Improving realism, reducing KOS, etc.

[fanfornow 5]

I wrote this post for the KOS thread under General, in response to those frustrated with the frequency of KOS in the game, but I thought it would be worth putting here under suggestions as well.

 

I think some added realism would help the situation.  I'm a veteran of the Marine Corps and a private gun owner for the past nine years, I helped get concealed carry passed in Illinois, I study self-defense, ballistics, handgun and long gun stopping power and I'm here to tell you that there is no guarantee of a one-shot kill or stop, let alone an instantaneous stop where the target is incapacitated immediately, especially when real world marksmanship or lack thereof come into play.  If the KOS'er knows that his intended victim may get a shot back at him, they may not be as apt to shoot.  So make it more likely to find pistols and less likely to find rifles, pistol have significantly less reliable stopping power, range and accuracy.  

 

In the civilian world, more people tend to have handguns and hunting rifles/shotguns (though this has been changing) and I would argue that those are the things you're more likely to find lying around.  Make ammo more precious, with the added shots it takes to actually put someone down, hopefully someone with any sense would realize they shouldn't be wasting rounds on someone who isn't a threat.  Let people spawn in with a pistol, just because you're fresh in this "zombie apocalypse" doesn't mean you just dropped into planet earth naked, most people who are going to survive are going to be preppers or who would have some means of survival, it's not just dumb luck.  

 

A good book for the developers to read would be Stopping Power by Marshall Evans and Ed Sannow, the statistics presented in the book are somewhat controversial, but there are heaps of anecdotal evidence from documented real world shootings pointing to the unreliability of a firearm to put a person down immediately, in fact it is commonly taught in gun training classes that the only way to reliably stop a human being immediately is to put a bullet in the central nervous system (not an easy thing to do), even with a direct hit to the heart, a person has the capacity to continue acting for up to 15 seconds (something that was confirmed by an expert witness, medical examiner on the stand at the George Zimmerman trial, which I listened to in its entirety). Head shots aren't a guaranteed good hit, the skull is pretty hard, there are documented cases of people getting hit in the head, the bullet penetrates the flesh but follows the sphere of the skull around to the backside where it exits.  Work on greater anatomical sensitivity, sometimes leg shots will kill a person, if the femoral artery is punctured.  Sometimes hits where you think would kill, don't.  Put in some probability rolls, a la Dungeons and Dragons.  You aim for the head, you have x probability of striking in the T zone on the face and going through to the CNS and you have x probability of hitting a hard spot and just making them bleed badly (and into their eye or eyes, reducing visibility. Blood gets on your hands which can cause you to lose grip on your weapon, but you're still alive and have a chance at fighting.  Some guns have slick plastic grips, some have been modified to improve grip, are you wearing gloves?).  Some people are better shots than others, mix this with other talents, such as finding supplies or land nav (I was an excellent shot in the Marine Corps, but I was horrible at land nav over rough terrain)  The only way to guarantee to kill someone right off is to put the muzzle to their head, but then you're going to have a lot of blood spatter, maybe you get some in your eye and the guy had some kind of disease, maybe it gets in your gun and gums things up when it dries or causes rust.

 

One thing I've learned about combat, especially in the civilian world is that psychological makeup has a great bearing on whether someone sticks in a fight or not, there are many cases I know of where attackers, robbers, run off at the first sign of resistance, especially armed resistance.  That's one element you lose in video games, because none of us have any risk of real physical harm, so we're all steely eyed, brass balled, fighters...so that can be another attribute that is granted when someone spawns, how their psyche will actually hold up when the bullets start flying.  There are psychosomatic reactions to a fight, you have adrenaline pumping, your heart rate goes up, your palms sweat, so you're less able to take in stimuli, you can't hear as well, you may have tunnel vision, your accuracy is affected.  I had years of experience shooting before I actually shot at an indoor range, shooting indoors brings a whole new set of challenges because the report is amplfied tremendously.  So the first time I shot indoors, I had a fight or flight response, I got hot, my hands were shaking and sweaty, it was actually embarrassing for someone who had been in the military, shooting for years.  And this was with hearing protection!  These characters, shooting without ear pro should either have their ears ringing or hearing loss, which will also affect game play...let them find ear plugs, but you have to choose when to use them, do you want to be able to hear people from far away?  Or do you want to protect your hearing for later?

