A better way to handle inventory and item damage from attacks

[overdosed (DayZ) 77]

I think we can all agree that current way that your clothing and items get damaged from player or zombie attacks is kinda ridiculous. Even getting hit by a zombie a couple of times will probably if not ruin badly damage most of your clothing and the items inside and getting shot even if you dont die will ruin everything. 

   

As that is not really the final way things like this are going to be handled(I hope) theres much to be improved and some suggestions along that way should be appreciated. And I havent really seen any threads on the matter. So here are my thoughts.

 

RIght now if you get hit in the torso everything there gets damaged, doesnt matter if you got hit from the front or the back everything will be damaged and there is no difference between melee or firearm damage.

 

Melee - damage from melee hits should not pass through your character. If you get hit from the front, your backpack wont be damaged, only your vest and torso clothing with the items inside should be damaged. If you get hit in the back, your backpack will be damaged + the items inside. 

 

As we all know there are different melee weapons, we have fists and theres zombie melee. Those should be set up in categories depending on how they damage your gear.

 

Fists - gear damage should be minimal or even nonexistent. Even if you get killed by fists from full health your gear should at most get worn with maybe the only exception being masks or motorbike helmets.

 

Zombies - gear damage should also be minimal but bigger than what fists do. Zombies should also be able to damage your backpack(getting pummeled by zombies could break the straps etc), but not the items inside it, aswell as helmets and masks.

 

Blunt melee - damage is only done to the items in your inventory and not your clothing with the exception of helmets.

 

Sharp melee - Damage is done mostly to your clothing with the items inside it taking minimal damage.

 

Firearms - now with bullets there should be no difference if you were hit from behind or infront. They should pass through you. But they should do minimal damage to your clothing(2 wholes and some blood doesnt count as ruined) and high damage to the items inside it. An exception to low damage to clothing should be helmets, masks and bullet proof vests.

 

Now that weve cleared this, its time to figure out how are items inside your clothing are going to get damaged. Right now everything gets damaged and thats a bit ridiculous. A better way to do this imho would be to instead damaging everything only damage a certain number of random inventory squares with the chance of those being empty and thus not damaging any items. 

 

For example - you get shot in the torso, youre  wearing a hoodie, a vest and a backpack. One random square is chosen in both your hoodie and vest and the item residing in it is ruined. And 2 random squares are chosen in your backpack and the items residing in them are ruined. With melee weapons the only difference should be that more squares are chosen than with firearms. And so every time you get hit a part of your items get damaged.

 

I think this would not only reduce the amount of ruined gear  and make the way it gets damaged more realistic, but it would also force players to learn some trigger discipline. I can think of many other good things thatll come out of this, but the thread is already long enough.

[overdosed (DayZ) 77]

Up you go.

[Canned Muffins 82]

I agree even concerning bullet damage I was shot today a single time and died. The man with the mosin logged out after seeing my friends and I retrieved my gear. Sadly a single 7.62 round destroyed everything in my pants,vest,shirt,backpack,weapons,ect..... a single round had the radius effect of a grenade essentially. I long to see damage levels and allocation depending on where you are shot and to what extent. It pains me to get shot in the neck and have ruined everything including boots lololol.

[Chaingunfighter 917]

Yeah, I don't like being shot only to find that every single item in my bag is completely ruined. What, did someone plant a fucking grenade inside my bag while I wasn't looking? 

I know the partial reason for everything being damaged is to stop people running back to their corpses, but it does get annoying that one 7.62x54mm bullet will somehow ricochet off of every item in your backpack before exiting the hole it came in.

Edited February 2, 2014 by Chaingunfighter

[TEST_SUBJECT_83 465]

I was thinking something similar, but instead of a "random square" getting picked I was thinking the location you were hit on your backpack would directly correspond with what inventory square got "picked" to be damaged.

 

I made this pic to better clarify.

As you can see the where ever you get hit on your backpack will directly correspond to the location of the damaged item in your backpack.

This same mechanic could be used for the rest of your body and its contents in relation to where you physically get hit.

For those that cant see the obvious, the yellow box represents the edge of the backpack, and the red circles represent where you were hit and what was damaged.

