Perks/skills/professions/stats

[Archit 1]

I like the idea. I've been suggesting a trait, skill, profession systems for quite some time on the steam forums.

A player needs to feel attached to his character and not to his gear. There needs to be some kind of other leveling mechanism except the quantity and quality of your loot. I suggest that your character gradually gets better at shooting, swinging an axe at zombies, chopping down trees, fishing, skinning and quartering, starting a fire and such. After all we are all playing as civilians and not as machines who are perfectly skilled at doing everything they ever try to do. Maybe we can even make our every new character start out with a couple of traits which make him more adept at doing certain things like firing small arms, rifles, skining and everything else is at average and has to be leveled from average to mastered. So now everytime your character dies you can engage in a new playstyle from the very start. You'll be looking for specific items which benefit your current traits. This could go so far as that players who are survivalists can have special abilities like being able to cut down trees with a knife, start a fire while it's raining.

[Archit 1]

I like the idea. I've been suggesting a trait, skill, profession systems for quite some time on the steam forums.

A player needs to feel attached to his character and not to his gear. There needs to be some kind of other leveling mechanism except the quantity and quality of your loot. I suggest that your character gradually gets better at shooting, swinging an axe at zombies, chopping down trees, fishing, skinning and quartering, starting a fire and such. After all we are all playing as civilians and not as machines who are perfectly skilled at doing everything they ever try to do. Maybe we can even make our every new character start out with a couple of traits which make him more adept at doing certain things like firing small arms, rifles, skining and everything else is at average and has to be leveled from average to mastered. So now everytime your character dies you can engage in a new playstyle from the very start. You'll be looking for specific items which benefit your current traits. This could go so far as that players who are survivalists can have special abilities like being able to cut down trees with a knife, start a fire while it's raining.

[Archit 1]

I like the idea. I've been suggesting a trait, skill, profession systems for quite some time on the steam forums.

A player needs to feel attached to his character and not to his gear. There needs to be some kind of other leveling mechanism except the quantity and quality of your loot. I suggest that your character gradually gets better at shooting, swinging an axe at zombies, chopping down trees, fishing, skinning and quartering, starting a fire and such. After all we are all playing as civilians and not as machines who are perfectly skilled at doing everything they ever try to do. Maybe we can even make our every new character start out with a couple of traits which make him more adept at doing certain things like firing small arms, rifles, skining and everything else is at average and has to be leveled from average to mastered. So now everytime your character dies you can engage in a new playstyle from the very start. You'll be looking for specific items which benefit your current traits. This could go so far as that players who are survivalists can have special abilities like being able to cut down trees with a knife, start a fire while it's raining.

I also think that it's a great idea to let some profession-specific abilities like cleaning guns could be learned by anyone if books/guides are found in the world which show how to do it although a soldier would know how to disassemble and clean every gun meanwhile someone who is learning how to do it from books will have to find guides/books for every gun and learn it all one by one. 

[themightylc 56]

A player needs to feel attached to his character and not to his gear. There needs to be some kind of other leveling mechanism except the quantity and quality of your loot. I suggest that your character gradually gets better at shooting, swinging an axe at zombies, chopping down trees, fishing, skinning and quartering, starting a fire and such.

This.

Imho the game needs some/any kind of mechanic that makes you value (your own life) over your gear. Being stripped naked but left alive by bandits sets you back MORE than dying and starting over. "Take all my stuff but let me live" is one of the most basic survival strategies out there and in DayZ this does not make sense.

Perks could be restricted to survival elements only, as I think superiority in combat should remain a result of skill and selecting the right gear.

[pillock 850]

This.

Imho the game needs some/any kind of mechanic that makes you value (your own life) over your gear. Being stripped naked but left alive by bandits sets you back MORE than dying and starting over. "Take all my stuff but let me live" is one of the most basic survival strategies out there and in DayZ this does not make sense.

Perks could be restricted to survival elements only, as I think superiority in combat should remain a result of skill and selecting the right gear.

