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

[colinm9991 196]

Supply drops? I'll ask again in this thread like the last. Who drops them? why aren't they evacuating people or intercepting?.

 

If the answer to the above is "They don't want to extract people from a highly infected land", then the answer is fire-bombing to kill and eliminate the infection. Why would they leave us all alive because it's not 'nice' to kill us all or firebomb?.

 

No, they'd firebomb the country the destroy the infection and take the risk of expanding that infection out.

 

So no, supply drops make ABSOLUTELY ZERO sense.

[Pendulum Effect 15]

Supply drops? I'll ask again in this thread like the last. Who drops them? why aren't they evacuating people or intercepting?.

 

If the answer to the above is "They don't want to extract people from a highly infected land", then the answer is fire-bombing to kill and eliminate the infection. Why would they leave us all alive because it's not 'nice' to kill us all or firebomb?.

 

No, they'd firebomb the country the destroy the infection and take the risk of expanding that infection out.

 

So no, supply drops make ABSOLUTELY ZERO sense.

 

While they aren't evacuating people or trying to send teams of researchers to the country, they could be sending supplies for several reasons. This could be the ground zero of zombie infections, it was contained to the mainland, but at a cost. There are clearly survivors and since survivors are immune to zombification, the plague will not spread or create more zombies. Also, there is a zombie life cycle as proposed by Dean. Therefore, it presents a unique opportunity. Instead of risking more personnel, their decision is to supply the survivors with the means to defend themselves and "thin the zombies numbers." Speaking as a researcher, firebombing the area would result in the loss of data and specimens for which to garner information. Direct contact with anyone in the country would be prohibited and rescue could mean that the dormant contagion could travel with a survivor, but assistance could be provided to ensure that some day the land could be retaken and research could commence. Highly logical, in this case.

 

So yes, supply drops can make ABSOLUTE sense

[SixGunLover 54]

If dean and his staff are really looking for a way to create a better balance in game (between kos and player interaction), any idea is a valid one since it can be reworked and tuned. Keep up the good work.

[Plan_B 82]

Maybe the drop could not only be military? Why not food, water and meds? Even maybe radio, warm clothes, tents... things actual survivors would need.

After all, why do you want to give civilians high end military stuff when they can kill zombies just fine with a wood axe? First thing you know, they start to shoot at each other on sight.

 

Stoopid ppl.

 

I do think there should have something involving Military/Survivor. Something like a faction war. Military have to defend certain key area, while they have the best stuff, they are also highly hearchical and have to follow order. Maybe they would have to control certain zone with checkpoint where you have your blood tested for infection or name of bandits...

Why not applying martial laws in some case?

 

On the other end, survivor could rebel against the military to try to steal that so much important loot, food, water... or cooperate with them. Maybe they could try to get a special kind of meds that cure your blood infection.

 

Imagine a military convoy escorting supply for a highly defended restricted zone. What would the survivor do? Help the military to obtain a reward? Try to work together to attack the convoy? Read a book in the wood?

 

 

I think the game could be interesting. But I think this should be more of a mod. Because who knows? The military are maybe all dead after all.

[Bakercompany86 347]

Even though Rocket said they won't happen, supply drops do make sense.  America does it for areas that are hit by disaster.  I don't think this would be any different.  As long as some benevolent country caught word that there are survivors in the area, they may try to drop supplies and food into the area as a humanitarian effort.

 

 

So it makes sense I think, but it's not going to happen regardless.

[Crakka 44]

I will KoS no matter what. babybackbitch

[Pendulum Effect 15]

Maybe the drop could not only be military? Why not food, water and meds? Even maybe radio, warm clothes, tents... things actual survivors would need.

After all, why do you want to give civilians high end military stuff when they can kill zombies just fine with a wood axe? First thing you know, they start to shoot at each other on sight.

 

Stoopid ppl.

 

I do think there should have something involving Military/Survivor. Something like a faction war. Military have to defend certain key area, while they have the best stuff, they are also highly hearchical and have to follow order. Maybe they would have to control certain zone with checkpoint where you have your blood tested for infection or name of bandits...

Why not applying martial laws in some case?

