MERGED: changing Humanity

[Lady Kyrah 1110]

In my opinion , the concept of humanity, "doing the right thing" and all are not really compatible with the lawlessness tied with the collapse of society.

To me those concepts are pretty much in place so one part of a population can keep the other in check without having to do a thing about it.

It's a simplified concept entirely based on the idea that the normal behavior for a human being is to be a good christian (if you will excuse the comparison) and that "thou shall not kill". And that anyone drifting from that norm is a psychotic individual that doesn't deserve to live.

Well i have news for you, this society of virtue is gone. It's everyone for himself.

Now what can be added to encourage peoples to cooperate?

Why would you think anything need to be added? Having a friend to back you up is invaluable, your chances of survival as a group increase by a great deal.

What we need however is pre patch zombie counts because right now it's no surprise that bandits are on the rise, the world is hardly a dangerous place anymore.

[Rec0n412 9]

As is, there is nothing in game to encourage people to cooperate. The only thing that can be added would be artificial constraints, considering that life is valueless in a video game, and that the zombies are all very easily circumvented.

In the end, any cooperative elements are always going to be of an artificial nature when placed in a video game.

[Lady Kyrah 1110]

Frankly if there is one thing this game teach you is cooperation.

To a point of course.

-With a friend you have a backup if things go wrong.

-With two friends no loner will ever attack you for your gear.

-With more friends, your carrying capacity allow you to scavenge much more efficiently, benefit most from vehicles, establish temporary perimeters while a friend is respawning, carry extra "respawn kits".

Peoples already group and socialize, simply not with everyone, and they shouldn't have to, really.

What i don't like with the humanity system is that it label a group of peoples as "bad" and creates a game sanctioned "us vs them" which is fine in a team based game, but this is not one of them.

Most humanity + shoot bandits on sight. They do not shoot them because they are a scourge to the game, they shoot them because unlike shooting another survivor, shooting a bandit is free, no matter how unfair the circumstances are, and they can pretend they are acting for the common good and pat eachothers in the back for making the world a better place or something.

But being a bandit is a simple "karma" mechanic, it doesn't factor why you became a bandit or how, it's not very precise either since you become a bandit at your first kill of a survivor, no matter what, and there are hundred of reasons to kill one another.

The day you become a bandit by accident, or on purpose, you realise that it's nothing special, that you didn't become magically an evil bloodthirsty brute, you're just the same, but now, instead of giving you the benefit of the doubt, 90% of the other players shoot you on sight as soon as they spot you.

So if you want to survive, you do the same and sink further into the humanity scale.

It's trying to push some universal view of good vs evil, but fail to do so because you cannot accurately judge player intents and the situation solely through game logic. That's why in the real world we dish out justice with a court, and not with computers.

In my opinion, we get enough manichean good vs evil shoved down my throat everyday in the real world, don't you think?

I mean this mod picture the end of civilization, there is no god, there is no retribution for your sins, all you can do is TRY to cling to the last shreds of your humanity.

You can only make virtues for yourself, being unable to force others to play your way is what makes this mod interesting.

Enforcing it through a simple (and ultimately abuseable) game logic only ensure that players will walk the razor edge of the "rules" and that player to player relationship will remain superficial and shallow.

[terox 2]

Although I am not adverse to survivors killing survivors, the emphasis should really be survivors helping survivors and bandits trying to rob everyone and that' where we should be trying to steer it towards. Otherwise we might as well all have bandit skins.

Typical scenario new player joins, maybe doesn't understand the gameplay, kills the first person they see and becomes a bandit.

Should they now realise what they have done and want to undo this, they have a really big problem trying to get back into the survivor skin.

With knowledge of the arma engine the following may help to rebalance the gameplay that we are currently seeing.

1) Increase the threshold of when a survivor turns into a bandit so that he has to kill a few survivors before he reskins.

2) Any "Survivor skinned" player who has murdered more than 1 survivor automatically has a marker tracking their either exact or approximate location in the map, so that anyone with a map can see where they are.

The marker tracking stops if they become a bandit or they increase there humanity level.

3) if they continue on their killing spree, then there intention must be to become a bandit, at which point, after a few more kills, they reskin and the marker tracking is disabled on them.

4) More ways to increase their humanity, but there is a maximum humanity limit , this will stop someone who is a survivor gaining masses of humanity and then going on a survivor murder spree.

