Solving Both End-Game/Meta-Game and KoS Problems At Once

[Plan_B 82]

I like this post, thank you for writing this. How do we get sure someone from the staff take notice of this?


I am an old time MMO player, I played Ultima Online for YEARS. ( I did play a bit last year! ) 

 

Taking territory? Fortify player made base? Complex way to interact with buidlings, vehicules, weapons? Hell yeah. Let's have some rare spawn on server, random places, that you have to actually work hard to get so you can upgrade that Jeep/Bunker/Zebra with lasers of yours.

 

People don't like where you have build your shit? Give them the chance to grab axes/torches/old running shoe and gather to destroy it. You don't want people hitting your stuff with old shoe? Kill them! Defend the place! Or build somewhere else.

 

You have enough man power to build a tower of Doom in the center of Elektro? DO IT!  Want to KOS everyone that comes 500m near the city line? DO IT! People will adjust in such a world. If they want to survive.

 

I really love where this idea can get, but is it possible? I guess you would need huge server or something. (Not a computer programmer here.)

[defk0n_nl 3]

I really love where this idea can get, but is it possible? I guess you would need huge server or something. (Not a computer programmer here.)

 

 

 not as it stands now, public hive with servers clusters and persistent buildings will never be sustainable unless you have some sort of subscription or f2p loot shop model.

It needs private hive only with 150+ players each and ability to have persistent buildings.

Edited January 8, 2014 by defk0n_NL

[wgaf 251]

"KOS" is the heart and soul of dayz. 

[Foulplay 9]

Can any one TLDR this? It's way too long to read.

[Pendulum Effect 15]

I like this post, thank you for writing this. How do we get sure someone from the staff take notice of this?

I am an old time MMO player, I played Ultima Online for YEARS. ( I did play a bit last year! ) 

 

Taking territory? Fortify player made base? Complex way to interact with buidlings, vehicules, weapons? Hell yeah. Let's have some rare spawn on server, random places, that you have to actually work hard to get so you can upgrade that Jeep/Bunker/Zebra with lasers of yours.

 

People don't like where you have build your shit? Give them the chance to grab axes/torches/old running shoe and gather to destroy it. You don't want people hitting your stuff with old shoe? Kill them! Defend the place! Or build somewhere else.

 

You have enough man power to build a tower of Doom in the center of Elektro? DO IT!  Want to KOS everyone that comes 500m near the city line? DO IT! People will adjust in such a world. If they want to survive.

 

I really love where this idea can get, but is it possible? I guess you would need huge server or something. (Not a computer programmer here.)

Exactly. You don't need to limit the way the game is played. You can add interesting areas without being too gimmicky, and still satisfying the core mantra of DayZ. It's still a survivors story, it's just adding a more interesting and fleshed out world to inhabit.

"KOS" is the heart and soul of dayz.

You didn't read. Good for you.

Can any one TLDR this? It's way too long to read.

I will when I'm not on my cell phone.

[Richard Brooke 1]

If you're going to ask for a TL;DR, just know that you're not going to get the same impact as the well thought out, excellently presented ideas as they were intended. You should read everything. It's fantastic.

[Pendulum Effect 15]

If you're going to ask for a TL;DR, just know that you're not going to get the same impact as the well thought out, excellently presented ideas as they were intended. You should read everything. It's fantastic.

 

Yeah, that's why I was worried about putting a TDLR up there.. Oh well. Hope it's compelling enough to warrant a full read through.

[wgaf 251]

The only problem with "kos" right now, literally the only problem, is moaning by the whiners. 

 

This is why it is so vitally important to KOS at every opportunity in the game. Anyone you kill in the game could be one of these whiners, and we have a duty to punish them for their wrongdoing. 

 

DayZ is meant to be self policing. Our community should be self policing. We shouldnt pass the buck, we should take responsibility and do our duty. 

Edited January 8, 2014 by HCHellCaptain

[Pendulum Effect 15]

The only problem with "kos" right now, literally the only problem, is moaning by the whiners. 

 

This is why it is so vitally important to KOS at every opportunity in the game. Anyone you kill in the game could be one of these whiners, and we have a duty to punish them for their wrongdoing. 

 

DayZ is meant to be self policing. Our community should be self policing. We shouldnt pass the buck, we should take responsibility and do our duty. 

 

Literally.. it's like.. people are stupid.. I really don't have words.

 

I just said KoS isn't the fucking problem. I kill on sight every time. I expect to be killed on sight. I LOVE KILL ON SIGHT. 

