The ONLY Realistic Way to Prevent Deathmatching: Make DayZ a Living Hell

[Basshead 20]

This is my simple little opinion nothing special.

I am a bandit, I will fire upon anyone who has anything worthwhile to me. I set up a chocke point and attempt to funnel players to that checkpoint. I will sometimes spare the wandering lost soul who has no idea what is going on. I like to try and find a weapon and settle down for a while.I know the bandit ways, and I do support this. THis would change it drastically, even though I am a bandit I have been thinking that this is to easy for me. Here are my corrections though.

With this system, I belive that food would have to be spawned a little more often rather then less. Many people like to find a base and camp, like you would do in a real apocylpse. That would be impossible with your system, I am not flamming you, I am just saying some popular survival options would be gone. A lot of those the best.

With the medical system, I can sort of see that working, but the way some zombie glitch in to doors and people always have the drop on you. Survivng with out a scratch would be hard as hell, maybe if they fixed the zombie AI that would work well.

The packs makes me excited, I would love to see roaming packs walking through a town and watching the usually active streets become stripped clean of any life. The AI needs to be fixed, as it is just sorta buggy.

All in all, you have some very good ideas and some that I just don't see happeing, even in a stand alone, people don't want the total realism, they want some challenge but not enough to scare them away forever.

Neutral support

Edited July 23, 2012 by Basshead

[vesmo 21]

You'd just need to play smarter. =P It would only make it more impressive for lone wolves to be able to survive, simply because it's meant to be more difficult than grouping together, unlike how it is now.

This. I mostly play lone wolf and it is way too easy. What is there to do for a lone wolf other than resort to PKing in the current form of the game once you have your gear together? At least getting to that point should be a constant struggle, and hopefully surviving would continue to be a struggle for the rest of the game, that way it'd keep you on your toes and entertained.

[deanwac 1]

Bumped. This idea won't get rid of PvP, but it will be a massive push in the direction of teaming up with others instead of the KOS (kill on sight) rule going on at the moment.

[Frozen (DayZ) 144]

Bumped. This idea won't get rid of PvP, but it will be a massive push in the direction of teaming up with others instead of the KOS (kill on sight) rule going on at the moment.

its not even about pvp, its all about to add challenge to the game itself. otherwise you just forced into pvp, because you are bored without any challenge.

[FogeyZ Gilly 15]

I like the ideas

[Bat (DayZ) 230]

Agree on making the game harder. But it might as well make people even more agressive with less food and water (remember when this patch came out that removed food and water spawn? was hell to survive, but it only increased the necessity to kill other players to survive. Because other players have everything you want : guns, ammo, food etc...) I would rather have a durability system that makes some items that you carry break when you die. So you would kill someone but never be sure his precious weapon is working or not.

Edit : so some items would slowly lose durability over use (weapons). When you kill someone theres a random chance some items the player is carrying would break instantly. So only necessity would bring people to kill another for supplies. true bandits would still hunt preys, but with a little disdvantage, that should balance it all.

I guess another system would be more ways to identify yourself with a clothing system.

But those 2 ideas will clearly make their way into the standalone game, so I don't really worry about the future of DayZ. gonna be great

Edited July 23, 2012 by Bat

[Frozen (DayZ) 144]

Agree on making the game harder. But it might as well make people even more agressive with less food and water (remember when this patch came out that removed food and water spawn? was hell to survive, but it only increased the necessity to kill other players to survive. Because other players have everything you want : guns, ammo, food etc...) I would rather have a durability system that makes some items that you carry break when you die. So you would kill someone but never be sure his precious weapon is working or not.

Edit : so some items would slowly lose durability over use (weapons). When you kill someone theres a random chance some items the player is carrying would break instantly. So only necessity would bring people to kill another for supplies. true bandits would still hunt preys, but with a little disdvantage, that should balance it all.

I guess another system would be more ways to identify yourself with a clothing system.

