Add Skills to the game

[AUTRanger 23]

Hi just to inform you: i have played Dayz from the beginning of the mod so i know what dayz is about.

Dayz always had one big problem: if you die there are only 2 things you loose - your position on the map and the more important thing: your gear. so thats fine until it comes to one point - playerinteraction.

At the moment when you (as a player) get hold up by bandits there are 2 things you can do:

1st thing is to get your hands up and let them take your gear and hope that they will let you live. (The problem with this is that it would nearly be the same like if you just get shot (your good gear is gone)

2nd thing is you can try to be rambo, try to take out your weapon and shoot at least one of the maybe 4 bandits before you die. (there is always a small chance that you survive such a dumb desicion, and save your gear - but as i said its very risky and not the goal of player interactions)

in both situations you loose your gear and therefore everything.

I think 80% of the players will choose number 2 because they have nothing to loose except for their gear which they will lose anyway.

At this point i introduce you skills.

Everything you do fills up a progressbar. If this progressbar is filled up you get better at the certain action. Then it gets resetet so you can reach the next "level".

E.g.

You shoot zombies with your gun. At the beginning your aim is really bad. But when you reach the next level of the "aim-progressbar" by shooting like 100 zombies your aim gets better.(by that i mean less shaking)

There could be another progressbar for repairing Items. This could work like that: you repair things and therefore raising your repairbar. Some items then need a certain lvl on the repair skill so you can repair them. for example if u want to repair a helicopter you need the repair skill maxed out.

This are just 2 examples. Others would be cooking, hunting, meele weapons, opening cans,...

i hope you get the point.

To come back to the nothing to loose problem. If you had these skills there would be something that is more important than just gear or your map location. You would try to survive just so you dont loose your hardly gained skills.

And then many people would decide to interact more and get their gear stolen just to not get killed.

That would be my suggestion to dayz, what do you think?

sry for my not so good english i ve written this on my smartphone.

Edited March 13, 2014 by AUTRanger

[Korsbaek 1778]

I've always liked this, but the gap between fresh spawns and veterans shouldn't be too big.

 

There should only be a subtle difference between someone having shoot 1000 zeds, and someone having shot 0.

 

Also, bandaging for example, after having applied maybe 50 bandages, the difference should only be a second or so.

[LaughingJack (DayZ) 767]

Well...there will be no progressbar that is visible to the player, but in the last Q&A stream with rocket he mentioned this:

 

 

Skills: It will mainly be passively skillbased. So as you get better at repairing certain things, you will be able to repair more and more badly damaged stuff. It won't be something you'll put a skillpoint in. It will only be the more you do it, the better you get at it

 

So...yeah, in some way, this suggestion will come. Not for shooting I guess, but what was mentioned in context of that quote qwas repairing (e.g. if you have repaired enough "badly damaged" clothes with a sewing kit you can repair also "ruined" ones, which is impossible otherwise. Maybe this starts at the top and goes down (like: repair enough "worn" to be able to repair "damaged", repair enough damaged to be able to repair badly damaged etc.), the same thing with weapons.

 

For the full Q&A look here: http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/175596-summary-of-dev-qas-from-streams/

 

[LigerRider 82]

Lots of people seem to get a shakiness when in tense situations in DayZ starting out. Shots don't hit and aim is off because of shaky hands or nervous decisions, one wrong movement of the mouse or a reflex twitch click that forces a missed shot. 

 

Lots of people used to (all of the above). This is all on the player, and the player progresses to the point where they keep their cool in a gunfight. 

 

I think skill progression could be good in the fact that, as mentioned above me, bandaging could take a second or two less. Things along those lines. NOTHING to do with gun-skill. The more you run, the more stamina you build, the longer you can run without having your character out of breath to the point where aiming is terrible, but again, nothing big.

 

 

Also, non measurable. No progress bar, no experience points, no skill tree, no stat counter. The more times I tie my shose, the faster I can do it, but my shoe-laces don't change colour every time I tie them faster.