 

Jesus, I'm giving reasons to make it not the only part of the game. You're stupid, you add nothing to this conversation, you didn't read. Good day.

[ratiasu@hotmail.co.jp 122]

Killing has no correlation with being a mil-sim. It seems like you tend to overuse this word he second a lot of shooting or guns get mentioned.

There already is incentive to group up. A lot of the better organized KOS'ers do it. Those complaining about not being able to roleplay and not finding a group seem to forget this is still a game on PC, and that a clan or similar group + TS is the way to go. They want to reliably be able to get a group whenever they jump servers, which is just plain unrealistic.

 

Bandits are simply better organized and are usually better at shooters.

[Plan_B 82]

Why EVERY post is about people arguing about KOS?

 

 

I get it, you KOS. 

People who are shot whine.

 

ENOUGH. Tired of this. Can you people just read the IDEAS in this post? If KOS is no longer part of the game, so am I. I just love to snipe people. Nothing feels more fun to me right now that to lure people with stuff in the middle of the street and make their brain splatter on the pavement. That part is clear?

 

Fine. Now let's talk about ideas to make this game more fun. Because right now, it's full of potential, but so many things are missing to this game I can't think of all the work there is to be done.

[Pendulum Effect 15]

Killing has no correlation with being a mil-sim. It seems like you tend to overuse this word he second a lot of shooting or guns get mentioned.

There already is incentive to group up. A lot of the better organized KOS'ers do it. Those complaining about not being able to roleplay and not finding a group seem to forget this is still a game on PC, and that a clan or similar group + TS is the way to go. They want to reliably be able to get a group whenever they jump servers, which is just plain unrealistic.

 

Bandits are simply better organized and are usually better at shooters.

 

Of course being in a clan is "the way to go" if you want a friendly experience. But like I said, finding one in the forums is immersion breaking and having an incentive to have more friendly encounters IN GAME should be a part of the DayZ. You can not deny that without more end-game content or persistent base building with stashes, etc. that this game literally is a death match with high character customization. I love perma-death, because there's nothing more exhilarating than when you get shot at and your heart stops. You care about your character! What's the point in building your character if you just lose everything once you die? Yes, perma-death is part of the game but besides my body, what am I leaving behind? Nothing. I haven't really changed the world in which I live in. I'm not leaving behind a heavily fortified base, or house, or car behind. No matter if you spend 10 minutes or 1000 hours, the world is going to look the same. Yes, these are going to be fixed down the road, but people playing the game have already started off on the wrong foot. They look at this game as a giant death match. CoD for example offers character customization, but no stake on the world you inhabit. You cannot persistently change the world. Therefore it is a "lets play dress up and murder each other sim." This is literally what DayZ is becoming if they don't add interesting things to the game that provide people outlets to tackle new challenges or reasons to interact. Yes, the whole charm of the game is that you don't know who will shoot you and when. But again, for the MILLIONTH time, KoS should not be the only thing keeping this game alive otherwise it is a post-apocalyptic mil sim. The ideas in my post provide more flavor to the game without straying from Dean's visions and giving more avenues for the dev team to explore by varying the loot tables found at each of my locations.  

 

 

Why EVERY post is about people arguing about KOS?

 

 

I get it, you KOS. 

People who are shot whine.

 

ENOUGH. Tired of this. Can you people just read the IDEAS in this post? If KOS is no longer part of the game, so am I. I just love to snipe people. Nothing feels more fun to me right now that to lure people with stuff in the middle of the street and make their brain splatter on the pavement. That part is clear?

 

Fine. Now let's talk about ideas to make this game more fun. Because right now, it's full of potential, but so many things are missing to this game I can't think of all the work there is to be done.

 

 

Yeah, people are idiots. I updated the TD;LR to show that even Rocket wants to change how banditry works by adding realistic challenges to circumvent KoS. It's not a matter of my opinion, it's Rocket's opinion that KoS should make people think more than it currently does. That's why he has items being damage on the character when they're shot. He wants more ideas to make robbery or tentative cooperation to be a part of the game more than it is. Uneasy alliances are just as scary as the possibility of behind KoS'd. 

 

Thanks for your support, it's been getting annoying with people either not reading or just saying I'm a crybaby for not liking KoS. Where are they getting the idea that I don't like KoS?! Jeez.. haha.

