Improvements to DayZ

[Helrin 4]

WARNING: MANY MANY IDEAS Here. One of them is a repeat of an already existing one.

 

Survival:

In DayZ surviving isn't all the strenuous or difficult. Gathering food itself is about the right difficulty but the challenge of fighting zombies over that food...easy. Zombies are TOO easy. The game is about Zombies but half of the time it degenerates in to looking for players to kill. That's more or less just playing a re-worked version of ARMA. Instead of looking for players to kill, you should be trying to help others and co-operate to kill the much larger threat: Zombies.

 

The method:

First of all everyone in DayZ is unemployed. No I don't mean the players I mean your actual in game character. No one guy has a specific niche or role to fill. I'm suggesting you give player characters specific skills. One guy might have foraging, the other first aid, etc. At the moment DayZ is kind of a one man show and people only get in large groups to mow down other groups. Every character should have stats, and skills. This means every person would do something different and could be a valuable asset to a group. For example: If you find a survivor who has significant first aid training that would be really helpful. If you find a survivor who can forage or track other players well that would be helpful. If you have a survivor who is just a crazy war monger that's helpful too.

This would mean that people would be way less antsy to blast each other's brains all over the floor if they brought something useful to the table. At the moment all you do when you recruit another player is add more firepower. But do you really want to risk getting shot in the back just for an extra soldier who may or may not be a good shot? Sidenote: Acquiring skills as you play may not be a bad thing either. That would give a huge incentive to actually stay alive instead of just shooting up randoms and then going out in glorious battle.

Now that players have been addressed...Zombies. Zombies are either way too difficult to handle (with just your fists for example), or way too easy(with a hatchet for example). MANY MANY zombies should be a problem. On the flip side 3 zombies should be relatively easy. Seeing as how you're immune to the infection fighting cripples isn't all that hard. Zombies making you bleed is also stupid unless they've hit you A LOT. If you've ever watched a UFC bout you'd know that when a fighter gets hard enough to draw blood it was a solid hit. These are crippled average people though so they aren't going to hit anywhere near that hard (but they're clawing! No, even if someone claws you it rarely draws blood). I would really love a revamp to unarmed combat so that it feels as realistic as the armed combat in DayZ. Even if you just added in some basic blocks and a few strikes you could do with your fists that would make being a bambi a whole lot better. Zombies definitely need to be more abundant and more well hidden. However, I would also love to be able to actually win the game. What do I mean by this? I mean KILL ALL THE ZOMBIES. Possibly make a reserve pool of how many zombies are on a server (probably over 1 million) and each section of the map contains X amount of zombies. If you can kill all of the zombies in an area and the reserve pool then they don't spawn back. This would give a real incentive to players other than just gloating about how long they survived, but more of how USEFUL were you while you were alive.

 

Sanity:

With DayZ's community I'm not convinced that the skill system would be enough to deter all of them from shooting people. To make sure only the most heartless of players will be a bandit instead of at least neutral. This would mean instead of everytime you kill someone it just flags you as "hero" or "bandit" you'd stay "Sane" or "Ludicrous about to pull the trigger on his best friend". So what I'm thinking is when you kill someone the amount of people you killed really begins to affect you. Mathematically I'm thinking (let X represent the number of players killed). Take X ^ 4 * 10 and then subtract that number from your Sanity. Sanity starts with completely sane at 1000. X will keep track of how many players you have killed. So if you shoot one guy the game may assume you had a legit reason. If you shoot 3 people however you're going to begin to feel the blood on your hands. When the sanity bar hits a certain point maybe your character begins to see illusions (like a ghost of other players), pulls his gun out to shoot nearby players without any player interaction and you only have a few seconds to press the button otherwise he'll shoot, etc.  

 

Thank you all for reading this if you made it this far :)

 

P.S. Before you say skills and progression have already been suggested I completely agree with him but it wasn't the only point in this.

Edited March 13, 2015 by Helrin

[rossums 2190]

People aren't going to have skills.

It should be down to how good you are rather than if you have better skills than the other guy.

With a lot more zombies, shooting your weapon will hopefully become much more of a risk.

Suggestions like sanity (that have been suggested a million times over) force players to play a certain way and that's one thing the developers are trying to avoid so it's certainly not going to happen either.

[WolfgangErikson 127]

 

I'm suggesting you give player characters specific skills. One guy might have foraging, the other first aid, etc. At the moment DayZ is kind of a one man show and people only get in large groups to mow down other groups. Every character should have stats, and skills. This means every person would do something different and could be a valuable asset to a group.

 

This is basically a suggestion for another reason to suicide your character at re-spawn. You can't force people to play a certain way based on skills. If I want to play a medic, I don't want to have to have a special skill. If people really want to play a certain play-style, then they would simply suicide until their character got that skill set. That is exactly why this is a bad idea.

 

DayZ is fundamentally built around emergent gameplay. They devs put building blocks there, and the players decide how to play. As soon as the game decides how you play, it becomes a different sort of game. Emergent gameplay is what makes DayZ interesting and sets it apart from other games. 

[TheLastEmp 295]

DayZ is fundamentally built around emergent gameplay. They devs put building blocks there, and the players decide how to play. As soon as the game decides how you play, it becomes a different sort of game. Emergent gameplay is what makes DayZ interesting and sets it apart from other games. 