But those 2 ideas will clearly make their way into the standalone game, so I don't really worry about the future of DayZ. gonna be great

being shot for the supplies you had feels a littl bit different, that knowing that you get shot just for no reason, so that kid could masturbate to his murder count.

people killing each other for supplies its logical behavior in apocalypse, but people shooting each other just because they bored, its kinda screwed gameplay

[Robolord 11]

Make zombies L4D alike, they roam around slowly, they run fast when agroed, but you can outrun them. Increase zombie spawn rate by 200/300%. Make sounds atract more zombies, make zombies dumb, when they loose sight of you, they roam around a bit trying to find you and are even more atracted to low volume sounds. After 20/30 seconds, they start roaming around again. Make them go as fast in buildings as outside. Do as much as possible to increase the amount of players and zombies servers can handle. Decrease the sight of zombies.

Make food and drinks rare, fix the melee weapons, make weapons and ammo a little less common in residential areas and supermarkets. Increase the amount of weapons near deer stands and military camps. Highly decrease the ammo found, make ammo a exclusive item. Which is very valuable, though military camps should have a small chance of having ammo crates. With large amounts of ammo in it.

Make more player build structures, including gates which work with generators. Make explosives weaken a wall, untill the wall is completely destroyed (should be possible with Arma 2 engine). Make generators, make bags of concrete, which can be mixed with water, to make concrete, which can be made into player build walls.

Make a shovel item, which can be used to fill bags with sand, bags with sand can be use to make sandbag walls (duh). Make lockboxes, which all have 1 key only. The key is a item in the inventory which you get once you pick up the lockbox. When you get killed, this key drops. Small chance to break open lockboxes using a toolbox, 1 try only. When you have both a shovel and a lockbox in your inventory, you can choose to bury your lockbox, hiding it, and only making it avaidable by digging it up again, using ofcourse a shovel.

Will improve the game a lot already.

[Mr.Hobo 0]

Hello. A lot of cool suggestions in here and very intetested to see which way the mod goes. Although i personally try to help people out when im stranded alone or just spawned and try to avoid PvP when i can, bandits are an integral part of the experience.

My only thought is that murdering another survivor should carry more weight. If you were actually alone in a zombie outbreak and you see someone else your first thought should not be to shoot them. Thats a bit psycho. Killing a person is a big deal. I think this should be followed by the onset of shock/overcome with emotion/discust in self/however you want to explain it, but a shaking of the screen that can only be overcome with a couple of packs of painkillers. Eg. 3 or 4.

This means people have to carry a lot of painkillers in inventory to sucessfully bandit away and would require a bit more thought before pulling the trigger.

Apologies for brain dump, but this seems the best place for it.

[Grodenn 53]

In your fucking dreams. In reality, I have my group already, and you're dead the first chance I get.

If there's a zombie horde nearby, I will wait and stalk for my opportunity.

The only way you can create dynamic social interaction in a game like this is if both parties are in a position of relative safety, or have some form of trust (known parties, common friends, etc)

Yes and going about it this way is exactly what the OP want you to do. I think way to many people think this post is about removing pvp from the game which is wrong. As I see it this suggestion is to make pvp more meaning full and interesting. "If there's a zombie horde nearby, I will wait and stalk for my opportunity." this is exactly the type of behaviour that would be so awesome. People wont just shoot each other the minute they see another player, they are going to make a decision to kill or not to kill. If they decide to kill they will have to do this at the right moment or risk getting over runned by zombies (which of course sometimes is still gonna be worth it).

I don't think anyone in there right mind would want to remove pvp from this game it is a VERY important aspect of dayz, but I think it would be good to limit the amount of the kills that are done only for the chear fun of it. You can never prevent it and nor should you, killing for fun would most likely even happen IRL, (if there was a real zombie apocalypse) there is always some psychopaths out there. But I would like to see more of the killings have more thought and motives behind them and also outcomes that doesn't end up with everyone shooting each other. The game would be more dynamic and interesting for everyone both friendly survivors and scum bag killers.

[liquidcactus 719]

Awesome farking ideas yo, good to see someone is writing their ideas down !

all of it is really good ideas, KEep em coming !

Edited July 23, 2012 by liquidcactus

[Strogg 23]

I agree with this.

There at LEAST needs to be more zombies. If there is too much murdering going on, it means that people obviously have too many bullets.

It would make the game better if there was the fear of running into strays or packs in the forests.