 

On the other end, survivor could rebel against the military to try to steal that so much important loot, food, water... or cooperate with them. Maybe they could try to get a special kind of meds that cure your blood infection.

 

Imagine a military convoy escorting supply for a highly defended restricted zone. What would the survivor do? Help the military to obtain a reward? Try to work together to attack the convoy? Read a book in the wood?

 

 

I think the game could be interesting. But I think this should be more of a mod. Because who knows? The military are maybe all dead after all.

 

No NPCs. Does not fit DayZ's mantra. It's interesting in Wasteland, but it's not for DayZ.

 

 

I will KoS no matter what. babybackbitch

 

Good for you. 

[Plan_B 82]

I wasn't talking about NPC, but actual real player playing either side.

[AshleyP 121]

I broadly agree with your third, fourth and seventh points. However I believe point nine is unworkable.

 

You're right about the zombies though.

[Pendulum Effect 15]

I wasn't talking about NPC, but actual real player playing either side.

 

I suppose a faction of players could decide to take up the role of military, but that's left up to the players. You could do that now, technically, if you wanted.

 

I broadly agree with your third, fourth and seventh points. However I believe point nine is unworkable.

 

You're right about the zombies though.

 

You'd have to remind me what you're referring to when you say point 9. 

 

Also, do you have an ideas to expand on? You said you broadly agree with third, fourth and seventh. I'm curious if you have any input.

[yessaul robinovich 42]

What Dean wants is something that makes people really think on whether or not they should kill a person or not. He wants the risk vs reward of being friendly or a bandit to be more evenly balanced. KoS is, and always should be, a part of the game. There should just be more thought behind the taking of life. What better way than to give highly geared people a productive outlet to channel their boredom and gear? Banditry is still an option, but it's not the only option this way.

 

 

 

We are going to talk for a moment about endgame, and how this ties into people's approach to playing the game. There are several separate problems at work. Some are easy to remedy. Some are not really problems at all - merely consequence to a very flawed and temporary 'main hive' system that will resolve themselves as private hive mechanics are implemented.But the endgame itself, that seems like something dean has given a great deal of thought to. What happens after your immediate concerns about survival have been at least temporarily remedied. What is the actual game about? It was very comforting to hear that dean has been in touch with the folks over at CCP, because they are probably the only developer with a live, top-tier MMO that have to grapple with this concern in the post-Ultima Online period.

 

A short while ago I found a post - either here or on dayz reddit, that consisted of an in-game screenshot modified by a player in photoshop. the additions to a scene of typical buildings you'd find in a larger town were boarded-up windows, up-armoured store-fronts, barricades and spray-painted warnings to wound-be bandits indicating a number of survivors having taken up residence there. The author of this doodle asked why the environment seems so pristine despite the level of upheaval that has taken place there.

 

Raph Koster, perhaps better remembered as Ultima Online's Designer Dragon, struggled with similar issues of endgame as far back as that game's beta, back in 1997. And it was during that time that he nailed a very solid line of reasoning. To make your players have a stake in the world you're attempting to build is literally just that, giving them a stake to put down in it. Some sense of physical ownership of some part of that world to call their own. I think, and it seems to be something that dean has conveyed between a too-great number of posts and interviews and anything in between, that the emphasis of this game is you, the survivor, and the interaction you are capable of with others in an environment where the threads of society have been severed. Attempting to rebuild them in various ways that work (or do not) is a pretty compelling thing for a game to tackle. Even in its infancy, as a mod, dayz is one of the few games that has successfully managed that.

 

Imagine the kind of ability to modify vehicles you see in origins translate into pretty much every part of the environment where it makes sense, and have all of that be persistent with each individual server. Let the player leave their mark on the environment as much as they can on the lives of other survivors. The two can be and often are inextricable. Create ways for players to claim parts of that environment for themselves proportionate to the amount of effort they are willing to invest into the process and the upkeep. These sorts of things foster teamwork both in terms of playing as an organised group and forming ad-hoc relationships out of pressing need as opposed to some rigid constraints. don't design to moralise.

