Social dynamics and hostile interactions:

[doitonlan 0]

This topic was entirely devised for speculation and to create conversation.

In this apocalyptic world with cold blooded killers and zombies, what would encourage you to interact with a potential hostile?

This is the subject I am entertaining in my head at this moment. It probably spawned because I have a vested interest in social dynamics and group creation from school and the situation in which dayz occurs in is about as hostile as you could imagine in dealing with other people.

As of right now it seems that for the most part the only part of working with someone is strength in numbers, and it seems that when dealing with anyone unknown it is best to shoot first and ask questions later. I'll start purporting some ideas that I have in my head once the discourse starts, but for now any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Death2u 4]

There are hundreds of threads like these. SHIT IS OLD JULY FAG.

:)

[KWilt 157]

I'd like to throw something in here quickly before we get too deep into the discussion, but in terms of interactions that can prompted by cooperation, I'd like to see things that can be typically enhanced by cooperation, but still be done by a lone wolf.

The reason I say this is because there are still people out there in DayZ who would just much rather play alone, whether as a survivor or a bandit, and I don't think robbing part of the experience from them is exactly fair. This has always been one of my major gripes with the blood packs, because if you do want to be a guy who flies under the radar and just watches everyone from afar, they're a useless commodity to you.

So, that's what I have to say about that.

[doitonlan 0]

The general thought of the topic for this discussion is to add potential for more group play without taking from the experience of the dayz survival.

[Arquebus 14]

Things that would make me interact with people is tasks i cant do alone. Like fixing a vehicle,boat or a huey. Or taking on the milZeds around a downed helicopter.

[doitonlan 0]

What would you think about allowing people to create organizations or clans with or without a particular purpose. Essentially creating more reason to talk to more people in the game rather than shoot them for their loot. The logic in this would be that your group could grow in strength and numbers, and that if you recruit someone you could gain much more than simply ending their life.

[Arquebus 14]

As of now, clans are ruining some of the endgame experience for other players by hoarding all known vehicles in their ofmap camps

[doitonlan 0]

But isn't that how it should be? Ultimately, through the formation of groups they will be able to control more of the land and resources.

[KWilt 157]

That's what I've been able to come up.

We're able to canvas more of the map simultaneously, get access to more parts with less aggravation, et cetera. There's no reason why we shouldn't, logically, be the ones owning 80% of the vehicles on the server.

Where a lot of people see vehicle and loot hoarding, I see our hours of hard work. We worked just as hard as you would've had to for the exact same prize. I don't see why we're less justified to own a piece of hardware just because we have other vehicles. We spent our time and effort to repair them or take them from others. Hell, if I had to really say, it's the people who raid empty camps who are the ones who don't deserve the vehicles. But that's not only nitpicking on a non-issue, but also not the point of this thread.

I definitely would like to see some way to facilitate group play. But not only that, I want a way to facilitate the communication from outside the group, into the group. As of right now, we have the Survivors HQ, which I can proudly say is where I met the small group I travel with right now. But I would like to see something in-game that would allow others to communicate more safely. I've been saying it for nearly two months now, but 80 meters isn't enough when even the Makarov, pretty much the shittiest gun in the mod, can outclass that. We need a way to communicate over larger expanses. Whether it be bulletin boards, or even some way of setting up small settlements or hamlets (something I would really love to see in end-game if the mod breaks off into its own large-scale project) that survivors can wander into and trade in.

As of right now, we can't really facilitate coop, because there's no stable way of communication. If I really had to throw a guess into the wind, I would honestly say that the removal of side chat and global chat 'created' this shoot-on-sight phenomenon we have nowadays. I haven't met a friendly survivor outside of my group since, and you really can't chance that the survivor you're waltzing up to won't gun you down unless you have literally nothing. I'm not asking for side and global to make a comeback, but I do, at least, feel like direct chat might need a boost to distance. And once radios come out, we might even have radio towers that people can occasionally pass by to catch an APB from a group or two looking to recruit.

So, tl;dr:

Creating groups/clans/guilds would be a smart first step towards cooperation. Also, the ability to talk to survivors over a much longer distance might help as well.

