Make life valuable

[Efiop 1]

I think many have wondered about the problems endgame Dayz, or rather lack thereof. Someone may not like and constant death match "kill or be killed." I believe that the root of these and many other problems Dayz (and many modern MMOs in general) is buried in one simple fact.

 

Life character, as such ... priceless. In the sense of "Star Infantry": "You drag yourself to the equipment for a million dollars. And add to that the five cents - what you stand." Mosin with a view - valuable, hung with M4 - valuable antibiotics - is valuable. Die naked? Maybe a little inconvenience from the far unsuccessfully spawn. But things can pick up and comrades.

 

Rocket, like, trying to create a sandbox survival (life-saving) and not death match a zombie Apocalypse. So why is the most important in the whole world for a man thing is valued so low in this game? Life of the character itself is not worth a dime. A huge hole in the design.

 

I do not believe that the punishment for killing players are able to solve the problem. It's like an analgesic to replace antibiotics. The disease to be treated, and not masked.

 

How to solve this problem? A very difficult and interesting question. And I have for you there are several conceptual proposals. I must say that all of them will be based on experience playing ARMA2 and high fashion to her.

 

So, first I propose to introduce a temporary improvement for the character, which would operate until his death. For example, such improvements are found for machines. For humans, this may be an opportunity to take over a top gun, carry on a huge weight, the ability to craft some rare things, disguised as zombies and be their for them, whatever. You can even come up with a lot of cool pieces. The key is that such improvements should be very rare, and that they were discharged after death.

 

Second. Where such improvements can be found? As they should be rare, it will be possible to find them in one single place - on sector B. Yes, should be an analogue of the fashion sector B Origins. Island, heavily guarded by armed bots, with all these improvements as a reward.

 

Third. There must be an auction. That people have the opportunity to sell such improvements, rather than storing them in reserve. For those people that can not go and knock on the improvement of the sector should be able to save enough money to buy them from other players.

These proposals related to the value of his own life.

 

Now let's talk about the value of another's life.

Here I borax idea of an MMO. I propose to divide all the players into two factions. Each faction has to be your trading city, your auction, their armed guards bots. But belonging to a certain fraction of the player should not be deprived of its ability to kill their. For this you just need to enter the appropriate punishment.

 

What should be the punishment? Player who killed her is denied access to all traders and auction. The player who killed his second - becomes an outcast. His start to attack their bots guards on his head entered award.

 

How to recognize her? There should be no visual differences. The difference should be hidden, something like an implant, read information from which you can remotely special device. Such a device should also be rare. For beginners should intrigue whom they can kill and who not. Perhaps such a device can improve the binoculars or a sniper scope.

 

Well, once we have two factions, then it was quite fun to have to give the players an extra reason to fight each other. For the complete destruction of the enemy city to allow the winning party to rob auction. Naturally with such a reward, protection of cities should be at the level of the protection sector B.

 

As a result, we get at least 3 hot spots. 2 city each fraction and sector B. In addition, you can make a small mission in EPOCH and we get a constant result of the ongoing war. But not everyone against everyone. A two factions each other. And each fraction in sector B. In addition to singles remains able to kill everybody and live as a hermit. Just to survive, and can be great, but only until will not collect all that is needed. After that it becomes boring. Why ARMA2 mod replaced by the following one and the next. Because none of them have endgame. None of that would keep the game after studying her up and down. Standalone awaits the same fate does not make it something special

[Robert Neville 59]

I think your proposal is too complicated and outside the spirit of DayZ.  However, I appreciate that you started talking about this as being killed in the game is very easy - and frustrating as you lose all your gear.  Therefore there should be a way to punish those players that treat DayZ as a FPS.  Perhaps a malus for each player kill?

[BeefBacon 1185]

You first point - that player characters should be able to improve their skills independent of their gear - has some merit, but the rest of this post I utterly disagree with. No bots. No trade areas. No factions. DayZ revolves around a player-driven narrative. I can see something like this being modded into DayZ somewhere down the line, but it has no place in the base game.

