[Suggestion] Robberies and Allies

[Rigor Mortis (DayZ) 141]

The goal of this enhancement to the game would be to reduce killing on sight by introducing a couple of mechanics that will reward players for interacting.  I understand it is against the goals of the DayZ developers to reward/punish certain play styles, but I (and I'm sure others) think that randomly killing people for no reason but psychopathic pleasure is not a "play style"... so continuing on with the assumption that we want to try to increase bandit/survivor behavior....

Everyone spawns with a 0 minute death timer. Every 1 minute in the game you gain 1 minute on your death timer until you hit 10 minutes in game, which leaves you with a 10 minute death timer.  This eliminates the problem of people just killing you as soon as you spawn to make you wait 10 more minutes to play.  At least you have a few minutes to get off the coast/away from the spawn area.  It also helps reduce suiciding because it's hard to find a suicide method that will work in less than a minute from spawning in the game.

 

Through certain actions you can reduce your death timer back to zero, or increase it to a cap of 30 minutes.  It would suck to wait 30 minutes to play, but it's not so long as to totally ruin a gaming night (at least imo), and reducing your death timer would be beneficial to all players.
 

 

Allies: All players could make allies - just go up to a player, mousewheel to the menu option 'offer alliance,' the other player gets a passive indicator that they can accept (it shouldn't interfere with their actions to see this option).  Making an ally reduces your death timer by 5 minutes. Cancelling an alliance increases the death timer by 5 minutes.  Killing an ally increases your death timer by 10 minutes. You share rewards with allies for certain actions/events -- and you cannot share with people you are not allied with.

 

Surviving for an hour reduces your death timer by 1 minute.

 

Killing 10 zombies reduces your death timer by 1 minute.

 

Murder increases your death timer by 10 minutes. Self defense does not count as murder -- this might be hard to calculate in game, but I would say if someone shot at or hit you in any way (within some reasonable limits) you could retaliate with deadly force with no repercussions on your death timer.  This would include all allies of the person who shot at or hit you.  Since the game has to calculate how close a shot is to you already (the distance of the trajectory of the bullet from you changes the sound produced), it should be pretty easy for the developers to add this option.

 

Robberies: A successful robbery reduces your death timer by 15 minutes and can be accomplished in 2 ways:

 

1. robbery action - just aim at a player from within talking range and select 'rob.'  The player would be informed that this is a robbery and they would get the chance to hand over their stuff, fight, or run for their lives... just like in any other robbery, but this way the bandit gets their death timer reduction and they don't have to kill anyone. They still can if they want to, but letting the player live increases the benefit to the bandit. Of course if you accidentally clicked 'rob' on a friend, you could cancel the robbery.... or just take their stuff and part ways 5 minutes richer (-15 for the robbery, +10 for losing an ally)...up to you.

 

2. murder/loot.  You kill a player and as long as you loot the corpse, it reduces your death timer(s) by 15 minutes. The murder still costs you 10 minutes.

 

If two or more people are involved in a robbery or murder and they are allies, they all get the same rewards/punishments.  To be more precise, any ally who dealt damage to, activated a 'robbery' on a player that equipment was then taken from, or took equipment from the player is included. Allying with someone you have previously robbed will increase your death timer by 15 minutes.

 

Example 1:

I kill a guy, my friend runs up and grabs his gear and we get out of there.  If we are allied, we both get a murder and a robbery - totalling reduced time on our death timers of 5 minutes each.  If we are not, I gain 10 minutes for murder and my friend gets nothing for looting a corpse.

 

Example 2:

Two friends and I hold up a guy and steal a bunch of stuff from him.  One of my friends activates the 'robbery' on the guy and the other takes the gear.  Since I did not interact in the robbery I get nothing while my friends both get 15 minute reductions.  All I had to do was click 'rob' or take a piece of gear to get the reduction :(.

 

Example 3:

I'm a moron who thinks this is 'CoD: Survivor Edition' and just shoot everyone I meet.  My death timer will basically always be 30 minutes.

[Evil Minion 943]

Enforced gameplay - I don't like it. Psychopathic pleasure is a playstyle but it should come at a (realistic) cost. However, it should not be punished artificially.

 

In general I like the "achievements for respawn timer reduction" but only as far as to promote less suicidal gameplay and staying alive.

[SFRGaming 718]

Too much like a RP game. Don't like it.

[Inception. 9443]

Enforced gameplay - I don't like it. 

 

Agreed.

[Chaingunfighter 917]

• What's your definition of a playstyle? It seems pretty arbitrary if you are trying to say that it needs interaction, and even then, killing someone is still interacting with them, just in a negative manner.
• Why does defending yourself from one person grant you immunity from their other allies? Someone could have easily just made a friendship with someone and is now free to be killed because their ally was stupid and fired on someone they couldn't kill
• Why is killing someone without using the "rob" interaction psychopathic, but using the rob interaction and then killing them somehow better.
• And how is it any less psychopathic if you kill someone but open up their loot afterwards? People could do this and get reduced timers.
• And why is it impossible for you to "ally" with someone you have robbed in the past? Apparently forgiveness doesn't exist anymore.
• Why do all of these things apply to your allies? Congratulations, your ally is a douchebag and has given you a 30 minute timer for something they've done halfway across the map! Hooray!