However if there are going to be more zombies, then new characters will need new/more melee weapons at least in the beginning (perhaps even a lead pipe or a tree branch). Being at the mercy of item spawns is annoying, especially after painstakingly sneaking into a town only to find there is nothing there worth your while.

[woozaboo 5]

I like the idea of zombies migrating. as for numbers of zombies, it has already been stated that there will be more zombies on the servers as well as more players.

As for making food and water more scarce. that would only make it easier for me to kill the guy next to me.

Ammo is already scarce, but there are people exploiting bugs or scripting so they get more ammo. and some people just manage to save up ammo by killing people. i'm normally ruuning around with 3 or 4 M107 clips, and that can last me for weeks. but as the bugs are fixed, you might see a decline in ammo use. tho some guns do spawn alot of ammo, but they are normally weak and less effective.

I am playing with a group of people. and from time to time we kill people to take their stuff food, medical supplys, drinks and ammo), or sometimes we're killing people just for laughs (setting up funny traps, that people for some reason fall for. Like ten corpses in the firestation tower in electro or putting NVG's on roofs or roads) and we hunt other groups of people, bandits and survivors alike. I don't like shooting unarmed people, but it happens, espesially if they have seen me.

I'm not entirely certain why people say they can't trust anyone.

If you want a safe area, then get together with people and claim an area and make it a safe place. with enough people you can take over a town or parts of a town or even make a huge base in middle of nowhere. it is up to the people in game to reduce the amount of mindless player killing.

I would not need to kill as many people if they just stopped server jumping or leave the game when i'm trying rob them. (in other words server jumers and "ALT F4" player are part to blame)

Only reason for the mindless killing is because people are not trying to trust anyone.

Sso what if they kill you? better luck next time, i have met many friendly people in the game, and people who shot me just as i said hi.

Also there are many reasons to move in groups, and one of them is, when you have to go into towns, you can have a sniper/spotter on a hill telling when there people comming in, so your friends knows if it is safe or not, and if you're shot your friend might be able to protect your stuff until you can reclaim it.

All in all i'm not sure how making things harsher would stop player killing. Only by trusting people will you be able to stop mindless killing, and if you get killed, try again.

I think this the lonest post i have ever written, and my english is not very good.^^

Edited July 23, 2012 by Woozaboo

[Verril1 1]

Preventing deathmatching is unthinkable, its taking out a mian porportion of the gamelay. I personally love the tension when seeing another player and playing hide and seek with guns, or I when have to be more stealthier to avoid zombies and bandits alike in big towns.

[JamesButlin 108]

Posting just to help the topic stay near the top, love the ideas in it :)

[Xist3nce 11]

Really hoping this post is recognized, and implemented.

[Powell (DayZ) 734]

Preventing deathmatching is unthinkable, its taking out a mian porportion of the gamelay. I personally love the tension when seeing another player and playing hide and seek with guns, or I when have to be more stealthier to avoid zombies and bandits alike in big towns.

Well, PVP SHOULD exist. But "deathmatching"...?

not really

[xTLRxPrototype (DayZ) 15]

Right now the only thing I am "afraid" of is the people. When it comes to zombies, go into the forrest and hold W.

[Tsyn 215]

I love this.

This should be 'hardcore' mode.

There's no need to force this sort of hell on a normal player that's just starting. But holy shit, this would never get boring...

The ability of a hardcore mode & server. Keep the 'regular' difficulty, so tags, crosshairs and whotnot are still there. But I love your ideas.

[Tracker (DayZ) 7]

Love it! I honestly think more civilian firearms (also..Why is the Lee enfield more popular than a Mosin Nagant in an ex soviet state?) /melee weapons should be added, NATO milspec gear should be a little more than a pipe dream. Remove all notifications also, no more debug, no more xxxxx was killed. An increase in range of direct chat would be nice for those who use it ( I don't, never will.). I would love to see the reduction of ammunition, stalking people into knife range due to the fact bullets are worth their wight in gold would be a nice change from the current rather mindless pvp.

Edited July 23, 2012 by Tracker

[TheAVC 0]

It's a bit sad that the OP's message has been so distorted by the readers. He specifically said that he did NOT, under any circumstances, want PvP to be disabled, discontinued, or in any other way removed from the game. I agree with him, because it is simply an integral part of DayZ. DayZ without PvP is just about the zombies, and unfortunately they're not dangerous enough to make the game viable. Therefore, there are are some things that should be said here.

