Character death should carry more weight

[Lukio (DayZ) 24]

I'd like to suggest that some different mechanic dealing with character death.

Dilemma:

We all know that death currently doesn't mean much (except loosing your gathered equipment), it means so little that most people almost shrug it off when their character dies, they just do a quick run in Cherno, Elektro and move up to NWAF or something of the like.

To me its contradictory that the game itself can be so tense and harsh, but the hardest thing that happens to your character can be dealt with so easily. It just doesn't feel right to me - maybe someone else thinks the same way about it.

Possible ideas to implement this (just something I came up with, I'm sure there are more ideas):

• To make death more meaningful, after you die you should "come back" very slowly, maybe 10-20 minutes of the screen slowly going from all black to brighter until you see the DayZ logo and then you pop up on the beach.
  
• Respawn the player as spectator bird somewhere random on the map, after flying around for several minutes (10-20 again) he will be spawned as survivor on the coast. Yes I know ... CS.
  
• You just see your character lying there, being consumed by infected or looted by other survivors for a certain time.
  

In any case it should be non-religious, or not connected to any known religion.

[Zeromentor 169]

Wait 10-20 minutes to respawn after death? To what? Live another 5 running from zombies and getting popped by a sniper in cherno, to wait another 20?

I don't curse much on forums, but fuck that.

[zorisx 7]

I would say a great death punishment would be nothing. We already lose stuff as it is and the journey is long and torturous. What your complaining about is not death itself, but the availability of items within the game.

[stielhandgranate 480]

You lose everything. It's bad enough that you spend a few days gathering gear,clothes,tools and other stuff, only to die from some douchebag bandit with a anti material rifle and lose all that effort.

There is no issue here. Items are the only resource and objective in this game and losing that is enough. Also Cherno, Elektro and the NW strip are PvP havens and now with being unarmed at spawn doubles effort on these endeavors.

[SixPackAbs 13]

Losing everything is enough of a penalty, if this was to be implemented all it would do is cause people to not play the game anymore.

[Womb Raider 92]

This is a terrible idea, I don't want to wait ten to twenty minutes.

[blakereid@cableone.net 0]

Honestly.. this wouldn't change much at all.

It would just be frustrating and a headache.

Everyone would just Alt+Tab and go do something meaningful while waiting.

It just seems like a useless punishment.

[soapmak3r 677]

I already have to wait for at least 2 minutes for the bloody servers to respawn me...and that's annoyingly long.

Not sure, but I'm thinking that you are just trolling with these suggestions...I hope you are.

[Shorttallguy 3]

i don't think anything needs to be done but making resources more scarce making players value what they have more. you will REALLY not want to die if it takes a whole day to find any type of weapon or food.

[thywolf@live.ca 3]

I wouldn't play this game, peopel still camp the spawn areas, and I'd rather nto wait 30 minutes to intantly get shot and have to wait another 30 minutes, this game is annoying enough as it is

[Lukio (DayZ) 24]

Ok - so no one is disturbed by the fact that death isn't really meaningful? And I'm not saying meaningful as in punishment but as in the way death per se is displayed in the game, you just roll over, click some buttons and then you are back on your feet, after 30m to 2h you have nearly the same equipment you had before. I guess everyone is way to attached to their equipment instead of their character.

Maybe I'm playing a different game, but seeing how tense and punishing the mod can be when you are alive, death currently is just a minor occurrence, a 2s "You are dead" screen and then you just respawn and can happily go on looting, killing or whatever you do while playing.

I guess my suggestion is too philosophical and everyone thinks that the goal is to punish players even more, its not about that. If anyone has played Hitman: Blood Money to the end, you may know what I am trying to get at, death being displayed in-game and some kind of approach to starting over.

[Zeromentor 169]

My bad, you should be locked out of the game once you've died. You are dead, you can't play again. Good right?

