Unlock new skins by staying alive longer

[alejo699 2]

DayZ is an awesome game (mod), but the only thing you lose by dying is your gear -- and you don't even lose that if you can get to your corpse in time. So people do things they wouldn't do in real life, like shoot at every single person they see, because who cares if they get killed in return?

Here's my idea: The longer you stay alive, the more options you would unlock for your character's appearance. It eliminates the "I don't want people killing me because they can see I'm a bandit" whining, because choices would be made by the player. (The bandit look could be an option for those who feel very ballsy though.)

It would also eliminate some of the sameness of the models, so you could actually tell which buddy you're looking at on a no-tags server. I realize it would also make newbs quickly recognizable, but it could potentially be beneficial, as not all bandits are just out thrill-killing, so they might be more likely to let a FNG go until he's more of a challenge (and probably have better loot).

As for mechanics, you'd have to spend all of your time "levelling" on a single server to avoid the server-jump exploit people already abuse the hell out of -- but once you earned your new clothes they would persist cross-server until you were killed.

ALSO: This would be completely OPTIONAL. You would not change your skin unless you wanted to.

TL;DR: Award new skins based on length of time allowed to encourage players to play as if dying actually meant something.

[weedmasta 784]

Dying does mean something in terms of skin because once you die, you loose the skin as well and you cannot retrieve it from your dead body if you were wearing it before dying. So yea your suggestion is kinda mute.

[Hieronymus Josche 2]

Dying does mean something in terms of skin because once you die' date=' you loose the skin as well and you cannot retrieve it from your dead body if you were wearing it before dying. So yea your suggestion is kinda mute.

[/quote']

What Skin are you talking about, camo or guille suit? Those have no bearing on the length of time a player has been alive and you can find either one immediately depending on your luck.

His suggestion was that as the player survives the appearance changes to reflect the amount of time a player has been able to stay alive. Otherwise player skins are absolutely generic.

ALSO, I know I'm an asshole for typing this, but you mean moot ( http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moot ) NOT mute ( http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mute )

[alejo699 2]

I'm not talking about found clothing.

[m1lkm8n 61]

Dying does mean something in terms of skin because once you die' date=' you loose the skin as well and you cannot retrieve it from your dead body if you were wearing it before dying. So yea your suggestion is kinda mute.

[/quote']

What Skin are you talking about, camo or guille suit? Those have no bearing on the length of time a player has been alive and you can find either one immediately depending on your luck.

His suggestion was that as the player survives the appearance changes to reflect the amount of time a player has been able to stay alive. Otherwise player skins are absolutely generic.

ALSO, I know I'm an asshole for typing this, but you mean moot ( http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moot ) NOT mute ( http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mute )

He's try to apply some tv learned knowledge.

What I don't understand is why everyone has to bash everyone's ideas. Just say if u like it or not and leave it at that.

[Bipedalius 0]

If everyone would say ''yes'' or ''no'', no one would get to know the reason as to why they said it, giving people less things to consider and discuss. Humanity wouldn't be as rich of knowledge today if everyone just said ''yes'' or ''no''.

Stop being such a wuss.

[Lukio (DayZ) 24]

No, because unlocks, achievements and other shenanigans are exactly why DayZ is refreshingly nice to play.

[liquidje 38]

What I don't understand is why everyone has to bash everyone's ideas. Just say if u like it or not and leave it at that.

In most threads, people start with an idea, and that idea is shaped into a better idea or disregarded as a whole. This is a forum, where conversation from different parties and opinions take place. It's not some venting system where you just dump your idea and people may not comment about it.

And this is for me an idea which achieves its goal through by-effect. Noobs are already recognizable by their weapons. Also, you can't recognise people their intentions from their looks in real life.

I do agree that it would be welcoming to have some more variations in models to better recognize people. However, a more simple and more effective solution would be to just customize skin at respawning.

[LumberBack 43]

I would say yes to this, people would actually try to survive then, lets say you get camo after 3 days, and the ghillie after a week...

[vesmo 21]

I would say yes to this' date=' people would actually try to survive then, lets say you get camo after 3 days, and the ghillie after a week...

[/quote']

That is not what the OP meant AT ALL. No camo or ghillie, but custom skins.

Then again, I don't know what exactly he means with this. Would you choose a custom skin if you have found a ghillie suit? Would the skins be beneficial in any way, i.e. they blend you in better in the environment? You can already customize your character's facial features in your profile, so I have to say I don't see much point in this system, even though my initial thoughts were it would be kinda nice.