Edited January 8, 2014 by Pendulum Effect

[yessaul robinovich 42]

I just want to quickly make a note on Pendulum Effect's points: part of the reason why your suggestion regarding the island is unnecessary is because that is what regular towns in dayz will look like once the current problems are dealt with. part of the 'current problems' is dean's desire to provide enough hosting for people playing the game after having purchased it through steam early access. Because of the way SA handles entities vs. the way the mod did, the hardware requirements on the part of the would-be server administrators would narrow the number of available servers dramatically and likely create a situation where some people are unable to find a place to play, which probably wouldn't help the testing process. 

 

most of the 'problems' with the current state of things are not conscious design errors or omissions - they are merely placeholders reflecting the current, early phase in the game's ongoing development. 

 

also, as many people including Pendulum Effect himself have pointed out, the KOS mentality is not a problem per se. you have to look into the reason people kill on sight and notice the amount of granularity there. Fresh spawns are very aggressive because they have nothing to lose. Geared players are aggressive as a means of pre-emptive defense - they have everything to lose. Then there are players who are playing call of duty in dayz, which is a problem fostered by 'main hive' architecture. play private hive and you immediately run into the following things:

 

1) reputation through causality. act like a dick, eventually you will be recognised as a dick. sure, your name does not display, but you'll be more readily recognised through your actions by people you repeatedly encounter. They'll figure out who you are eventually and your life(s) will be made considerably difficult. no 'humanity' system or any kind of design to moralise required.

 

2) resource scarcity/high cost of living - you're spending too much time foraging for food and water to be camping someplace with a mosin. assuming you've actually managed to get a mosin. and an LR scope. in an environment where you've got a private hive with constant 30-50 people population vying for the same resources. Your time gearing up is considerably increased and far less safe. By the time you've managed to acquire the tools conferring upon you a significant advantage in PVP at range, you've likely spent a lot of time and effort, are paranoid of engagements (potentially against multiple opponents, potentially against fresh-ish spawns who are fearless..) and likely have limited ammunition without constantly exposing yourself to situations that are tactically not advantageous for you in order to forage for more.

 

3) increased zombie population we're guaranteed to see in the near future is bound to make larger population centers a bad place for engagements involving many combatants or high noise levels. its not that fighting zombies in some silly RP way and discharging ammo into them is somehow the point of the game. no one could argue for that - ammo is something you save for real emergencies where its use is unavoidable. which usually means against other people or unplanned situations. what this means in practice is that being in a city is an exercise at your ninja skills and melee take-downs. which, if you're not a complete moron, is already the way to play this game. 

 

I want to make another small note on the significance of zombies, the infected, uppvakningur, whatever you want to call them. the walking dead are 'the other' - a way of dehumanising other people in situations where humanistic social base instilled into all of us living in the first world needs to be suspended in favour of basic survival and self-preservation. zombies are a device ultimately serving the act of quickly taking human lives without ethical qualms. in that sense, there exists only marginal difference between zombies and other people, in that other people may benefit you in their death not only though cessation of any threat they could pose to your own survival, but also in the tools of survival you may obtain from their still-warm bodies.

 

the only real reasoning to keep from killing people is if you are unable, feel that engagement is too great of a risk or feel that they have some skill/ability that you do not posses yourself. ultimately these will remain the only reasons for people to cooperate in re-establishing these bare threads of society. everything else is clumsy gamification striving to simplify some thorny philosophical themes for the 360 noscope yolo crew.

Edited January 8, 2014 by yessaul robinovich

[sigvatr 154]

<nip>

 

OrLoK says: Cummon, man you can do better.

Edited January 8, 2014 by orlok

[yessaul robinovich 42]

to the above poster:  do you even read, bro?

Edited January 8, 2014 by yessaul robinovich

[Pendulum Effect 15]

I just want to quickly make a note on Pendulum Effect's points: part of the reason why your suggestion regarding the island is unnecessary is because that is what regular towns in dayz will look like once the current problems are dealt with. part of the 'current problems' is dean's desire to provide enough hosting for people playing the game after having purchased it through steam early access. Because of the way SA handles entities vs. the way the mod did, the hardware requirements on the part of the would-be server administrators would narrow the number of available servers dramatically and likely create a situation where some people are unable to find a place to play, which probably wouldn't help the testing process. 

 

most of the 'problems' with the current state of things are not conscious design errors or omissions - they are merely placeholders reflecting the current, early phase in the game's ongoing development. 