/endsarcasm

[Lozel 0]

No idea what this kid is talking about. Whenever I hear a gun shot coming near me or when or when I die, I either scream fuck or "nonononononononononono" and if i die i have to resist breaking my keyboard. I dont know what you refer to as equipment you can just replace in 2 hours but I cant replace my FN FAL or L85A2 in 2 hours. You can't find that many crash sites in 2 hours. normally at least. Now what could be implemented in a Hardcore mode on top of this already hardcore survival mod. Being that once you select your gender, you can then select a harder play style. Instead of changing everyone's experience. Who wants to jump into a game they just bought. Die cause they are learning and aggro a ton of zombies then have to wait an half hour to play again.... that would be developer suicide.

[Lukio (DayZ) 24]

My bad' date=' you should be locked out of the game once you've died. You are dead, you can't play again. Good right?

/endsarcasm

[/quote']

That actually would be interesting to me, being locked out for a certain time if you die. Too bad no one feels that death is missing in the game, what we currently see is dying and a short message screen, nothing else. Death isn't part of the game.

[Zeromentor 169]

My bad' date=' you should be locked out of the game once you've died. You are dead, you can't play again. Good right?

/endsarcasm

[/quote']

That actually would be interesting to me, being locked out for a certain time if you die. Too bad no one feels that death is missing in the game, what we currently see is dying and a short message screen, nothing else. Death isn't part of the game.

In most games, death means you pop back up at a checkpoint, autosave or save point before you died, or respawn at the beginning of some dungeon, battlefield or whatever. Nothing lost but time, maybe some money and experience at the most.

In other games, you lose what you took with you. Or a small amount of it. In DayZ, you lose EVERYTHING. Kills, gear, skins, everything. The only things you keep are what you left in tents and those have a huge chance of being stolen from.

You want death to mean more in this game? Then next time you die, stop playing. Because a timer before you can come back (20 minutes, seriously?) would ruin it for many people. Some people barely play 3 hours before they have to leave for one real life event or another, and if you think about it most people die 5 times before they aquire the gear needed to survive. Or they go north, and risk putting in even MORE time for even LESS reward.

So you spawn, die to a pack of zombies. 5 minutes alive. 20 minutes waiting.

Respawn and die to a sniper, less than a minute up, 20 down.

Up again and you move into a town, grab an axe and head out, only to die to a guy with a shotgun, cool, 10 minutes up and another 20 down.

Hour spent dead, for only ~15 minutes of play. Most people would stop playing the mod after the first death, maybe even the second.

In a sense, you are asking to play alone, because over 600 servers would have far fewer players still playing after the first week. You'd be alone with the extremely hardcore players, who would probably get bored and camp your spawn, to grief you day in and day out.

Just for this suggestion, I know I would.

[Lukio (DayZ) 24]

You want death to mean more in this game? Then next time you die' date=' stop playing. Because a timer before you can come back (20 minutes, seriously?) would ruin it for many people. Some people barely play 3 hours before they have to leave for one real life event or another, and if you think about it most people die 5 times before they aquire the gear needed to survive. Or they go north, and risk putting in even MORE time for even LESS reward.

[/quote']

*sigh* I give up. The 20 minutes are just examples, ideas - not written in stone. Also I love how everybody is fixated on their imba loot gear, that they got for free anyway.

I guess I am the only one disturbed that death isn't displayed more disruptive, explicit and profound. Maybe its also way to early for this mod to look into such aspects.

[Zeromentor 169]

You want death to mean more in this game? Then next time you die' date=' stop playing. Because a timer before you can come back (20 minutes, seriously?) would ruin it for many people. Some people barely play 3 hours before they have to leave for one real life event or another, and if you think about it most people die 5 times before they aquire the gear needed to survive. Or they go north, and risk putting in even MORE time for even LESS reward.

[/quote']

*sigh* I give up. The 20 minutes are just examples, ideas - not written in stone. Also I love how everybody is fixated on their imba loot gear, that they got for free anyway.

I guess I am the only one disturbed that death isn't displayed more disruptive, explicit and profound. Maybe its also way to early for this mod to look into such aspects.

How would death be more profound? You die, you lose everything. Good enough.

What you're asking for is the game to lock people out for an extended amount of time for dying, which is a fairly common occurance. People die, a lot. They lose their stuff, a lot. And a lot of that stuff isn't, "Easy" to find. When was the last time you found a Bus, Truck, Van and 2 FN Fals, a Bizon, and M107 in the same spot? Now imagine losing all of that. Easy to find? What?

