Don't punish bandits; reward survivors

[razzmatazz 2]

There seems to be much discussion on how to properly balance the PvP aspect of DayZ. I think punishing bandits is the wrong approach. How about rewarding survivors? One rather subtle way to handle this would be through loot drop rates. Here's how I see it could work:

Everyone starts with 0 humanity. This provides standard loot spawn rates. Murders lower your humanity. Negative humanity does not decrease loot spawn rates. Humanity increases for time spent playing. As humanity increases to certain levels above zero, your loot spawn rates increase.

This way, a bandit can murder as many people as he wants, but with the knowledge that he's giving up potential higher loot spawn rates. However, he's not being punished because he still gets the same starting base loot spawn rate as everyone else. A bandit can decide to turn survivor, but his negative humanity means it will take longer than someone starting from 0.

A bandit is not punished. When a bandit kills a survivor, they will be encouraged to check the body in case the survivor had good gear.

A survivor is rewarded. Survivors probably die a bit more often than KOS bandits, and they get a little extra help when starting over due to the increased loot spawn rates.

This approach encourages cooperative play without intrusive solutions like skin changes and the like.

[dromagewok@hotmail.com 164]

I like this idea.

[enablerbr 0]

Idea sounds interesting but can the game handle this sort of loot spawn mechanic.

[uglyboy 1]

Then the bandits realize they are getting better stuff by killing the hollier survivors.... So they keep on killing.

[razzmatazz 2]

Then the bandits realize they are getting better stuff by killing the hollier survivors.... So they keep on killing.

Just like they're already doing? At least survivors get rewarded for playing as survivors.

Somebody had the idea of gear potentially disappearing when someone is murdered. Maybe have gear disappear when someone gets shot to death? It's somewhat realistic because when you riddle someone with bullets, it's likely you'll damage what they're carrying. Not sure I like the disappearing gear idea, because it ventures close to punishing bandits.

[Never 237]

A bullet still kills regardless of what its fired from.

[razzmatazz 2]

A bullet still kills regardless of what its fired from.

I'm not sure I follow...

[hedich 0]

what happens when the bandits have all the gear he needs then?

loot spawns don't mean anything at all then ><

[Never 237]

A bullet still kills regardless of what its fired from.

I'm not sure I follow...

Making good guns only available to survivors makes killing them more attractive.

I can still kill you with a fucking axe or a makarov.

[Jorict 0]

But what if someone else shoots at them, never hitting them, and the person being shot at kills the shooter. He then is marked as a bandit, even though in reality it was in his own defense. You're lowering his spawn chances because the other guy was a horrid shot.

[razzmatazz 2]

No. Loot spawns are never lowered from their current base rates, no matter how low your humanity goes.

The idea is not to limit bandits' access to weapons or other items in loot spawns, but rather to reward survivors for playing cooperatively. You don't currently lose humanity for killing a bandit (someone with negative humanity in my proposal), and it should stay that way. Bandit shoots at you and misses, you return fire and kill him. You lose no humanity.

Bandits generally KOS as it is. This dynamic would not change that.

As the thread title should make clear this idea is not about punishing bandits.. If that's the only way you're evaluating the idea, then you will absolutely find it lacking.

[JayMeHD 26]

This couldn't be implemented effectively I don't think.

This means there would have to be multiple loot tables for multiple levels of humanity, then what do you limit humanity to?

Also you will get the horde of realism-hardcore players complaining about how this is far from realistic.

It's a nice idea but I don't think it would fit well in-game.

[Never 237]

No. Loot spawns are never lowered from their current base rates' date=' no matter how low your humanity goes.

The idea is not to limit bandits' access to weapons or other items in loot spawns, but rather to reward survivors for playing cooperatively. You don't currently lose humanity for killing a bandit (someone with negative humanity in my proposal), and it should stay that way. Bandit shoots at you and misses, you return fire and kill him. You lose no humanity.

Bandits generally KOS as it is. This dynamic would not change that.

As the thread title should make clear [i']this idea is not about punishing bandits.. If that's the only way you're evaluating the idea, then you will absolutely find it lacking.

Again you miss the point.

Your idea is flawed, because you just made murdering 'friendlies' more rewarding.

Put it this way.

'Bandit' A can't find good loot, he sees Survivor B and sees he has a nice gun as a reward from being nice. B is a lot more attractive to a than he was before.

A's game hasn't changed. B crys more. Nothings changed apart from 'Banditry' is more rewarding.

[LT.Sacred 9]

This couldn't be implemented effectively I don't think.

This means there would have to be multiple loot tables for multiple levels of humanity' date=' then what do you limit humanity to?

