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Character Value: A discussion.

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So I thought I would start a discussion on character value in dayz. I have noticed over the years, from playing the mods when they came out all the way through DayZ SA and A3 mods, that character value is an issue. When someone posted Hicks blog about character value, and soft skills it really got me thinking about where dayz could go down the road with the idea. So my hope is that players here can start a discussion on character value, soft skills, and reasons to continue playing the game at "end-game" levels. And on that note, my further hope is that at some point a dev will read this post, or a modder, and will utilize some of the ideas listed here. I think this game has insane potential, but only if it finds a way to expand upon the mod experiences, not take from them. Lately, the game feels empty and great effort needs to be put in to interact with other players on any level. I would like to see things get to a state where the community is constantly interacting with each other, with as little effort as possible.

So please discuss this here if you feel like it. List any ideas, grievances, hopes, and dreams below.

 

I'll start with a few of my own:

1. Character value, in dayz, has almost always been placed on the items you possess. I think this is an issue. While I believe its important to feel value in finding rare items, I also don't think players should instantly feel like going off and hiding once they find a nice weapon, or a working car.  There should be a balance between "loot" being important and your player being equally important.

a) One of the things I took from the mod days was that finding a working military class firearm was not too difficult. A trip to the known spawn areas would typically result in you having ammo, and a working gun within 2 locations. Finding melee weapons was equally simple. Run to the areas you know they spawn in, and within 1 or 2 spots you would find something. There seemed to be a better balance of loot in the old days. Perhaps things were overabundant, but the result was that players could get moderately geared in a reasonable amount of time, allowing them a feeling of freedom to interact with other players and not need to put in hours to get back to that same point. Players that like PVP help move this game forward whether you like it or not. They kill people who don't want to die. That creates tension, and stress. The result is fear. Fear is healthy for this game. PVPers cause riffs on servers, clans attacking clans. A community forms from the dust of pvp/kos, and making it too difficult for players who enjoy hunting fellow dayz players makes the game suffer I believe.

b) On top of that, the old mod spawn areas were all along known routes, which forced interaction. Now we have a severely spread out map and spawn areas are everywhere. If you simply add more players in to the server, it really does not fix the issue. You can see from playing Arma that a large map, with a ton of players still equals action only being in a few places while the rest of the map is a dead zone. What we need is forced interaction, through design. Which I hope to touch on next. 

2. Loot: Its an issue. BI knows this better than any of us. I cant begin to imagine the pains of testing loot, locations, and reset timers. Its a nightmare. But I see some things that could really help out, if possible.

a) I'd love to see loot spawn in as a "set" at random times, in specific locations; To help tell a story about what you are seeing. I hate that I loot these cars, all broke down on the road, and there is not really any blood, no broken windows.. no dialogue about what happened here. Now a lot of that is art department. But what about the loot that spawns there? Empty pants on the ground. A hat on the roof. Backpack on the hood. Maybe one item or two inside of them. But do they somehow ever tell a collective story? Is there ever any dialogue created by how things spawn in? Not really. Improvements have been made. Seeing weapons spawn in, with items attached makes you wonder sometimes.., "was this just dropped here? Am I being watched right now?". I cant tell you how much fun that is.

b) I'd love to see barrels spawn in half full with items that make sense: like it was someones camp until recently. Infected with firearms on their bodies, and other items that tell you, "this person went through some sh*# before they got infected." I want to stare at the floor of a house for a minute because I'm not sure what I am seeing.. I want to feel more life in the static part of dayz. With loot zones, and all the parameters that BI has programmed in.. perhaps its not too hard to have loot spawn in "Sets" of sorts? A grouping of items, that have a chance of spawning together. A pack with ammo, and food next to a rifle with a damaged round jammed in the chamber. Things like that would be amazing. I'd love to call my friend over to a house, just to see the loot that spawned and the way it spawned in. The two of us bantering back and forth about whether or not a player left it there.

c) I'd like to see firearms, and weapons with ammo easier to find at military areas. Leave the other loot as is for the most part, but make it so that players who simply want to run to the military areas to get guns and ammo can do so in short order. See, not everyone wants to go get shot for a gun. Not everyone wants to PVP. But if you give everyone an area, that says "come here for military weapons" then you hoard all of the action into zones. This helps a lot, I promise. The NWAF used to be the place to go for action. Id like to see loot spawn in geographic zones, which create a flow for players. It would be quite simple: make the NWAF the place to go to get guns and ammo of military type. Use myshkino for the same thing. Make Tisy more for rare items, helicopters, etc.. Use the other military sites for clothing items mostly with rare chance of finding actual military weaponry. Why? Well, military bases would be really tough to sneak into to loot if this whole thing was real. The big bases would be scary for anyone to approach. But the little ones, the outposts, the police stations, etc.. would all have been looted ages ago if time has gone by. Those places wouldn't normally have guns and ammo stocked up after "the fall". People have already been there to get them. But the bases... typically those wouldn't have been touched. So stock them up with guns and ammo. Zone stuff out so players know, if you're here.. you must want to die or kill others. Leave other areas so players not looking to get shot up can still afford a chance of finding the same things. Create a flow to the game again. Don't have players running all over the place, finding the same loot in all the same places, fragmenting the whole thing you created. Create forced interaction through design. 