 

also, as many people including Pendulum Effect himself have pointed out, the KOS mentality is not a problem per se. you have to look into the reason people kill on sight and notice the amount of granularity there. Fresh spawns are very aggressive because they have nothing to lose. Geared players are aggressive as a means of pre-emptive defense - they have everything to lose. Then there are players who are playing call of duty in dayz, which is a problem fostered by 'main hive' architecture. play private hive and you immediately run into the following things:

 

1) reputation through causality. act like a dick, eventually you will be recognised as a dick. sure, your name does not display, but you'll be more readily recognised through your actions by people you repeatedly encounter. They'll figure out who you are eventually and your life(s) will be made considerably difficult. no 'humanity' system or any kind of design to moralise required.

 

2) resource scarcity/high cost of living - you're spending too much time foraging for food and water to be camping someplace with a mosin. assuming you've actually managed to get a mosin. and an LR scope. in an environment where you've got a private hive with constant 30-50 people population vying for the same resources. Your time gearing up is considerably increased and far less safe. By the time you've managed to acquire the tools conferring upon you a significant advantage in PVP at range, you've likely spent a lot of time and effort, are paranoid of engagements (potentially against multiple opponents, potentially against fresh-ish spawns who are fearless..) and likely have limited ammunition without constantly exposing yourself to situations that are tactically not advantageous for you in order to forage for more.

 

3) increased zombie population we're guaranteed to see in the near future is bound to make larger population centers a bad place for engagements involving many combatants or high noise levels. its not that fighting zombies in some silly RP way and discharging ammo into them is somehow the point of the game. no one could argue for that - ammo is something you save for real emergencies where its use is unavoidable. which usually means against other people or unplanned situations. what this means in practice is that being in a city is an exercise at your ninja skills and melee take-downs. which, if you're not a complete moron, is already the way to play this game. 

 

I want to make another small note on the significance of zombies, the infected, uppvakningur, whatever you want to call them. the walking dead are 'the other' - a way of dehumanising other people in situations where humanistic social base instilled into all of us living in the first world needs to be suspended in favour of basic survival and self-preservation. zombies are a device ultimately serving the act of quickly taking human lives without ethical qualms. in that sense, there exists only marginal difference between zombies and other people, in that other people may benefit you in their death not only though cessation of any threat they could pose to your own survival, but also in the tools of survival you may obtain from their still-warm bodies.

 

the only real reasoning to keep from killing people is if you are unable, feel that engagement is too great of a risk or feel that they have some skill/ability that you do not posses yourself. ultimately these will remain the only reasons for people to cooperate in re-establishing these bare threads of society. everything else is clumsy gamification striving to simplify some heavy philosophical themes for the 360 noscope yolo crew.

 

The only reason why I suggest the island being a thing, is because I don't think they are technically going to be able to sustain the number of zombies that I'm suggesting at the island across multiple towns. Dean says the goal is 10000 per sever due to the use of a network bubble, but I can only imagine the server load being quite high. If a town carries 100 zombies, a city has 1000, then i'm thinking that this island (the size of cherno or elektro in overall area) would have 5000. Yes, this is an over generalization of what I'm thinking of and obviously there are serious gameplay, latency and overall bad design implications, but I don't think we should be limited on the variations of locales we can see. Dean can, and has, take ideas from other mods of DayZ. This island would only be added after the serious and more pressing concerns are evaluated and solved. Realistically speaking, it could be added within the next two years as a form of "expansion" or "rolling end game content." I'm all for making more zombies in existing towns, solving other problems and bugs first. The points you bring up are extremely valid and I agree that they should be addressed first. But the devs need to realize that every once in awhile there's a need for them to "steer" the economy or social climate at certain way, to make things balanced. What if people stockpile shit loads of food, but the server keeps spawning more? People live longer, they no longer have to scavenge as hard for food. There's no current system that suggests time has passed (other than day or night) like the seasons. Why is food always available? To my knowledge, they said seasons are impossible with their current engine. To simulate the progress of time, they could introduce other areas with higher challenges and greater risk to even out that economy. Just a hasty thought, I can clarify more when I'm not on my phone.

 

 

to the above poster:  do you even read, bro?

 

No, he doesn't. He's a career troll on these forums. He should be banned by the admin, as I don't think he's made one constructive post during his tenure here.

[karbiner 29]

Sigvatr only posts visual reminders of what the average anti-kos noob looks like. Oh and you can see in my sig how many people this thread has killed, way to go MURDERERS. The only potential this game has is the potential to be ruined if Dean ever listens to you "friendly" lot. Its just a FACT that the friendly bambi's are of lower skill and yet they whine the loudest.