 

They could achieve this to an extent by fleshing out the character health mechanics a but more. So fresh spawns are weak and feeble; but a player who's survived successfully for a while, and has established reliable and consistent nutrition and shelter from the elements, and has remained free of injury and sickness, will have built up greater physical fitness. You can run farther and faster, can carry more kit, don't tire as quickly, less weapon sway, hit harder in melee, absorb damage slightly more effectively, recover from wounds and illness faster.

 

They could be subtle differences in themselves, but added together would make a real difference to how your character performs - so you really notice how useless and crap your new spawn character is by comparison when you do suffer a death. This would be far more preferable, in my opinion, to arbitrary 'skill levels' for things like firebuilding or weapon cleaning or bandage application.

 

"You have successfully caught 10 fish: Fishing skill + 1"

- Fuck that.

[themightylc 56]

They could achieve this to an extent by fleshing out the character health mechanics a but more. So fresh spawns are weak and feeble; but a player who's survived successfully for a while, and has established reliable and consistent nutrition and shelter from the elements, and has remained free of injury and sickness, will have built up greater physical fitness. You can run farther and faster, can carry more kit, don't tire as quickly, less weapon sway, hit harder in melee, absorb damage slightly more effectively, recover from wounds and illness faster.

 

I absolutely like that idea - with the footnote that differences should be subtle - but coming to think of it this is it. Right now with the abundance of food and near-empty servers to choose from, spawnig as a "hungry" character is nothing but a minor nuisance. But making the "healthy" status a little harder to achieve and maybe also restricting spawn points to low-loot locations it would be 

 

1) actually a challenge to survive before being geared up

2) make sense to be stripped off all your gear (maybe even ABONDONING your gear to run faster??) near your hidden stash and remain healthy and strong, than spawning "on the coast" again.

 

I really really hope that's the vision.

Edited September 1, 2014 by TheMightyLC

[Kronons 98]

Just a little input to clear your suggestion. Dayz SA will in no shape or form go towards a traditional skill/profession mmo. Rocket has already stated in an interview that he wants the game to be based on gear and not kill collecting, leveling, etc...He basically stated that how you level up in Dayz SA is getting better gear and loot. So sorry it won't happen. Honestly I like Dayz SA the way it is. It's different from all other MMOs and it's unique. If they add classes, jobs, professions, etc...it'll ruing the Dayz experience. My 2 cents.

[JackyCTV 54]

I dont mind Professions but adding perks & stats will ruin the game completely IMO

[jacobahalls 80]

Since the beginning the characters were meant to be regular civilians, nothing more. But with the addition of Lock Picking, I believe that they take it a bit to far. Because I do not believe everyone knows how to pick a lock. There should be a dynamic skill tree that as you try picking more and your character succeeds at picking locks he will slowly get better. Such as the amount of time it would take, if it would fail/succeed, and other things that would influence it. There would be no player interaction with the skill tree and you couldn't see how far along you were, if there is an end. You would just play and see your character get better until he dies.

Now, I see this as an opportunity to expand, such as holding breath longer, sprinting longer, being more accurate with a specific gun over time, being able to skin and gut animals better/faster and many many more possibilities. Now I don't see this as the direction that they would go but it just makes so much sense, it would make an another end game and just like items you would lose all that hard work. Items wouldn't be the only thing that determined how good your character was anymore. Plus as stated above it would give purpose to those that like to just survive as their character would get better In a distinct way.

I just have so many ideas that could expand on this that it would only make this topic extremely long and pointless because it will probably not go any further than this. Hope that you guys like my suggestion and I would like to see some input.

Edited October 18, 2014 by Jacobahalls

[DemonGroover 8836]

I am not a fan of skills and perks etc, there are a million games like that.  I see where you are coming from but in the Mod the characters were able to fix vehicles, hotwire them, inject morphine, apply blood bags and fix up (and fly) Huey helicopters. 

 

Considering we are also immune from the zombie virus i think we are just all round Supermen/women.