3. Soft skills have been described in various ways throughout development. Recently I have seen a change that many DayZ players seemed to dislike, in the direction of soft skills by BI development staff. A soft skills addition that as described, really just shows what your player has done last and not what he/she has done most. I think there is a treasure trove of possibilities with soft skills to create character value. Whether BI gets it right, or someone else creates a mod that gets it right, I don't see it being overly difficult to do something with the soft skills that would make each and every player feel value in staying alive. 

a) What I see perhaps working is making soft skills a variable of sorts. When you spawn in fresh, you have a variable attached to your player. Any time you attempt to "craft" something, there is a chance of failure, or damaged items, less items, etc.. So if I try to craft a stone knife as a new player.. perhaps the first try fails, and it says, "The rock broke in half." Or "You find nothing" if you try to cut some sticks off a bush. Make it so that things like animation play ever so slightly longer, items have more of a chance of not being found, or found in lessor quantities, damaged condition, etc.. This does something very important: it makes it tough to start out. This is key for DayZ. Players need to feel a sense of accomplishment once they learn to stay alive for longer than an hour. So make it tough on new players. Make them drink water more often, eat more often, more prone to disease, lose more blood when damaged.. and so on. Now have this be a small variable. Something a player can notice, but not something so tough that it upsets people into giving up. A player should notice that they now find more sticks when they search for them, having done it about 3-6 times. Now they find 3 pristine sticks, instead of 1 worn one. Do this with all types of crafting. Use a variable for damage, and shock: A new player shakes more with his weapon if damaged. Not so much that its crazy.. but just enough to be perceived over time as you have learned something in the game. So as our players grow beards, and have on clothing that shows experience.. our actions also show that experience. We light fires in the pouring rain once experienced enough to do it. We get larger amounts of meat, in 100% condition when skinning animals once we've done it several times. Allow us to build our characters in a noticeable way, and end up with a character that survives better, adapts better, and withstands injury, weather, and hunger better. Once weight is involved, use the same method to allow us to carry more weight with less side effects. Again, the aim is a fine balance that is just barely perceivable. I want to be in pack of players, some new, some seasoned men of the North.. a Bear attacks us all at a campfire, and the new players get knocked unconscious in 1-3 hits from the bear. But the older players.. they take 3-6 hits before they get knocked down. The new players hunker behind the seasoned players for safety. The older players face the threat with courage and experience. I want something small, but something that would create value in your characters life. Value perceived by survival and ability, not by the gear that you carry.

4. Once we have base building, camps, houses that have doors barricaded.. this will be one of the most important aspects of DayZ. If you have the gear stored away to make your death meaningless, then what is the point of dayz's harsh world and loss of everything if you die? It becomes something else, other than what was intended. A pvp/pve sandbox, with very little meaning. Once you've done it all, there is little to gain from playing the game. If there is no value in your characters life, then there is no reason to keep playing. You play to get items. Once you have them, then what? It becomes a revolving door of gear up, hoard gear, go kill and get killed. Eventually boredom sets in, and you move on to something else. We should feel like interacting with others in the game. We should know like before, that certain areas mean certain death. But other places, are areas where you constantly meet others who are not looking to kill you or rob you. Why would other players suddenly not want to rob you? Well, they wont. Ever. But if you make them feel like robbing someone for loot is too risky when you can simply go look for it. If you make them think twice about risking their character dying. You start to change the reason they rob another player. Now they do it for interaction, and entertainment. They don't do it out of greed as much as they do it out of necessity. To some degree.. trust me, I know people are just mean spirited bastards at heart sometimes. ;)

 

TL;DR We need more character value. Discuss.

Edited by lrishjake
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characters had a lot more value before persistence.  death had consequences because you lost everything you owned, and I miss that because fearing death makes the game better.

I maintain a public camp, but I prettymuch stopped keeping a personal stash for the above reason.

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@ lrishjake I agree with you. I understand all what you wrote and I would like to hear more about this from devs. I have so many ideas how to give character a value but my english is not so good to put all my thoughts into a words. 

Unfortunatly for us who thinks Dayz needs some stuff to give charatcer a value, there are peoples (in majority) who thinks that skills has no place in Dayz which is shame. 

Maybe one additional idea for giving a character idea. Once you die, you cannot play on the same server for the next 24 hours.

Edited by kevo1414
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Regarding loot:

 

I think that the last patch is the best one so far (of which I played at least). I'm always for more realism, and a post-apocalyptic scenario will not give you free valuable items where you expect them to be. 

Takin for example your case with weapons and ammo in military bases. Everyone knows they're there, as soon as a government loses the control, gangs and groups will move to military bases and take all what they find there. By the time that you, a random survivor, get there, there will be a)nothing there of value and b)it could be controlled by those groups and you will be killed and eaten XD. 

In this regard, ammo should be VERY hard to get. And currently that's not the case, you can go as a naked bambi to a small town and in 20min you end up with 2 pistols, a shotgun and around 150 rounds of variable calibre lol. 

But anyway thats just my opinion, modding will give everyone what they want in this regard, so there's no reason to discuss this topic here again. 