[Zyryanoff 227]

You first point - that player characters should be able to improve their skills independent of their gear - has some merit, but the rest of this post I utterly disagree with. No bots. No trade areas. No factions. DayZ revolves around a player-driven narrative. I can see something like this being modded into DayZ somewhere down the line, but it has no place in the base game.

Totally agree. :thumbsup:

___________

PS About perks: bandits usually like to do some damage (sometimes as much as they can... cause they are assholes) and if they know that you've survived long enough they would kill you just to make you upset.

[Evil Minion 943]

I like how people think that life should be valuable. But I don't like how they want to enforce it by punishing the killers. Hello - wakeup call! Right now "death" consists of losing your gear and healthy status and waiting for 30 seconds. With persistant storage and base building you will get back to that sate in no time practically eliminating most drawbacks (or having buddies guarding your gear while you run back there). And getting killed right after spawning? Not a problem at all because you lose exactly nothing (but 30 seconds with is a laughably short respawn time).

 

So how to make players value life? Make them try to avoid death! Add some cost to dying that makes players want to avoid death even when they have no gear and are close to starvation. What cost? I am not really sure but "respawn at the coast with starting gear after waiting 30 seconds" seems a little cheap right now. Some things people have come up with:

• Queue of Death - Increase the respawn time
• Murphy's Respawn - You will spawn as far away from your death location as possible.
• Game Over - Your character dies, you leave the server, credits roll, then you might build a new one and rejoin.
• Welcome to Hell - Beat a minigame before you can respawn.
• Pay the Price - You have a certain number of respawns that - if not needed - slowly built up over time (faster while playing) up to a maximum number.
• Now Leave! - A X hour ban from the server you died on.
• Groundhog Day - Make the game hard enough that respawning at the coast after 30 seconds is a major setback.

Either a very detailed character editor (with your character getting deleted after death) or character progress independent of gear status (nothing that requires grinding though) would help.

Edited September 5, 2014 by Evil Minion

[BeefBacon 1185]

Totally agree. :thumbsup:

___________

PS About perks: bandits usually like to do some damage (sometimes as much as they can... cause they are assholes) and if they know that you've survived long enough they would kill you just to make you upset.

 

I'm very much on the fence about perks. Provided it's under the hood (so no putting points into skills. Your character just gets slightly better at various tasks the longer they survive) I have no problem with it, but I can't see myself accepting any other implementation of a perk system. What it would do is cause players to be more cautious - even bandits. They'd be less likely to engage an armed player or group because it could well backfire. While that's already the case, regearing isn't particularly difficult meaning that all players - including bandits - will be willing to take more risks so long as death is only a minor setback. 

 

The alternative to having an experience/ perks/ whatever system is to make gear rarer, meaning that players will value it more and be less willing to take risks. While I believe to an extent gear should be rarer, it seems to me that many people want to take it too far. I don't want to play for hours and make no progress beyond finding a nice hat and a rotten banana. I want the game to be difficult but I don't want it to be a grind.

[BeefBacon 1185]

I like how people think that life should be valuable. But I don't like how they want to enforce it by punishing the killers. Hello - wakeup call! Right now "death" consists of losing your gear and healthy status and waiting for 30 seconds. With persistant storage and base building you will get back to that sate in no time practically eliminating most drawbacks (or having buddies guarding your gear while you run back there). And getting killed right after spawning? Not a problem at all because you lose exactly nothing (but 30 seconds with is a laughably short respawn time).

 

So how to make players value life? Make them try to avoid death! Add some cost to dying that makes players want to avoid death even when they have no gear and are close to starvation. What cost? I am not really sure but "respawn at the coast with starting gear after waiting 30 seconds" seems a little cheap right now. Some things people have come up with:

• Queue of Death - Increase the respawn time
• Murphy's Respawn - You will spawn as far away from your death location as possible.
• Game Over - Your character dies, you leave the server, credits roll, then you might build a new one and rejoin.
• Welcome to Hell - Beat a minigame before you can respawn.
• Pay the Price - You have a certain number of respawns that - if not needed - slowly built up over time (faster while playing) up to a maximum number.
• Now Leave! - A X hour ban from the server you died on.
• Groundhog Day - Make the game hard enough that respawning at the coast after 30 seconds is a major setback.