[AUTRanger 23]

Lots of people seem to get a shakiness when in tense situations in DayZ starting out. Shots don't hit and aim is off because of shaky hands or nervous decisions, one wrong movement of the mouse or a reflex twitch click that forces a missed shot.

Lots of people used to (all of the above). This is all on the player, and the player progresses to the point where they keep their cool in a gunfight.

I think skill progression could be good in the fact that, as mentioned above me, bandaging could take a second or two less. Things along those lines. NOTHING to do with gun-skill. The more you run, the more stamina you build, the longer you can run without having your character out of breath to the point where aiming is terrible, but again, nothing big.

Also, non measurable. No progress bar, no experience points, no skill tree, no stat counter. The more times I tie my shose, the faster I can do it, but my shoe-laces don't change colour every time I tie them faster.

The goal here is not to give players the ability to do things faster in the first place. More to give them a reason and a need to stay alive. Therefore a visualisation how good you already are would strengthen these feelings (to stay alive). I know that the ui should be a minimum but a tab on the top on your inventory where you can switch to a progresspage would not hurt anyone and new players can see faster what they already have achieved.

Edit: and you are right that the improvements should not be gamebreaking big. But on the other side if they are so little that you say "meh yolo i dont need that extra bandage second" then the whole system is also useless.

Edited February 21, 2014 by AUTRanger

[glemmar 88]

Hi just to inform you: i have played Dayz from the beginning of the mod so i know what dayz is about.

Dayz always had one big problem: if you die there are only 2 things you loose - your position on the map and the more important thing: your gear. so thats fine until it comes to one point - playerinteraction.

At the moment when you (as a player) get hold up by bandits there are 2 things you can do:
1st thing is to get your hands up and let them take your gear and hope that they will let you live. (The problem with this is that it would nearly be the same if you just get shot (your good gear is gone)
2nd thing is you can try to be rambo, try to take out your weapon and shoot at least one of the maybe 4 bandits before you die. (there is always a small chance that you survive such a dumb desicion, and save your gear - but as i said its very risky and not the goal of player interactions)

in both situations you loose your gear and therefore everything.

I think 80% of the players will choose number 2 because they have nothing to loose except for their gear which they will lose anyway.

At this point i introduce you skills.
Everything you do fills up a progressbar. If this progressbar is filled up you get better at the certain action. Then it gets resetet so you can reach the next "level".

E.g.

You shoot zombies with your gun. At the begin your aim is really bad. But when you reach the next level of the "aim-progressbar" by shooting like 100 zombies your aim gets better.

There could be another progressbar for repairing Items. This could work like that: you repair things and therefore raising your repairbar. Some items then need a certain lvl on the repair skill so you can repair them. for example if u want to repair a helicopter you need repair skill maxed out.

This are just 2 examples. Others would be cooking, hunting, meele weapons, opening cans,...
i hope you get the point.

To come back to the nothing to loose problem. If you had these skills there would be something that is more important than just gear or your map location. Youwould try to survive just so you dont loos your hardly gained skills.

And then many people would decide to interact more and get their gear stolen just to not get killed.

That would be my suggestion to dayz, what do you think?

sry for my not so good english i ve written this on my smartphone.

This has divided my oppinion for a very long time. What I definetly don't want is xp based skill trees where you can allocate points to things like "level 1 bandaging" and so on. But yeah there is a problem with the fact that there is no need to keep your character alive if you don't have or you are sure to lose your valuable gear. I think what this guy said, is a step into the right direction.

Lots of people seem to get a shakiness when in tense situations in DayZ starting out. Shots don't hit and aim is off because of shaky hands or nervous decisions, one wrong movement of the mouse or a reflex twitch click that forces a missed shot. 

 

Lots of people used to (all of the above). This is all on the player, and the player progresses to the point where they keep their cool in a gunfight. 