 

 

About character value:

 

Right now characters don't have value for different reasons:

  1.  There's no other risk than loosing your gear, and since most of it is easy to get you just don't care a lot about it.
  2. Persistence
  3.  You don't have an incentive to keep going. You're just an empty doll running through the map, nothing else. 
  4. Apart from gear, there is no visual prize that you can get for being alive longer.
  5. Death has no value. You press respawn and you're instantly in the game again

My opinion about what we can do to fix this is this (using same numbers as above):

  1.  Gear should be rare and customizable. 
  2. We can't do anything against this, it has more positive sides than negative.
  3. and Devs are implementing soon aging, beards and soft skills. This will help partially with the issue, but I think we can do more about this with hard-skills/knowledge/know-how (read next point)
  4. We dont have a score board saying who survived longer, and same as (3)
  5. Implement permadeath. If you die in-game, you're banned from the server you're playing for X amount of time (could be a couple of hours in normal servers, and days/weeks/forever in hardcore ones). This could be enchanced with server hives where if you die in one server, you can only respawn in another one, this way you lose EVERYTHING from your server (stuff, friends, etc).

(ps. regarding the hives:

About Soft skills:

 

I'm totally with the devs trying to stay away from classess and any thing that could limit from the start the possibilities that a player has in the game.

But I think that their idea could be complemented with one that I wrote yesterday :

 

Basically I suggest that our characters should not be able to do certain things that aren't inside the sphere of info that a normal person manages in their everyday life.

And all this special tasks are organized in a Knowledge/Hard-skills/Know-hows tree that enables them if you perform a related basic task enough times to get expertise, or you find a book with the info. This would be an analog to a technology tree in a strategy game (civilization, starcraft,etc) and some skill trees that are present in other types of games (Dota 2, Starcraft 2, Diablo,etc)

This way a character life will consist of the following things:

  1. The visual proof of longevity (be it in the character itself or in a scoreboard, etc)
  2. The gear he managed to acquire/craft during his life
  3. The soft-skills that he perfected through innumerable repeating
  4. The specialized knowledge he got through experience and external sources (books)

This specialization of your character could be worked out in a way that makes your own character valuable, as well as other people, because you will need them in case their specializations are needed for something you want to make/build, etc. 

 

 

 

 

Edited by exwoll
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3 hours ago, lrishjake said:

You play to get items. Once you have them, then what? It becomes a revolving door of gear up, hoard gear, go kill and get killed. Eventually boredom sets in, and you move on to something else.

TL;DR We need more character value. Discuss.

That's the problem: one shouldn't play only to get items. DayZ is about the journey not about the gear. The problem that SA has/had/etc is the road to power is short. Even when the road to power is long (like DayZ Mod), the end mentality is usually the same which is murder. Gearing up in SA doesn't take long and then the CSGO/COD mental midget mentality kicks in.

The only real savior is modding. Customizable mission/quests mods, advanced and active communities, story driven map additions, truly advanced AI (what is SARGE doing these days?), etc.

A big problem in DayZ is loot and the spawning of loot which leads to the exploitative mind. It's not exactly realistic. Loot should be finite. Loot should NOT despawn when thrown on the ground.

Maybe after a few weeks in the rain when it gets rusty and ruined (imagine finding a gun all rusted and you bring it back to life with in-game mechanics? WHAT A REWARD!!!), but the current timer is blegh and arcadey. The result is people destroying camps for the lulz. Hey lets drop all this camps gear on the ground and boy will they get mad har har har. That sort of griefing makes players quit. I see it all the time.

A can of beans should have MASSIVE value. Lets say the date of infection started with the date of the mod (I read Dean Hall saying that but can't find it)...every last can of food would be gone besides those secret long forgotten stashes. Most places would be looted, air fields should be covered with zombies and the reward is military loot. Military zones shouldn't be so empty. Same goes for big cities...make them impossible to ransack and have a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow. But the current infected count which is 500 destroys the experience. Where has everyone gone? Chernarus population is down to 560 from how many tens of thousands? I'm not implying we needs tens of thousands, but something that resembles something in the realm of reality. DayZ started with way more than that on the old engine. We get a new engine and can only handle half the infected, wth is that? We NEED thousands upon thousands of infected. The problem is the current game design. There needs to be some serious reconfiguration for DayZ to really work.

Loot should rarely respawn. If some trolls want to throw weapons in the ocean, lakes, debug, etc...then it should respawn. Weapons rust to ruined, respawn. Otherwise, let the journey begin. Hoarding is reality and if you were in this environment for real...you would spend time looting and saving the loot for survival. Players should have to find camps and loot stores for survival and in the meantime...use the game mechanics to survive off the land. Players will complain at first, but once they get a taste of the risk vs reward...they'll dig it.

The real reason why players don't value their characters is because the player mentality (along with the current game configuration) is broken. It's either griefing or an over abundance of PvP that gives them their jollies. This is mostly because of DayZ being in Early Access. If we would have gotten a finished game from the beginning the player base mentality would be much different...like DayZ Mod was. It's a double edge sword because DayZ needed Early Access to blow up into an enigma and without it there would be no new engine, renderer, etc.

Truth is, players don't know how to play DayZ and its up to advanced communities to give them new ways to look at the experience, but the experience itself needs modding so advanced communities like DayZ Colony (=P) can make their idea's a reality.

We also need people like Frankie back making content. Most of the DayZ YouTubers getting hits are lame content of PvP at the airfields. Cookie cutter trash imho.

Edited by Weyland Yutani (DayZ)
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Damn, this is getting good. Great points and ideas gents :D

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7 minutes ago, Weyland Yutani (DayZ) said:

 

A big problem in DayZ is loot and the spawning of loot which leads to the exploitative mind. It's not exactly realistic. Loot should be finite. Loot should NOT despawn when thrown on the ground.