[Specter911 2]

As of currently there is a literal 0% chance that I would party with anyone ingame, the chance logically should be the same for anyone who has played the game for a week and know how to survive on their own.

The only people I would potentially play with is people I meet out of game, but ingame, until something changes there will be no hope.

At first I wanted to play with someone, but everyone killed me, I don't kill others as it just starts being a cunt train full circle, so now I only play at night and avoid players.

At first It was nice to imagine surviving with another, but that is not possible with KoS.

Currently to me

Advantages:Blood pack, Support

Disadvantages:Death

I only needed to list one Disadvantage, there are many more but only that one is needed to be stated.

You can regen your health on your own if you know how, support is only needed if you are reckless or enter a hostile territory when the server is near full.

But death, is the end.

Because you have depended on another person you have failed.

Because of the mentality of the general populace , the lack of penalty of killing another, and lack of incentive of being in a group make the game the way it is.

2/3 is needed for what you seek, and because of anonymity enabling any person into a cunt, that makes only the last 2 the option to change the direction of player vs player interactions.

[Knautscher 4]

[...]

In this apocalyptic world with cold blooded killers and zombies' date=' what would encourage you to interact with a potential hostile?

[...']

I'll counter that question with a question:

In this apocalyptic world with cold blooded killers and zombies, what would encourage you to kill your maybe last potential friend?

But that would be the question for the real world. Ingame there's just no negative outcome to being a an *sshole, so everyone is one. People are to weak to withstand the temptation of being a jerk as it's both easy and rewarding and go out of their way to justify their behavior. It's ridiculous. :D

[KWilt 157]

Because of the mentality of the general populace ' date=' the lack of penalty of killing another, and lack of incentive of being in a group make the game the way it is.

2/3 is needed for what you seek, and because of anonymity enabling any person into a cunt, that makes only the last 2 the option to change the direction of player vs player interactions.

[/quote']

Personally, of those latter two, I would much prefer the second. And I'll stand by that until I see a reason to change.

First off, punishing a bandit in any way is really hard to do. The game is built on a machine with only limited parameters, so making sure that the machine knows you're a bandit is extremely hard. I'll give the age old example of self-defense. If you kill another survivor out of defense, even if he shot first, you will be labeled as a bandit. Because of this, a bandit might be a bandit for all the wrong reasons. Hell, this post lists about half a dozen reasons why someone might be labeled as a bandit, according to the current system, even though most of them are blatant acts of self defense or security.

And before anybody says anything about the bandit skin, would that really help the 'kill-on-sight' mentality? Sure, survivors wouldn't be shooting other survivors on sight quite as much. But now, anybody with a bandit skin could potentially become a kill-on-sight target. So while it probably wouldn't be so much of a problem for survivors anymore, it's merely shifting the problem onto minorities. Which I really find to be very biased and unfair. Granted, you could call it karma for taking someone's life, but I don't think giving them a giant neon sign that says 'shoot me, I'm a bad guy' is the best form of karma in this game.

And I'm not just taking the 'realism' shtick. I'm just trying to show that it's hard to balance two sides. I mean, for all intents and purposes, I'm a bandit. I travel with a group of bandits, we have each other's back, we take shots when we call shots. However, on my last life (before I died from friendly fire caused by miscommunication), I didn't have a single murder. So am I really a bandit in the eyes of the game? Should I be disadvantaged, even though I'm technically a survivor, mechanically?

This is why I feel it's better to promote group play, rather than condemn banditry. It's much easier for the system to clarify what is a group (which, in this case, can consist of only two people for the sake of blood packs only requiring two individuals), compared to what is a bandit.

[BlackAlpha 12]

This topic was entirely devised for speculation and to create conversation.

In this apocalyptic world with cold blooded killers and zombies' date=' what would encourage you to interact with a potential hostile?

This is the subject I am entertaining in my head at this moment. It probably spawned because I have a vested interest in social dynamics and group creation from school and the situation in which dayz occurs in is about as hostile as you could imagine in dealing with other people.

As of right now it seems that for the most part the only part of working with someone is strength in numbers, and it seems that when dealing with anyone unknown it is best to shoot first and ask questions later. I'll start purporting some ideas that I have in my head once the discourse starts, but for now any suggestions would be appreciated.