[Nesuma (DayZ) 108]

I would like to see a something like a skill tree too, but only where player skill doesn't matter. Never ever adjust your aim over passive skills. Holding your breath longer, sprinting faster, these things are okay, but I'd prefer to make the player responsible for everything else. (Lockpicking like in tes 4/5, gutting with your mouse and keyboard, etc. I hope they will add atleast some small "mini-games", even if I don't think that it will be possible, ever :D.

[kichilron 8550]

 

 

Merged

[federal39 11]

Maybe like finding like books and reading then and learn like cpr or learn how to cook

[nokyookami 63]

Since the beginning the characters were meant to be regular civilians, nothing more. But with the addition of Lock Picking, I believe that they take it a bit to far.

 Blood transfusions i think are even Worse than lockpicking xD

 

Edited October 18, 2014 by NokyoOkami

[joe_mcentire 2074]

so what about this idea Hicks? haven't heard about skills in ages.

[Dingobaby 1]

I think that professions should be added as a character trait on spawn and randomly assigned. Only you know what your profession was before the outbreak and if asked you can lie. The only way can show you were a mechanic is to fix the cars etc.

 

A person that was a mechanic will always be able to use the correct tools to fix a car and it will always work. Every other profession can try to fix it but it will only work 1/100 times and will ruin the tools quicker too. This way you could lie about your profession and you might get away with it.

 

I think this will help the KOS element as somebody might have a profession that you need in your group.

 

I think most spawns (50%) should be standard jobs like postman milkman etc. but you can learn any profession from books, read 100 books about mechanics and you are a mechanic. You can have multiple professions by reading multiple books but you can't master more than one and the more you read on one profession lessens the rest.

 

Books would ruin after being read more than a few times so that people can't horde them for the group. If you have a teacher in your group you can shorten the time it take to master a new profession.

 

There are no combat skills that increase with professions as I think this should come naturally as you play more.

 

Once a group has multiple characters and professions >5 they must elect a leader and then political influence can play a part and bring in new skills. Only leaders can recruit or remove players from a group.

 

For example:

 

You spawn in and check your character you are listed as a postman. You run around and loot up and this will probably dictate what other skills you can achieve quickest (find tools, books etc. for a particular job).

 

You spawn in and you are a mechanic. You can fix cars straight way with no risk and reduced tool damage. If another profession fixes a car they will only have 1/100 chance of success and will ruin the tools twice as fast

 

You spawn in and you are a doctor. You can administer drugs straight way with no risk.

 

If another profession gives/takes drugs they only have 1/100 chance of success.

 

You are in a group and one of you get injured or gets poisoned, if you don't have a doctor you can risk it yourself or you can find the drugs needed and a doctor. You meet someone and ask them what they do and they say a doctor ...

[sgtpotatoes@gmail.com 30]

Implementing classes would be a mistake.

Allowing players to know what they're good at right off is a mistake.

 

I think adding soft skills is the way to go (Fix up your car, mechanical skill goes up a tiny amount, work a little faster than before, or whatever the advantage will be), with a couple stipulations:

- The skills are invisible.  No numbers, no names, no +1 skill messages.

- Everyone starts at zero across the board.  No F11'ing to get the skillset you want, have to figure it out through practice.

- No gun skills.  You do the shooting yourself.  We aren't soldiers.

- A couple (1-3, depending on total number) skills increase a little faster than the rest, for the things you happen to be naturally good at.

 

We still start with nothing, and the longer you survive, the more valuable you are.  Gotta keep things difficult.

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

"THIS IS DAYZ, THIS IS YOUR STORY."

 

The moment you start to bring any adjustable stats or classes in it becomes less your story and more the story of some developer.

 

You're not a medic because you heal people faster, you're a medic because you choose to heal people.

Edited March 24, 2015 by BioHaze

[trev186 389]

No on stats...

Just no

Permadeath and stats don't go.

[scriptfactory 620]

Passive skills could be based on the idea that survival (e.g. time, health and gear) is the only progression in DayZ.