Edited January 8, 2014 by KarbineR

[yessaul robinovich 42]

 

 

 

if we are going to start moving forward and looking at the long-term prospects of the game, i don't think that the current limitations will persist in perpetuity. by this i mean some way of implementing dynamic seasons and temperatures that cycle similar to the day/night change or weather patterns. these could eventually be reflected on the landscape by making several alternate versions of the map (along with player-made changes to it) and cycling them in at appropriate times. i also do not think that the game needs 'respawns' - this is something that an individual administrator of a private hive will likely be able to determine for the purposes of gameplay they want to foster. My own take is that you dramatically increase availability of everything in the initial spawn and never respawn anything again. You will indeed begin with a glut, people will indeed stockpile canned goods where they find them.. 

 

what does need to respawn are animals to hunt, fish and  plants to pick and perhaps eventually cultivate and harvest. as a survival simulator, dayz focuses on the period immediately following a great upheaval, but gets kind of unglued the further on you continue from there. which is to say that people adapt to a new set of conditions and find ways to endure. long-term prospects of running around and scavenging are limited because there is kind of no game after that besides human-hunting out of boredom. but i don't think 'raids' against zombies are a worthwhile idea, because zombies are something to avoid instead of engaging if you can help it. in order for there to be some purpose to your island idea, it would have to come with some kind of a powerful reason to be there. and if you introduce one, it just boils down to power creep/scripted stuff less about social interaction/ad-hoc stories and more about getting people to play out a story you've written. which is more of a theme park approach. what you're suggesting is a zombie theme park in a game already full of zombies. it does not appear to work for me from the idea's inception.

 

regarding zombie respawn, i think a more nuanced mechanic is needed than zombies simply appearing out of thin air in a region they have been cleared from. best solution i can think of, in addition to default spawn locations we already have, are points on the map that continuously generate zombies to make up for those eradicated.  zombies disperse from there and proceed to a number of locations. once they reach those locations, they behave as they do now, shambling about towns and attacking. in order to keep areas clear, the occupants would either need to maintain some token perimeter guard to nab one or two zombies heading back to own every now and then, or maintain presence at the hotbed of zombie respawning, eliminating them continuously at the source to keep them from accumulating and re-occupying cleared areas. 

 

and, going back to your original point, there have been ideas tossed around regarding spoilage of foods and premium value of non-perishable provisions in the long term. if the canned goods are looted and consumed in the very beginning, this leaves the players with very little to deal with issues of nutrition on the go. one stop-gap measure proposed by someone and acknowledged by dean was picking apples and pears from the orchards, as well as other vegetables reasonably assumed to have been planted by people in the yard plots next to their houses (consistent with rural eastern europe) and now growing wild. I'd just like to see more scarcity of everything combined with ability to break down things into some type of raw and specific components, then to combine them in multi-step recipes. 

 

what troubles me is that 'skill in survival' as recognised by a lot of the dayz community is pretty much code word for 'accuracy with firearm at long range'

Edited January 9, 2014 by yessaul robinovich

[yessaul robinovich 42]

innocent noobs / way to go MURDERERS.

 

false dichotomy. i don't know which game you're playing.

Edited January 8, 2014 by yessaul robinovich

[Jaybopper 49]

I.... I think I love you...

[karbiner 29]

I play Dayz, unlike you.

[JPWiser 251]

Jesus give the game some time.  Alot of your suggestions are being looked at however theres alot more to worry about at the moment then what your talking about.

 

AI and NPC should never be in this game ever.

 

But this kind of discussion in my opinion is for a LONG time down the road. \

 

Of course there is nothing to do but kos... the games been out in pre alpha for like 3 weeks.  Theres currently 2 rifles and 2 pistols in the game, lol.

 

Once all the items, vehicles, and stash sites are implemented, and zombies are added in fully and tweaked to work properly, while all the FPS is maintained after adding all that, then maybe its worth even exploring a "zombie island".

 

How about we get the existing game up to its potential first.

[gottyplays 5]

Pendulum, i support your ideas, but i think it's already too late, it's likely that dean has already figured ways to enhance the game, or if the pattern with arma 3 alpha repeats with dayz, by the next year we would have more guns, more vehicles and some bugfixing, period.
take in consideration that we are already in aplha stage, the basic gameplay mechanics are usually already decided
sorry for my bad articulation, not native english and just came home from work xD

[yessaul robinovich 42]

I play Dayz, unlike you.

 

..mate, is this seriously the best you can manage? back! back to the fiery pits with you.

[karbiner 29]

I manage to stay alive, unlike you.