Possibly give an increase to humanity for killing a bandit

5) Add a reputation score, this can be incremented by allowing each player to perform an action on another play, just once per player. So if Player A helps someone in anyway, another player can approach them, and run an action on them which adds a +1 to their reputation score. But they can only do this to Player A once. Its a way of saying thankyou.

This score can then be seen via a small overlay popup when you point your cursor at the player. This will allow an other player to see how trustworthy they are. This could represent human instinct and make approaching other players a little easier and therefore enhancing any chance of teamplay this mod has, without having to be in a clan

[shwat 3]

2) Any "Survivor skinned" player who has murdered more than 1 survivor automatically has a marker tracking their either exact or approximate location in the map' date=' so that anyone with a map can see where they are.

The marker tracking stops if they become a bandit or they increase there humanity level.

[/quote']

What the actual fuck? Really? Why? What purpose does this serve? Why should everyone in the world know where somebody is just because that guy shot somebody? It serves no purpose except to draw more players to that guy, by which he can get more kills or he gets spawn-camped.

[terox 2]

What the actual fuck? Really? Why? What purpose does this serve? Why should everyone in the world know where somebody is just because that guy shot somebody? It serves no purpose except to draw more players to that guy' date=' by which he can get more kills or he gets spawn-camped.

[/quote']

until he becomes a fully fledged bandit or a decent humanitarian survivor yes.

If you dont want to stop survivors killing survivors for the sake of it then fine, the mod will simply become a deathmatch, its already going down that path now, or havent you noticed.

Dont you think the type of gameplay that should be encouraged is

Survivors helping survivors.

Bandits killing anyone for gain ?

At the moment, the survivor skin doesn't actually play a part, as the typical attitude is kill every player anyway, so we might as well all have bandit skins

What purpose does it serve?, as you just stated it would cause the player to be spawn camped, thus not encouraging killing players unless you wanted to be a bandit, which is why the tracking system would inly run for a short time through a small humanity threshold.

And please please do you have to resort to swearing to get your point over.

[The Killing Joke 43]

the mod will simply become a deathmatch

This quote is overused, and sadly, is not the case. People are adapting, and there are a growing number of threads for the 'bandit killers'.

I understand where you are coming from, as I do not like the whole 'spawn camping' mentality, but balance is destroyed when you favour one play style over another. It is - no doubt - UNFAIR when someone gets shot at spawn. We need a good way to identify these players, and then, have the ability to have them removed from the servers.

That's the way similar issues are handled on other servers, and is an acceptable measure for DayZ.

TKJ

[Mutonizer 78]

There are two kinds of people killing others.

1) The FPS player. This guy, there's nothing you can do about him. His ONLY goal is to log in for a bit, and kill people for no reason whatsoever, not even their stuff or anything. The rest of the mod doesn't even remotely interest him, zombies are a pain and for stupid "pve carebears", etc. You get the idea.

You CANNOT fight these guys and you certainly cannot win. They have no emotional attachment to whatever they're doing, don't give a shit about the mod's concept and if even if you kill them, they'll just respawn, go camp new weapons and server switch while looking at a map on the internet, and start again. Also, since nothing matters, they'll happily disconnect to avoid death, or use any abuse they can.

I repeat, these dudes play this mod like any normal FPS, and Chernarus is just a bigger counter-strike map. Good thing is that they're not too many of them overall.

2) The average players. These guys play either solo or in pre-made groups and actually play the mod, embracing it's content. They'll enjoy zombies, town raids, repairing vehicles, and pretend to try and survive..in a way, they'll sort of "roleplay" the situation.

Sometimes they'll meet other people and then they'll make a decision on how to deal with the situation. Not just killing others because it's fun, but they'll actually think about it for a second, why it's needed, or why it's not. Most can be quite friendly, but most are also very careful when meeting other people, even if they don't want to kill people, because they have a certain emotional attachment to their characters and pride themselves not on how many people they killed, but how long they've been alive for. This is I think the majority of the players out there and the more the mod will develop, the more there will be of these guys.

Personally, I think the bandit skin should go, period. It's artificial, it feels artificial and worst, it makes some people crave it, like a scoreboard almost. Humanity is ok, but it should NEVER be displayed to the player (any score will PUSH players into competition for it) and it should impact your character in different ways, such as nervous shakes and other "gameplay" mechanism so that you don't WANT to lose it. Nothing too serious so that you feel really penalized when it happens by accident but something so that at least you don't WANT to lose it, or not too much.

Map tracking and scores and whatnot, I'm completely opposed to that, feels also totally artificial.

[terox 2]

@ Mutonizer I think that's a fair portrayal of the different mindsets.