Either a very detailed character editor (with your character getting deleted after death) or character progress independent of gear status (nothing that requires grinding though) would help.

 

• Queue of Death - Interesting, if vague. How long would you propose the spawn timer be increased to?
• Murphy's Respawn - I've thought this in the past. It could be exploited (fast teleport for fresh spawns to the other side of the map) but it'd certainly help with players looting their own corpses. Also if a lot of players die in, say, Berezino wouldn't that mean there'd be a load of players all spawning at the furthest spawn point?
• Game Over - Isn't that effectively the same as a longer spawn timer?
• Welcome to Hell - God no
• Pay the Price - Interesting. I'd recommend something a little different. Each time you die your spawn timer increases. As you play this timer ticks down. This means that players who kill themselves to get better spawns or freshspawns looking for a punch-out will wait longer between respawns. Players who have had a character survive for an hour or more will not be penalised.
• Now Leave! - Again, interesting. Maybe overly harsh for people who want to play with friends. I can imagine getting shot soon after spawning and not being able to play with my friends for the next two hours - at least not on that server. Would be a pain for private hives / shards / whatever they're called
• Groundhog Day - Vague. Making the game more difficult runs the risk of making the game a grind for rotten fruit. It'd need to be done quite carefully.

 

Apologies for the double post.

Edited September 5, 2014 by BeefBacon

[hoik 415]

IMO disease can replace a traditional perks system - resistances you acquire over your life time, by actually catching and surviving said disease, would be (logically) lost when you die. If disease is a significant enough barrier to certain areas, interactions or items, then they could be something very valuable. Therefore residences could = life value.

[Zyryanoff 227]

 

The alternative to having an experience/ perks/ whatever system is to make gear rarer, meaning that players will value it more and be less willing to take risks.

That's the problem. After 2-10-50-100-200 hours of "no taking risks"  Dayz will become a boring game. For me it's not interesting not to interact with people at all. Rats ad KoSers everywhere and if gear will become rarer, they (potentiallly any survivor) will become more dangerous. :( <_<

[AP_Norris 1018]

I think survival mode is a popular idea, once you die you can't make a new character for a certain amount of time being a day, or a week.

It would definitely make a player value even a newspawn character with no gear, lost in the woods with his friends all the way across the map.

[Efiop 1]

I think your proposal is too complicated and outside the spirit of DayZ.  However, I appreciate that you started talking about this as being killed in the game is very easy - and frustrating as you lose all your gear.  Therefore there should be a way to punish those players that treat DayZ as a FPS.  Perhaps a malus for each player kill?

I play Dayz from the outset. Perhaps if I did not have experience playing modes ARMA2, I would agree with you. But now after a few years, I'm not interested in just surviving. The point is not that difficult to get new loot, no. The fact that survival for survival is boring for me now.

[chickyboom 0]

I played for 2 hours tonight on experimental and was seriously discouraged.  I started out geared and my axe failed to do anything to a zed.  Then I died repeatedly at the hands of zeds before I could even begin to loot to attempt to get geared up again.  I originally thought I would be killed by pvp kos creeps, but no, didn't even have a single encounter.   I understand the developers want to make the game challenging, but playing felt rediculous tonight and discouraging too.  If, as Evin Minion suggests there should be an end of life penalty (sadist) it seems to me playing the game would be too masochistic to play at all.  

 

I feel kind of bad that my first post here is negative and somewhat bitchy, however I've been playing a while and this is the first time I've felt like venting about the crappy "mission" of the developers surrounding the game.  I honestly don't think they are playing anymore, and are just cranking out "updates" people suggest without actually trying to play the damn thing to see if some of these changes make any sense at all.  

 

Also, I should disclose that this is the first online pvp/pvzed game I've ever played.  It seemed interesting and exciting, and challenging.  Now the challenges just seem over the top.  In line with the OP's original statement I would argue that the developers are interfering with the players ability to naturally evolved a "life value system" by attempting to keep the game edgy(?) and interesting with all this new junk, such as zeds that fly and fight at the speed of frucking light, making it impossible to survive elements, etc. etc.