 

Which is why I am in favor of a slow and relatively minor improvement in skills such as bandaging, or building, or fishing, or whatever.  It can add a little more weight to a characters life without jeopardizing the level playing field when it comes to player interactions.

[Helrin 4]

This is basically a suggestion for another reason to suicide your character at re-spawn. You can't force people to play a certain way based on skills. If I want to play a medic, I don't want to have to have a special skill. If people really want to play a certain play-style, then they would simply suicide until their character got that skill set. That is exactly why this is a bad idea.

 

DayZ is fundamentally built around emergent gameplay. They devs put building blocks there, and the players decide how to play. As soon as the game decides how you play, it becomes a different sort of game. Emergent gameplay is what makes DayZ interesting and sets it apart from other games. 

It appears I REALLY messed up my explanation on that one. Sorry. No I don't mean you are spawned with a certain set of skills, I mean you choose them at character creation. I also wasn't wanting to hamper anyones combat abilities. I was just saying for some of the mundane things like per say tracking, it'd be great if your character could track and others couldn't. This was basically already suggested on the main page though and I'm very aware. When I said stats I was thinking like your characters stamina. Anyways yeah. 

[Helrin 4]

People aren't going to have skills.

It should be down to how good you are rather than if you have better skills than the other guy.

With a lot more zombies, shooting your weapon will hopefully become much more of a risk.

Suggestions like sanity (that have been suggested a million times over) force players to play a certain way and that's one thing the developers are trying to avoid so it's certainly not going to happen either.

Yeah same thing I said to the other guy. I obviously worded that awfully. Also how is it a skill to just know an in game mechanic? It takes like 5 minutes of gameplay and suddenly I can do everything everyone else can. There's no diversity or specialization and therefore there is not a reason to keep other players you don't know alive. It's not forcing anything, people could play an insane character it would just mean people can't shoot others in the head and not have any mental issues. They wanted realistic and that's fairly spot on. As far as zombies go I wasn't aware they were adding more. Would still be cool to be able to actually win the game though. Last point: How is it NOT forcing people to play the serial killer in it's current state? I don't want to shoot every person I see but I don't get a choice in game. If I wanted to do that I'd go play Battlefield or ARMA. 

Edited March 11, 2015 by Helrin

[Helrin 4]

Which is why I am in favor of a slow and relatively minor improvement in skills such as bandaging, or building, or fishing, or whatever.  It can add a little more weight to a characters life without jeopardizing the level playing field when it comes to player interactions.

Yep. I agree. I was saying you would get to pick what skills you start out with like a basic skill set, then you could improve upon others as you go along. 

Edited March 11, 2015 by Helrin

[TheLastEmp 295]

I was saying you would get to pick what skills you start out with like a basic skill set, then you could improve upon others as you go along. 

 

I don't believe there should be any "picking" of traits. Only that you would get better or faster at certain things the more times you actually do them in-game.  and only very slightly after lots or practice.

 

But still, I take your point.

[WolfgangErikson 127]

It appears I REALLY messed up my explanation on that one. Sorry. No I don't mean you are spawned with a certain set of skills, I mean you choose them at character creation. I also wasn't wanting to hamper anyones combat abilities. I was just saying for some of the mundane things like per say tracking, it'd be great if your character could track and others couldn't. This was basically already suggested on the main page though and I'm very aware. When I said stats I was thinking like your characters stamina. Anyways yeah. 

 

Okay, that makes more sense. I still don't really agree with the idea of having skills, your suggestion seems valid now.

[Downydan (DayZ) 41]

I like the Idea of everything, but the Sanity does not fly well with me. If I want to kill people I'm going to kill people. There is no need to punish those that choose that route.

[ScorePoint 60]

I agree with:

1. Zombies should be #1 Threat

2. A few hits and scratches by zombies or players shouldn't be deadly.

 

I'm not sure with skill system though. Although, it might good if implemented correctly and is practical. Otherwise we players should learn the skills ourselves in real life. If I know how to fix cars in real life I should be able to use those skills in DayZ too. If the game has a lot of elements we should be able to use our own creativity to craft, fix and build things. If someone who has no idea what sparkplug is and doesn't know how to fix a car she/he found, they can ask someone to fix it for them. Also, I've seen a suggestion to add instuctional books on how to build, craft or fix things, intsead of those useless novels.

 

*By the way, make the text aligned to left, it will be a lot easier to read :)

Edited March 11, 2015 by ScorePoint

[Helrin 4]

I agree with:

1. Zombies should be #1 Threat

2. A few hits and scratches by zombies or players shouldn't be deadly.

 

I'm not sure with skill system though. Although, it might good if implemented correctly and is practical. Otherwise we players should learn the skills ourselves in real life. If I know how to fix cars in real life I should be able to use those skills in DayZ too. If the game has a lot of elements we should be able to use our own creativity to craft, fix and build things. If someone who has no idea what sparkplug is and doesn't know how to fix a car she/he found, they can ask someone to fix it for them. Also, I've seen a suggestion to add instuctional books on how to build, craft or fix things, intsead of those useless novels.

 

*By the way, make the text aligned to left, it will be a lot easier to read :)

Oh, thank you for that pointer (first time posting). I'm not sure it's fair to say you have to have a real life skill seems a bit extreme but DayZ is about realism so that could go either way and is probably better suited to an entirely new suggestion.