also a lot of similar ideas linked from my post.

 

Credit to Mutonizer for reminding me of this here (coincidentally also suggesting 20m distance), and giving me the idea to call it "Remember."  :thumbsup: 

 

 

Other related threads:

Thinking beyond only facial recognition from Chauz

Survivor's brain from Zalexey

Edited January 27, 2014 by ZedsDeadBaby

[Plan_B 82]

I like this idea, but I would like an option to have memory permanent on certain server.

[Hetstaine 10852]

 Pretty cool old Zedly. I am not a fan of any icons or colours or whatever bobbing above someones head for any period of time, maybe something that fades away after a couple of seconds ? 

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

 Pretty cool old Zedly. I am not a fan of any icons or colours or whatever bobbing above someones head for any period of time, maybe something that fades away after a couple of seconds ? 

 

Would make sense if it faded out after a few seconds, yeah.

 

It does seem odd, but I'm  not sure how else to emulate "recognizing" someone as you would in real life. It's one of those things that's really hard to do without a HUD, because it relies on things that exist in reality but can't be recreated in the game (i.e., an infinitely wide variety of facial features and subtle bone structure differences that make actual human facial recognition possible).

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Weekly bump.

[razgriz93@gmail.com 228]

What aabout, instead of bobbing lights, a message like "I know this guy... He's _____"?

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

What aabout, instead of bobbing lights, a message like "I know this guy... He's _____"?

 

It's a thought. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of the "internal dialog" approach. Reading my own thoughts just does not feel right to me. I don't think it works very well at all for the hunger/thirst system, and I would not support it for other features. I know rocket is not a big fan of HUD, but in truth on-screen text is HUD. I think a subtle, well-designed on screen HUD element is superior to scrolling text when it comes to keeping me immersed in the experience. Stopping to read a full sentence pulls me out far more than a small icon does.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Here is an (obviously very crude) example of what this might look like in the game. I used the "climb ladder" triangle because I am not an artist. I'm sure the team could do better. 

 

I imagine the icons would appear briefly, for 3000ms or so, and then fade away. They could be "called" back with a key, similar to how the item hot-bar works now. They would also re-appear if you looked away for a time, and then looked back at the player.

 

The colors represent the categories to which the player has assigned each player. No text information would appear, so you would just have to remember what each color represents.

 

Notice the players with masks are unrecognizable.

 

 

 

 

 

• Credit to user meccmax at reddit for the screenshot from this thread. Thanks stranger!

Edited January 12, 2014 by ZedsDeadBaby

[Baarn 53]

I like the basic idea, but it might give away the location of hidden players. It happens a lot that I simply run past my friends hiding in bushes and other players ran past me only a few meters away (the specific moment I think about right now I didn't even really try to hide). So I am opposed to automatically showing an icon above the player.

 

I'd prefer an icon that only shows if you have a player directly under your "crosshair point" and _then_ press a button. (Still within a certain range threshold, so you can't exploit it to spot people) It might still be exploited in the night, if you are just hiding in a bush to evade combat, another player can scan all the bushes looking for you...

Any ideas how to solve this problem?

Edited January 13, 2014 by Baarn

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Any ideas how to solve this problem?

 

I think the game already includes the concept of "line of sight." i.e., if someone is close enough to you to be seen, but is otherwise obstructred by foliage, trees, walls or other objects then they're not actually visible. So the facial recognition system would simply have to respect this.

 

I think they use this to decide whether zombies can see you for instance.

 

So, hopefully it's as simple as that.

 

Obviously we would want to avoid any and all instances where a hidden player is "seen" by this system.

[Dr. Goner 661]

I would prefer if it were done with bandages, scars, tattoos, and other identifying factors besides an over head icon. But I definitely agree that you should be able to remember people due to individual "looks". They should be able to go into hiding as well though. For instance, if I totally change my appearance you may not recognize me immediately in real life. But then you see that tell-tale scar over my eye and shoot me in the face. 

 

I really want my character to show the signs of his battles. Every bandaged wound should be visible in one way or another. Plus growing beards and shaving would be cool, some would choose to grow a big beard other would stay clean. I don't know how realistic that is. 

Edited January 13, 2014 by DrGonzo

[KBOT5000 1]

I really like the idea of remembering people, but what i really hope to see in terms of identification would be a wallet that each person spawns with that has their information in it. So now when someone gets gunned down in Cherno looking through the supermarket, their team and other players will be able to find out who this corpse once was. It would be cool if the wallet took up 1 space in the inventory but could also hold items like paper, or even notes?

[gangrenetvp 74]

They have this on certain mods... I like this variation

This would be good for a role playing server. I would like it if I put my "crosshair" on them and pressed a keyboard button, if they were close enough to see... It could go yellow for unknown / no set to a color, red for danger, green for friend, or blue for if your "unsure" of them... after 1-2 seconds the crosshair goes back to gray.