[/quote']

What would encourage me not to shoot someone else? A long term ally who has the means to identify me ingame and who I can talk to at (almost) anytime.

Not only must two parties agree not to ever shoot each other, they must also have a way to identify each other ingame and be able to speak to each other easily. In my experience, TeamSpeak works best for this because you can at all times speak to each other while ingame and that way avoid friendly fire. Different groups can make alliances this way quite easily. Then they can even decide to work together to boost their numbers temporarily and without much hassle. Also, if friendly fire does happen, you have a means to address the situation, so that it can be avoided the next time.

On the other hand, a stranger who has no plans to be a long term ally and/or cannot be identified ingame, and who you cannot speak to when you are apart from each other, he cannot be trusted. One moment he's your friend, and the next you part ways, and then you've no idea what he's going to do. He might shoot you just because he has no way to identify you. That's why it's much easier and much safer to dispose of strangers before they become a serious threat. And that way you can be sure they won't be around for at least half an hour (when you are up north, that is).

[Specter911 2]

Because of the mentality of the general populace ' date=' the lack of penalty of killing another, and lack of incentive of being in a group make the game the way it is.

2/3 is needed for what you seek, and because of anonymity enabling any person into a cunt, that makes only the last 2 the option to change the direction of player vs player interactions.

[/quote']

Personally, of those latter two, I would much prefer the second. And I'll stand by that until I see a reason to change.

First off, punishing a bandit in any way is really hard to do. The game is built on a machine with only limited parameters, so making sure that the machine knows you're a bandit is extremely hard. I'll give the age old example of self-defense. If you kill another survivor out of defense, even if he shot first, you will be labeled as a bandit. Because of this, a bandit might be a bandit for all the wrong reasons. Hell, this post lists about half a dozen reasons why someone might be labeled as a bandit, according to the current system, even though most of them are blatant acts of self defense or security.

And before anybody says anything about the bandit skin, would that really help the 'kill-on-sight' mentality? Sure, survivors wouldn't be shooting other survivors on sight quite as much. But now, anybody with a bandit skin could potentially become a kill-on-sight target. So while it probably wouldn't be so much of a problem for survivors anymore, it's merely shifting the problem onto minorities. Which I really find to be very biased and unfair. Granted, you could call it karma for taking someone's life, but I don't think giving them a giant neon sign that says 'shoot me, I'm a bad guy' is the best form of karma in this game.

And I'm not just taking the 'realism' shtick. I'm just trying to show that it's hard to balance two sides. I mean, for all intents and purposes, I'm a bandit. I travel with a group of bandits, we have each other's back, we take shots when we call shots. However, on my last life (before I died from friendly fire caused by miscommunication), I didn't have a single murder. So am I really a bandit in the eyes of the game? Should I be disadvantaged, even though I'm technically a survivor, mechanically?

This is why I feel it's better to promote group play, rather than condemn banditry. It's much easier for the system to clarify what is a group (which, in this case, can consist of only two people for the sake of blood packs only requiring two individuals), compared to what is a bandit.

I'm going to copy and paste what I put in another thread that would fairly solve murdering

"1. After your initial spawn, every time you log in acts like your character has just waken up.

Every time you log in, within a certain radius your character will make 2-4 second sound effect that could potentially attract zombies if your close enough, but would mostly be for others players to hear you if you spawned within a building or are server hopping.

It would have a scale, the more murders you have, the louder the sound you make is to players and zombies, to a certain point where it would sound like you fired an enfield.

To make it logical, its like the murderer is having a nightmare, as you can't really control dreams and they can take you for a spin, so you wake up making slight pantings at first from your dream to waking up screaming if high enough murders, to just waking up with an insane yell as if you ever get to that point you should be a psycho.

And if you kill bandits you start having good dreams, or lessen your nightmare if you have murdered, to the point where it is now, where you make no noise, but it would take perhaps 5 bandits kills and no murders to get to that point.

2. Every time you murder or kill a bandit, their blood is on you, it will attract zombies.

Up to a max of say 20 player kills, you would essentially be soaked in blood and would attract zombies constantly around you as if you were firing an assault rifle or M1911.

