A solution to the bandit system, maybe?

[michael.lerch@hotmail.com 13]

This is going to be a little long so be prepared for a read that I hope will be good. Some math involved. The numbers used are examples and should not be taken literally.

I put some heavy thought into this and I'm pretty sure this will have to be implemented in an ArmA 2 update. Right now Rocket is using the BluFor faction for Survivors. He has two entities for the player created. One is in the debug forest and if killed the system displays "PlayerX killed PlayerY by friendly fire." and the other is what the player plays as. When killed it states "PlayerX was killed." Zombies are most likely using the Independent faction, while wildlife is using the hidden "ambient life" faction. So right now you have three factions in play - Ambient, BluFor and Independent.

Why not do this instead:

Players are on Civilian faction.

Zombies are on Independent faction.

Wildlife is on Ambient faction.

Update ArmA 2 to allow mods, such as that of DayZ, to define Civilian as a "deathmatch" faction. This means that when "PlayerX kills PlayerY", it can show "PlayerX was killed" because, as part of the update, mods can define that the "PlayerX was killed by PlayerY" is disabled. So the server shows "PlayerX was killed." instead. If a zombie, part of the Independent faction, kills a player it will also say "PlayerX was killed."

This can stop the duplicate player syndrome we have right now. One in debug forest, the other the player controls. Now how do you fix the bandit system?

Simple. Introduce a squad system. Players have the option of joining a squad with other players. The squad can be locked and a player can be invited if the squad leader chooses to let them in. The squad system will not show "PlayerX killed PlayerY" under any circumstance. Even if a member accidentally kills a member of the same squad, or another squad, etc. It will just say "PlayerX was killed."

The squad system can introduce a feature at will be an incentive to working together as a team. If SquadA consists of a group of "good guy" players, but SquadB consists of a group of "bad guy" players (bandits). If SquadA kills a player in SquadB, then SquadA on an average (so across all players in that squad) gain humanity. If a member of SquadB kills a member of SquadA, then they would lose humanity.

How here is something tricky. How do you deal with a squad that has one or more bandits, but over all "good guy" players? Well, the squad system averages out the humanity for all players in the squad. If a bandit player kills another bandit player, the squad gains additional humanity with the bandit player receiving slightly extra humanity for being part of a squad that consists of mostly "good guy" players.

Now what about a squad of mostly bandits but one or more "good guy" players. Then as per the system, since that player is part of a squad whose average is below the humanity threshold thus making them bandits.. those "good guy" players would lose additional humanity while the squad as a whole loses a normal amount of humanity.

Killing zombies either way will increase your humanity.

If a member of SquadA gives morphine, does a blood transfusion, etc on a member of their squad. Their humanity increases at a normal rate. If they do the same for a member of SquadB, it increases it at a higher rate. If a member of SquadA gives a member of their squad a blood transfusion and that member was shot by a member of SquadA, they lose twice the humanity that was gained. If a member of SquadA gives a member of SquadB a blood transfusion but a member of SquadA or SquadB shoots that member, they neither gain or lose humanity.

Players start off "Neutral". 0 humanity. Neither good, nor bad. If they kill a zombie, humanity goes up. If they kill a bandit, humanity goes up. If the player kills a player, humanity goes down.

Maximum bandit humanity = -2000.

Maximum survivor humanity = 2000.

Neutral humanity = 0.

If a player has 2000 humanity, while another player has -2000 humanity instead of averaging it out to 0 humanity, will instead not average it. It will be separate until more players join that squad. Maybe like a minimum of 3 players needed to average it. However, the same incentives will be in place for working as a group. If good guy player kills a bandit, he gains humanity or maintains his 2000 humanity. If bad guy player kills a survivor, then the good guy player will lose humanity as well as the bad guy player (or just maintains the -2000 humanity). However the extra gain/loss of humanity will not be applied to that squad because they do not have enough players to average the humanity and thus can't utilize the extra gain/loss. However if they perform blood transfusions on each other, normal gain. If they perform blood transfusions on another squad, normal gain.

I'm thinking that another system can be implemented for squads. If SquadA is clearly outnumbered by SquadB, but they perform a good deed for SquadB, they get extra humanity. If they kill a member of SquadB, then as appropriate to the system they will gain or lose humanity. HOWEVER, if there are 3+ members to SquadB as opposed to SquadA (SquadA has 5 members, SquadB has 9 for example). For each player killed in SquadB, they gain/lose additional humanity. If SquadB kills members of SquadA, they gain/lose a normal amount of humanity.

Humanity in a squad is averaged in this type of way:

Squad Humanity +3/-5. This means there are 3 good players, 5 bad players. It will then show Squad Avg. Humanity as the average between the +3/-5.

PlayerA: +2000

PlayerB: +500

PlayerC: +1700

PlayerD: -2000

PlayerE: -750

PlayerF: -1250

PlayerG: -90

PlayerH: -200

The Squad Avg. Humanity will show as: +800/-498 : (33.555). Despite the fact that the squad average is above 0 humanity, making the squad "Good" the Squad Humanity is +3/-5. The number of bandits outweigh the number of survivors.

So the way this will work is that because the squad is in "good" standing, any good action is applied doubled in positive humanity across the squad. Any "bad" action is applied normally in negative humanity across the squad (except for players in good standing).

Let us assume that giving morphine to a player in SquadA, your squad, gives you +200 humanity. The system would do this.

+200 humanity for player giving the morphine.

+10 for squad members.

If the player was giving morphine to a player in SquadB, an opposing squad, it does:

+250 humanity for player giving the morphine.

+50 for squad members of SquadA.

+50 for member of SquadB.

+25 for squad members of SquadB.

Blood packs equal the same thing as morphine, as do painkillers and antibiotics.

If player dies in your squad because they weren't aided. Neither gain nor loss. If you choose not to help another player in say SquadB, then neither gain nor loss.

So in theory with this entire system in place and the changes made to ArmA 2 to allow for it. This would do several things. Remove the duplicate player entities (one in debug, other player controlled), thus improving server performance; introduce a system that provides an incentive to working in groups of survivors (good guys) or bandits (bad guys).

What do you think?

[zorisx 7]

I think keep the psycho-social aspect of the game simple yet immersive is the key element. Too many statistics and calculations, groups and standings can be too cumbersome to a newborn player...as if this world isn't as tough as it is.

Sometimes a little basic is what we need. :)