 

These are still sort-of artificial goals. For example, a lot of people in the mod would band together to fix the helicopter as some end-game content. But what was the actual purpose of having the helicopter besides flying around and being able to spot abandoned vehicles from up high? You can get a lot of emergent content from having players organise into these sort of semi-permanent encampments, in part because other players will organise to take them over. This is where we could get into a lengthy conversation on balancing the economy, sinks and faucets, resource scarcity and other reasons for people to fight over besides skillbro 360 noscope pissing contests and/or ~ ~ top lel keke ~.

 

the other problem you're pointing out is much easier to tackle.

 

current public hive situation allows for gearing up that is easy and painless - plenty of low population servers to cycle through in a location where you know things to spawn. whether those locations are close or further inland kind of isn't the point. if you can get in there and cycle through the servers, you've assured yourself a military weapon and plenty of ammo. there are hardly any zombies, so having firefights in a z-heavy environment isn't likely to attract significant enough attention to keep someone from using something very loud like a mosin in that setting. mosin is great for those accurate head-shots that bring players down in one hit while saving the loot, but it isn't the most effective thing against zombies. 

 

all of these issues are largely resolved with private hive, disabling the ability to hop for gear, ghost in fights, etc.. another thing to consider is just how much food and water someone currently requires to merely get 'healthy' - its something around 10 cans, depending on what they are cans of. sometimes more. and a comparable amount of water. though i imagine that multi-step preparation cooked meals will fill one up much more efficiently than canned produce we have today, there is a fairly high 'cost of living' with these bare necessities. as for covering your ass in case of infection, broken limbs, shock/pain..etc.. well, that's an even greater amount of stuff that you must haul around. i am guessing that once some kind of weight carrying/stamina system is implemented, there will be a tighter balancing act between ability to move and camouflage/conceal yourself and ability to carry everything you may possibly need to survive.

 

there are many variables that currently appear to be placeholders - loot composition tables, weapon performance and dispersion. but also just the low amount of variety in weapons and equipment. these are temporary problems affecting the current balance of things which will be remedied as more things make their way into the game and diversify the amount of meaningful options a player is given. the process of gearing up should be thereby considerably extended, serving as fertile ground for the kind of stories and situations that make this game worth playing. i think that is actually dean's intention to provide the greatest amount of meaningful options to the participants in playing out these sort of survival adventures instead of creating rigid systems governing player interaction.

 

I think that sort of sums it up. 

 

tl;dr: the future of dayz* is territorial ownership and systems to support it. take over buildings, armour them up, have a whole economy around sourcing scrap and scraps, tools to do metal and woodwork, multi-step crafting recopies. other problems with KOS currently affecting the game are merely product of 'main hive' architecture and the game will never play right with that. if you want vanilla dayz experience as intended, play private hive in FPS. or make your own hive and play it however you want. If you've got a full server of folks wanting to play it your way, does it really matter how the others do it? well, maybe it sort of does for the game's popular perception. but not beyond that. But private hive is the only way you can balance resource scarcity. Otherwise some guy will just log in and out of the same building on 10, 100, 1000 servers with low pop until he's got everything he could possibly want/need. and then its COD time.

 

* - the future also likely involves fewer, more robust and dedicated servers with larger number of players and entities, with (quite possibly?) a few official hives/servers operated by bohemia itself. given enough time and enough flexibility, no two servers that have operated for a significant length of time would have the game world looking the same way.

Edited January 7, 2014 by yessaul robinovich

[mistersicilia 4]

What makes DayZ a lot more fun is that player interaction is completely unpredictable, you don't know what will happen if you meet someone. You could get robbed, killed or even make a friend.. The uncertainty of it adds to the game. It'd be boring if people were labelled clearly as a bandit or hero.

[Pendulum Effect 15]

 

 

 

We are going to talk for a moment about endgame, and how this ties into people's approach to playing the game. There are several separate problems at work. Some are easy to remedy. Some are not really problems at all - merely consequence to a very flawed and temporary 'main hive' system that will resolve themselves as private hive mechanics are implemented.But the endgame itself, that seems like something dean has given a great deal of thought to. What happens after your immediate concerns about survival have been at least temporarily remedied. What is the actual game about? It was very comforting to hear that dean has been in touch with the folks over at CCP, because they are probably the only developer with a live, top-tier MMO that have to grapple with this concern in the post-Ultima Online period.