Its effects would be varying depending on how many you have killed, as so would the visual so you know who the murders are, it may even make bandits look bad ass with all that blood on.

There would be no fading of the blood, except by changing clothes though that would only reduce your amount by a certain amount of blood murders each time, say by 5.

So you could potentially rid of it by constantly changing clothes, but your old clothes if put on would retain the 5 amount upon them.

There would be an item that is as rare as antibiotics that would clean all the blood off of you and your clothes."

I will put all my suggestions in one thread later, if you think these suggestions would be a good idea, keep an eye out for the thread i'll make.

[KWilt 157]

SUGGESTIONS

Yeah, I saw the other topic in the suggestions forum, and I'll say it's not exactly the best ideas. But they're far from the worst I've seen. But I'll give my critique as is anyways.

First off, for both of them, I do love how it's not instantly 'lol ur a bandit soh u shuld get XTRM HRD MODE'. The scaling, if light enough at the beginning, might even be a tad bit forgiving for those accidental murders on the account of the system.

For the 'nightmares', it's an alright concept. I do like that it's not a persistent effect throughout gameplay, so it won't hinder a bandit too much in their actual actions. If they're logging on and off out in the wilderness, where they're actually far away from zeds, it won't be much of a problem, but can still be an alert for players passing by. If they faded over time per kill (say, maybe one or two hours per kill) it'd be an even better idea. However, the current system is nice too. Does give a tad bit more of a reason for bandit v bandit play, though that might be hard to facilitate unless you already come across a bandit killing players. Otherwise, you'll never know whether you're going to go up or down in the morality scale until after the kill.

For the 'blood soaked clothing', I've heard it multiple times, and I still don't like it all too much. Granted, I know we're not trying to play too much into the realism pocket, but when you kill someone from 800m away, you really shouldn't be getting blood on your clothes. Now, granted, we could make it so that kills from 500m+ don't bloody you, but then we'll get every man and his mother with a sniper rifle up on ridges. (Even though we already kinda have that... but moving right along.) I do also like the ability to change clothes to remove blood. It gives clothes something more than just aesthetics, and it can also be a crucial pin in some player's minds. Do I get rid of my ghillie for less blood on my clothes? Or do I keep the ghillie for the added stealth aspect?

Again, I'm not really fully supportive on either of these ideas, but don't feel bad. I just can't be enough of an asshole to accidentally put players in situations that they don't deserve to be in. Until the system is 99% fool-proof, I just can't. But I will say that having ideas that do allow for some way to remove your loss of morality quickly (not necessarily easily), in the event that you are one of those unfortunate players caught in the crossfire of computing, does get you half a gold star from me.

[Specter911 2]

SUGGESTIONS

CRITIQUE

Well I haven't stated the exact reason for both of these suggestions, which I would say if I were to make a new thread.

The sound upon entering is for people who log off in buildings in towns, or server hop, this could potentially help stop both of those if they don't get fixed soon, as well as add to realism because who would sleep(log out) in a building with no locks in a zombie apocalypse with murders everywhere, adds slight thought to where you log out.

Aswell for the blood, its add some kind of effect of killing others, I know its not the best and its very flawed that you get blood from so far away, but its the only thing that could change the way people play this game, to make your actions actually have consequence while being fair.

But you just gave me an idea, thank you btw.

What if instead.

If you kill someone close range, you get 1-3 blood on you depending on your weapon, and if you check a dead person's gear you gain 1 blood.

So if you kill at range, no penalty unless you check, but if you kill up close, or take their gear, you get bloody.

This may work.

[KWilt 157]

What if instead.

If you kill someone close range' date=' you get 1-3 blood on you depending on your weapon, and if you check a dead person's gear you gain 1 blood.

So if you kill at range, no penalty unless you check, but if you kill up close, or take their gear, you get bloody.

This may work.

[/quote']

Interesting thought, and I was thinking the same thing. But I don't know if you can hardcode it into the system that only the person who shot the body will get bloodied. If that's the case, then anybody that checks that body will become a little bloodied, so suddenly every dead player becomes unlootable unless you want to take that chance. Which... if you're just scaving for items, I'd rather just let the rotter be and be on my merry way. There are very few items that are worth the possibility of aggro'd zeds in this game.