And this mod is free, what are you on about, "fixated on their imba loot gear, that they got for free anyway."? Are you saying it didn't take TIME to get that? Or are you saying that the version of the game you are on magically drops ghillie suits, AS-50s and GAZs from the sky?

Why do you want a lockout so much? What reason? To make death hurt more? To the point that people would actual STOP playing? Cause that is what would happen. Any other reasons, maybe something more 'profound'?

[Lukio (DayZ) 24]

Again - its not about a lockout or punishment why is this so difficult to understand? Its about death currently not being presented in a way that suits the general emotional and simulative style of the mod. There is no death, there is only dying. All we have now is a screen saying "You are dead" and then you just click two buttons to respawn.

[Zeromentor 169]

Again - its not about a lockout or punishment why is this so difficult to understand? Its about death currently not being presented in a way that suits the general emotional and simulative style of the mod. There is no death' date=' there is only dying. All we have now is a screen saying "You are dead" and then you just click two buttons to respawn.

[/quote']

It's difficult to understand because you ask for death to have more reason.

And you ask for a lockout for that.

You don't say how this is a good idea, just that it makes death 'worse'.

WHY do you want a lockout? WHAT do you want us to have from death? Not a lockout? Didn't you make a thread asking for a lockout? You seem confused by your own words.

WHAT. DO. YOU. WANT?

If not a lockout, then what? Something?

[Lukio (DayZ) 24]

Very basically: I want death to be more than just that "You are dead" screen, to have more depth.

Let me give an example of some ARMA 2 mod I played which I think "got it kind of right" - I think it was TVT (MP) mod:

When you got critically wounded and died, a medic would have to pick up your body, bring you to a field hospital (at the base where you started) and only then you could respawn, depending on where you were this could take between 5 and 20 minutes, including medevac etc.

The first few times I was really frustrated, but then it was actually pretty awesome to have the loss of your characters life be displayed so severely and have a period of time where you reflect about what went wrong etc. Your character was actually dead and it wasn't just about re-spawning and getting back on your feet within 5s.

Something similar - NOT exactly the same mechanic (!) like this is what I would want to see in DayZ. To have your character's death being more meaningful and present.

[Zeromentor 169]

Okay see, that is not a lockout timer. But that mechanic won't work here as no random person is going to save your dead body, drag you to safety and somehow revive you. You. Are. Dead.

From what I can tell from what you said, a meaningful death would be your screen blacking out, with whatever killed you looking you dead in the eyes.

Zombies eating you, shooter looting you, or just looking up into the sky.

But sitting around for tens of minutes? No. And no medevac transport team is coming to save you.

[deepfried 95]

Just lower items spawn rates... that would make death (and loosing your equipment) much more of a problem.

[Lukio (DayZ) 24]

Okay see' date=' that is not a lockout timer. But that mechanic won't work here as no random person is going to save your dead body, drag you to safety and somehow revive you. You. Are. Dead.

[/quote'] Of course it won't work in DayZ, I explicitly wrote something similar, not the same mechanic. Underlined. In bold.

From what I can tell from what you said, a meaningful death would be your screen blacking out, with whatever killed you looking you dead in the eyes.

Zombies eating you, shooter looting you, or just looking up into the sky.

Something like this would be probable, something that closes the chapter on your previous journey like the ending of a book, not just a screen that you click away in 2s.

But sitting around for tens of minutes? No. And no medevac transport team is coming to save you.

I know there is no medevac. It was an example, a paradigm, an indication of how it is being done in another mod.

[wolfstriked 143]

Make perk where you manage to stay alive for a good amount of time will decrease the weapon sway to what we have now.This way when you start your just a survivor and not a trained military person and as time goes on you suddenly can fire a weapon much better.

[Sparreth 0]

When I die in DayZ, there's no '2s' about it. I generally stare blankly at that 'You are Dead' screen and think of what could have been done differently. Followed by a day or two of not even considering playing again; then beginning a new life. Good gear or not, the progress you make in game is worth more to me than any profoundness in death... Just my experience