Maybe after a few weeks in the rain when it gets rusty and ruined, but the current timer is blegh. The result is people destroying camps for the lulz. Hey lets drop all this camps gear on the ground and boy will they get mad har har har. That sort of griefing makes players quit. I see it all the time.

This is a really valid point. the problem there is that one can have thousands of people that randomly play the game during the week. Each of them grabs a weapon. 

What happens if everyone took all the gear and a new player comes to the server? What does he have left for him?

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As mentioned above. All Loot and Gear should have a decay timer. Loot of the once begun will begin to age. Loot carried on the char remains excluded. Everything that is stored in a tent should also age and depending on the condition of the tent faster or go longer. I try it as an example:

1) can be beans spawning in a place ... remains about 30min. And then re-diced.

2) The can is touched and left lying. The pristine can be ruined after 24 hours and then despawn.

3) the can is placed in a tent ... and will be ruined in the tent after 7 days (damaged tent) in the tent. In a pristine tent, the can will need 14-21 days to ruined.

4) a can is stored by the player in the Char-inventar .. the can remains in the same condition.

The same with the tents ...A pristine tent will be ruined after 45 days without care and with it everything stored in it .... Everything ruined should be after 4-12 hrs to despawn for new birth from CLE.

So a loot-balance remains rather stable .... for those who hoard a lot must maintainence much. (You could turn the game even further ... A tent uses itself faster in the forest than in a dry hall or protected location, So also a barrel, a barrel lying in the water is ruined after 4-5 days ... in the open Terrain somewhat stable '14days' and at a dry location 45 days * from Pristine to ruined *.

Edit: all Times are only diced Ideas ^^.

Edit2: to the comnent from @Weyland Yutani (DayZ)

It does not necessarily 10000 Infected, I would rather 1000 which represent a real danger. You should always have 3x Consider the battle, an infected in a military area could have a gun (certainly not with full magazine and not very goal-safe) or a knife and with a real high chance 2-3 hits your death. Or only by his screaming attract others nearby. A farmer infected could have a pitchfork ... Infected should let us swallow empty, and force to think.

 

Edited by Sqeezorz
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13 hours ago, Weyland Yutani (DayZ) said:

That's the problem: one shouldn't play only to get items. DayZ is about the journey not about the gear. The problem that SA has/had/etc is the road to power is short.

I totally agree, and well said. 

Personally I feel the road to power could be enlengthened by having more than one aspect define "power". As of now the definition of having power in DayZ is by owning items such as Weapons food and munition and other valuable rare commodities. But what if there was more to power? Such as economy, electricity, running water, organizations, shelter and safety, and possibly a more pressing threat of zombies then the dumb group of all types that we see now?

 

For example, imagine that outside of a closed-off city wall is an entire world of zombies that actually pose a legitimate threat. Where you can be overwhelmed by multiple zombies, or you can be held down by multiple zombies, and have to possibly Mash a button in order to get them off of you so that you don't get bitten, so that you don't get infected... This is all just Theory, however, if you understand the point I'm trying to put forward, then you'll understand that there is steps that need to be taken in order to create these outside sources of power that we so desperately seek in order to create amore in-depth character value.

I'm sure half of what I said is planning to be introduced already, but I am just stating the obvious that this is what needs to be done in order for more incentive of character vavalu and longevity to be placed into DayZ and make it more than just an infinite game of cat-and-mouse; kill-then-be-killed;

Rinse and repeat...

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Characters have no value because there is simply too much loot. Think about it, after the world has gone to shit, everyone runs to the big military bases and raid them, people grab food where they can, etc. In reality there won't be much shit left after a place has been looted. Loot needs to be more scarce, I want to see a lot of players run around with a bow and arrow or just with melee instead of a gun 1 minute after they spawned in.

I have been in so many situations where I need to choose which weapon I want because there are so many of them. This should never be the case! If you find an AK47 you need to be glad that you found that fucker. It shouldn't be like "oh look, an AK47, don't need it, got a M4 in my hands, AKM on my back and an AKS in my backpack".

If you make loot scarce and weapons and ammo rare you will find out that your character gets value by itself. I know this from my own experience. Currently the FN FAL and the magazine is rare, so when you got one you got a powerful but very rare gun. I have let @Thurman Merman die in a firefight so that I didn't die, lose my FAL and lose as well as Thurman's loot as my loot instead of gaining the other guy's loot and retrieving Thurman's loot.

When I die I'm not sad that I lost my gear (except for maybe the FAL) but rather the fact that I failed. The fact that someone was smarter, better and more skilled than me. The fact when you respawn and reflect back on what you did wrong and could have done better.

In my opinion, that's main thing which creates the lack of character value, the scarcity and rarity of loot. I don't mind that I need to search a few hours in order to get a decent automatic, as long as that is the case with everyone. Loot should be barren from the moment the server starts until it goes down. A restart shouldn't spawn in (more) loot, neither should a persistence wipe.

If everyone can find guns around every corner and is shooting at each other as if they are playing airsoft or playing paintball then the addition of the character age or soft skills will not change character value. Maybe to some people like me but the majority will not give a single fuck about that. Because the main value of your character is the gear and finding it is very easy.

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I actually love this topic about Character Value and how the world shapes our world in how much they mean to us. I mean, there's obviously the abundance of loot, but that'll change as Beta hits I am sure.