 

Offer different types or classes of ammunition, Full Metal Jacket versus Jacketed Hollow Points or Soft Points, maybe someone has the misfortune of picking up wadcutters, made for target practice.  Better than nothing, but certainly not ideal.  Even have match grade for greater accuracy.  FMJ's are more reliable, but they punch straight through a body, doing less damage and are susceptable to over penetration, thus if there's a gang of guys surrounding a helpless individual, there's a chance they could hit one of their buddies, have ricochets indoors (that would be fun).  Over the decades, some troops with combat experience have complained about the stopping power of the 5.56 NATO round, but I realized that it's because NATO rounds are required to be FMJ, on the other hand soft point 5.56, made for hunting does a tremendous more damage.  Different weapons have different levels of being proven in battle and have different snafu's where reliability is concerned.  The M16/AR15 is a great rifle, but you have to keep it cleaned and lubed, force people to take care of their weapons, they require maintenance to work, especially if you're out in the field with them.  Revolvers can be more tricky to reload, but they always go bang unless you have a dud round (another possibility, especially in an apocolypse scenario, wet unreliable rounds)  There are other firearms out there that are the "latest and greatest" technology, but they're not battle proven.  For example they've figured out recently that he HK G36, which has been in use by the German army for years, tends to melt the barrel under sustained fire because it's so thin.  Jacketed Hollow Points do more damage, are less likely to over penetrate, but they can be less reliable; have weapons malfunctions, failure to feed or extract, let people practice clearing a stoppage for more likelihood of clearing one in combat, if they don't take the time to practice, then oh well.  Put weight of gear in as a factor, if you carry more gear, it affects your speed, maneuverability and endurance.

 

You're not going to always been in the same great shape after 30 days as you would be on day one, so give some advantages to the new spawns, as in health and vigor, whereas the older people have more gear and supplies, they've probably slowed a bit, they've probably picked up infections or injuries that aren't easily fixed in the field.  Look at the show Survivor, they get skinny on the supplies they're able to eat and drink from, they're not as strong as they were in the beginning.  People are more likely to survive and thrive as a group, finding and sharing resources, give people different skills to contribute, making it less easy to survive and thrive alone, it'll push people to make friends.

 

Perhaps add a karma system, if someone makes their living as a mass murderer, let it come back to haunt them, more likelihood of injuries, re-spawning without a weapon, etc.  I mean, I like having bandits in the game, I think it would be boring if everyone were friends and the only enemy were zombies (frankly, I think zombies are boring, I'm attracted to this game because it's open ended, you make up your own story, I like the PVP play, etc.) but there needs to be some kind of balance to keep this game successful and right now there are some real imbalances that are scaring people away.

[d.walker43 196]

 

I wrote this post for the KOS thread under General, in response to those frustrated with the frequency of KOS in the game, but I thought it would be worth putting here under suggestions as well.

 

Hi there, I read your post and have a few comments.

 

1: I like overall what you have to contribute, I personally have owned guns privately (never served in armed services) and pretty much everything you said is realistic, and would help the game greatly. I believe that the devs plan to reduce the spawn rates of high-powered military guns/ammo, once more low-tech weapons are added such as bows, spears, etc. Lots more people will have improvised weapons or low-powered guns such as .22's and the like, also the people with bigger caliber guns would be afraid to waste their ammunition, like you said.

 

2: One of the few things I disagreed with was having a random chance to spawn in with a weapon or something. I think if random items on spawn were implemented, I would like all of the possible items to be of the same value and rarity. For example, have people spawn with 1 or 2 items such as compass, water bottle, flashlight, walkie-talkie, can of beans, etc. Keep it fair and even. If some people spawned in with a handgun and others with an empty water bottle, I think that would be slightly unfair.

 

3: This isn't related to your post, I simply wanted to thank you for your service in the military. I would never have the balls to do it. Thank you. (also, I live in Illinois and was very happy when concealed carry was passed. thanks for that too :) )

[fanfornow 5]

Sure thing! Thanks for your response.  Yeah, I didn't really think about what I was getting myself into until I was in - lol - that's why they advertise like it's a movie and make it hard to get out once you're in.  It was a good experience, more people should do it.  And of course I know I put a lot of stuff out there, once my mind begins churning on something...  ;)

[fanfornow 5]

Oh yeah, rifle butt strokes and even bayonets!  :D  Great for close quarters.