 

A short while ago I found a post - either here or on dayz reddit, that consisted of an in-game screenshot modified by a player in photoshop. the additions to a scene of typical buildings you'd find in a larger town were boarded-up windows, up-armoured store-fronts, barricades and spray-painted warnings to wound-be bandits indicating a number of survivors having taken up residence there. The author of this doodle asked why the environment seems so pristine despite the level of upheaval that has taken place there.

 

Raph Koster, perhaps better remembered as Ultima Online's Designer Dragon, struggled with similar issues of endgame as far back as that game's beta, back in 1997. And it was during that time that he nailed a very solid line of reasoning. To make your players have a stake in the world you're attempting to build is literally just that, giving them a stake to put down in it. Some sense of physical ownership of some part of that world to call their own. I think, and it seems to be something that dean has conveyed between a too-great number of posts and interviews and anything in between, that the emphasis of this game is you, the survivor, and the interaction you are capable of with others in an environment where the threads of society have been severed. Attempting to rebuild them in various ways that work (or do not) is a pretty compelling thing for a game to tackle. Even in its infancy, as a mod, dayz is one of the few games that has successfully managed that.

 

Imagine the kind of ability to modify vehicles you see in origins translate into pretty much every part of the environment where it makes sense, and have all of that be persistent with each individual server. Let the player leave their mark on the environment as much as they can on the lives of other survivors. The two can be and often are inextricable. Create ways for players to claim parts of that environment for themselves proportionate to the amount of effort they are willing to invest into the process and the upkeep. These sorts of things foster teamwork both in terms of playing as an organised group and forming ad-hoc relationships out of pressing need as opposed to some rigid constraints. don't design to moralise.

 

These are still sort-of artificial goals. For example, a lot of people in the mod would band together to fix the helicopter as some end-game content. But what was the actual purpose of having the helicopter besides flying around and being able to spot abandoned vehicles from up high? You can get a lot of emergent content from having players organise into these sort of semi-permanent encampments, in part because other players will organise to take them over. This is where we could get into a lengthy conversation on balancing the economy, sinks and faucets, resource scarcity and other reasons for people to fight over besides skillbro 360 noscope pissing contests and/or ~ ~ top lel keke ~.

 

the other problem you're pointing out is much easier to tackle.

 

current public hive situation allows for gearing up that is easy and painless - plenty of low population servers to cycle through in a location where you know things to spawn. whether those locations are close or further inland kind of isn't the point. if you can get in there and cycle through the servers, you've assured yourself a military weapon and plenty of ammo. there are hardly any zombies, so having firefights in a z-heavy environment isn't likely to attract significant enough attention to keep someone from using something very loud like a mosin in that setting. mosin is great for those accurate head-shots that bring players down in one hit while saving the loot, but it isn't the most effective thing against zombies. 

 

all of these issues are largely resolved with private hive, disabling the ability to hop for gear, ghost in fights, etc.. another thing to consider is just how much food and water someone currently requires to merely get 'healthy' - its something around 10 cans, depending on what they are cans of. sometimes more. and a comparable amount of water. though i imagine that multi-step preparation cooked meals will fill one up much more efficiently than canned produce we have today, there is a fairly high 'cost of living' with these bare necessities. as for covering your ass in case of infection, broken limbs, shock/pain..etc.. well, that's an even greater amount of stuff that you must haul around. i am guessing that once some kind of weight carrying/stamina system is implemented, there will be a tighter balancing act between ability to move and camouflage/conceal yourself and ability to carry everything you may possibly need to survive.

 

there are many variables that currently appear to be placeholders - loot composition tables, weapon performance and dispersion. but also just the low amount of variety in weapons and equipment. these are temporary problems affecting the current balance of things which will be remedied as more things make their way into the game and diversify the amount of meaningful options a player is given. the process of gearing up should be thereby considerably extended, serving as fertile ground for the kind of stories and situations that make this game worth playing. i think that is actually dean's intention to provide the greatest amount of meaningful options to the participants in playing out these sort of survival adventures instead of creating rigid systems governing player interaction.