Some things I could see as potentially expanding the Character Value would be some things written above and some new things. But Most Importantly, it's about extending gameplay and giving the player more things to do as a player -- So that the road to feeling 100% complete should take many days. 

1.) Less Gun loot/More civilian loot that can be used offensively/defensively.

2.) More Damaged/Worn Guns instead of Pristine - Giving even more value to guns, the Pristine would be like finding a Wonka Golden Ticket, whereas the Damaged/Worn would be the norm. This would also give more attention to Weapon Cleaning Boxes.

3.) More Creative Item Usages - Like more civilian-made traps to be used against others, as well as AI. (This includes finding these devices already put together)

4.) A bit on the Meta-Realm, but Steam Achievements for lasting a long time, doing specific actions, etc with one character.

5.) An Incentive to play together! (Like a Teaching AoE when you play with other players - When they do a specific action, if someone is within 5 feet of them, they learn it 25/50% faster?)

6.) Improving VOIP and making there many more ways to communicate with players (Like different kind of radios with sfx, city-wide PA systems, bullhorns, radios with music and looping refugee statements)

7.) A huge one and maybe the most important - Make the world HARSHER. Don't allow solo players any rest or convenience. Make it so Infected will mess you up everytime you encounter them, make it colder/hotter with less supplies to help, and make the predators more in abundance.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As for towns/cities, I really wish we could find a lot more than just guns to make ourselves feel safer - Like I said before, more civilian loot that can be used offensively/defensively would make everything that much more immersive.

Examples would be, Molotov Cocktails, Taser/Dart Guns, loads more melee weapons, harpoon guns, DIY metal shields, lots more uses with the tripwire, homemade explosives, acid-traps, making custom weapons from different goods (Duct Tape + Syringes full of X), and a lot more.

I want to be able to go into cities and find MORE loot, but have it all be beneficial in various ways - but subtly have there be many more uses for it. When finding a gun, I should freak out and name it and give it love - But the rest of the time looting, I should be able to stop and go, "Oh. . There's a knife in that house, and I have a long wooden stick. I could make a javelin to throw silently into a target!) -- Or something even like, "Oh I could bundle up all this clothing into a bunch of rags, then I can make a Knap-sack!" -- Or find a Box of Nails, A Jar, some black powder poured in from dismantling bullets, with a tripwire connected to a small energy source! Then someone can walk over it and be blasted into looking like Pinhead from Hellraiser xD 

Edited by Espa
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While Im all for the challenging dayz..

I dont believe that the problem of character value can be dealt with by limiting loot. All that does is delay the inevitable. If you have less loot, it only takes more time, leading to meta gaming, leading to short cuts, leading to the same exact thing we have now. Limiting loot changes nothing, and we can see that from previous builds and iterations of dayz. So while I get everyone's argument there, I don't think people are looking at the long term goal which cannot be redefined by simply forcing the player to take more time to reach the end game. Does that genuinely add value? I don't believe it does. 

Its like saying Mario Bros would be better if there were just a few more levels. 

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I don't think this is to do with loot availability either. My overriding desire in the game is to stay alive.

At the moment there is little, if any, incentive to do so once you've built a halfway decent stash. A skills system, perhaps matched by a visual marker (like facial hair - remember that?) could make the difference - especially if it provided practical limits on PvP such as accuracy, firearms repair and handling, etc or on loot finding in the first place (?)

 

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There is no value because there is no goal other than to stay alive and staying alive has no reward.

I would suggest a simple leveling system. 1-10 where 1 is a fresh spawn and 10 is a long lived player. it could be invisible to the player so they have no idea when they are leveling. it would make it feel more like you are actually learning then and not just doing X to reach Y

levels 1-2 low heath and stamina and easily killed. would need to get certain goals accomplished to move on to the next levels. simple tasks that show they could survive...find a full set of clothes,kill zombies, help another player(s), make something basic...stone knife, sharp stick...ect ect ect.

levels 3-8 mid to high heath and not as easy to kill. these levels are where the "soft" skills are learned. learn to hunt,learn to cook, learn help other players, learn to kill other players, learn to trade with other players ect ect ect. these levels would also define what kinda player you will become. these levels would be like what a player experiences in game now. you can do everything but maybe not as good as a trained person could. there are already books in game so make them something you need to find and read to gain skills and the part of the training process....hunting,trapping,sewing,first aid,shooting,base building ect ect ect. once one book is learned all others are unreadable.

level 9 max heath and difficult to kill.this level would be the reward part for surviving. these levels you could get more specific with your skills. there are already books in game so make them something you need to find and read to gain skills and the final part of the training process....hunting,trapping,sewing,first aid,shooting,base building ect ect ect. once one book is learned all others are unreadable. books at this level would be more advanced and specific to the training you choose to take. only books alkong the path you choose would be able to be read.

level 10 max heath and hard to kill ( head shots are head shots though) this level would be where you could learn a second soft skill pertaining to your role. full mil spec people could learn weapon cleaning so any weapon or associated equipment they find can be made pristine. some one that was a trader could find better loot. someone that was a medic could make the best bandages. if you're a cook you make the best food and drink.base builders could add locks and reinforced walls/gates

any time a player dies they are sent back 3 or 4 levels and have to retrain the skills they lost from being killed.

level groups would be weapon specific too. levels 1-2 wouldnt be able to use military wepons because they dont know how to yet.if you did find a gun you could maybe get one or two shots of but with very limited success and then the gun breaks

levels 3-8 could use the basic pistols and rifles with limited shooting range and effectiveness

levels 9-10 can use full military weapon and gear

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

there is no way around there NOT being defined roles in this game.once you have a "job" in game you add value to your character. adding levels would give end game play to players and reward them for learning and surviving long term. with certain roles defined it would make player interaction part of the game and add value to group play as well.