 

I think skill progression could be good in the fact that, as mentioned above me, bandaging could take a second or two less. Things along those lines. NOTHING to do with gun-skill. The more you run, the more stamina you build, the longer you can run without having your character out of breath to the point where aiming is terrible, but again, nothing big.

 

 

Also, non measurable. No progress bar, no experience points, no skill tree, no stat counter. The more times I tie my shose, the faster I can do it, but my shoe-laces don't change colour every time I tie them faster.

Having your skills improve sort of "behind the scenes" would make your character more valuable the longer you have been alive. For example crafting stuff would improve your skill at crafting which would reduce the time it takes to craft a certain item or something.

But still, I don't want anything like "You need level 28 wound bandaging to bandage this wound" like things. Also no magical bullet dispersion because your gun skill is lower, but rather your gun could sway a little bit more than someone who has a better gun "skill".

Edited February 21, 2014 by Klemingway

[AUTRanger 23]

But still, I don't want anything like "You need level 28 wound bandaging to bandage this wound" like things. Also no magical bullet dispersion because your gun skill is lower, but rather your gun could sway a little bit more than someone who has a better gun "skill".

The status text for unable to repair something would be more like "I have no idea how to fix this..."...

and for the guns: you are right, i also thought about shaking (not making the gun mor inacurate)

[dallas 5195]

I dislike this the idea of artificial skills that you can simply grind to improve.

 

I prefer it the way it is, where skills is something the player acquire, not the character, where skills are tied to knowledge about game mechanics.

[AUTRanger 23]

I dislike this the idea of artificial skills that you can simply grind to improve.

 

I prefer it the way it is, where skills is something the player acquire, not the character, where skills are tied to knowledge about game mechanics.

 

how do you want to solve the problem that dieing is the same as losing gear?

 

to be against an idea and have a better way to solve an issue is one thing, but to simply say "its bad, i dont like it!" is another

Edited February 21, 2014 by AUTRanger

[Gekazoid 0]

It's not RPG, it's a simulator. Any skills in this game will be misplaced. Improve your hands and brains IRL, it will be useful in any game and situation. I don't want oldfags or schoolboys who can play 10 hours a day have any advantages over regular players. So I think DayZ shouldn't  have any skills (active or passive).

[dallas 5195]

When you die you also lose your blood type, this is knowledge based progression and knowing your blood type is very valuable, because blood transfusions is more effective than saline bags. I prefer this type of player progression, rather than some traditional RPG skill grinding, where the game becomes focused on grinding to max out your skills.

[AUTRanger 23]

When you die you also lose your blood type, this is knowledge based progression and knowing your blood type is very valuable, because blood transfusions is more effective than saline bags. I prefer this type of player progression, rather than some traditional RPG skill grinding, where the game becomes focused on grinding to max out your skills.

good point, but you need to find more of these "knowledge based progressions" to really hurt a player when he dies. if you find more that could mabe be an even better solution but i think there arent that many.

[dallas 5195]

Well... you need players, who are willing to die and willing to kill. This is what makes player interactions unpredictable in DayZ and what makes DayZ a profound psychological and unique experience and this is something you'll have to accept, some people, many actually, will play DayZ with the purpose not primarily to survive, but to hunt, humiliate and kill other players.

[Karmaterror 982]

Made a thread ages ago about this, but it got munched up as they all do. I think the way to go is to have skills degrade over time, if say you don't perform the action, or read up on that skill with a book. Then even a freshspawn could find a book, and have a skill that a vet has forgetten or never learned. Than the freshy could be a valuable addition to the team.  

 

If skills stay then its just going to make vets more powerfull and freshspwans so weak they carnt fight back, and the problem with skills that you learn by doing is that people will just grind them up on low pop and then switch to full servers. So Id say find a book to learn it, then maintain the skill by performing the action. If you don't you will eventually loose that skill :)

[Wolfguarde 108]

I've responded to a couple of these over time. I do recall someone in one of the threads referring to Rocket wanting to steer well clear of conventional archetypal roles. While this isn't role-creation in the strictest sense, it does wind up giving a sense of role division, which I don't think is what the developers want to do with the game.

