SKILL ADVANCEMENT

[alexander_q 6]

Though it's been talked about in several threads, I've yet to find an all-encompassing and coherent thread dedicated to a skill system wherein skills improve with practice. Adding skill advancement to the game gives players something they can offer when alive that they cannot offer when dead. This changes the dynamic of player-killing and cooperation, and additionally, it gives players a reason to value their own lives when their best loot is stored elsewhere in their ATV.

The abilities of characters will gradually improve as they are used.

MEDICAL

Medical skill increases whenever a player performs a medical procedure on another player. Medical procedures include; blood transfusions, administering bandages, painkillers, morpheine, epi-pens, anti-biotics, and combat surgery. Players with high medical skill will perform all of these medical procedures faster and with a higher degree of success. This means that blood bags will restore more blood per bad, and bandages will better stem the flow of blood. In addition, players with high medical skill will find more medical loot.

SURVIVAL

Survival skill increases whenever a player performs a survival ability. Survival abilities include; killing an animal, butchering an animal, cutting wood, lighting a fire, cooking meat, collecting water. Players with a high survival skill will carry out all of these actions more quickly, obtain more meat from butchering animals, have food replenish more of the hunger stat, be able to eventually light fires with less matches and without any at all, and have fires that last longer.

MECHANIC

Mechanic skill increases whenever a player performs a mechanic ability. Mechanic abilities include; reparing any part of a vehicle, driving a vehicle, refueling a vehicle. Players with high mechanic skill will perform all of these abilities more quickly, require less parts, have greater control when piloting vehicles, be able to salvage parts from other vehicles, and find more vehicle-related loot.

FIREARMS

Gun skill increases whenever a player performs a gun ability. Gun abilities include; firing a weapon, reloading a weapon, hitting a target. A player with high gun skill will be able to do these things faster, while moving, with a steadier crosshair (including under stress from pain), will be able to switch weapons while moving, have them jam less often and will find more gun-related loot (especially ammo).

ATHLETIC

Athletic skills increases whenever a player does something athletic. Athletic things include; walking, sprinting, climbing, crawling. Players with high athletic skill will have stamina that depletes more slowly, be able to move faster when moving stealthily and be able to change posture more quickly.

EXTRA THOUGHTS

Advancement must be carefully managed to deny players the ability to "grind". For example, administering blood transfusions or bandages to players who do not need them should be either impossible or confer no benefit. As much as possible, actions should be limited by the availability of resources to enact them. The system described above would also benefit from a mechanic wherein players can assist the actions of others, like the one detailed here: http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=23848. If these were implemented in tandem, more skilled characters would contribute more to assisted actions.

TL;DR

Skills improve with practice

[leo235 2]

part of me would really like to see this too, but it would also be a huge incentive to cheat.

Also if you make the amount of archievement that someone can lose by dying higher and higher that gets tricky motivation-wise I would guess.

...part of me really would like to see this, even though its such an MMOTD

[Failbait 60]

NO THANK YOU

[Claytonaj 12]

I'm glad this doesn't seem on the cards. It wouldn't serve immersion at all. The game should continue to develop such that if you're good at something in real life (a good current example being navigation), that skill should be advantageous in the game, as it would be if you were thrown in to a survival situation for real tomorrow. You should improve these skills as you play, but it really doesn't require an artificial skills levelling system; you'll register the improvement through becoming better at surviving in the game.

[alexander_q 6]

Also if you make the amount of archievement that someone can lose by dying higher and higher that gets tricky motivation-wise I would guess.

It's already mostly the case because of loot. Having motivation to survive increase with time seems to be the right direction for motivation to go' date=' unless you're suggesting that people will be less inclined to take the risk of playing, in which case damn, that's a good point.

The game should continue to develop such that if you're good at something in real life (a good current example being navigation), that skill should be advantageous in the game, as it would be if you were thrown in to a survival situation for real tomorrow. You should improve these skills as you play, but it really doesn't require an artificial skills levelling system; you'll register the improvement through becoming better at surviving in the game.

This has limits - your IRL skill with cars won't help you one iota in-game. I think there's room for both real skill and in-game skills. We can leave the navigation, tactics and twitch stuff to the real skills and knowledge of the players, but make inroads in the other areas we can't simulate.

[Lukio (DayZ) 24]

If you want any kind of specialization, make it a fixed choice you select at character creation, just like female / male.

[Womb Raider 92]

No thanks, none of that has a place in Day Z.

[alexander_q 6]

If you want any kind of specialization' date=' make it a fixed choice you select at character creation, just like female / male.

[/quote']

Why do you prefer this way of doing it?

No thanks' date=' none of that has a place in Day Z.

[/quote']

Why do you feel that way?