 

Edited by Mutorcs71

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2 hours ago, lrishjake said:

While Im all for the challenging dayz..

I dont believe that the problem of character value can be dealt with by limiting loot. All that does is delay the inevitable. If you have less loot, it only takes more time, leading to meta gaming, leading to short cuts, leading to the same exact thing we have now. Limiting loot changes nothing, and we can see that from previous builds and iterations of dayz. So while I get everyone's argument there, I don't think people are looking at the long term goal which cannot be redefined by simply forcing the player to take more time to reach the end game. Does that genuinely add value? I don't believe it does. 

Its like saying Mario Bros would be better if there were just a few more levels. 

I think you're wrong there. If I spent more than 10 hours to get a decent automatic you're gonna think twice before you take someone on or just rush towards a player which is barricated. Of course it delays the inevitable but if I die now with a gun like an AK or something, I do not fucking care. Why? Because there are plenty of them, it's not rare. However, if I die with the FAL with a mag it would suck for me because it's a very powerful but rare gun. If I can find it in 60 minutes I wouldn't give a fuck either but that's not the case.

And you mention the term end game. What is the end game? It's a sandbox game, the end game is for every person different. Also my end game is never the same and can change while playing. Personally I can consider having a SKS (with PU) and 1 or 2 stacks of ammo and a splitting axe/firefighter axe already to be end game. The SKS is for killing players or wolves and the axe for infected.

Currently characters don't hold any value because most people just want to PvP and can do this very fast. Within 1 to 2 hours of spawning you can already be running with an high powered fully automatic rifle so why would I care dying if I can get those weapons really easy? If you cut down on the loot it will mean that people won't shoot as fast because there is not much ammo to burn through and people know that finding it is hard.

2 hours ago, Mookie (original) said:

I don't think this is to do with loot availability either. My overriding desire in the game is to stay alive.

At the moment there is little, if any, incentive to do so once you've built a halfway decent stash. A skills system, perhaps matched by a visual marker (like facial hair - remember that?) could make the difference - especially if it provided practical limits on PvP such as accuracy, firearms repair and handling, etc or on loot finding in the first place (?)

 

As I already mentioned, the things like facial hair won't matter if people don't see any value in their character. I won't care for it either because why would I? Why would I care for a system which take time while I know that 8 out of the 10 people I see will try and take my life. Why would I want to invest time in that if everyone is a murdereous asshole?

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4 hours ago, lrishjake said:

While Im all for the challenging dayz..

I dont believe that the problem of character value can be dealt with by limiting loot. All that does is delay the inevitable. If you have less loot, it only takes more time, leading to meta gaming, leading to short cuts, leading to the same exact thing we have now. Limiting loot changes nothing, and we can see that from previous builds and iterations of dayz. So while I get everyone's argument there, I don't think people are looking at the long term goal which cannot be redefined by simply forcing the player to take more time to reach the end game. Does that genuinely add value? I don't believe it does. 

Its like saying Mario Bros would be better if there were just a few more levels. 

I humbly disagree.

I was on our DayZ Colony US-1 server last night and ran into two guys far removed from the coast. One had a bow and spear and the other was a no0b with a pistol. The new guy kept pointing his gun at me then turning away like he was trying to get me comfortable with him pointing a gun in my face so he could plug me when my defenses were down. I got 50 bucks that says he was going to plug me...I got that gut feeling. I told him to stop pointing the gun in my face because he's making me nervous.

The guy with the bow said his friend is new and just testing out the gun (I guess he shot some random bullets). He told his friend to chill because they didn't have many bullets to waste. The guy with the bow felt bad his friend was pointing his gun at me and made me a spear. That experience made me think the lack of ammo does in fact shape how players act in-game. Their plan was to save the bullets for a threat, not waste it on some entertaining role-player that just made his way up from the coast.

The idea is to delay the inevitable with several methods, not just one. Limit bullets and guns are just one way. Next is base building, missions, advanced community efforts, my idea for better melee that includes the breaking of hands on hard helmet surfaces, mods, etc. There is no one fix, but a combination of fixes that can alter the mind of an established bandit as well a new player with a shooter mentality.

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Those kinds of situations + a highly dangerous environment (if infected could hear shots better for example), would really shape the behavior of people when interacting.

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5 hours ago, IMT said:

I think you're wrong there. If I spent more than 10 hours to get a decent automatic you're gonna think twice before you take someone on or just rush towards a player which is barricated. Of course it delays the inevitable but if I die now with a gun like an AK or something, I do not fucking care. Why? Because there are plenty of them, it's not rare. However, if I die with the FAL with a mag it would suck for me because it's a very powerful but rare gun. If I can find it in 60 minutes I wouldn't give a fuck either but that's not the case.

And you mention the term end game. What is the end game? It's a sandbox game, the end game is for every person different. Also my end game is never the same and can change while playing. Personally I can consider having a SKS (with PU) and 1 or 2 stacks of ammo and a splitting axe/firefighter axe already to be end game. The SKS is for killing players or wolves and the axe for infected.