 

I think that sort of sums it up. 

 

tl;dr: the future of dayz* is territorial ownership and systems to support it. take over buildings, armour them up, have a whole economy around sourcing scrap and scraps, tools to do metal and woodwork, multi-step crafting recopies. other problems with KOS currently affecting the game are merely product of 'main hive' architecture and the game will never play right with that. if you want vanilla dayz experience as intended, play private hive in FPS. or make your own hive and play it however you want. If you've got a full server of folks wanting to play it your way, does it really matter how the others do it? well, maybe it sort of does for the game's popular perception. but not beyond that. But private hive is the only way you can balance resource scarcity. Otherwise some guy will just log in and out of the same building on 10, 100, 1000 servers with low pop until he's got everything he could possibly want/need. and then its COD time.

 

* - the future also likely involves fewer, more robust and dedicated servers with larger number of players and entities, with (quite possibly?) a few official hives/servers operated by bohemia itself. given enough time and enough flexibility, no two servers that have operated for a significant length of time would have the game world looking the same way.

 

 

I agree, 100%. The game should force players to make their mark and have a stake in the server that they inhabit. A lot of cool things can happen with taking over buildings, making fortifications and such. It should be possible to wall of an entire city if you wanted to. No two servers would be exactly the same, but new areas should be added to explore and inhabit. Not all outright, but constant development of the terrain on the development side should be implemented to keep things from bottlenecking. It's happened in the mod, where people only go to a set number of locations and never traverse the map as intended. By adding the proposed island from my post, it could open up new areas of unexplored terrain and at the same time keeping things fresh. A good balance of risk and reward by map flow. New areas could be added every couple of months, kind of like how MMOs add new dungeons and such, just to keep people interested and keep exploration a key part of the game. Without adding new areas, players are likely to build their base, fend it off for awhile and then become bored of the existing map and quit. These additions shouldn't be gimmicky or "dungeons" like a traditional MMO, but just enough to keep the appeal. Of course private hives or some sort of enforcement for server hopping would have to be employed in order for bases to survive and thrive. I'm at a loss at how to fix that, other than making a private hive or binding a character to that particular server. That of course poses problems for people who want to play, but their server is full or down.

 

 

What makes DayZ a lot more fun is that player interaction is completely unpredictable, you don't know what will happen if you meet someone. You could get robbed, killed or even make a friend.. The uncertainty of it adds to the game. It'd be boring if people were labelled clearly as a bandit or hero.

 

I'm not suggesting any deviation from the current formula, just more options. A bandit should never be easily identifiable. 

[Gerandar 212]

Nothing will stop kos, even if they put things in that require team work I am going to kill everyone I see.

[gibonez 3633]

Once again the kos mentality is not a problem.

 

why dont people get this ?

[Pendulum Effect 15]

Once again the kos mentality is not a problem.

 

why dont people get this ?

 

You obviously don't read well, then. I have actively said it's not a "problem" but it's not "balanced" correctly. Dean himself has said he's trying to make people think before pulling the trigger. The game SHOULD ALWAYS have kill on sight. But it SHOULD NOT be the only viable option. Why do you think items are damaged after being shot? Dean's trying to balance it. INTERESTING. Do your research.

 

Besides saying that, I will not indulge your stupidity and your lack of understanding. Read the entire OP before commenting like an idiot.

 

Nothing will stop kos, even if they put things in that require team work I am going to kill everyone I see.

 

Good for you. Do it.

Edited January 7, 2014 by Pendulum Effect

[Crakka 44]

Once again the kos mentality is not a problem.

 

why dont people get this ?

Because those people that dont like KoS want to get gear and then fight off zombies the entire time like this is L4D

[Pendulum Effect 15]

Because those people that dont like KoS want to get gear and then fight off zombies the entire time like this is L4D

 

Nope. Definitely just said I want it in the game, I just want people to think before pulling the trigger. 

 

What keeps you from killing people in real life, besides the law? Those same reasons should come into play. Just because it's a video game doesn't mean it can't ask these questions and add real motivations for NOT killing.

Edited January 7, 2014 by Pendulum Effect

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

I just want people to think before pulling the trigger. 

