Improving Cooperation

[alexander_q 6]

WHAT

I propose several changes to the game to alter the relationships between players in such a way that cooperation is more common. Some changes focus on increasing the need for or opportunities for cooperation, while some go a long way to reducing the amount of power that a player can have as an individual. I provide each change along with its justification, and then wrap up with a more general justification.

1. An advancement system whereby skills improve with practice. This is something that players cannot recover by returning to their bodies after death, and it makes players worth more than their loot. Before you kill that player, consider whether or not he is just the doctor/sharpshooter/survivalist you need, allowing you to specialise in another skill.

2. Overhauled medical system. Nerf the ability of players to recover blood via food, so blood transfusions become vital, necessitating at least one other player. Introduce a similar necessity for performing surgery to remove shrapnel, attach a splint and make bandaging more effective when done by other players.

3. Longer animations. If tasks took longer, a solo player would be more vulnerable when undertaking them. Make cutting wood, preparing fires, repairing cars and doing medical procedures take much longer (you could also have some of them produce noise). You will require another player to watch your back, or cooperate on the activity to get it done faster.

4. Reward clever plans more. Plans wherein one player creates/becomes a distraction for a town full of zombies (while another player carries out the looting) should be more likely to succeed, and should be more important (see below). This might involve one player driving slowly through town, creating an explosion on the edge of town, running through town to gather zombie attention, or luring zombies into buildings and barricading doors behind them.

5. Make zombies more powerful. Stop zombies from being forced to walk indoors. This will require a more profound rebalancing of zombies, so I will elaborate. Make zombies social, in that they will follow other zombies who are moving towards you even if they cannot see you themselves. Have zombies grab you if they catch you, and have your ability to escape from their hold dependent on your stamina and some sort of quick-time-event-like thing, increasing in difficulty with the amount of zombies that are mobbing you. Make it much easier for another player to break the hold on your behalf, either by entering into melee combat with the zombie or shooting it. To balance: make it possible for a player to kill a zombie via this QTE, at a cost to stamina. Have zombies unable to climb ladders, and have them move at different speeds including a slow shamble.

6. Make ammo less plentiful, and the spawning of it more random (perhaps only in crash sites, or similar randomly placed sites). But keep guns just about as common. Really wonder whether or not it's worth wasting your bullet on that n00b. Have more standoffs involving two players with guns and no ammo. Compensate by adding more melee weapons and give players a basic unarmed attack.

7. Have zombie infection be transmitted through bites, with the likelihood that you'll turn based on how many players you've killed (your having killed someone before, and the associated shame or anger, makes you more likely to succumb to the rage virus). This is almost a straight nerf, but breaks mythology somewhat less than other suggested nerfs.

WHY

The existence of player killers is not a problem in DayZ - the pervasiveness of player killers is, for several reasons. In a sandbox game, you want to be able to reward different styles of play, however; rampant paranoia turns everyone into a player killer. Cooperation becomes impossible because trust is impossible. The above methods give rewards for cooperation, and reduce the survivability of individuals against the horde. Necessity breeds trust.

A STORY (that could arise from the above mechanics)

I made the mistake of using my torch on the road west to Cherno. A bandit stepped out onto the road on the outskirts of town and pointed an AK at my face. "Your beans or your life, n00b" he said on direct chat. "There are no bullets in that gun" I replied. "There never are".

Some zombies, drawn by the sound of our voices, began to shamble towards us. I wasn't sure if they had really seen us, or were just the slow variety investigating the noise. I made a dash for the warehouse at my left, and realising the imminent threat to both of us, my assailant followed moments later. The zombies weren't the shambling type. At the sight of us running, they wised up and gave chase. The first zombie caught the highway robber a few paces from the door and pinned him to the ground, and another two continued to close. I was about to start barricading the door, when to my surprise, my would-be mugger called out for help.

I pulled out my makarov. There were bullets in MY gun. I shot the first zombie in the head, and robber-man scrambled to his feet and into the warehouse behind me. We both cooperated on the barricading, and so were able to complete the action before the other zombies arrived.

I don't know exactly why I helped him, but it might have something to do with the fact that he has an AK, but clearly can't feed himself. It turned out he wanted my beans because he was starving to death, and that same fact made him weak against the zombie QTEs. With my high survival skill, I can keep us both alive, and with his gun skill he can do the same. Now we just need to escape from this warehouse and find some ammo...

***

What do you think? Can you suggest any other ways to improve the likelihood of cooperation in the game without breaking in-game mythology? Can you find serious problems with the ways given above, either in their possible implementation or exploitation, or suggest ways to improve them? I am happy to elaborate if desired.

[7-75 callaghan 43]

I like ideas 3,4 and 7. And the general idea, but think you should rename the thread to attract more interest + split the ideas into several threads. People, myself included, are reluctant to discuss more than one idea at a time, because suggestions are normally implemented through overall thread popularity.

[Dreganius (DayZ) 55]

I like 1, 3, 4 and 7, but am not for 5 and 6.

You have my support for those four ideas I stated.

[alexander_q 6]

My first instinct was to do them as separate threads. I'll elaborate on the most popular ones.

I wish there was more support for 5. :-P

[ravenger 10]

Im all for making this game harder and I like all of these ideas. I am a bit skeptical about any sort of leveling or advancement system. It may ruin the game and I like it where its your skill with the game not the game giving you an advantage over other players because of your level. There is pros and cons of it. I like ways to make this game harder and less ammo and tougher zombies are a good idea. Not beefy tanks but more realistic where they pounce on you and you must get someone to shoot it off or have a countdown to simulate you wrestling with it. If it takes you down and bites you then you must find a cure or antibiotics.

[nivek 0]

I support 1, 3, 4 and 7. Pretty good ideas, would add to the game experience!

[alexander_q 6]

Yeah, the advancement system would have to be tightly controlled to prevent grinding. The first step would be to make it completely invisible, and then make sure it doesn't advance via actions that aren't dependent on any resources. For example, if you could advance a survival skill by chopping wood, there are people who would chop wood all day. If you could do it via cooking meat, that's not so bad (though people will still semi-grind by looking for meat perhaps).

[hoik 415]

Like the general direction of all your ideas.

The one I find most interesting though is 3:

"Longer animations. If tasks took longer, a solo player would be more vulnerable when undertaking them. Make cutting wood, preparing fires, repairing cars and doing medical procedures take much longer (you could also have some of them produce noise). You will require another player to watch your back, or cooperate on the activity to get it done faster."

I really like the idea of tasks making noise that could attrack both people and zombies!

[alexander_q 6]

Thanks. I'm particularly fond of those tasks then being able to be accomplished faster with help. You'd maybe have some sort of limit to how many people can support an action, and add it to their scroll menu when they hover of the player performing that action. Repair cars faster, use bandages faster, perform blood transfusions faster etc.