Also you will get the horde of realism-hardcore players complaining about how this is far from realistic.

It's a nice idea but I don't think it would fit well in-game.

[/quote']

I like playing games for the GAME aspect... Sure the reality of this game makes it very unique and fun but who says it has to be 100% realistic... I like how rocket is putting out the game, it's not 100% realistic the zeds don't move 100% realistically and that's a GOOD thing, I mean you get a chance to pour some lead into the zed before it takes a chunk out of your arm, causing loss of blood.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the realistic aspect of the game, honestly, that's why I got it but... somethings don't need to be 100% realistic... Idk if I'm making sense -.-

Of course, I obviously don't know how a real zombie would move in real life, but I'm just taking a guess they would not run to the side then back and attack you. Just a guess :/ as who knows, maybe real zombies would do that.

Onto this idea, I believe it's a great idea... But I have a question, if you died would your humanity be lost? Starting back at 0? Or would it follow your profile, onto your next try at surviving?

Edit:

took out the first part as I seemed kind of harsh ;3

[Crosshair (DayZ) 0]

I put this proposal elsewhere, but think it is relevant in this thread.

For every zombie that a player kills a player gets more zombie scent on them so zombies have to get closer to them before sensing them. For every human a player kills they get more fresh human blood on them and so therefore zombies will detect them at longer and longer ranges. So the people who live as bandits will have a harder and harder time moving about the map without attracting large numbers of zombies. Players also will be encouraged to kill zombies to build their zombie scent, so they can move through more heavily infested areas, and perhaps even team up to do so.

This will make server hopping all the more dangerous for bandits because the server they hop into could have a group of 4 zombies in the bandits now massive zombie attraction zone.

Of course the ratio wouldn't be 1-to-1, killing one human player would perhaps require killing 2-4 zombies to undo. Easily within the abilities of a player who kills in self defense, but a major headache for a bandit. This could easily be implemented as it would just be an adjustment to an individual players visibility and noise stats.

Your thoughts?

[logan23 118]

To solve the issue with killing on site you could-

You want players to team up but how do you do that without just making it so players team up for numbers and still leads to teams killing other players.....You could sprinkle through the game skills one can learn that would make you valuable in a team.

The idea is if you have a team of players and then they come across another player, the team might need someone skilled with medicine to help with their sickness/cold. This lone player might have this skill. If they shoot him on sight then they will never get the benefits. If they talk to the player and they have a skill medicine or maybe they don't but the conversation could lead to the team of players either getting /asking for his help or just leaving him alone since there is a face/voice/text with the Character/player they see in their scope.

I really believe that DayZ will need some type of skill system which can grow from exploring the land and locations. This would create a need for players to ask questions before shooting. A player who shoots on sight will then only be hurting themselves.

All players start off as survivors but then they can discover book/info that will open that skill to them. Even giving a blood transfusion should up or promote the medicine skill.

This makes players each more valuable.

what do you think?

[arkental 5]

I agree with the OP when it comes to the idea of rewarding surivors rather than punishing bandits. The way I see it, right now banditry has a great reward in the form of looting, while the survivor style doesn't really have anything to counter that. An incentive not to KoS to balance the scales is better than than a punishment.

But as others have said, it's doubtful the game could handle different loot tables in that way.

Here is my counter-suggestion though: What if 0+ humanity allows you to retain any survival tools you have picked up when you respawn? You lose everything else and start with the basic survivor gear, but in addition you get to keep the equipment on your toolbelt; hatchet, matchbox, compass, knife, etc, and make these items unlootable from corpses.

Banditry would retain the reward from looting you and your backpack, having an advantage there. While the survivor gameplay rewards you by making death slightly less frustrating and giving you survival items fitting the playstyle. Now, before anyone jumps in and calls me a carebear: Keeping the survivors interested in the game and avoid that they take a hiatus or outright quit after being KoS'd for the umpteenth time is a good thing. It gives bandits a source of equipment and prevents things from ending in an all out deathmatch.

[Crosshair (DayZ) 0]

I really believe that DayZ will need some type of skill system which can grow from exploring the land and locations. This would create a need for players to ask questions before shooting. A player who shoots on sight will then only be hurting themselves.

All players start off as survivors but then they can discover book/info that will open that skill to them. Even giving a blood transfusion should up or promote the medicine skill.

This makes players each more valuable.

what do you think?

I think you are right. Eventually there is going to have to be some sort of player specialization. The reality is that nobody can do everything. In real life I consider myself a jack-of-all trades, but with the caveat that I can do most things, I can only do a few of those things well. Against a group of 10 which was more specialized per individual, 10 clones of me would do poorly.

