Idea to help friendly players stay friendly

[Rungsberry 0]

I personally don't like the murder aspect and go to great lengths to avoid being murdered or murdering other players. But I definitely think the threat of murder adds a lot to the overall experience and should be retained always.

However...

One big problem I think is that there are a lot of shoot-first survivors out there who would happily avoid conflict if they didn't feel like they'd be murdered as soon as their backs were turned. The lone wolf characters out there would be a lot happier if it was easier to identify like-minded players, don't you think?

So how about introducing some kind of white armband that any player can choose to equip to signify their friendliness? One murder (or even one shot that hits a fellow survivor) and it's gone until the character dies so bandits can't use it to trick people etc.

Then if two survivors run into each other in a barn or whatever, it would perhaps offer a visual reason to not just shoot each other in the face.

Let the bandits do their thing, but give survivors some way of identifying each other... I miss the days when you'd be able to meet up, swap war stories and beans and then move on... that was a brilliant part of the game that's disappeared since the rampant murdering started.

[Failbait 60]

Think about it again, and check if you can't figure out how your armband would immediately turn you into a target.

[rickenbacker 190]

How is this different from saying "friendly" in chat? Both have the same effect, and both can be abused.

[Claytonaj 12]

I had a similar idea, instead of marking out bandits mark out 'murder virgins' (so to speak -- I count myself in this category). I also had the thought that it could appear after an (albeit arbitrary) amount of time played and/or distance travelled, so you can differentiate between someone who has recently spawned and not had chance to murder and someone who has taken the decision not to kill after some time and journeying.

It does differ from saying "friendly" in chat since it can be seen from distance, and without having to announce your presence. So you could use it as a signal to approach with a little more confidence.

I'm ambivalent about the idea, since in the same way as the old bandit skin, it can't distinguish between murder and self-defence. I also fear it would be turn you into a target, like Failbait says.

[Stooby 8]

Not a terrible idea. A white arm band that you can equip, but if you murder someone it turns red from the blood. After a certain amount of time with no murders it will go back to white. And it persists even if you die.

Game would need to filter out self defense kills and not mark you a murderer for legitimate self defense.

It is more subtle than the bandit skin, but still visually distinct.

And any custom suit you find removes the arm band. So if you find ghillie suit or camo you can equip them to make you harder to spot, but it also takes away your identifier as friendy/enemy.

[Rungsberry 0]

I'd keep it as simple as possible.

Everyone has a white 'innocence' armband when they spawn, they can choose to equip it or not. It disappears from your inventory when you attack another player. Only people with white armbands can see white armbands on others.

Just a subtle way for the goodies to recognise each other...

It's different from saying friendly in chat as it's an instantly recognisable thing that requires no communication and as mentioned can be seen from a distance.

[Failbait 60]

This is more arbitrary moral player branding - the bandit skin was eliminated for a reason.

[Rungsberry 0]

If I was running around Chernarus irl, I might very well choose to wear a 'friendly' arm patch to make known my intentions. It's different from forcing a completely different skin on a player whether they like it or not...

Of course, it would make friendlies more of a target unless bandits cannot see the patches... but that wouldn't be too unrealistic... Allies in wartime Europe regularly came up with secret signals to find each other...

[deepfried 95]

This is more arbitrary moral player branding - the bandit skin was eliminated for a reason.

true, but its also true that taking skin morphing out has created at least as many problems as it solved.

However i'm sure Rocket has mechanics in mind that we will see in due course that will address this issue in some way. He is on the record as stating that enabling team building is one of his next major design goals.

[DevilDog (DayZ) 455]

I think some type of team building will be great and can't wait to see what Rocket comes up with.

I don't want or need something that tells me what people have done, just a way to recognize people I have dealt with in the past. Either let people customize their character so they can be easily recognized, or let us mark people as friendly if we trust them and that some how is recognized when we see them.

[DemonGroover 8836]

There are reasons fighter jets etcs have colours and flags on them so as they can be identified as being friendly or not. This is a similar concept. The idea being that if you want it known you are friendly (or lying) you have the option to do so. It should be an item you can find and attach rather than a direct skin.

[-=Morpheus=- 0]

I am a moral player. But, to openly mark immoral and moral players would ruin the chaos and reality of a zombie apocalypse environment. It is the reality or the actual simulation of the environment that makes this stand above just another FPS where you run, gun and respawn. The fact that you lose all your stuff and start from the beginning again is key here. Bandits get killed too. Moral players become more leery of people they meet and have to be on their guard. Always. That's just the way it is. This is a zombie apocalypse. EVERYONE is fighting for their mere survival. Everyone.

The only character thing that I think would be useful is, if not character appearance customization, several character skins that an individual can WILLINGLY choose from on his own beyond just male and female.