With how the game's medical system is developing, I'm coming to suspect that they intend to go with another solution to this issue: roles based on your toolkit. If I'm reading the signs right, the end result will be that a player will only be able to perform all of the functions of their 'role' if they have the appropriate tools and items, which will take up the majority of their inventory space (one toolkit for mechanics, one for medics, one for crafters, one for builders, etc, etc). The end result will probably be that you can in theory take on any role you want - and not have to be locked into that role for your character's life. Your toolkits will be stored in your base, making it your hub, essentially, and doubling the necessity of grouping up with others to keep your various kits and weapons safe. Each time you leave the house, you do so with a kit - or without one, if you're going gathering - and you're stuck with that kit until you either put it back or die. I like it this way, if this is indeed what they plan to do.

While your idea isn't necessarily bad, I do think it's overused in a lot of games. It's popular, but it's something of a generic solution and most of the additions I've seen to the game since it's alpha release look to be angling towards authenticity or originality, if not both. 

[LaughingJack (DayZ) 767]

Because my post was invisible. Or overread since the things that rocket already stated are still considered false...

 

Well...there will be no progressbar that is visible to the player, but in the last Q&A stream with rocket he mentioned this:

 

 

Skills: It will mainly be passively skillbased. So as you get better at repairing certain things, you will be able to repair more and more badly damaged stuff. It won't be something you'll put a skillpoint in. It will only be the more you do it, the better you get at it

 

So...yeah, in some way, this suggestion will come. Not for shooting I guess, but what was mentioned in context of that quote qwas repairing (e.g. if you have repaired enough "badly damaged" clothes with a sewing kit you can repair also "ruined" ones, which is impossible otherwise. Maybe this starts at the top and goes down (like: repair enough "worn" to be able to repair "damaged", repair enough damaged to be able to repair badly damaged etc.), the same thing with weapons.

 

For the full Q&A look here: http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/175596-summary-of-dev-qas-from-streams/

 

Edited February 21, 2014 by LaughingJack

[glemmar 88]

I dislike this the idea of artificial skills that you can simply grind to improve.

 

I prefer it the way it is, where skills is something the player acquire, not the character, where skills are tied to knowledge about game mechanics.

As I stated in my previous post here,

This has divided my oppinion for a very long time. What I definetly don't want is xp based skill trees where you can allocate points to things like "level 1 bandaging" and so on. But yeah there is a problem with the fact that there is no need to keep your character alive if you don't have or you are sure to loose your valuable gear. I think what this guy said, is a step into the right direction.

Having your skills improve sort of "behind the scenes" would make your character more valuable the longer you have been alive. For example crafting stuff would improve your skill at crafting which would reduce the time it takes to craft a certain item or something.

But still, I don't want anything like "You need level 28 wound bandaging to bandage this wound" like things. Also no magical bullet dispersion because your gun skill is lower, but rather your gun could sway a little bit more than someone who has a better gun "skill".

this matter has indeed divided my oppinion since what you said is exactly the opposite side of this matter. I love the fact that you in real life have to know how to do things in this game rather than that your ingame character has to know something. For example, currently I act as the medic of my crew because I'm the only one that had the time and could bother to learn how the characters work, what the different medical equipment do and what symptoms are caused by what, rather than that I've bandaged 1000 wounds or that I have unlocked level 3 medical skills.

But like op stated, there is a problem that people don't really care about dying, all their currently care about is their gear, which you tend to lose when you die. People should really start caring about the life of their character and no matter what the situation death should never be a desirable option. But to be honest, I have no idea how accomplish this without causing too much butthurt for some...

[Ugly (DayZ) 79]

Hi just to inform you: i have played Dayz from the beginning of the mod so i know what dayz is about.

Dayz always had one big problem: if you die there are only 2 things you loose - your position on the map and the more important thing: your gear. so thats fine until it comes to one point - playerinteraction.