 

I'm bummed that my stable characters are going to be wiped in a week.  I've worked pretty hard to keep them alive for a while, find gear and food that isn't in badly damaged or ruined condition. And trying sooper hard not to be killed by snipers.  I get that the game is in development. blah blah.  <_< 

[General Zod 1118]

Bots, trading areas, factions. Sounds like a complete opposite of what DayZ is supposed to be. 

[Trizzo 632]

Great question, cuts right to the heart of player expectation and subjectivity. I do not think there is a unifying 'end game' in this type of sandbox. You have everything from Vector Bunny, Frankie and Hoxton, people do as they please. Their story, no rules. By the same token this is no excuse not to implement advanced UI to allow diverse player interaction!

Trading is a good example. It's a perfectly natural state of affairs. If a group wants to enforce zone rules for a trade zone they can pick up a gun and tell me what to do. Bots and magic weapon free zones should remain in the realm of magic and arbitrary RPGS.

I think life APPEARS frivolous because the most comprehensively polished aspect of the game aspect of DayZ has so far been finding combat or avoiding it. PvP is long part of the institutional memory of DayZ, far more so than other content in a functional from from crafting, cooking or survival content etc...This is changing over time and was (sorry to be this guy) stated intention of Alpha. It has changed this last week. The loot table will also continue to shift focus.

As loot is refined, zombie spawns improved, survival increased, animals/hunting, horticulture, tents, proper persistence, barricading, it's a lot of stuff for a player to covet, the time is still going to be long but no doubt but the future holds a lot.

'Perks' are an interesting question, it's a slippery slope or has the potential to be. I prefer the concept of persistence, do an action, get marginally better at it over time. More kindling/yields/slightly increased stamina if healthy over time. That is about as far as a dayz perk should go I feel. It doesn't actually solve the someone else's violent tendencies though! You can only effect that by making the confrontation equation more complicated via loot, PvE and status effects.

More substantial healing time or injuries. Throwing a splint onto a fracture shouldn't a be an instant full health fix. Yes it will effect the innocent too but fighting should take a toll on on instigator beyond an instant fix.

Threatening zombies properly swarming to aggro/gunfire and loot balanced so having to potentially clear that aggro is an invest you don't want to regularly make.

Edited September 6, 2014 by Trizzo

[General Zod 1118]

More substantial healing time or injuries. Throwing a splint onto a fracture isn't a insta-fix, yes it will effect the innocent to but fighting should take a toll on on instigator beyond an instant fix.

Agree, things like gunshot wounds, fractures etc. should have long term effects, making you slower, weaker. That being said applying splint should make you able to walk, but sprinting should be out for some time, obviously those things should be implemented only when things like fall damage and death trap stairs and ladders are fixed.  

[lauri7x3 100]

i had the idea of adding like a death penalty system.

this is just an idea!

maybe add something like an increased zombie dmg to player that die. like 1% more zet dmg for every death up to a specific cap like 50%.

maybe this penalty is erased after 1 month or u can lower it by 0,5% for each hour alive ingame. but if there is something to lower it, it has to be passive, so it cant be abused proberly.

 

that would maybe prevent newspawned from suicide and attacking heavy armed players and would maybe get some more tactic gameplay into the game.

 

sry for my english i hope u can understand everything lol

[General Zod 1118]

i had the idea of adding like a death penalty system.

this is just an idea!

maybe add something like an increased zombie dmg to player that die. like 1% more zet dmg for every death up to a specific cap like 50%.

maybe this penalty is erased after 1 month or u can lower it by 0,5% for each hour alive ingame. but if there is something to lower it, it has to be passive, so it cant be abused proberly.

 

that would maybe prevent newspawned from suicide and attacking heavy armed players and would maybe get some more tactic gameplay into the game.

 

sry for my english i hope u can understand everything lol

Oh yes, let's take it out on a players that dies, because they just died for shits and laughs. I was just killed by a glitcher or a cheater, and on top of that zeds will hit me harder ? Why don't just blow my PC up when I die ? What the fuck mate ? 