Edited February 2, 2014 by TEST_SUBJECT_83

[Chaingunfighter 917]

I was thinking something similar, but instead of a "random square" getting picked I was thinking the location you were hit on your backpack would directly correspond with what inventory square got "picked" to be damaged.

 

I made this pic to better clarify.

As you can see the where ever you get hit on your backpack will directly correspond to the location of the damaged item in your backpack.

This same mechanic could be used for the rest of your body and its contents in relation to where you physically get hit.

 

 

image removed from quote

 

For those that cant see the obvious, the yellow box represents the edge of the backpack, and the red circles represent where you where hit and what was damaged.

That's what I was hoping would be best, I just don't know how exactly they would set up the hit registry.

I'd assume the best and quickest method would probably be for them to just assign random damage values for some items (With larger items having a higher chance of being damaged)

[Crazy_Spider 235]

    I'd like a hitbox for the backpack, that would be cool. I've gotton a lot of my gear ruined by zombies. I actually haven't been attacked by a player in the 2 hours I've been playing, though I've ran into 3 (all friendly :D). If I'm correct Arma 2 DayZ mod had hit boxes that determined where the damage was done, right? Please clear this up for me, thanks ;)

[rotteck 104]

maybe only a few layers of clothing should be affected by bullets, they shouldnt pass through you

i dont think a .45 bullet will go through a filled tactical vest, a filled jacket, your Body, the other side of the jacket, the other side of the vest AND your filled bagpack :D

[- Karma - 75]

@ Test_Subject_83 - complicated, but great idea.  If the game engine can support that and it wouldn't require intensive code then I say let's consider it Devs.  I mean, they keep saying they are planning on implementing hit locations so that should in theory a) reduce some of the problems of entire pools of gear being ruined and b ) if the code is already in to track where someone got hit, then they might be able to make it more specific as to exactly where.  I'm not sure about that though because I've been watching some of the "next gen" games coming out and they are introducing stuff like that and talking like it is revolutionary so maybe the engine is not up to it?

 

@ overdosed - again, complicated but great idea.  Most of what you mention is likely easily handled from a programming perspective once hit location tracking is implemented.  The trick would be differentiating gear like the helmets, Kevlar vests, stab vests, etc.  I would imagine right now how the system is supposed to work is that each attack does a value in damage - lets say a gun shot is 1000.  The type of clothing/material you're wearing is supposed to make a difference to resisting that damage, not quite sure if live yet but certain items seem to soak damage a little better than others.  So lets say a TTsKO shirt would resist 100 of the bullet, and then the Tactical Vest (not full Kevlar, but Kevlar lined?) would resist 500 (caliber dependent, again not sure if live).  Shot with just the shirt on, now take 900 damage - with the vest, take 500.  Then each piece of gear likely has a either a hit point pool or a "can take x number of hits pool" representing its current state.  I think the bug is likely that all zombies right now can only hit your head from the front and side, and backpack from behind.  I swear it used to be that my shirts would get ruined by zombies back before Xmas, but nothing else.  Gunshots seem to target most everywhere because there is no system to track exactly where the hit landed yet.  Anyone that could either corroborate my theory or elaborate on their findings would be a big help.

 

That all said, I really like your type of damage affecting how it would damage gear breakdown with two exceptions - I don't think a person's fists would ever really by able to hurt a motorcycle helmet unless it was already compromised; and since every zombie attack leads to bleeding, I've always thought they were hitting with some kind of claw or rake attack so it would likely be more akin to a slash type damage as opposed to bludgeoning.  Could be wrong, not saying it makes sense, just saying that's what it appears to be.

Edited February 2, 2014 by - Karma -

[Canned Muffins 82]

If at all possible some items should be resistant to melee attacks from players and zeds such as metal items or protective items in storage. Small arms fire and even higher caliber rounds should still do focused damage to where the round really hit. It is very odd to be shot a single time and yet everything is ruined. Everything being ruined doesn't make sense because you can just as well get the same ruined gear if you were to spray a person down with 60+ rounds. Recovering gear from a corpse even your own should reflect how you died and what you died from. When I see a dead character with all ruined gear I know he has been shot but in now was can you tell what shot him or how many times. It could have been a zombie actually that killed him and ruined his gear somehow or a pistol ,shotgun,mosin,m4,ect.... you have no idea with the current damage distribution.