At the moment when you (as a player) get hold up by bandits there are 2 things you can do:

1st thing is to get your hands up and let them take your gear and hope that they will let you live. (The problem with this is that it would nearly be the same like if you just get shot (your good gear is gone)

2nd thing is you can try to be rambo, try to take out your weapon and shoot at least one of the maybe 4 bandits before you die. (there is always a small chance that you survive such a dumb desicion, and save your gear - but as i said its very risky and not the goal of player interactions)

in both situations you loose your gear and therefore everything.

I think 80% of the players will choose number 2 because they have nothing to loose except for their gear which they will lose anyway.

At this point i introduce you skills.

Everything you do fills up a progressbar. If this progressbar is filled up you get better at the certain action. Then it gets resetet so you can reach the next "level".

E.g.

You shoot zombies with your gun. At the beginning your aim is really bad. But when you reach the next level of the "aim-progressbar" by shooting like 100 zombies your aim gets better.

There could be another progressbar for repairing Items. This could work like that: you repair things and therefore raising your repairbar. Some items then need a certain lvl on the repair skill so you can repair them. for example if u want to repair a helicopter you need the repair skill maxed out.

This are just 2 examples. Others would be cooking, hunting, meele weapons, opening cans,...

i hope you get the point.

To come back to the nothing to loose problem. If you had these skills there would be something that is more important than just gear or your map location. You would try to survive just so you dont loose your hardly gained skills.

And then many people would decide to interact more and get their gear stolen just to not get killed.

That would be my suggestion to dayz, what do you think?

sry for my not so good english i ve written this on my smartphone.

loose= ill-fitting, baggy

lose= gone missing, no longer in possession.

[gangrenetvp 74]

I think there is a place for a new game here. There could really be a blend of Fallout 3 and DayZ into a new game. I know I'd get it. Take Fallout 3's system of experience and such.... critically wounded limbs, gun condition, encumbrance, aiming skill, repairing, etc. Bring in Zombies, remove the NPC's and make it multiplayer online. Make the eating and drinking system more like Stand Alone. Add in handcuffing, etc... make it modern day, You've got one hell of a game.

[Nicko2580 398]

Any skill system will be abused to get the best build. It's that simple. 

DayZ does not need skills or to become another generic MMO.

[Gdaddy22 299]

Hi just to inform you: i have played Dayz from the beginning of the mod so i know what dayz is about.

Dayz always had one big problem: if you die there are only 2 things you loose - your position on the map and the more important thing: your gear. so thats fine until it comes to one point - playerinteraction.

At the moment when you (as a player) get hold up by bandits there are 2 things you can do:

1st thing is to get your hands up and let them take your gear and hope that they will let you live. (The problem with this is that it would nearly be the same like if you just get shot (your good gear is gone)

2nd thing is you can try to be rambo, try to take out your weapon and shoot at least one of the maybe 4 bandits before you die. (there is always a small chance that you survive such a dumb desicion, and save your gear - but as i said its very risky and not the goal of player interactions)

in both situations you loose your gear and therefore everything.

I think 80% of the players will choose number 2 because they have nothing to loose except for their gear which they will lose anyway.

At this point i introduce you skills.

Everything you do fills up a progressbar. If this progressbar is filled up you get better at the certain action. Then it gets resetet so you can reach the next "level".

E.g.

You shoot zombies with your gun. At the beginning your aim is really bad. But when you reach the next level of the "aim-progressbar" by shooting like 100 zombies your aim gets better.

There could be another progressbar for repairing Items. This could work like that: you repair things and therefore raising your repairbar. Some items then need a certain lvl on the repair skill so you can repair them. for example if u want to repair a helicopter you need the repair skill maxed out.

This are just 2 examples. Others would be cooking, hunting, meele weapons, opening cans,...

i hope you get the point.

To come back to the nothing to loose problem. If you had these skills there would be something that is more important than just gear or your map location. You would try to survive just so you dont loose your hardly gained skills.