[Eiskrem-Kaiser 54]

What about introducing beards? The longer you are alive, the more hair is growing in your face. That would be awesome. Maybe you could even shave using your hunting knife. (MUSTACHE!)

[vesmo 21]

What about introducing beards? The longer you are alive' date=' the more hair is growing in your face. That would be awesome. Maybe you could even shave using your hunting knife. (MUSTACHE!)

[/quote']

.....you can already put a beard on your character in the profile settings...

[Eiskrem-Kaiser 54]

Yes, but I want dynamic beards that grow over time :)

[liquidje 38]

What about introducing beards? The longer you are alive' date=' the more hair is growing in your face. That would be awesome. Maybe you could even shave using your hunting knife. (MUSTACHE!)

[/quote']

This idea sounds much more awesome and is more realistic :D

[StealthyBrayden 6]

I like this idea... But then again I hate losing stuff that I know I will cherish :|

[Orphen (DayZ) 14]

I promote any and all ideas to attain new skins. Even if this one would turn you into a walking bullseye.

[A Man Named GOB 1]

Finding clothes should be kept the way it is. You should have to scavenge for clothing just like any other item. I do believe that clothing should degrade over time and it should affect your temperature. I dont see anything wrong with bumping up the clothing spawn rates and adding more variety as well. But, as for "leveling" your appearance and being able to choose your skin, no.

[DevilDog (DayZ) 455]

I agree that new clothing for longer survival makes you a target for sure, because "if that guy has been alive this long he must have good stuff"; but then again people might not want to mess with you because "man he is a tough SOB to have survived this long". Double edged sword I guess.

I like the beard idea though. Being able to grow a big crazy beard would be awesome. And if you can see my big beard then you are either trusted or too close to me, so killing because I have a beard won't really happen.

[alexander_q 6]

Both ideas about clothing work together. If clothing remains unrecoverable, and you customise your skin via found clothing, then having such clothing would be an indication that you have been playing the game for some time without dying.

I think DayZ needs more incentives for survival, and this is a decent one.

[johan (DayZ) 21]

More custom starting outfits might very well be avaliable later on, but as far as completely different clothing goes, there's a few avaliable in game which feels more authentic than being able to unlock them from surviving longer periods of time. Being a civilian I wouldn't just be able to get some new clothes out of nowhere - making them takes specialized equipment and lots of time.

All in all I'd say keep the current system but add more outfits + some starting out changes (in the far future, of course, since bug fixes > new outfits).

[alejo699 2]

More custom starting outfits might very well be avaliable later on' date=' but as far as completely different clothing goes, there's a few avaliable in game which feels more authentic than being able to unlock them from surviving longer periods of time. Being a civilian I wouldn't just be able to get some new clothes out of nowhere - making them takes specialized equipment and lots of time.

All in all I'd say keep the current system but add more outfits + some starting out changes (in the far future, of course, since bug fixes > new outfits).

[/quote']

I agree that it does break the illusion somewhat. I'm just trying to think of a way to make people try harder to avoid dying, without introducing anything to the game that would make it even tougher on new players. The only way I can think of is to reward long-lived players in some way that feels worthwhile but does not change balance. Any idea for another way to do that?

---

What about introducing beards? The longer you are alive' date=' the more hair is growing in your face. That would be awesome. Maybe you could even shave using your hunting knife. (MUSTACHE!)

[/quote']

This idea is better than mine! The longer you live, the more you turn into some crazy wise mountain man. Maybe Rocket could even introduce raccoons into the game so you could make yourself a nice warm hat....

[wolfstriked 143]

I love the idea of time lasted determines skin.Camo at 3 days and ghilie suit at a week.:( Imagine the nerd rage after losing your character.:D

[pvt_ammo@hotmail.com 164]

Nice idea but I don't think it fits with the games ideals. I personally prefer finding clothing. Perhaps simply displaying the players survival time next to their name in the player list would be suffice. I still really want to see a time alive in the debug window!

[wolfstriked 143]

^^ thing is when you die your squad just holds your suit.Make it so its tied to one life and you get more attached to it and cry sweet delicious tears to feed Rocket and his crew.:P

[Mitchrea1993 21]

Id hate to bring up the Devil of the game industry, but maybe an approach like the Call of Duty franchise. Maybe instead of unlocking player skins you could unlock new camo and paint designs for your guns. Nothing over the top, but like an urban and a desert, that sorta thing. Id defs put in the hours trying to get a sweet looking gun