Before i begin, let me specify two types of PvP: survival and random. Survival is a case of him vs. me, where you have to kill the other guy before he kills you, or so that you can survive. Examples include killing for food or bandages. Random is from bored players who are looking for excitement.

Alright fellow DayZ players, I've read through this and I've seen a few major topics come up. I'll list them and my analysis below, but whether or not you agree with me is up to you.

1. More difficulty = more player killing

It is certainly possible that with more scarcity and more dangerous zombies, players would become more desperate. However, consider the idea that you maybe only found a gun, such as the Makarov, and one clip, eight bullets. You see a player approaching your location, but seemingly unaware of your presence. The idea would be that whether or not this person had food, drink, or medical supplies for you to use, your shooting him/her would alert zombies to your location.

Assume that you do kill the person. How will your remaining shots fare on the two dozen newly aggro'd zombies? If you're in the woods, you wouldn't have a problem because there are no zombies in forests (with current game situations). There are no consequences to not killing the player since you are saving yourself the trouble of avoiding them or potentially dying. However, if the ideas the OP listed are used, a roaming pack of zombies could be wandering by and pick you off while you realize that the person you just killed has nothing more than empty tin cans, and you have one less bullet to defend yourself with.

Now assume that you contact them via direct chat, and tell them where you are. If armed, they could then kill you easily. If not, there is a chance that they will be friendly enough to work with you, and a chance that they will later backstab you. The game is mostly about analyzing risks, and meeting a survivor is a risk, just as is raiding a town hoping for loot.

Last, assume that you contact the survivor and tell them to lay down or risk being shot. Tell them that you are friendly but cautios. They will either run or do as you instruct. You can then chat with them for a bit and determine their trustworthiness, and if you decide not to work with them, you can retreat without their knowledge, essentially keeping yourself safe as well.If you do decide to work with the other player (and they with you), you will essentially have double the spotting power, double the awareness, of a single survivor. Two will see more than one, and may be able to do things that a single player would not. You could have one person spot while the other raids, or one provide cover while the other cooks food. Teamwork has many applications besides more guns, and that is the point that the OP was trying to convey. The danger of more zombies, and more serious consequences for fighting them, will make the benefits of teaming up worth the added risk.

However, instead of making resources more scarce, I propose to spread them out more. Cities like Electro and Cherno will still be around, but maybe make some of the other towns smaller or spread them out. The added area will mean that resources are still available, but will take more time to amass in large amounts. This will encourage teamwork while allowing lone-wolf strategists to keep going, albeit at a slower rate. More dangerous NPC's with the same amount of food will help to lower the "random" PvP that occurs, such as bored snipers, as previously mentioned.

2. Players kill others for fun

While this certainly can be true, the majority of random encounters end in one person dead simply because neither trusts the other nor feels the need to work with them. They aren't doing it to teach the other player a lesson, or simply because they can, but because they feel that their own life is on the line. Adding incentive to work together will hopefully reduce these chance murders, without forcing the need to coop, as both can simply go their own way. However, there are people, notably "tower-snipers", who have acquired enough gear to have no incentive to keep collecting it. They may simply be plain mean, but they are also looking for a challenge when they kill other players. They are looking for a chance to prove to themselves that they are the best, and since they have the gear they want, they need a new challenge. With the zombie AI moderately difficult but easily duped by running into buildings or up hills, the best challenge these players get are other players, so they set off to kill them with the goal of inflating their own egos with the souls of fallen innocents. Co-op gameplay will not remove douchebaggery, but a heightened AI or zombie opponents will help to increase their challenge and reduce the value of killing other players.

3. The only friendlies are morons

I've personally only played the game for about 6 hours (1 death, starvation+zombies punching me), but I've yet to meet a player that actually tried to kill me. Of five encounters with players, all alone, two ignored me, two said hello and moved on, and one actually took the time to guide me through Cherno after I had just spawned. Although the bandits out there might consider it "moronic" that he did so, it certainly wasn't the stupidest thing he could have done, such as talking to me while being eaten alive.