[fing24 36]

Agree that one shot does not always kill in fact most of the time you will survive one shot.  

[Parazight 1599]

,,,but there needs to be some kind of balance to keep this game successful and right now there are some real imbalances that are scaring people away.

 

It IS a KOS deathmatch right now.  Have faith that once completed, Dayz will have server communities that don't kill on sight as frequently.  Persistence, more server control and barricading will help form these groups.

[Rigor Mortis (DayZ) 141]

So make it more likely to find pistols and less likely to find rifles, pistol have significantly less reliable stopping power, range and accuracy.

In the civilian world, more people tend to have handguns and hunting rifles/shotguns (though this has been changing) and I would argue that those are the things you're more likely to find lying around.

In rural areas I think hunting rifles would be far more common than pistols. For the big cities pistols should be more common (like the new city up north). This is just from personal experience, but everyone I knew living in the country had at least a shotgun and usually a deer rifle as well, but almost no one had handguns. In the city, everyone I know carries or at least has a handgun, but very few have shotguns and almost none have rifles.

I have to disagree with pistols having "less reliable stopping power" -- if a target is in range and you hit them, a pistol round will go straight through your target doing more than enough damage to stop them shortly thereafter. I agree that if you take range into account, pistols will not stand up to rifles... but I'm talking about when a target is in range and you manage to hit it (them).

Also, as I've mentioned in other threads, they need to put magazines in almost all pistols that you find. It's so dumb to find a pistol with no magazine... who drops a mag and then waits to drop the gun 20 miles later?

 

Make ammo more precious

Definitely - ammo should be rare enough that you need to consider every shot you take.

 

Let people spawn in with a pistol, just because you're fresh in this "zombie apocalypse" doesn't mean you just dropped into planet earth naked, most people who are going to survive are going to be preppers or who would have some means of survival, it's not just dumb luck.

Well, I might agree with you if this were a zombie outbreak, but since it's an infection and the 'survivors' are those people who just happened to be immune, then I have to disagree. I do think you should start with some kind of information though... it's ridiculous to appear in the woods and have no idea where you are or where you came from.

 

Put in some probability rolls, a la Dungeons and Dragons. You aim for the head, you have x probability of striking...

I love this idea -- taking away the guaranteed kill will piss off the CoD kiddies, but I'm 100% ok with that (in fact, I kind of live for making them angry...)

 

These characters, shooting without ear pro should either have their ears ringing or hearing loss, which will also affect game play...let them find ear plugs, but you have to choose when to use them, do you want to be able to hear people from far away? Or do you want to protect your hearing for later?

I have a thread that I posted on this one -- definitely should be implemented. There's also talk of making gunshots echo much farther than they do now to increase realism.

 

Offer different types or classes of ammunition...

This has been a point of contention for some time on the forums -- do we add lots of types of rounds to add realism or keep it simple to improve gameplay. The developers seem to have chosen a middle ground where they have different ammo for different guns, but that's pretty much it. I'd love to see more types of ammo implemented personally.

 

Different weapons have different levels of being proven in battle and have different snafu's where reliability is concerned...

Absolutely agree... can't even add to this.

 

You're not going to always been in the same great shape after 30 days as you would be on day one, so give some advantages to the new spawns, as in health and vigor, whereas the older people have more gear and supplies, they've probably slowed a bit, they've probably picked up infections or injuries that aren't easily fixed in the field...

I think some people would be in better shape after 30 days. If you know how to live off the land and you are physically active all the time, then you will likely lean up and gain stamina. If you are starving and getting beaten up all the time then yes, I'd agree with you. Perhaps they should add some sort of weight gain/loss system along with the stamina system as well as a history of injuries for the characters.

 

Perhaps add a karma system, if someone makes their living as a mass murderer, let it come back to haunt them, more likelihood of injuries, re-spawning without a weapon, etc. I mean, I like having bandits in the game, I think it would be boring if everyone were friends and the only enemy were zombies (frankly, I think zombies are boring, I'm attracted to this game because it's open ended, you make up your own story, I like the PVP play, etc.) but there needs to be some kind of balance to keep this game successful and right now there are some real imbalances that are scaring people away.

This is one that has been brought up many times and rejected by the community many times... I'm sure you can find many threads to explain why.