I can't see why people want RP elements to discourage the whole KoS manner. They're supposedly fine with killing until it happens for seemingly "no reason". Then it's wrong.

 

This solution doesn't even stop it, it just means that using long ranged combat is no longer a viable option unless you want to wait half an hour before you can play again. As long as you're able to get close enough to someone to initiate a "robbery", then you're free to do whatever the hell you want. Except make friends, of course.

[Rigor Mortis (DayZ) 141]

I can't see why people want RP elements to discourage the whole KoS manner. They're supposedly fine with killing until it happens for seemingly "no reason". Then it's wrong.

 

This solution doesn't even stop it, it just means that using long ranged combat is no longer a viable option unless you want to wait half an hour before you can play again. As long as you're able to get close enough to someone to initiate a "robbery", then you're free to do whatever the hell you want. Except make friends, of course.

To answer your questions 1 at a time:

"What's your definition of a playstyle? It seems pretty arbitrary if you are trying to say that it needs interaction, and even then, killing someone is still interacting with them, just in a negative manner."

I did not say that a play style requires interactions. As you may note, just killing zeds and staying alive for a while in my system can easily reduce your death timer to zero.

I'm certainly not saying we should force people to play a certain way, but it would be freakin' nice to give some motivation for more people to act like _people_ in this apocalyptic survival game and less like homicidal respawning warriors. What do I mean by 'act like people' you might ask? Well, I mean that some people might decide it's better to get their gear by killing and taking it off the corpse, whereas others might find it better to find gear for themselves... and even others might decide to rob people for food or gear (and the thrill of the robbery). Some could be lone wolves, just hunting in the woods and surviving indefinitely... there are so many options other than 'kill everyone I see.' -- and this system wouldn't even stop that entirely, it would just discourage it.

Why does defending yourself from one person grant you immunity from their other allies? Someone could have easily just made a friendship with someone and is now free to be killed because their ally was stupid and fired on someone they couldn't kill

This is all part of choosing your friends wisely. By becoming someone's ally, you are specifically stating that you agree with their decisions and choose to work together with them. If you don't want the possibility of repercussions from some moron acting all crazy, then _choose your friends wisely_. Also, the person who got shot at would have no way of knowing who was allied with who and which players they could randomly kill for free... so from their point of view firing at the guy who is saying "friendly, friendly, that guy wasn't my friend" has just as high of a risk as shooting at anyone else.

Why is killing someone without using the "rob" interaction psychopathic, but using the rob interaction and then killing them somehow better.

It's not? In both circumstances under my system you get the same time added to your death timer for murder. The difference is that when you complete the robbery you reduce your death timer.

And how is it any less psychopathic if you kill someone but open up their loot afterwards? People could do this and get reduced timers.

It shows that you had a reason to kill them - the point was to get their gear, not just to kill them. And again you still get the same time addition for murder - the looting after murder just counts as robbing them.

And why is it impossible for you to "ally" with someone you have robbed in the past? Apparently forgiveness doesn't exist anymore.

It is not impossible? I specifically stated the time gains for this action (15 min). The reason for the overall time gain is to avoid friends from 'robbing' each other over and over to drive their respawn timers down. If you have forgiven someone for robbing you then you should be willing to accept the time increase to become friends, considering that you still gain 10 minutes for making an ally so really it only adds 5 minutes.

 

Why do all of these things apply to your allies? Congratulations, your ally is a douchebag and has given you a 30 minute timer for something they've done halfway across the map! Hooray!

I apologize for not making this more clear - I meant for it to apply to allies that were _involved_ in the action.  You can't gain or lose time for something you were not directly involved in... oh wait, I wrote that in my original post _and_ made an example to make it clear.  You must not have read that.  Also, why are you allied with so many douchebags?

 

This solution doesn't even stop it, it just means that using long ranged combat is no longer a viable option unless you want to wait half an hour before you can play again. As long as you're able to get close enough to someone to initiate a "robbery", then you're free to do whatever the hell you want. Except make friends, of course.

What exactly do you mean by 'long ranged combat'?  Killing people for no reason at extreme range?  Yes, it does discourage that.  As for doing whatever you want after initiating a robbery... that's just not true or close to what I said in my OP.  You still get the same time increase for murder after completing a robbery.  The best way to reduce spawn time as a bandit would be to rob people without killing them.  Also, I hope I made clear that you can befriend whoever you like in this system... no idea why you think you can't.

 

Thanks for the fodder for this post.

[Chaingunfighter 917]

To answer your questions 1 at a time:

"What's your definition of a playstyle? It seems pretty arbitrary if you are trying to say that it needs interaction, and even then, killing someone is still interacting with them, just in a negative manner."

I did not say that a play style requires interactions. As you may note, just killing zeds and staying alive for a while in my system can easily reduce your death timer to zero.