[- Karma - 75]

It could have been a zombie actually that killed him and ruined his gear somehow...

 

I was just testing after my post above this morning.  Zombies only seem to be able to damage hats, glasses, and backpacks at the moment.  But I do know what you're saying.  For now I'd say definitely carry some extra hats.  I took mine off to see if the damage would move to another piece of gear, and the only result seemed to be more actual damage to health.  In fact, the first blow I took when I reequipped my beret seemed to soaked completely by the hat as I did not start bleeding until the second hit (once the beret was ruined from the first hit).

Edited February 2, 2014 by - Karma -

[Canned Muffins 82]

I was just testing after my post above this morning.  Zombies only seem to be able to damage hats, glasses, and backpacks at the moment.  But I do know what you're saying.  For now I'd say definitely carry some extra hats.  I took mine off to see if the damage would move to another piece of gear, and the only result seemed to be more actual damage to health.  In fact, the first blow I took when I reequipped my beret seemed to soaked completely by the hat as I did not start bleeding until the second hit (once the beret was ruined from the first hit).

I noticed that as well that they focus on the torso and head. I did have one instance where I was afk to check an online ,ap for about 30 seconds and I return to the game to a zombie who did not make a sound was able to run to me in that short time and destroy everything I had on me even weapons and everything in my hunter pack. I truly hate the women zombies they are evil lol.

[- Karma - 75]

I noticed that as well that they focus on the torso and head. I did have one instance where I was afk to check an online ,ap for about 30 seconds and I return to the game to a zombie who did not make a sound was able to run to me in that short time and destroy everything I had on me even weapons and everything in my hunter pack. I truly hate the women zombies they are evil lol.

 

Huh, as I said I above I swear I'd had times where my shirt got shredded by zombies but I for sure haven't had it happen since Xmas.  All the testing I did today (let about 10 different zombies beat me up for a while) only had them damage my hat, glasses, or pack.  I even punched a few to see if the quality of my gloves went down.  Maybe it has to do with angle, or how close they are to you or something.  I do know what you're talking about, I have seen it, just not for a while.

[TEST_SUBJECT_83 465]

@ Test_Subject_83 - complicated, but great idea.  If the game engine can support that and it wouldn't require intensive code then I say let's consider it Devs.  I mean, they keep saying they are planning on implementing hit locations so that should in theory a) reduce some of the problems of entire pools of gear being ruined and b ) if the code is already in to track where someone got hit, then they might be able to make it more specific as to exactly where.  I'm not sure about that though because I've been watching some of the "next gen" games coming out and they are introducing stuff like that and talking like it is revolutionary so maybe the engine is not up to it?

 

 

  

Complicated?

I was going for as simple as possible.

Im no dev or pretend to know anything about coding but,

I know the game already tracks where you got hit due to the blood spurt from the exact location of your body

So I figured they could make a hit box around the backpack and a box around the players inventory that represents the hit box on the players back and have them synced with each other so when the top right corner of the backpack gets hit the top right corner of whats in the inventory will be hit.

Again from the picture you can see it's just remembering the location from where the bullet entered the backpack in relation to the yellow box and using that location to put over your inventories yellow box and damage any items that are in that spot.

Edited February 2, 2014 by TEST_SUBJECT_83

[- Karma - 75]

I know the game already tracks where you got hit due to the blood spurt from the exact location of your body

 

Sorry, I used "complicated" more in the terms of how players would need to understand it, how they would adapt to it, and yes partially from a coding perspective.  It would be more complicated than simply knowing that if backpack gets hit everything in it gets damaged.  I should have said though that while it would be more complicated, it would also be more realistic and in my opinion much better than the previous option.

 

As for what I quoted, is this true?  Not that I doubt, I've just never taken the time to notice.  Since zombie attacks seem to always damage the head, yet the bleeding from that damage always appears to come from the torso, I assumed it wasn't tracking at all.  I haven't shot players enough, or been shot enough to know about bullet damage.  If it is true, then likely we're much closer to what you're suggesting than I realized.

Edited February 2, 2014 by - Karma -