If I want to attack fully geared players I should be allowed to do that, it's all or nothing, if I kill him I get all the gear I need. It's hard enough to be a fresh spawn any way, no need to add some dumb restriction. 

F

[lauri7x3 100]

yes exactly u get restrictions for stupid behavoir. (cheater or glitcher are just badluck)

 

that system should prevent u from trowing away ur digital life and make u try hard to survive, because lets face it: we NEED to make life more valuable for many reasons. for example.. stupid behavoir. because u dont just attack fully armed players. u dont come to a pistol fight with a knife.

[General Zod 1118]

yes exactly u get restrictions for stupid behavoir. (cheater or glitcher are just badluck)

 

that system should prevent u from trowing away ur digital life and make u try hard to survive, because lets face it: we NEED to make life more valuable for many reasons. for example.. stupid behavoir. because u dont just attack fully armed players. u dont come to a pistol fight with a knife.

Yes, making life valuable but not with making zeds hit new spawns harder, this will increase kos griefing even more, because killers will know the more they kill the more miserable people will be. 

Edited September 15, 2014 by General Zod

[lauri7x3 100]

it was just an idea. but to not making it unfair i wrote that u can get rid of it in a !passive! way like surviving a specific time.

this is hardcore survival game and i wish to get rid of this "nothing to loose" behavior

[General Zod 1118]

it was just an idea. but to not making it unfair i wrote that u can get rid of it in a !passive! way like surviving a specific time.

this is hardcore survival game and i wish to get rid of this "nothing to loose" behavior

How long you survive is not purely up to you, quite the opposite, it's mostly up to others. And no a month to get rid of that stupid penalty is way too long. 

[Troll_Hunter 54]

There are more ways to make people's lives more valuable, to others as well.

 

For instance:

 

1) carry capacity, affecting mobility and range.

 

If individual carry capacity is reduced and weight affects mobility, playing as a team becomes valuable. Sharing the load increases mobility, range and survivability by having more goods(=options!) and less weight per member. The trade off is that faster players and groups are more visible. A single player that carries 40 pounds of equipment, food, shelter, guns, ammo, amour, tools, is much slower then a unequipped fresh spawn.

(as an in real life hiker and mountain climber the weight versus ability and mobility challenge is a very fun aspect to play with, and going solo versus team adds an interesting social challenge.)

 

2) acquired skills.

 

Recall those 'useless' random books? These could be medium-rare doorways to skills, that enables people to do advanced medicine, mechanics, trapping, etc.

A skilled player becomes a more valued and sometimes vital team-member, because he can do certain things much faster, and can do certain advanced things unskilled players cannot.

Learning a 'skill' should involve finding the proper book, and executing each of the advanced skills listed once, before the skill is fully acquired. Characters could acquire all in game skills and become a highly valued asset to himself and his team, but also to the bandit, who did not bother to learn skills, but did incur a serious debilitating medical condition, or a broken down vehicle.

 

3) high score ranking.

I love the suggestion of a current and published high score, so people strife to be the oldest survivor in DayZ, and bandits can target those and aim to become the most hated (hunted) bandit (killing high score list). The best and the worst become the hunted.

For sake of recognisability each created character has a fixed skin and dog tags. So their killer can explore the body and find out who they have killed.

 

4) detailed score upon death.

Including - but not limited to - : days lived, people revived, people killed, food consumed, goods shared, amount of injuries endured, miles walked, reputation gathered, and a listing on the global Dayz score board.

 

5) Age of character visualised.

People should be able to guess the characters' age in game. Young to old skins, beard, hair colour.

[UltimateGentleman 355]

There are more ways to make people's lives more valuable, to others as well.

 

For instance:

 

1) carry capacity, affecting mobility and range.

 

2) acquired skills.

 

3) high score ranking.

 

4) detailed score upon death.

 

5) Age of character visualised.

1) no, that would suck it shouldn't be almost impossible to survive alone so you can barely have anything, especially not when a real person could carry multiple backpacks. That's the worst way to encourage player interaction I'd say, it should be natural not forced.