And then many people would decide to interact more and get their gear stolen just to not get killed.

That would be my suggestion to dayz, what do you think?

sry for my not so good english i ve written this on my smartphone.

 

I like the idea of skills except for weapons skills such as aiming or recoil, it's bad

[haven923 65]

Forgive the following reference, I am a huge halo nut.

 

In Halo 4, 343I wanted to add a little bit of specialization to loadouts, but didn't want "perks."  Their solution?  They made customizable packages that you had to unlock and other players couldn't necessarily tell what you had equipped.  Some were notable when certen actions were taken, but most were unseen.  Skills should be like that.  You can't tell what somebody has, even when performing a lot of common tasks.  The improvement should be notable to the trained eye of the player improving their own skills, but should not negate knowledge of the game.

 

Difficult tasks (like repairing the power plant of a helicopter) should be difficult and, honestly, not everyone should be able to do it.  Somebody who has, say, repaired a car a few times and also fixed other parts of the helicopter would have a better understanding and would therefore be able to attempt to repair a helicopter.  Somebody who just found their first gun wouldn't be steady with it.  Most people would be able to grasp the concept that the end that goes boom faces away from you, but not everybody knows the fundamentals of marksmanship.  Hate to say it, but the more you use a gun, the less sway and recoil it should have.  It should at least have a faster return-to-zero to compensate the recoil. 

this would make an experienced player no less capable of hitting and killing an enemy than somebody with time invested to their character, but would be noticable and greatly valued to the owner of said progressed character.  Somebody with a two full medkits (like my current character) would still be useless of the game mechanics/real world uses of medical supplies, but they could, like suggested earlier, be able to apply bandages quicker, have lower chance of infection, and use supplies more sparingly (6 uses from bandages, rather than 2-4).  Somebody who spends the majority of their time stalking the underbrush for wild game could have a softer foot fall and spook animals less frequently.  As mentioned, somebody who does a lot of running (i.e. everybody) could have an easier time keeping their breath and have lower chances of heart attack.

 

Is this unfair to Bambis?  No more unfair than a fresh-spawn running into a fully-geared bandit.  In the end, the amount of time you put into your character should be something that you don't want to lose.  As-is, I could die and run to an airfield to meet up with a friend and instantly be almost back to where I was before succumbing to the brain fever.  Perhaps there could be physical indicators of higher level skills.  Nothing too terrible, but a trained mechanic could have a grease smear on his cheak, a doctor cook could have a hair net, etc.  Some things could have draw backs that you have to concern yourself with, as well!  Somebody well versed in skill books and with several high-ranked skills could develop blurry vision and require glasses!

[- Karma - 75]

As I stated in the other thread regarding skills on the first page (mods should merge, good debate in both that should be shared) I would accept passive skills so long as the number of uses isn't static so that people know exactly how much to grind.  Skill trees are for sure a bad idea, but passives I can work with.  It does make more sense in some ways.  Whoever mentioned the Devs using player kits as the "skills" was probably bang on.  Saw the quote from Rocket regarding getting better at repairing, but I think that was a little vague.  I'm not convinced that means skill trees but rather being better at the sequence in real life then in the game.

[Window Licker 504]

Ah so, this morning on the general forum's an interview was posted where Dean said that you will get better at doing thing's if you do them repeatedly, also this "skill" can get wiped from your brain with a 7.62 round, so.... stay safe, stay alive.

 

Repair System - will be possible to recover damaged and ruined items.  It will be a SKILL that is acquired with practice.  More you do it; the better at it you get

 

forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/175718-detailed-information-summary-from-rockets-eurogamer-live-stream/

From the other thread in the suggestion forum about skills.

[valtsuh 68]

yeah i was thinking that too but you dont have like a perks on real life like dayz is trying to be realistic. i like the idea but i think they could make it like other gamemode like "dayz with perks" :thumbsup:

Edited February 22, 2014 by valtsu99