One word: Footprints.

[nhdkiller93 14]

There i was, tracking an unlucky soul who caught my attention as i roamed the plains of western chernarus.

i follow him for a while, playing the "hunter" game, remaining in the shadows, but following him no matter which direction he went.

Soon though, we reach a treeline, i race to keep up, constantly losing sight of my prey, relocating, then losing as he went behind a tree, or bush.

Eventually, i lost track of him. I had an idea of what direction he had gone, but without any physical indication of where he was heading, the trail was lost.

 

So i thought to myself, why aren't there footprints?

Now i know what most of you are going to say, "it would lag up the game", "there would be footprints all over the place", "rable rable rable rable"

 

well, what i would like to suggest is adding a system for footprint using the environment, weather, ect, to determine the duration of how long they would last, and weather they would show up in the first place.

for example, footprints would not show up on concrete, asphalt surfaces, unless, the player had just been running through mud, and even then, footprints would cease after a certain distance. Or, if it was raining, they would wash away, disappear, within a certain time frame.

And for roaming the woods, footprints would appear, yes, in a straight line trailing the player, but over time, different sections of that "trail" would begin to deteriorate. So while you are following the footsteps of a person, it wouldn't be a straight line straight to them, but rather a puzzle of the sort. You follow his footsteps, they stop, then you must look around for another set of footprints that at one time connected to the ones you were following.

And the sections that would deteriorate would be at random, so while you are following a set, the trail could vanish, only to be rediscovered 1/2 mile down the path.

What this would do is add a sense of "player tracking", without drawing a straight line to the player.
IMO it would open up countless possibilities, as far as how people would act while hiking in the woods, are you the one that looks toward the ground, tracking other players, or are you the one looking behind you trying to conceal your trail as best as possible.

or, are you the type of player who wanders the woods, gathering supplies from survivors you track and engage?

Also, while i don't believe it would fully curb the camping/kos in major towns, it would spread players across the map more.

spawn on the beach? there would be the footprints of numerous fresh spawns, pick a set, and begin to follow, those disappear, only then you find another set and begin to follow them, leading you deeper and deeper into the map.

just got in a fight with someone, only to have them run off? you'd be able to follow his trail, and sooner or later (or never) catch up with him.

Your hiking through the woods, you spot some footprints, and decide to follow them, not knowing where they lead, you continue to follow them for miles till you reach another players camp, and well, we all know what could happen then.

lost your buddy? how intense would it be to follow your buddies footprints from his last known location, only to find them stop at his dead body.

 

These are just some examples of how they could completely alter the way we play dayz.

 

Now, I know this idea would take much more thought to make plausable, and that it would take some time to implement and get right. it would add to the Immersive nature of dayz, especially on hardcore servers. and hell, if people dont like it, they can make it only for hardcore.

 

Just an idea, would love some CONSTRUCTIVE feed back/additional ideas. no trolling, or unhelpful/useless comments.

I wanna hear would you guys think, we are, anyways, all part of this great community.

 

 

[Mullraugh 1151]

*looks at title* Oh this might be quick and easy to read, let's take a look.

 

*looks at storybook explaination* aw shyet...

 

Anyways.

 

 

Footprints all depend on the weather, how fast a person is going, type of shoe, gait, what they're walking in, how old they are and if they have a peg leg or not. It might be a little hard to add footprints -well permanent and super realistic ones- to the game.

 

Great Idea though. Supported by me! (as if I make a difference.)

[colekern 1364]

Umm... they're already in...

[IkaikaKekai 1957]

You know, I thought I saw footprints on certain terrain (like roads), not 100% sure though.  Kind of a neat thing I've noticed is that if you crawl in grass it gets pushed down and it would form a trail you wouldn't really notice unless you were looking for it.  One of my biggest fears in the mod when I was still stealthing around was that someone would find my grass tracks and kill me because I was wearing a ghillie.

[nhdkiller93 14]

Umm... they're already in...

if they are, they dont last very long.

im talking about persistent footprints that would allow tracking and such.

[Mullraugh 1151]

The footprints that are in the game now either dissapear after less than a second (you can notice them when walking on roads)

or are just textures in the ground - not player made.

Edited February 18, 2014 by mullraugh

[akafugitive 244]

This is a great idea, Instead of doing a random assignment with broken patterns I would do it as every surface has a % chance to leave prints when a player or infected passes over it though.(eg: concretely 0%, woodland dirt 50%, wetland dirt 90%, etc)

Fade time would be a fixed time(eg: 5 min) that would be decreased when it is raining/snowing by the storms intensity.

Dirty Status as suggested in another thread(will link when i get on my computer) would work well with this also; your boots have dirty status they will leave prints on concrete.

I was also thinking that looting a fresh kill (infected or player) would leave your boots bloody, and you would leave a bloody footprint trail for awhile

Edited February 18, 2014 by akafugitive

[Nicko2580 398]

Think the level of detail you're looking for would be too hard to implement, but I think they could do something simpler. Just basic footprints that fade after a minute or two (or a certain number of steps by the player who left them, say 50ish). 

[liquidcactus 719]

sometimes ive notcied a trail of footprints in some types of soft dirt for about 10 meters

[pale1776 375]

They last for 6 steps. That is all.

[blackberrygoo 1416]

Ya foot prints are in but they suck hahaha ... Lets get some good foot prints I mean they are adding POOP eventually , noone knows it it's animal or human or what but if they care to make a small addition like that then why not footprints ?

It fits on perfect with the survival genre , eventually animal tracks should come into play as well , an since poop is confirmed (I think) then might as well add animal droppings .

[badbliksem 3]

I think this is a great idea

Edited February 19, 2014 by Badbliksem

[nhdkiller93 14]

This is a great idea, Instead of doing a random assignment with broken patterns I would do it as every surface has a % chance to leave prints when a player or infected passes over it though.(eg: concretely 0%, woodland dirt 50%, wetland dirt 90%, etc)

Fade time would be a fixed time(eg: 5 min) that would be decreased when it is raining/snowing by the storms intensity.

Dirty Status as suggested in another thread(will link when i get on my computer) would work well with this also; your boots have dirty status they will leave prints on concrete.

I was also thinking that looting a fresh kill (infected or player) would leave your boots bloody, and you would leave a bloody footprint trail for awhile

after thinking about it alittle more, i thought of the same thing, make it based on a % depending on the type of surface.

[nhdkiller93 14]

Ya foot prints are in but they suck hahaha ... Lets get some good foot prints I mean they are adding POOP eventually , noone knows it it's animal or human or what but if they care to make a small addition like that then why not footprints ?

It fits on perfect with the survival genre , eventually animal tracks should come into play as well , an since poop is confirmed (I think) then might as well add animal droppings .

thats another thing, it would make hunting (confirmed) much more realistic. cause idk bout other people, but the couple times iv gone hunting with a buddy, first thing we looked for were tracks.

[Sum Ting Wong 45]

Great idea, but technically most probably not feasible.

 

Think about the amount of data that needs to be stored and rendered.

How many footprints would you leave when walking 1 kilometer? Multiply that with 40, but in the future with 100 to 200 people on one server.

 

Looked it up: The Steps Out program considers an average step to be 0.762 meters (this equals a 2.5 foot stride). Therefore, 1 kilometer = 1320 steps.

 

So, having to render say 5 kilometers per person, it would mean 1320 * 5 = 6600 footprints

If in the future we have 100 people per server, it would mean 660.000 footprints.

 

This data has to be send back and forth to the server, and shown to the clients.

It's really not feasible.