Character Development & Weaknesses

[archamedes 238]

I have a few interesting ideas that me and my clan were discussing earlier which I thought would make for some awesome character ideas ingame.

 

1.I know this has been requested many times before so I would like to add to it just so it may help them decide that its a popular request and decide to put it in. But facial hair growth over time. Cut it with a knife if you want it short. Boom, thats that one out the way.

 

2. I noticed that if you find an epi pen, it says that it is commonly known to treat allergic reactions as well as waking unconscious people. I'm liking the idea that there is random character system in play that happens when you spawn as a bambi. Iwhat if any player had a VERY small chance your character starting with an allergy to certain food types. For instance, berries or peaches. Only way to find out is if you eat said food and you get sick and become unconscious unless you get an epi pen to cure you. Then get told "It seems i am allergic to peaches." When you die, it no longer applies and may or may not come back for a while.

 

3. Going further with number 2. How about randomly spawning in and after you become healthy & only after this stage, do random players find out they are diabetic and have to find insulin from time to time to stay healthy. It would add a new survival dynamic into the game and people would have to loot hospitals to find medication for you, because you know, this sort of thing happens often in zombie films. I know a lot of people will probably be like "I don't want to play with diabetes, that sucks." Well yeah, try telling that to someone that actually lives with it. Nobody wants to live have it, but if people have it and in an apocalypse it adds more to team work and looting to keep ill people who require medication alive. I mean we have syringes and only a limited amount of sickness ingame, so why not? we even have a blood type system in, so why not go further with it?

 

4. have different body types when chosing your character. Have tall and small people, have fat people (cant run as fast or as long as everyone else.) Mix it up a bit so everyone isn't '6'2' and the same body size.

 

5. Ok so i guess 4. was a bit far fetched because they would have to do a lot of work making clothes fit and the basic character mesh has to be universal, so why not have different ages for your characters? Have dean hall young, dean hall middle aged, and dean hall old. You wouldn't need to change anything in the mesh of the body at all and it would literally be just a bit of photoshop on the body textures and turning the hair grey and adding wrinkles or removing hair all together for older players.

 

6. With the debate going on about helicopters and the fact that random people realistically just wouldn't be able to fly them, well this isn't strictly true. Many people in day to day life have a basic pilots licence for small aircraft its not THAT unreasonable to believe that 1 out of 10 people may actually have the training to fly one. SO to prevent full out server wars with clans all owning choppers and flying about trolling the place, why not have it so your player has a 1 in 10  chance of actually being able to fly something. For example, if you spawn in and you draw the short straw you can jump into a heli as a passenger but thats it. If you are lucky enough to get a long straw, you can jump in and fly it because hey, looks like your player actually had a licence before the apocalypse.

[NicoBaloira1357 24]

I think #6 could be done by making chopper spawns very rare/very damaged and make copper parts hard to find and big as fuck, making it basically a requirement to have a group and possibly a car to have a functioning chopper.

[rybec 339]

Not to hurt your feelings but I think having a random allergy or get the short end of the stick and spawn in as an overweight unfit person are awful ideas. The only people who it would affect are the ones who try to play the game as authentically as possible, everyone else would go "Oh, I can't run far? Time to jump off a ledge". Even for the allergies your character would at least know they have a food allergy after living 25+ years to common foods. No way in hell should you eat a can of tuna and your character goes "OH MY GOD, I AM ALLERGIC TO TUNA". Again, they'll go take a dive off a building.

 

The issue with almost all of your suggestions is they're based on luck of the draw. If anything the character should acquire the knowledge to fly, rather than our group going "Hey dude, go kill yourself until you spawn as a pilot. We need one."

[Whyherro123 2283]

Not to hurt your feelings but I think having a random allergy or get the short end of the stick and spawn in as an overweight unfit person are awful ideas. The only people who it would affect are the ones who try to play the game as authentically as possible, everyone else would go "Oh, I can't run far? Time to jump off a ledge". Even for the allergies your character would at least know they have a food allergy after living 25+ years to common foods. No way in hell should you eat a can of tuna and your character goes "OH MY GOD, I AM ALLERGIC TO TUNA". Again, they'll go take a dive off a building.

 

The issue with almost all of your suggestions is they're based on luck of the draw. If anything the character should acquire the knowledge to fly, rather than our group going "Hey dude, go kill yourself until you spawn as a pilot. We need one."

Considering how insulin degrades very fast without refrigeration, and has to be synthesized from animals (probably pigs), yeah, you would die in a real life apocalyptic situation.

 

It isn't fair, but it doesn't have to be. The conditions available in modern society has allowed people that wouldn't ordinarily survive (genetic diseases, allergies, chronic diseases, etc) live and pass on their genes.

 

I agree, btw.