 

• All characters must be able to improve all skills.
• Characters should have one learned skill and a few innate skills. This would make certain characters valuable for their learned skillset.
• Current skill values should increase as characters age. Since skills are based on player age they are lost on death.
• The base skill values could be generated (perhaps using your GUID as a seed) and static (they never change).
• Since character values are static and progress automatically no in-game UI is necessary. Over time you will learn what your character is good at.

Learned skill ideas (e.g. jobs)

• Medical: Greatly increased healing effect on self and others. Can craft medical kit at max age.
• Architect: Greatly reduced barricading and base construction times. Can build code locks at max age.
• Engineer: Greatly reduced lockpicking time. Can repair firearms, military gear and tools to "Pristine" at max age.
• Farmer: Greatly increased crop yield. Greatly reduced tilling and crop growing times. Can domesticate cows and horses for transportation or food (milk).
• Mechanic: Greatly reduced vehicle repair and construction times. Can build a Bicycle at max age.
• Woodsman: Increased wood, leather and meat (butchering) yields. Greatly reduced crop yield. Greatly increased crop growing times. Can craft recurve bow at max age.
• Fireman: Always have Strength innate skill. Can craft Fireaxe.

Innate skill ideas (e.g. physical character properties)

• Running: Slightly increased stamina and run speed. Slightly decreased carrying capacity.
• Aiming: Slightly reduced weapon sway and increased breath holding times.
• Jumping: Slightly increased jump height and distance.
• Strength: Slightly increased carrying capacity and melee damage. Slightly decreased stamina.
• Resilience: Slightly increased resistance to disease, poison and hunger damage.

[ebrim 998]

So I respect the idea that losing a character often means less than losing their equipment and how that could be an issue. One partial way to mitigate this is just keeping track of stats to give the character's life meaning, simply knowing how many days or hours the character has survived gives something for people to keep track and value. I'm very very wary of the idea of having any type of skill-type progression because it seems to inevitably to lead to grinding. Grinding is the most ridiculous gamey behavior and games that feature it, suffer from it, in my opinion. The second I see some idiot digging an entire field full of garden plots for no other reason but to "increase his gardening skillz" I might get physically ill.

 

So while I can imagine some very low-key skill system which lets you get slightly higher yields from preparing field game, for example I'm really worried it'll quickly lead to nonsense. It's hard to imagine a system design which both offers that sort of progression without also giving an incentive for silly behavior.

[ebrim 998]

Perhaps tie survival-time to progression. After so many hours of active play a character gets a chance (MTTH: mean time to happen) to improve in one of a number of categories of activity weighted by participation in that activity. Any improvement must be very modest and ultimately capped to avoid super-human nonsense. Simply digging endless gardens will not speed up how fast you get good at gardening but it would perhaps make you more likely to get better at it though at a certain point it would be pointless as you're likely to get it anyway.

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

 

Passive skills could be based on the idea that survival (e.g. time, health and gear) is the only progression in DayZ.

 

-snip-

 

 

If they implemented anything like this it would likely drive me away.

 

Those mechanics are well thought out and really good ideas.... but for some other game.

 

^If we don't share this opinion, then we definitely view DayZ in a completely different way.

 

The lack of stat points and stat progression is one of the central components of what makes DayZ unique.

 

If you perform an in game procedure that might be time sensitive and require multiple steps, your many times of practice will eventually bring you to a point where you perform at the most efficient level and it was your personal real world practice and skill that made that possible, as you progress through DayZ ad infinitum.

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

The only progressive character based stuff that I liked and was discussed by the dev team was an aging and weathering factor with beard growth but I they may nix it because women don't grow beards....

 

 

Just make the women appear to age more prematurely!

 

Maybe some addition of scars, dirt, or longer hair.

[cash81 506]

The only progressive character based stuff that I liked and was discussed by the dev team was an aging and weathering factor with beard growth but I they may nix it because women don't grow beards....

 

 

Just make the women appear to age more prematurely!

 

Maybe some addition of scars, dirt, or longer hair.

Ladies can have bushy armpits and leg hair to show off their length of survival.