[Disgraced 1123]

It's been suggested many times. The last time I saw a thread like this was literally half an hour ago.

It's going to be summarily rejected at the community level, for sure. Too MMO.

[alexander_q 6]

It's been suggested many times. The last time I saw a thread like this was literally half an hour ago.

It's going to be summarily rejected at the community level' date=' for sure. Too MMO.

[/quote']

It's like an MMO in that your character becomes more powerful as you advance, but this is already the case due to loot. I understand why this is on the nose for most people, at first, but I believe it may be possible to persuade them.

People avoid certain MMO mechanics for a reason - they do it because they don't want people who have been playing a long time to have a huge advantage over players who haven't. They do it because they hate the idea of "the grind". I believe we can implement skills in such a way that it gives us the benefits, without these drawbacks.

[Disgraced 1123]

Don't have to explain it to me....

[alexander_q 6]

Does that mean that you support the idea, you just doubt it will reach critical mass?

[eondude 0]

'Firearms' would be more appropriate than 'Gun'. Just saying..But I like this idea. Being experienced than other players needs to have some edge over the other, you don't want to get killed by a noob so damn quickly..

[alexander_q 6]

Yeah, I definitely think it'll make the more experienced players more cautious with their lives. I'll edit the OP to say "firearms".

[Deviant (DayZ) 43]

This would be AMAZING.

Perhaps you can have skill-training related deployable items? For example, a steel target, in which you gain firearms skill faster from besides shooting things.

This would also reduce the "nothing to lose" attitude. The ability to have "Camps" really loses the "survival" aspect of your "Life", since you always know where your hidden stash of good things is, if you die, you can just easily return to that spot and get all your gear back. Or where you last died, had it not been from a player.

[alexander_q 6]

Unfortunately, this does nothing to remove camps, but it will give campers cause to think twice before leaving all of their good gear behind. Ideally ammo would be rare, so using targets for practice would be something only the most well equipped would do. I personally think we already have plenty of targets to shoot at in respawning zombies.

[Claytonaj 12]

Being experienced than other players needs to have some edge over the other' date=' you don't want to get killed by a noob so damn quickly..

[/quote']

Experienced player do have the edge, if they've learned from past mistakes and they've become better at the game in many of the areas you're suggesting a levelling system for. If some people are better marksmen/women than others, because they have better hand eye coordination and reflexes, good for them. You might become as good if you put the hours in. You might not. That's life, and that's DayZ. Experienced players know the map inside-out, they know where to find what they need and how to go about getting to it without getting shot. As the game matures experienced players will have all sorts of inside knowledge, the language of the game, that noobs will have to learn to become effective players. Some will learn fast, others not; for some this will be a big deal, for others not. That's life, and that's DayZ. If said experienced player gets shot in the face by a noob with an itchy trigger finger, so be it. That's life, and that's DayZ.

[MiZTiiX 0]

there needs to be absolutley no advanment ina game like day z. Its a perma death game, you dont want to advance and then die and lose everything.

[leo235 2]

Also if you make the amount of archievement that someone can lose by dying higher and higher that gets tricky motivation-wise I would guess.

It's already mostly the case because of loot. Having motivation to survive increase with time seems to be the right direction for motivation to go' date=' unless you're suggesting that people will be less inclined to take the risk of playing, in which case damn, that's a good point.

[/quote']

Yeah I meant that the motivational "hit" that you take with dying gets bigger. That can mean you dont play because youre scared, or you take your life, because you lost too much in a game. Or you have the time of your life because you live in a first world country that would pay your rent till you die if you simply decided not to care anymore and you dont know the feeling of beeing existencially scared.

Loot doesnt do that to me because I play with a friend so my most valuable loot only gets lost when both of us die and since you can run to your corpse not even then.

( I find it highly confusing how your idea is too WOW for people that enjoy realism when you can run to your own fucking corpse)

[alexander_q 6]

Yeah I meant that the motivational "hit" that you take with dying gets bigger.

Loot doesnt do that to me because I play with a friend so my most valuable loot only gets lost when both of us die and since you can run to your corpse not even then.

Fair point. I guess just how big that hit is needs to be carefully considered. It's difficult to avoid people running back to their own corpses, and for as long as they remain able to do that, the hit will never be that hard, even with an advancement system. So for now, I'm not too worried about motivational issues.

Furthermore, if we consider this more of an anti-game than a game, we can ignore player-motivation altogether. For example, we can do things like force players to log into random servers with hidden details to prevent any sort of meta-cooperation, have them unable to log back into that server (at least knowingly) after death, and also implement an advancement system. That way, each respawn is a new life, in a new world, with new people, and no surviving equipment or skills.