Just because someone doesn't KOS doesn't mean they're an idiot.That's all my rant and sorry to make you read it, but seriously, the message has been distorted. It's like translating the Bible into Klingon and then pronouncing it with English sounding-out tactics.

Ideas for the mod:

I do agree that more co-op would definitely make the game more interesting, and although I have yet to see evidence of "deathmatching" I have heard about it innumerable times. In an effort to both preserve lone-wolf viability and increased value of co-op, I have the following suggestions:

-Introduce player-made buildings.

Anyone can build any building, as long as there is space and resources to do so (i.e. no buildings inside of trees or other buildings). However, establish a set amount of time that each building takes to build, and a certain number of materials. For each player that works on the building at once, reduce the time it takes to build. So with one player constructing a building, it will take 10 minutes. With two, it will take 7 1/2 minutes. With three, 5 minutes, and cap it at 4 players with 3 1/2 minutes. This way, the building will be completed faster and yield more benefit more quickly. What kind of benefit, you ask? Well, there can be several types of buildings:-Defensive emplacements (bunkers) requiring concrete, metal, etc.

-Lookout towers, requiring concrete, metal, etc.

-Houses, which can house up to four survivors: each room has a trunk/closet that works like a tent.

-Farms, which produce some sort of food every several hours (6-12), restoring 400 blood each and yielding up to 5 items of food.

-Others that may come to mind

Scrimmages

As a last note, perhaps "scrimmages" could be arranged between groups if servers do turn to "survivor vs. bandit" teams, where each team specifies a certain amount of food/water/other gear and then they each offer five combatatants, and the winner gets the loot? It could be placed in the middle for capture-the-flag style of play and would reduce the random banditry by encouraging cooperation on both sides.

Obviously these are all basic ideas and are not fully refined (the building times would have to be longer to counter their benefits, for example) but the basic idea is that soloing would still be viable, but it would be more effective to work together, and random banditry will be reduced.

/end monologue

Edited July 24, 2012 by TheAVC

[Sgt Abraham Ford 82]

All i can say is, no matter how big the group. I will still sniper you from 800 meters with my L85 thermal. and when zeds come, I will lay down the law with my saw.

---

BANDIT TILL THE BITTER END

Riiiiight. If you tried to "sniper" anyone from 800m away with a weak ass 5.56 round their group would casually turn around and end you. With the sight on that weapon, you wouldn't even have the target on screen at that range. Most that gun is useful for is spotting for someone with a real rifle, outside that GTFO with that "sniper you" bullshit lol

[samiboy5 4]

ugh, wont it get a little complicated if there is all those different sicknessesssssss(s)? and all those different kind of meds? and if you dont take them then that and that is going to happen that will lead to certain death and an eternity in torture! i think it will get a little too complicated. :I

Edited July 24, 2012 by samiboy5

[Bobcomss 189]

ugh, wont it get a little complicated if there is all those different sicknessesssssss(s)? and all those different kind of meds? and if you dont take them then that and that is going to happen that will lead to certain death and an eternity in torture! i think it will get a little too complicated. :I

Life is hard..... what magical pill do you know that cure's all ailments!

Great idea if you ask me and stop campers ;D

AJ

[McKh 2]

Interesting post.

People saying they'd only deathmatch to the bitter end in this kind of world. You don't realize with how scarce resources would be, including bullets. If you devoted every bullet to killing a player, with how rare ammo is, you'd run out faster than you replenish it. Especially a sniper rifle if most people who have a gun are sporting something low tech. Then those players who put some thought into pulling the trigger or not everytime they came across someone would have an easy time shooting you.

You'd probably starve on top of that.

This wouldn't change if you were grouped either, as you split most resources from a player kill, except food, two + ways.

You could still kill whoever - but you'd think long and hard about it - because it would be a large gamble.

I'm not necessarily saying I endorse this. Just pointing out a point/conclusion that a lot of folks seem to be missing.

To be honest, I don't think many gamers these days (I feel so old saying this) have the capacity to play a game where you are forced to cooperate. Too spoiled. I'm not sure lone wolves should be punished so severely, either. This is the "anti-game" though.

Edited July 24, 2012 by McKh