The problem is that the FPS Killbot junkie screws the gameplay up for others and does takeaway any teamplay that can occur between the solo players who do want to roleplay.

Anything that encourages against the FPS attitude in my opinion is better than doing nothing and simply accepting it.

Murders between survivors should be abnormal, not normal

And unfortunately The Killing Joke, the southern coastal towns, Elektro and Cherno are death match arena's regardless of what you think

Any "experienced" player only enters these areas if they want a deathmatch or because they have recently been killed and need some basic kit before they venture north.

Moving the respawn point to the east coast or to the north forested areas would to a certain extent reduce this is as the impatient FPS player wouldnt want to spend the time walking all the way there

[The Killing Joke 43]

And unfortunately The Killing Joke' date=' the southern coastal towns, Elektro and Cherno are death match arena's regardless of what you think[/quote']

I haven't made it that far inland as yet. Sadly, I only play at night, and even then, I suck at the game.

I don't agree with your point that "Anything that encourages against the FPS attitude in my opinion is better than doing nothing and simply accepting it." It's too broad a stroke. A smart, measured approach to the situation may be called for. It may not. Maybe, letting it take its course is the way to go.

I'm sure there are a lot of gamers who love Arma 2. I'm also sure that a lot of them like it for the FPS mentality, and the realism, and there's probably a good portion of those who say, "wow, zombies!" and love that as well. They shouldn't be shunned, just because others want to play differently.

Players - all players - should be encouraged to play as they want, and to learn how to circumvent others. I play 'lone wolf' style, for example. I don't complain about the player killers, the overwhelming number of zombies, the bandit groups, the FPS players, etc. etc. I like to imagine what the world would be like if it was real - as everybody should - and consider that these things COULD actually happen. There will be factions. There will be idiots. There will be zombies.

What can I do to become better at the play style I have chosen? That, is the essence of what this game is about.

TKJ

[terox 2]

I've played it for 2 weeks now, and I like the role playing element of it. I've played with my community members, worked with groups at night which is by far the most fun. Played solo, hunted bandits and had a very high zombie kill score

I know where every loot spot is, know where to get the best stuff, know what equipment I actually need. The one thing I havent done is killed a survivor skinned player nor would I.

I personally dont want a bandit skin however if I had returned fire every time a survivor skinned player engaged me, I would now be a bandit, and why did they engage me, probably just their mentality as there would have been no benefit for it. This for me spoils the mod big time. I have absolutely no issue with bandits killing me, as that is how it should play out.

I hope somehow this is addressed and the gameplay steered in a different direction than it is currently going

[Alex (DayZ) 8]

Thread number 1023213214215 about trying to dampen PvP in the game. Totally unsupport this.

[terox 2]

Its not the pvp element I want to stop!!!

I just want to promote more teamplay between survivors

Simple messages should be.

I am a bandit, I will kill you to rob you, so stay clear of me at all costs

I am s survivor, I dont really want to kill anyone, and would like to team up to aid in my survival

Not

I am a player therefore I will kill you, and on the rare chance that I am a good player, you wont believe me so you will just shoot me anyway

[Alex (DayZ) 8]

Thats the point, survivors are players, you don't know if they are going to raise their gun and shoot you, thats the risk and its the decision of the player if he wants to shoot you or not; the only penalty he should suffer is a humanity loss (and even then I want the humanity function removed from the game).

[rossmum 7]

I don't get this mindset. If you want to play co-op against zombies, play L4D. The first impression I got from this mod was "zombies are a problem, but I really hope I don't run into another player". That's how it should be. I dunno if you somehow expect a survival environment to override peoples' personalities or instinct to preserve their own tribe/family/clan/group over others', but trying to limit the prevalence of homicide in this mod is about the worst thing that could happen.

Quit kidding yourselves that there are "FPS players" and then "normal players". If you want to get away from genuine CS kiddies, then walk five minutes inland. Congratulations, you're now safe from a tiny minority of the people who play the mod, so tiny they barely warrant mention. If they truly just want to kill things, I doubt they have the patience or skill required to survive long enough to leave the major cities.

"Normal" players, on the other hand, do. They might want to carebear it up with you and anyone else who comes near them, they might be edgy and unwilling to trust other players and shoot those who approach them, or they might actively hunt down careless survivors for a challenge (and loot). I belong to the latter group. I have spent several ingame days carefully working my way around the map, selecting my equipment, picking when to let people go and when to hunt them down. It's fun, it's difficult as hell, and it's exactly what I would expect some people to do in a survival situation.