End game is a term, first of all... I am simply using it because most of us here understand what that term means. ;)

I am not looking to argue over loot, or to argue at all. I stated my opinion and supported it. What you just told me was that character value is tied to loot for you.

Which is why I made the comment about loot to begin with, that you quoted. Its meant to be a discussion about character value, and if it becomes about loot than the topic has been lost. :)

2 hours ago, Weyland Yutani (DayZ) said:

I humbly disagree.

I was on our DayZ Colony US-1 server last night and ran into two guys far removed from the coast. One had a bow and spear and the other was a no0b with a pistol. The new guy kept pointing his gun at me then turning away like he was trying to get me comfortable with him pointing a gun in my face so he could plug me when my defenses were down. I got 50 bucks that says he was going to plug me...I got that gut feeling. I told him to stop pointing the gun in my face because he's making me nervous.

The guy with the bow said his friend is new and just testing out the gun (I guess he shot some random bullets). He told his friend to chill because they didn't have many bullets to waste. The guy with the bow felt bad his friend was pointing his gun at me and made me a spear. That experience made me think the lack of ammo does in fact shape how players act in-game. Their plan was to save the bullets for a threat, not waste it on some entertaining role-player that just made his way up from the coast.

The idea is to delay the inevitable with several methods, not just one. Limit bullets and guns are just one way. Next is base building, missions, advanced community efforts, my idea for better melee that includes the breaking of hands on hard helmet surfaces, mods, etc. There is no one fix, but a combination of fixes that can alter the mind of an established bandit as well a new player with a shooter mentality.

See, I said I didn't think the answer to character value can be fixed by limiting loot.. right? 

And you said you disagreed... then you essentially agreed? By stating it cannot be fixed by one thing. Which was my point. My only point. Hence the Mario Bros. comment. ;)

If you simply make a player take more time to gain a certain level .. like the feeling you get when you are "Geared Up".. then you dont add character value, you enhance loot value.

Limiting loot adds value to loot, not characters.

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At this point, I am pretty much not going to care about my character, regardless of what mechanics they add, due to the very simple fact that probably 8 out of 10 people I meet are going to try to kill me off-hand, no questions asked. The other two will also try to kill me, but try to get me to drop my guard first.

Characters don't need "value", people need a reason to not kill others off-hand. That, in and of itself, will give characters value.

I remember "The Starving Times", during the couple patches when loot-spawning was all pear-shaped.  When I actually came across people actually trying to survive,  foraging for food, who told me flat-out that I wasn't worth the resources to try and fight. Instead of duking it out, we banded together, picked some apples, then got a farm up and running. Finally, we defended our farm from rapacious freshspawns.

Give people "reasons" to work together, other than sheer PvP.

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On 3/17/2017 at 5:17 PM, lrishjake said:

Once we have base building, camps, houses that have doors barricaded.. this will be one of the most important aspects of DayZ. If you have the gear stored away to make your death meaningless, then what is the point of dayz's harsh world and loss of everything if you die? It becomes something else, other than what was intended. A pvp/pve sandbox, with very little meaning. Once you've done it all, there is little to gain from playing the game. If there is no value in your characters life, then there is no reason to keep playing. You play to get items. Once you have them, then what? It becomes a revolving door of gear up, hoard gear, go kill and get killed. Eventually boredom sets in, and you move on to something else. We should feel like interacting with others in the game. We should know like before, that certain areas mean certain death. But other places, are areas where you constantly meet others who are not looking to kill you or rob you. Why would other players suddenly not want to rob you? Well, they wont. Ever. But if you make them feel like robbing someone for loot is too risky when you can simply go look for it. If you make them think twice about risking their character dying. You start to change the reason they rob another player. Now they do it for interaction, and entertainment. They don't do it out of greed as much as they do it out of necessity. To some degree.. trust me, I know people are just mean spirited bastards at heart sometimes. ;)

I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to say here.

Your main point seems to be that because players can have caches of items, their death won't result in the loss of everything, which makes player life meaningless.

Oh, but with base-building, death CAN result in the loss of everything... And more...

The "revolving door of gear up, hoard gear, go kill and get killed" is ever-present in any game with looting and killing; it currently dominates DayZ SA game-play without any help from base-building whatsoever. If base-building could accelerate game-play trends toward a basic PvP end game, it wouldn't matter because we have arrived there already.

Secondly, having a base with stored loot doesn't mean the loot on your body has no value or is meaningless. The time it takes to get back to your base and eventually replenish gear stores makes it almost as irritating to die as it is right now.

Thirdly, bases can have loot stores hundreds of times more valuable than the loot a single person can carry. The "life of your base" can therefore become drastically more valuable than an individual life ever could. Getting killed in defense of your base and subsequently losing everything is many degrees more painful than just losing a single corpse worth of loot...

I'm guessing that you want players to take their lives more seriously so that they opt to play more cooperatively instead of being greedy KoS'ing dicks. "Soft skills" of various kinds could be great for making the specific life of any given character more valuable, but in the end, boredom will always lead to risk taking, and hence eventual stress relieving chaos... This is where base-building can come in and give people other options, and in doing so change the way people play in more interesting ways than soft or even hard skills ever could...