I'm certainly not saying we should force people to play a certain way, but it would be freakin' nice to give some motivation for more people to act like _people_ in this apocalyptic survival game and less like homicidal respawning warriors. What do I mean by 'act like people' you might ask? Well, I mean that some people might decide it's better to get their gear by killing and taking it off the corpse, whereas others might find it better to find gear for themselves... and even others might decide to rob people for food or gear (and the thrill of the robbery). Some could be lone wolves, just hunting in the woods and surviving indefinitely... there are so many options other than 'kill everyone I see.' -- and this system wouldn't even stop that entirely, it would just discourage it.

Why does defending yourself from one person grant you immunity from their other allies? Someone could have easily just made a friendship with someone and is now free to be killed because their ally was stupid and fired on someone they couldn't kill

This is all part of choosing your friends wisely. By becoming someone's ally, you are specifically stating that you agree with their decisions and choose to work together with them. If you don't want the possibility of repercussions from some moron acting all crazy, then _choose your friends wisely_. Also, the person who got shot at would have no way of knowing who was allied with who and which players they could randomly kill for free... so from their point of view firing at the guy who is saying "friendly, friendly, that guy wasn't my friend" has just as high of a risk as shooting at anyone else.

Why is killing someone without using the "rob" interaction psychopathic, but using the rob interaction and then killing them somehow better.

It's not? In both circumstances under my system you get the same time added to your death timer for murder. The difference is that when you complete the robbery you reduce your death timer.

And how is it any less psychopathic if you kill someone but open up their loot afterwards? People could do this and get reduced timers.

It shows that you had a reason to kill them - the point was to get their gear, not just to kill them. And again you still get the same time addition for murder - the looting after murder just counts as robbing them.

And why is it impossible for you to "ally" with someone you have robbed in the past? Apparently forgiveness doesn't exist anymore.

It is not impossible? I specifically stated the time gains for this action (15 min). The reason for the overall time gain is to avoid friends from 'robbing' each other over and over to drive their respawn timers down. If you have forgiven someone for robbing you then you should be willing to accept the time increase to become friends, considering that you still gain 10 minutes for making an ally so really it only adds 5 minutes.

 

Why do all of these things apply to your allies? Congratulations, your ally is a douchebag and has given you a 30 minute timer for something they've done halfway across the map! Hooray!

I apologize for not making this more clear - I meant for it to apply to allies that were _involved_ in the action.  You can't gain or lose time for something you were not directly involved in... oh wait, I wrote that in my original post _and_ made an example to make it clear.  You must not have read that.  Also, why are you allied with so many douchebags?

 

This solution doesn't even stop it, it just means that using long ranged combat is no longer a viable option unless you want to wait half an hour before you can play again. As long as you're able to get close enough to someone to initiate a "robbery", then you're free to do whatever the hell you want. Except make friends, of course.

What exactly do you mean by 'long ranged combat'?  Killing people for no reason at extreme range?  Yes, it does discourage that.  As for doing whatever you want after initiating a robbery... that's just not true or close to what I said in my OP.  You still get the same time increase for murder after completing a robbery.  The best way to reduce spawn time as a bandit would be to rob people without killing them.  Also, I hope I made clear that you can befriend whoever you like in this system... no idea why you think you can't.

 

Thanks for the fodder for this post.

 

Using a sniper rifle would be essentially pointless at actual sniping ranges unless someone was firing at you... with another sniper rifle. Sure, you can fire any gun at any range, but the long distance capability of a good few rifles would be moot when you're not "supposed" to fire at people who aren't shooting at you first.

Speaking of the whole; "Who fires first" system, this would allow most people to ignore others' warnings to "stay back", as they would not suffer any penalties if they did die and would be okay if they did win, as the other person who told them to stay back would've likely attacked first.

 

When I say "impossible", I was exaggerating the fact that it's heavily discouraged to make friends with someone you've robbed in the past (the time of which that even lasts you haven't made clear.). Yes, I know it would be weird to become friends with someone you've probably hated in the past, but implementing a system to try and deal with that is odd.

 

And yes, you would still get an increased time for murdering someone, but you clearly state; "You kill a player and as long as you loot the corpse, it reduces your death timer(s) by 15 minutes. The murder still costs you 10 minutes."

You'd still get a five minute reduction to your time for simply opening up someone's loot (not necessarily taking anything). That's not a good system, all it means is that people have to another minute or two before hunting people so they can run over to the body/bodies and press the inventory key twice.

 

 

And how would you define whether your allies are "involved" in an action? Do you both have to initiate the robbery action? Does everyone involved have to open up the person's inventory after they're alive, or dead? I'm not sure how the game would keep track of this.

 

 

 

Either way, it's too much of an RP-like solution to try and limit the KoS. "You want to kill people? Well, you've gotta open their corpses, or you have to wait more time before you can play again." Let the disadvantages come from a more realistic standpoint. Most gear gets ruined or damaged (or it should, the whole "everything is ruined" concept is pretty bad) on death. Make ammunition and weapons rarer. Yes, people can server hop, and people can choose to waste their bullets on random coast spawns, but that's up to them, it would just make it more ineffective, but not artificially limit it.

Edited June 20, 2014 by Chaingunfighter

[JGallemore1 3]

In MY opinion. No thank you to EVERYTHING in this post. I hate being KoS but I get it.