[lupusxiii 2]

The problem in this realism concept is that a very major part of social interaktion is missing the knowledge of human nature normally there were several indicators for the intentions of someone the eyes, voice, movment, facial expression and much more this would make the main part of the decisson if u trust or not the only way i can come up with to replace this cause its an extremy complex system is some kind of player branding

[WhiteTigerShiro 25]

Another mystical system that just magically marks people as bandits. No. This is a real-world environment, not the Land of Oz.

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The problem in this realism concept is that a very major part of social interaktion is missing the knowledge of human nature normally there were several indicators for the intentions of someone the eyes' date=' voice, movment, facial expression and much more this would make the main part of the decisson if u trust or not the only way i can come up with to replace this cause its an extremy complex system is some kind of player branding

[/quote']

And all of that is poppycock and nonsense when introduced into a scenario like in Day Z. You can't assume that people would act the same in a post-apocalyptic setting as they would during times of peace... because they wouldn't. This isn't CSI or NCIS where you can just spout-off some psychology BS to explain why the suspect is lying. This is a land that's in absolute chaos and has been turned into a struggle to survive.

The only reason it's hard to murder a person in the world as it is right now is because of the consequences that follow if you get caught. When you don't know if the guy you just met will shoot you in the back as soon as it suits him, though, all those inhibitions that would normally render murder a psychological nightmare are flushed down the toilet and replaced with the drive to keep living.

[DevilDog (DayZ) 455]

There are reasons fighter jets etcs have colours and flags on them so as they can be identified as being friendly or not. This is a similar concept. The idea being that if you want it known you are friendly (or lying) you have the option to do so. It should be an item you can find and attach rather than a direct skin.

Not to nit pick or anything but jets/helo's have IFF radio signals that are used for IDing, it is not based off of tail flags ect.

I can tell you from experience though that when our own STA (surface to air) missiles locked on to you it makes your butt pucker anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identification_friend_or_foe

[lupusxiii 2]

(Today 11:24 AM)WhiteTigerShiro Wrote: And all of that is poppycock and nonsense when introduced into a scenario like in Day Z. You can't assume that people would act the same in a post-apocalyptic setting as they would during times of peace... because they wouldn't. This isn't CSI or NCIS where you can just spout-off some psychology BS to explain why the suspect is lying. This is a land that's in absolute chaos and has been turned into a struggle to survive.

The only reason it's hard to murder a person in the world as it is right now is because of the consequences that follow if you get caught. When you don't know if the guy you just met will shoot you in the back as soon as it suits him, though, all those inhibitions that would normally render murder a psychological nightmare are flushed down the toilet and replaced with the drive to keep living.

so ur telling me that every one woud comite homicid only cause there is no enforced law anymore that moral and idealism is vanishd only cause there in a nearly hopless and chaotic situation if that so its bullshit there several situations in history were people helping eachother during hopless and desperate times and even risking there own life to help an completly strange person just cause its the right thing to do

the loose of human civilization is no reason for loosing humanity

[WhiteTigerShiro 25]

so ur telling me that every one woud comite homicid only cause there is no enforced law anymore that moral and idealism is vanishd only cause there in a nearly hopless and chaotic situation if that so its bullshit there several situations in history were people helping eachother during hopless and desperate times and even risking there own life to help an completly strange person just cause its the right thing to do

the loos of human civilation is no reason for loosing humanity

*Face-palm with a sigh* So it's either black or white? Just because I say that there are people who would murder if there was no consequence' date=' suddenly I'm saying that EVERYONE will start doing it? No, that's fucking stupid. But when there aren't people to enforce rules and morals, or not enough people, chaos ensues and people will only obey the rules that they feel like obeying.

Heck, you need not look any further than schools for proof of this fact. Tell me you've never been in a classroom that devolves into total chaos the instant the teacher leaves, only for everyone to quickly start behaving again as soon as teacher is back (or is spotted as being close). Or what about substitute teachers? If you've honestly never seen a sub have a hard time keeping students in control because they know that he/she is just a temporary stand-in with no real power, then it's only because you were cutting class [i']because you knew that it was going to be a sub with no real power or authority running the class that day.

Consequence is the only thing keeping most (and again, that's MOST) people in check. The instant those rules can't be enforced (like in the world of Day Z), people will obey whatever the hell rules they feel like; and that includes people who would rather gun another person down in cold blood than risk that the other person might do the same thing.