I've made some exceptions so far. A guy saved me, so I helped him in turn. A new player found me and I wasn't sure I could shoot him before he could hit me, so we brokered an uneasy truce that led to me guiding him all the way across the map before we parted ways. Then there was a guy who ran into the same room as me, and since I was in a hurry to gear up and didn't really need conflict, I shot the conga line of zombies he'd brought rather than him. I wished I had afterwards, because he ran off and I almost died to said conga line.

Basically, if you don't want PVP, join an empty server with your friends or just, oh I don't know, avoid other players. If you get shot by a player, you have clearly made a poor decision somewhere, because it's not like they just phase into existence behind you. If the PVP aspect of this game was infringed upon I would stop playing it, and I suspect a lot of others would too. All the fun, all the challenge, and all the comedy of this game comes from players' freedom to kill each other or help each other. Remove that, and it's a pretty bland crawling simulator.

[harryzhe 28]

+1 ross's post. Furthermore, from someone who doesn't intend to kill anyone who isn't obviously a murderer out to get me, i'd hate to see PVP penalised. Less threat from other survivors will do nothing but make the game more boring and similar to the "average" arma zombie mission.

Look at how things are. Theres about 20 zombie scenarios for arma, and out of all of them, this is the one that people play like crazy. This is the one outselling AAA releases on steam. What makes it different to other zombie mods, that draws people in so much? Make a list of the differences and stop suggesting to cross things off that list. Everyone.

[milasiusa@gmail.com 0]

-With two friends no loner will ever attack you for your gear.

Ohh man you are so wrong here :)

Sometimes i go to 1v3 fights

Withm my cz ;P

[harryzhe 28]

er, it's not really a "score" or something, any more than the right-hand side of a ruler is of higher value than the left. It's nothing but a thing to measure whether or not you're a bandit. It's nothing to do with morality, just describes your stance towards other humans with an estimate.

[Alex (DayZ) 8]

Agreed, remove Humanity.

[Mutonizer 78]

I don't get this mindset. If you want to play co-op against zombies' date=' play L4D. The first impression I got from this mod was "zombies are a problem, but I really hope I don't run into another player". [/quote']

L4D? That's a FPS. Nothing interesting for me in it. I mostly loathe FPS games.

Quit kidding yourselves that there are "FPS players" and then "normal players". If you want to get away from genuine CS kiddies' date=' then walk five minutes inland. Congratulations, you're now safe from a tiny minority of the people who play the mod, so tiny they barely warrant mention. If they truly just want to kill things, I doubt they have the patience or skill required to survive long enough to leave the major cities.[/quote']

You didn't need anything in 1.5.6 and killing players was rampant. 1.5.7 came along and now yes, it's different.

It's fun' date=' it's difficult as hell, and it's exactly what I would expect some people to do in a survival situation. [/quote']

You expect people to spend days "hunting" other human being in a survival situation? Alright then....

Overall, who said anything about no PvP? The unknown reaction of other players is for a great part of this mod and the survival genre.

See what I did there? The "unknown reaction", and that means there needs to be something in there that makes people not think: "ok, killing EVERYONE on sight is the more logical solution, above any other option".

In 1.5.6, nearly everyone was on "shoot first and don't give a shit later" mentality, which is not good because then you KNOW players are automatically enemies, no matter what, unless you know them before hand.

In two days of 1.5.7, I've have ten times more varied encounters with players than during the entire 1.5.6 and THAT is interesting. Some we shot, some we talked, some we ran, I've even been robbed by a group of guys!!. Players are NOT always enemies now, which is great.

If there were only people like you (because face it, you're only here to kill other people), it'd be boring because you are 100% predictable: players = enemy = shoot, ALL the time. Even the two example you gave where you didn't, you obviously felt bad you didn't. All the wording of your post reflects that (carebear it being the most revealing).

This mods need people like you of course, it's great for tension and I love it, but it can't just be people like you, there needs to be a reason for variety and variety is brought by uncertainty, which means, for most people, making killing people only ONE choice among many other valid ones.

[rossmum 7]

Agreed with Harry. It only has whatever meaning you attach to it.

With that said, however, its only purpose is to dictate how long you have the bandit skin, and frankly I would not complain if that entire aspect of the game, along with humanity, was removed. It seems fairly useless and doesn't really add anything to the mod, especially when survivors are killing each other and bandits are being shot because they got the skin by defending themselves.