 

2) Yes, that would be awesome but also add a learning curve to it like you learn how to make a better splint for instance but you have to prototype it, make it several times before it's perfected and while in that process there's a chance of fucking it up and extending the process considerably.

This is probably the best way to make people care along with stamina increases and such you're not going to want to throw away your avatar when they have many skills it took you a long time to aquire.

 

However I think it's paramount that there not be collectable "skill books" you should just be able to search bookshelves and have a chance of finding something helpful, survival guides and whatnot.

 

3 That would be terrible, it promotes killing to get a high score and that certain actions are what people should be doing when the aim of the game is feedom, though it's true that freedom is mostly squandered on deathmatch gameplay but a score wouldn't help that because you no matter what have to give points for things plus people could just abuse it. Even if killing made a negative impact on your score people wouldn't really care having the lowest score would be the cool thing to do and it makes it that killing is something people shouldn't do.

 

4 I'd like this but not a "score" just statistics it'd be cool seeing just how long you lasted and what you endured.

 

5 That wouldn't be great, while I'd like beards people wouldn't visibly age all that much plus what happens with women?

Beards I think should just be an option "facial hair growth ON/OFF" then you have to survive a month worth of in game days to have a beard as a male.

[Troll_Hunter 54]

Mr. Bean king, thanks for your response.

 

1) I think you're wrong about carrying weight/ volume. The current DAYZ has already a limit. I propose to simply have a speed, endurance, food and water penalty for the amount you carry, just like in real life.

How fast and how long can you sprint with a 40 pound backpack and a 10 pound scoped rifle? - Please add some nuance to your arguments, because taking a proposal to extremes and say that would not work is a fallacy.

 

2) I like your idea of reading and actually learning and applying a skill, like a splint, or some engine wiring - it could actually become an educational game :D . I'm not sure it's easy enough to implement in the game-engine.

 

3) Maybe top killers in DayZ will be not trusted, even hated? and I love to see manhunts, rewards, posse's come into existence to end these people's killing streak.

Maybe the situation will be a bit like the German U-boots in WW2, first they were the hunters, then they became the hunted. Because people started to team up...

Being an ageing lone wolf killer, in a highly risky environment, you'll be very vulnerable, because you cannot receive advanced medicine, unless you act nice to a medic.

It all depends on many factors. At the moment lone survival is too easy, so lone wolf killers have an easy time. But then again, offering a choice to become the worst or best is a valuable choice none-the-less.

 

4) I agree with your statistics refinements.

 

5) Do I need to spell out things like wrinkles, grey hair, paling pupils, etc?

Actually I may like to add that age affects your abilities, hence, when a player becomes old, he looses some strength, stamina, vision? So you character has an actual limited life. The ageing will be speed up by malnutrition, healing others extends your life. Philosophical question: Infinite life, or limited life what will yield the most meaning?

 

Now I know most gamers do not like 'handicaps', but you may think of this mechanic this way: first you're a well fed young person, and your strength and stamina makes up for your lack of knowledge. Then, after a period (say 12 hours playtime) you've learned the ropes and survival becomes easier. But then you look in the mirror and see your character ageing, knowing your abilities will gradually reduce, so you need to change your play style, you need to find a friend to share the load, a friend to pick you up when you get injured, a friend to help to fend off those young fast bastards. You need to use your brain more to become to oldest Dayz survivor.

 

 

The more connections you make with others, the more colour, depth and meaning, the dayz experience gains.

 

I think the DayZ designers need to pay attention to the kind of players they attract to their game. A bunch of retards will not see and find more then a free for all death-match - even babies can destroy. The Arma series does appeal more to the strategy player, a person who likes to think and plan ahead. As long as Dayz game play favours thinking and planning, it will hold a more interesting and varied player-base.

Edited November 14, 2014 by Troll_Hunter

[Conrad_The_Comrade 577]

As part of the idea that certain characters spawn with certain traits (i.e. higher weight capacity, faster run, etc.) they should spawn with negatives such as bad eyesight, higher metabolism, a debilitating sickness, etc.

 

Yes, it would give reason to again kill off your character, but these should only be applied when you get a positive trait, as to balance it out. Just an idea, and boy have I been wanting to suggest it :P