[lupusxiii 2]

@WhiteTigerShiro ok now i understand ur point but i still think that the people who would comite coold blooded homicide would be a minority even if nearly all would live after there own rulles this rules would be determined by there personal level of morality so some a few do murder most would try to avoid unneeded contact and some would directly seek social structurs by seeking other survivors

[WhiteTigerShiro 25]

@WhiteTigerShiro ok now i understand ur point but i still think that the people who would comite coold blooded homicide would be a minority even if nearly all would live after there own rulles this rules would be determined by there personal level of morality so some would do murder most would try to avoid unneeded contact and some would directly seek social structurs by seeking other survivors

That's impossible to say, really. The world has never really been in a situation like in Day Z, so no one could really say how many people would act in what way. Besides, how can we really tell who kills in pure cold blood? It's not like you can stick around to see if anyone loots your corpse. Yeah sure, a few people have posted videos of them just running around and killing people, even those who clearly have no gear, but that doesn't mean that the majority of PvP killings are just cold blood.

Frankly, I think it'd be interesting if they started to track murdered corpses and posted on the front page the ratio of corpses that get searched (even if nothing gets looted, you wouldn't search a corpse unless you were hoping to find something) compared to people who are murdered and just left. It wouldn't be 100% accurate, granted - there's no accounting for if someone else comes along and loots before the corpse despawned, or someone who's killed in cold blood, but his buddies grab the important stuff before leaving the corpse, and so-on - but it'd still be interesting to see how often a corpse gets looted before it vanishes.

[SystemiK 366]

Looks like I'm jumping in a bit late but Rocket has already said that he has plans for armbands to be used in some type of future mechanic for identifying factions.

[lupusxiii 2]

@WhiteTigerShiro interisting idea with the statistic would support this

and its right there never was a situation like in dayz but there was situations wich an compareable psicological pressure for example the Holocaust ( i realy didnt want to anounce this ) but especialy germans who helped jews by hiding them put them and there beloved ones in grave danger just for the sake of helping people they dont know i said its not the same situation cause the danger didnt come frome the one u help but the results could be the same and on the other side it was an big risk for a jew to trust an german cause he was basicly part of the system wich tryed to wipe his kinde from the surface

and even a bandit should fell gratefull if someone finds him bleeding and near death on the floor and gives him medical treatment

this would make the differnce betwen an opoturnistic bandit and a psycopath

[Rungsberry 0]

Looks like I'm jumping in a bit late but Rocket has already said that he has plans for armbands to be used in some type of future mechanic for identifying factions.

Interesting - do you remember where you read that?

[SystemiK 366]

Looks like I'm jumping in a bit late but Rocket has already said that he has plans for armbands to be used in some type of future mechanic for identifying factions.

Interesting - do you remember where you read that?

http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=11013&pid=101927#pid101927

RE: Humanity System - Rocket' date=' have a minute?

Rocket: I read this, the problem is, that requires substantial changes to models. These models are binarized - and would have to be edited. Also, we want to use armbands for factions later, so this would potentially get in the way of that. And I'm not sure, if you're a complete villain, that you would wear an armband?

[-=Morpheus=- 0]

You keep mentioning rules. Again, in a zombie apocalypse, you have no rules any longer. This is an ANARCHY (by definition: no government in existence) environment. It now comes down to a few things. Your own personal values and morale character. Your will to survive. What you have to do to survive. Do I trust someone, do I not trust someone. Because, if you do trust someone you could vary well be starting the game over again from scratch. By nature in an anarchy situation you can only hang on to your belongings (including your life) by defending them with force. I am not saying that you have to shoot everyone you see. but, you have to become VERY CAREFUL of who you allow into you zone of control (ZOC). I accept this. EVERY TIME i have encountered another PC (player character) in the game they just shot without question and killed me and my party. But, each and every time you have to start the game over again, you adjust your standard operating procedure (SOP). You have to become more and more careful, even less trusting of people you meet, and ALWAYS be on your guard. Because the possibility of someone being a bandit is ALWAYS there. EVERYONE is trying to survive. EVERYONE attempts this in their own manner. You cannot dictate that. Anarchy and chaos is the order of the day. Every moment in this environment is a heart pounding experience that keeps you on the edge of your seat gripping your mouse and keyboard. That is what makes this game COMPLETELY awesome!

[Vertisce 158]

I like it the way it is honestly. The whole idea of this mod is the survival aspect. In a real world scenario, how would you know if you can trust that new guy or not?

I walked up on a guy that was inspecting a recent zombie that he shot. I pointed my gun at his back and said "Turn around or move and I will kill you." through my mic. He actually didn't move and replied to me. After I was happy that he wouldn't shoot me if I let him go, we teamed up and I took him to a loc I found earlier with a bunch of good guns.

To me that whole experience was surreal. It had my heart pounding even though it was just a game. He could have easily lied to me and shot me in the back at a moments notice when I let him go. Instead...I made a friend.

That's how it should be.