[Vietcongcobain 1]

Umm pretty much self explanatory...if your buddy accidentally shoots you in the head cause you just walk into his firing lane he should eat a murder...you can forgive him and it won't count....aaanndd.....I think there should be way to give a guy some of your humanity if he helps you out with the ability to withdraw it within a set time frame if he backs stabs you (prevents bandits from robbing you for humanity lol as funny as that sounds). The fact you can withdraw it also limits people from abusing it as well u cant just spam a channel and say "gIME RidE to blah blah I got humanity" because people are greedy....they will withdraw the humanity after they get a ride and the person that gave him a ride will br screwed...so people will be wary of that stuff.....so humanity will be given organically when people are really grateful....The way the game is structured it has no way of knowing that a guy who stops in the middle of the road to pick you up is a big deal sometimes...reward him in a player controlled way...of course we would probably need a limit to the amount of times you can give humanity in a set amount of time (humanity spamming and abuse) and the amount you can give per life-saving-moment but it would promote a level of compassion this game lacks....right now it's not even realistic there is 0 compassion lol....there should be around 25% if u ask me...it's still supposed to be dangerous but right now it's just a post apocalyptic deathmatch lol

---

Bandits of course have no humanity so they can't give none.....which is how it's supposed to be.....your not really supposed to help bandits unless u expect nothing in return....,but it will help bandits more to get in the good graces a lot easier imo

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Bandits of course have no humanity so they can't give none.....which is how it's supposed to be.....your not really supposed to help bandits unless u expect nothing in return....,but it will help bandits more to get in the good graces a lot easier imo

[Malaclypse 3]

A murder, depending on the shots plugged into the guy, can lower humanity quite a bit more than a kind act (transfusion, bandaging, etc). I propose that these things be a bit more equalized, either by decreasing the amount of "negative" humanity gained from murders, or by raising the amount of "positive" humanity gained from healz. It's far to easy to gain negative humanity as opposed to positive.

Added to this, do-away with the passive humanity regen entirely, or keep the regen up until a certain threshold (-3000 as an example). I understand that part of the reason for the regen is likely to give a new player or someone who killed in self-preservation a second chance, but it is, and I'm saying this as a survivor, very unfair for bandits to have their reputation fluctuate in accordance with something not based on their actions in game save for the fact that they're mobile.

[rossmum 7]

You expect people to spend days "hunting" other human being in a survival situation? Alright then....

Yes' date=' I do. History proves to us that not all humans give much of a damn about their fellow man and will gladly kill them for their own profit. That is why we have things like, oh I don't know, bandits, pirates and [b']common criminals. If this is not the case where you live, then please let me know where this wonderland of brotherly love and peace is, because I would move there in an instant.

Overall' date=' who said anything about no PvP? The unknown reaction of other players is for a great part of this mod and the survival genre.

See what I did there? The "unknown reaction", and that means there needs to be something in there that makes people not think: "ok, killing EVERYONE on sight is the more logical solution, above any other option".[/quote']

Except this is not the case, and never has been. More often than not players will either team up or try and skirt around each other. Killing is not and never was as common as you make it out to be, unless you play on some truly awful servers. More likely you're overstating the issue.

In 1.5.6' date=' nearly everyone was on "shoot first and don't give a shit later" mentality, which is not good because then you KNOW players are automatically enemies, no matter what, unless you know them before hand.

In two days of 1.5.7, I've have ten times more varied encounters with players than during the entire 1.5.6 and THAT is interesting. Some we shot, some we talked, some we ran, I've even been robbed by a group of guys!!. Players are NOT always enemies now, which is great.[/quote']

See above. This was never the case on any server I played on, in any version.

If there were only people like you (because face it' date=' you're only here to kill other people), it'd be boring because you are 100% predictable: players = enemy = shoot, ALL the time. Even the two example you gave where you didn't, you obviously felt bad you didn't. All the wording of your post reflects that (carebear it being the most revealing).[/quote']

Thanks for the five-second psychoanalysis, Sigmund! Please tell me more about my own motivations, discerned from a single post on an online forum as only you could. I would definitely love to have my intelligence further insulted in a highly condescending and prejudicial manner.

This mods need people like you of course' date=' it's great for tension and I love it, but it can't just be people like you, there needs to be a reason for variety and variety is brought by uncertainty, which means, for most people, making killing people only ONE choice among many other valid ones.

[/quote']

Tell me more about hyperbole.

[Timberfox 2]

Try suggesting this 'forgive' button on one of the already created humanity posts.

Also...Use paragraphs and sentences... not just ellipsis...