---

All of that aside, though, I think we should get back on the original topic: How to better facilitate group play and encourage social interactions that don't involve deadly, deadly bullets.

[doitonlan 0]

I'm not really a fan of the blood or the screaming ideas. With the screaming I feel that if they fix the d\c and server hopping through a promised update it won't be much of an issue.

I am not sure exactly how it is going to be implemented, but I feel that a certain amount of time needs to pass before you can d/c, there should be restrictions on places you can spawn in i.e., not by loot, and there should be something that alerts players that someone is spawning next to them if they are in close range. Also, implementing a fixed time where if you d\c and move in another server you will spawn back in the position you d\ced in the original server until the timer passes.

I don't know if any of that will feel like a complete solution, but something is needed to change to stop people from dcing and server hopping.

If anything they could use the screaming idea to create a noise for players that d\c and enter another server quickly, but I think there are better suited ways of dealing with this.

To be honest I don't think dayz should think of ways to punish bandits, but if they were to implement ear hunting of bandits and a reward system it may deter people that haven't bloodied their hands from KOSing.

Basically there would be a reward for killing bandits and returning their ears to a location (bounty hunting). The more murders the bandit has the higher potential for reward. It could have random items spawn in the location where the ear is to be returned.

It sounds like more people might be inclined to KOS, but there is risk involved. If you kill a survivor you run the risk of being hunted, but if you kill a bandit you get a chance for items.

I do see potential problems for it. Bandit groups that have newer players without any murders, murderless bandits who fire first but are killed by return fire, etc. I think that something to the effect of if you are staying near other bandits for extended periods of time you could gain guilt by association meaning that you will be considering a bandit when grouping with other bandits (but would deteriorate after time).

I have a lot of ideas running through my head about the concept let me know what you think.

In response to Knautscher- Upon thinking about what would bring me to kill my only friend...It is tough to say. Everything in me says I would never do such a thing, but I can not say for certain how I would act in a life or death situation.

I'll put it in the train dilemma format: You and your friend are stuck on separate train tracks with a train heading toward you. There is a lever, and if you pull it, it will kill your friend. If you don't touch it, it will kill you. Everything in me says I would let the train hit me and let my friend live, but in the moment I don't know if I would live up to my moral standards.

If anyone is torturing themselves with this train dilemma remember: it's your best and\or only friend, there is no escaping, it will either be you or them.

---

Wow did not realize it was going to be that long of a post :s

[KWilt 157]

I'll put it in the train dilemma format: You and your friend are stuck on separate train tracks with a train heading toward you. There is a lever' date=' and if you pull it, it will kill your friend. If you don't touch it, it will kill you. Everything in me says I would let the train hit me and let my friend live, but in the moment I don't know if I would live up to my moral standards.

If anyone is torturing themselves with this train dilemma remember: it's your best and\or only friend, there is no escaping, it will either be you or them.

[/quote']

That's cruel.

That's cruel and unusual.

And I love it.

That... kinda is how DayZ plays out. But rather than just the train hitting you, it's traveling down a track with nobody on it. You're blindfolded, there's a third set of tracks (which are what you're standing on) and your partner also has a switch which will divert the train to you instead. You could just as easily kill yourself to save your partner (when in reality, won't kill you at all) or you could kill your partner. Or, your partner could kill you. It's all just simply blind faith. Do you trust this person with, quite literally, your life?

[doitonlan 0]

Ugh I gotta go, but when I get back I'll throw the prisoner's dilemma at you ^_^

[KWilt 157]

Bumping this one back up. Not my usual 12+ hour bump, but I'll be on the road most of today.

[Jack Dant 158]

In this apocalyptic world with cold blooded killers and zombies' date=' what would encourage you to interact with a potential hostile?[/quote']

If I'm watching a hostile who is not aware of me, and I "interact" with him in any way that's not shooting them, I'm giving up a huge advantage.

Even worse if we are aware of each other. Waiting to "interact" to shoot only gives him time to take aim before clicking his mouse, or log off and deny you anything good you may have gotten from him.

You'd have to reduce that effect a lot before you start watching non-deadly hostile interactions.

[KWilt 157]

Posting again for an 8 hour bump this time. Would like feedback.