You don't need it persistent. Stand alone has much more variation in character appearance and you can tell players apart most of the time except when they change clothes.

Any player can be marked when close enough, even if you don't know them.

 

I think that if your character dies you should have to set them back up again though.

[mike miller 14]

there have a bean :beans:

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Weekly Friday bump (17 JAN).

[gannon46 788]

wouldn't knowing how trustworthy someone is ruin the tension. you see a guy oh he's got an icon on his head i'll go see what he's doing, rather than the whole track and watch see what they do then act accordingly.would be a good idea if it was implemented where the server host could turn it on or off

[gangrenetvp 74]

Gannon, 

YOU put the icon on them when you are close to them... YOU do have to figure out how to label them.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

wouldn't knowing how trustworthy someone is ruin the tension

 

As Gangrene says above, you're the one in control of assigning the marks and what they mean. So you don't actually "know" anything unless you really know it.

 

You could have a generic category for "saw this guy but have no idea if he's friendly or not," just to keep track of people you have run into; But, until you witness someone doing something evil or interact with them in a positive way, you won't really know which category to assign them.

 

So, the tension should remain right where it's at when encountering new and unknown survivors.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Weekly Friday bump (24 JAN).

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Weekly Friday bump (31 JAN).

[Cullis 7]

Would make sense if it faded out after a few seconds, yeah.

 

It does seem odd, but I'm  not sure how else to emulate "recognizing" someone as you would in real life. It's one of those things that's really hard to do without a HUD, because it relies on things that exist in reality but can't be recreated in the game (i.e., an infinitely wide variety of facial features and subtle bone structure differences that make actual human facial recognition possible).

I guess you've never played Fallout 3 or any other game that has facial geometry and so on?

Pretty good ones - amazingly though, the game devs couldn't use them properly..  :lol: 

 

Edited January 31, 2014 by Cullis

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

I guess you've never played Fallout 3 or any other game that has facial geometry and so on?

 

It's a fair question. I have played Fallout 3 (and every other game Bethesda has ever created).

 

Consider that in Fallout, Skyrim, Mass Effect and other similar games, there's a really good reason the camera zooms in to a distance of about two meters when you're in conversations. It's at this distance that the facial geometry looks distinct and amazing. Move to a distance of 10, 25 or 50m or more and the distinctiveness quickly fades away. As you move away, the LOD is dynamically reduced to allow for efficient rendering (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_detail).

 

Of course I would love it if the developers could pull off facial technology which permits successful recognition at authentically human distances. I would never claim that my proposal is superior to a system of actual human visual recognition.

 

What I do believe strongly is that my proposal is feasible and reasonable given the team's assets and timeline. My idea would take a few weeks to implement, while a complete rework of the character customization system, facial geometry options, character rendering code, etc. would take at least several months to pull off (and might still end up not really doing the job).

 

Consider also that my system has the added benefit of encouraging long-term survival. The longer you live, the more people you recognize. I think it's a really important aspect to my proposal.

 

If DayZ is "about" anything, it's survival, but it seems like the team is struggling to come up with ways to make people care. Right now there's really only two reasons to stay alive: 1) keep your position on the map and 2) keep your "stuff." I think we need to look really hard for ways to expand this list if we want players to value their lives rather than just the latest cool gun they found.

[burkino_026@yahoo.com 14]

i like this idea. I would vote for it. But only, as said, if it only works when pressing a button, while aiming your crosshair to someone's face (not the body. Makes close range a requirement, or proper zooming eg scope/binoculars) to "remember" someone. Recognizing someone should happen automatically, when looking close at their face (maybe tied to a zoom level of the face area, or some other code, i dont know). Icon over the head, with quick fade-away. This because it would then be useful when strolling around with friends. Many times i am clearing buildings with friends and a random guy walks in, i dont recognize him straight away, even with the face uncovered, and suddenly he opens fire. In reality, you'd be able to notice that face is not your friend's straight away, but scarcity of character customization makes it difficult in the game. Having your friends green icon appear briefly when you see his face up close would give piece of mind and would IMO feel more logical and legitimate.

 

Im not mentioning "better character customization" as the best solution because it's actually not, in my opinion. It would bring a whole new world of metagaming to the table. You'd be able to recognize a season character from a youtube series, or from a random screenshot, or other media. Mind you, could also be thought of as a form of ingame press and gossip, but unlikely to feel legit in a zombie apocalypse, where, usually, society just ends entirely.

[cj14 189]

I like this idea, but I would like an option to have memory permanent on certain server.

maybe a global friend system, otherwise you'll need to go remember your friend's character everytime both join a server and your memory about other characters should be persistent if you change servers, you could check if they are online or not on that specific server. It could use the Steam friend list for that