Back in the days of BF1942 I loved playing as the engineer class. Sure my K/D ratio wasn't that good, but my teammates were grateful for me hiding behind the tank with my wrench. (Or up in front defusing anti-tank mines.) I would even capture and fix enemy tanks that had been abandoned and give them to another player. I played to win the match, not for my K/D. People WANTED me on their team, despite my mediocre K/D, because engineers were always "scarce".

DayZ needs to be about winning against the zombies. Specialization will encourage players to work together.

[Cinc 3]

although i think this will be hard to properly implement, i do think you have the right idea.

bandits, despite what many people think, are not a problem and rocket aimed for them to exist. but they were never meant to appear in these numbers. punishing the bandits is something that will almost never be acceptable by rocket, and could likely fail horribly. rewarding the survivor, however, is a much better idea. but i tend to think of that in a way of giving endgame objectives that a team might be required to do or something, not this.

[wolfstriked 143]

A great way to punish a bandit is to do what we do in the real world...punish their pride.What I mean is we need to look down on bad people and the leader boards do not do that.Remove bandits from the leader boards completely and just honor good men and women.

[Crosshair (DayZ) 0]

Remove bandits from the leader boards completely and just honor good men and women.

I feel very stupid now for not thinking of that.:dodgy: A very good idea.

[Champloo (DayZ) 5]

I'm not even reading this topic. Stop trying to make artificial distinctions by the game for bandits and survivors. Morely, stop even separating everyone. Everyone is a survivor, we're all trying to survive. Some of you don't try to survive as hard as others so you incorrectly trust people, and the people who try their hardest to survive you call bandits.

[RaviN (DayZ) 9]

What if 0+ humanity allows you to retain any survival tools you have picked up when you respawn? You lose everything else and start with the basic survivor gear' date=' but in addition you get to keep the equipment on your toolbelt; hatchet, matchbox, compass, knife, etc, and make these items unlootable from corpses.

Banditry would retain the reward from looting you and your backpack, having an advantage there. While the survivor gameplay rewards you by making death slightly less frustrating and giving you survival items fitting the playstyle. Now, before anyone jumps in and calls me a carebear: Keeping the survivors interested in the game and avoid that they take a hiatus or outright quit after being KoS'd for the umpteenth time is a good thing. It gives bandits a source of equipment and prevents things from ending in an all out deathmatch. [/quote']

+1

i like this - rewarding survivors with their survival gear, makes sense!

[wolfstriked 143]

Remove bandits from the leader boards completely and just honor good men and women.

I feel very stupid now for not thinking of that.:dodgy: A very good idea.

YEP....remove their pride LOL.No chance to be on the leader board is incentive to steer a straight line.Kinda like in real life but instead we are being steered by Gods law of not being a killer.In game though itsdifferent as its just that' date='a game.Everyone can be a killer and then turn around and say AWW mom we ate chicken nuggets last night:@

I was also thinking a bounty depending on your murder count but that makes the world seem to too controlled instead of the chaos that a post apocalyptic world would be.

[hr']

How about giving a sort of bad luck to murderers by spawning them new in areas of high bandit activity. ;)

---

Maybe more bad luck by having a bandits sound and view difficulty very slightly more harsh.

[Dreganius (DayZ) 55]

The OP makes a relevant point, although buffing a Survivor's loot spawns shouldn't be the way to do it, for reasons stated prior. Specialisations, on the other hand, are VERY intriguing, and have my vote, so long as we don't turn DayZ into a Zombocalypse MMORPG.

Here is my counter-suggestion though: What if 0+ humanity allows you to retain any survival tools you have picked up when you respawn? You lose everything else and start with the basic survivor gear' date=' but in addition you get to keep the equipment on your toolbelt; hatchet, matchbox, compass, knife, etc, and make these items unlootable from corpses.

Banditry would retain the reward from looting you and your backpack, having an advantage there. While the survivor gameplay rewards you by making death slightly less frustrating and giving you survival items fitting the playstyle. Now, before anyone jumps in and calls me a carebear: Keeping the survivors interested in the game and avoid that they take a hiatus or outright quit after being KoS'd for the umpteenth time is a good thing. It gives bandits a source of equipment and prevents things from ending in an all out deathmatch.

[/quote']

I quite like this idea, although the survival tools you start with would likely need to be toned down abit Starting with a hatchet is starting with a weapon, and the GPS is counted as a Tool, so I'd go for Matchboxes, Maps, Knives, Compasses and Watches as the only items you can keep through death as a survivor.

Remove bandits from the leader boards completely and just honor good men and women.

HEAR HEAR!