 

We do.

 

"I hope I don't miss."

[Pendulum Effect 15]

We do.

 

"I hope I don't miss."

 

I've thought that many times.

 

I've also thought: "I hope he doesn't have back up."

 

or

 

"Am I going to loot now, or wait?"

 

But something a little deeper would be nice. Like I said, I KoS all the time. I've been killed straight away, too. It's frustrating, but it's part of the game. I just want game growth, not just some military sim.

[Richard Brooke 1]

I don't know about the vehicles flying overhead, but something more like Helicopter crash sites would be fine I think. Bases would just be relatively the same concept, just a different "skin."

 

The idea I really like is the zombie military island.

 

Perhaps instead of just offering "high-end" military loot for your character, it had valuable resources for building armored cars, base building materials and other fortifications (machine guns, anti air defenses or whatever) as well. That way you would have to start slow by dragging one piece at a time back to your base and slowly building your stash and collection to the point where you can take a ferry and a car to load up with more loot, thus making it more efficient to raid for loot. It would still make base building possible without going to this island, but you'd find much better quality and better security measures for your base. In this way, you can also have a status symbol if your collection, base, car and gear is so insane that people will know that you have run the gauntlet many times.

 

Does anyone know if they kept building destruction in?

[gottyplays 5]

I would like random events on the map, i remember in the mod that the "endgame" was repairing a helicopter...and then? 
i would like to do "something" other than gearing up, right now it feels like a way too huge map to play death match, with infected screaming and warping across walls heh.
the island idea seems cool, but it's waay to exagerated for now. they have to fill the big ol chernarus before creating another huge empty wasteland of m4's lol

If you're getting blasted on by someone you didn't see, you're not being sneaky enough or they're just way sneakier than you are.

Also, stay away from Cherno/Elektro.  They are graveyards, period.

Or, they are server hopping in the room behind you. D:

[Pendulum Effect 15]

I would like random events on the map, i remember in the mod that the "endgame" was repairing a helicopter...and then? 

i would like to do "something" other than gearing up, right now it feels like a way too huge map to play death match, with infected screaming and warping across walls heh.

the island idea seems cool, but it's waay to exagerated for now. they have to fill the big ol chernarus before creating another huge empty wasteland of m4's lol

Or, they are server hopping in the room behind you. D:

 

RIght, after you got the chopper it was really a question of: "what do we do now?"

 

Sure you can go around the map and look for crash sites or kill zombies, but it's not much of a reward when it doesn't really lead to an actual utility to advance. When you have a chopper, there's really nothing to do with it other than to travel places quickly. However, if it could be used to airlift base materials to your HQ then it could have an actual use. Or use it as a shortcut to the aircraft carrier, thus negating the need to scour the base and risk getting killed without actually reaching the loot jackpot.

 

Of course the weapon balance, zombie clipping, optimization, etc need to be fixed before something like this can exist. But it's fun to think about. I imagine it being roughly something like this, but more intense, more zombies and a much bigger area: (A little heavy on the military RP, but something that could definitely be used)

 

Edited January 8, 2014 by Pendulum Effect

[Mordon 28]

Add tons of more zombies, having them far more deadly and prone to chase you because of noise, add 'hordes' perhaps, a single gunshot attracting all the zombies in the area will make people think that shooting is only the last option possible. 

[defk0n_nl 3]

yessaul robinovich you have my beans.

 

The game as it stands now is really static and plain. Its basically Quake 3 Free-for-all with bigger maps and occasional zombies.

One can only hope rocket shares this vision to make it into a true hardcore mmo the likes of Ultima, Mortal, Eve - Online.

All the random event crap OP is suggesting does nothing to add dynamics to this game. Its fun for 2 or 3 encounters then it starts to feel the same.

 

Alot of things could get fixed so easily with some actual game design:

 

- Be able to only spawn and store your character in campfires > tents > sheds > bases in which each has a different storage capacity. (solves: lootframers, combatloggers, friend spawning)

- create attributes like STR, INT, DEX

- be able to improve on basic actions i.e repairing, building, healing, gathering, farming, hunting

Edited January 8, 2014 by defk0n_NL