[rybec 339]

It isn't fair, but it doesn't have to be. The conditions available in modern society has allowed people that wouldn't ordinarily survive (genetic diseases, allergies, chronic diseases, etc) live and pass on their genes.

I agree that life isn't fair, however we (rather, the devs) shouldn't base game changes on "muh balance" as though it's a competitive game. Having some weapons naturally perform better than others is something I'm 100% for.

 

Having the game tell you you got a random penalty as you just respawned when that other guy who respawned up the beach 5m from you got lucky and has no random penalties would not be a sensible thing to add.

Edited March 15, 2015 by Heav

[Rags! 1966]

So wait...you're telling me that you want players to randomly spawn into the game with the chance that the next piece of food that they eat could blow their insides up with some allergic reaction because the computer's dice roll came up short for them when they spawned in? I can't believe you actually want this. Do you realize that this isn't anywhere near good gameplay design? This is a random assignment of character inhibiting survival punishment upon respawning. 

 

The fact that everybody spawns into the game as an equal is a very good thing about DayZ, and after you spawn you can choose where to go, what to loot, and can take your chances wherever you like. Characters are blank slates that are what we make of them. They aren't some randomly generated fucker with diabeetus that will die in 13 hours anyway because you didn't get your insulin. Besides, if you're arguing for realism, which is stupid in a video game half the time anyway, then...wouldn't you already know if you're allergic to something? You spawn in as a grown-ass man/woman who would certainly already know that eating a can of mangoes in syrup will blow their face up like the Hindenburg. 

 

Wait, let's go for total realism. If you get shot, you die. You don't respawn. The game is uninstalled automatically from Steam and you have to rebuy it again. Except you don't get to re-buy it. Because until it's proven otherwise, only the Dalai Lama gets to respawn. And you sure ain't Mr. Lama. 

 

Yea, that's about one of the most stupid ideas I've heard in a long time. 

 

And I was around for the "You should have to poop" topic a few months back. 

[archamedes 238]

they are just basic suggestions, and im sure there could be ways to tweak them or even turn on or off when you select your character. Like switching on dependencies on medication or random allergies etc... It makes for a more in depth play style because having everyone play as an equal as you put it, does sound pretty dull. Not everyone is an equal and not everyone should be an ideal fit person. And you say that people know if they are allergic to things. Not necessarily. You can go your whole life not knowing you are allergic to tuna, but in an apocalypse when you are starving and all you find is a can of tuna, yeah your are going to find that out.

 

Secondly. We have syringes in game, and limited amounts of uses for them. sicknesses and poisoning is also very limited, so again why not? I could alos see the syringes being used to inject players with poisons or drugs to screw with their aiming and vision, but hey, what do i know, my ideas are shit.

[Whyherro123 2283]

I agree that life isn't fair, however we (rather, the devs) shouldn't base game changes on "muh balance" as though it's a competitive game. Having some weapons naturally perform better than others is something I'm 100% for.

 

Having the game tell you you got a random penalty as you just respawned when that other guy who respawned up the beach 5m from you got lucky and has no random penalties would not be a sensible thing to add.

And I agree. My quoting of you was actually aimed at the OP.

[Whyherro123 2283]

they are just basic suggestions, and im sure there could be ways to tweak them or even turn on or off when you select your character. Like switching on dependencies on medication or random allergies etc... It makes for a more in depth play style because having everyone play as an equal as you put it, does sound pretty dull. Not everyone is an equal and not everyone should be an ideal fit person. And you say that people know if they are allergic to things. Not necessarily. You can go your whole life not knowing you are allergic to tuna, but in an apocalypse when you are starving and all you find is a can of tuna, yeah your are going to find that out.

 

Secondly. We have syringes in game, and limited amounts of uses for them. sicknesses and poisoning is also very limited, so again why not? I could alos see the syringes being used to inject players with poisons or drugs to screw with their aiming and vision, but hey, what do i know, my ideas are shit.

And in real life, those people that are unfit, whether physically, mentally, or health-wise, would VERY likely be the first to die. Sad, but true.

 

Hell, they probably are already dead in-game. Take a look at the "zombies" we have in-game. Notice how they are all relatively-physically-fit "adult" men and women? No fat infected, elderly infected (except for that one "old guy zombie" that was posted on this forum a while back, but nothing has been said about him since), children infected, disabled infected. Guess what? They all died in the inital outbreak.

 

Either they died from the infection itself (in real life, generally the people most likely to die from illness are children and the elderly), or were killed by the infected. Children tend to be weaker than adults, just like the elderly, and "generally" (and I mean no disrespect here) disabled people tend to be less physically able than the non-disabled. Therefore, when their neighbors and family members "reanimated" (for lack of a better term, as the "zombies" in-game are actually still alive), all the kids, elderly, and less-able (disabled, fat, mentally ill, etc) members of society were all killed.