In order to erect, maintain, and defend high value bases, players will be forced into long term cooperation with friends an allies. Raising a base effectively requires logistical organization and planning which represents the first of many new end-games that base-building will allow to emerge. Instead of looking for PvP gear, players will go looking for complete tool sets; farming, food storage, and cooking supplies; electrical equipment like generators, lights and cable; clothing and medicine of all kinds; raw materials for construction and entrenchment; vehicles and vehicle parts for long term use and storage; and every other random knick-knack that can be hoarded. Once the base is built and established, the game of maintaining, defending, and expanding it begins. This will involve PvP, but it will be PvP for purposes connected to the series of objectives that emerge naturally over the course of base ownership. Furthermore, "PvP" is not actually always the best way to maintain, defend, and expand: when two distinct groups, each with their own base, become aware of each-other's existence, PvP ensures the destruction of one or both bases, making it a questionable modus operandi for long term base survival.

Killing every random survivor is guaranteed to piss people off, and in the long run that means many people out for revenge who are looking to discover who you are, who your group is, where your bases are, and how to harm them. On private hive servers reputation will be somewhat important in the communities and networks that develop within as players begin to worry about creating too many bitter enemies. Communication is more important when your enemy is more and more formidable and as you stand more and more to lose. Neutrality and territory agreements between two groups with established and known bases means they can co-exist without the cost of defending and reciprocating against attacks from one another. If more substantial cooperation between these groups means they can be more secure/dominant, then hierarchical networks will form between many groups operating bases who vie for position in the pecking order, using whichever strategy Darwin decides is best at the time.

In this landscape, the average player isn't aimlessly wandering a zombie wasteland looking for humans to slaughter like some psychopathic jar-head. They're out trying to achieve a wide variety of specific goals that tie in to their specific long term objectives and the steps that they choose to take in order to achieve them. "Out looking for hex barriers" is inherently different than "out looking for M4's/kills". The latter means you go to/stake out military sites, the former means you travel to spots that might hold less or no interest to someone looking for PvP/PvP gear. If a player knows anything about the community of the server they're on, they might know what areas to avoid to not get randomly shot. If they belong to a group then they might enjoy the security of numbers and KoS immunity from other groups they're allied with, and the ability to reliably retaliate when attacked/killed.

The "retaliatory raid" is an example what tended to emerge in the base-building mod days of old and makes DayZ much more rewarding to play for longer periods of time. Your base gets attacked, you and your mates take some losses and get pissed, and you go retaliate and scorch the earth with the blood and base of those who attacked you. This is the kind of interesting story that DayZ can produce: Personal for all involved; a painful moral lesson for the loser; sweet revenge for the victor; and a warning/example to all who hear of it. This emergent feature of DayZ is all but guaranteed when players have the ability to lay down firm roots in the form of bases, and it is only one aspect of the many interesting and unpredictable things that happen when DayZ is at it's finest.

I have more to say on soft skills and character value overall, but I've run out of time tonight.

Cheers!

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Life, the Loot, our actions simply have far too few consequences. We find Loot no matter what it is and we can work with it 100% perfect. In Chernarus all places except the wolf areas and Zombi cities are absolutely safe (I mean now without other players). What is missing are small things that force the deeds and actions to reason. It does not take too much to encourage more consideration. It also does not need high-level AI. What I mean is:

1) if the state of Loot has a general effect on the activity (a damaged ax is less efficient, you need longer to achieve something or the result is not so good ).

2).Which drives us to caution. As an example snake in the forest and stony areas that can bite a bite (poisonous snakes or even others with the risk of infection) ---> afk ubd in the forest would be much more difficult. Or in the area of sheds and isolated civilization buildings or corpses -> could easily spawned the rats which are following food shortages.

3) the infected infections could be so mavated that they approach the player (the server knows the player's location) without the player immediately discover the player, just for the purpose that one must always be energetic or choose his way wise . This could also be well combined with noise.

4) Experience and actions should have an influence on the character (soft-skills). Someone who successfully infected can sneak without being discovered, will also learn quieter to run ... sneakers softer than military boots.

5) Controversies with other players often have only 2 pages "win & loose". If I boxing someone with helmet should be the chance to be high that I hurt my hand. Shot and stitch injuries should have a chance of infection, depending on the condition of the weapon (object). So you have to think more about whether you are involved in a fight just for fun, since the consequences could be fatal.

All this would give the base building a real sense from the aspect that it is so possible to create a place where a player or group is safe from all the anti-life influences of Chernarus (other players form an exception here, a base knows Only one player as an enemy). I think all these small and fine mechanics would lead to the effort to survive, enough food and drink should not be the goal to rest, it should only be a small worry less. (Would anyone eat a can of beans when they're damaged, just open and eat cold, or would not it be better to minimize the dose of cooking to minimize the risk?) 1000 small questions you should ask yourself if there is any player so Go and survive a requirement then maybe thinking will change (or the players will be screened)

Edited by Sqeezorz
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pls delete, wrongly posted

Edited by exwoll

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12 hours ago, Whyherro123 said:

At this point, I am pretty much not going to care about my character, regardless of what mechanics they add, due to the very simple fact that probably 8 out of 10 people I meet are going to try to kill me off-hand, no questions asked. The other two will also try to kill me, but try to get me to drop my guard first.

Characters don't need "value", people need a reason to not kill others off-hand. That, in and of itself, will give characters value.

I remember "The Starving Times", during the couple patches when loot-spawning was all pear-shaped.  When I actually came across people actually trying to survive,  foraging for food, who told me flat-out that I wasn't worth the resources to try and fight. Instead of duking it out, we banded together, picked some apples, then got a farm up and running. Finally, we defended our farm from rapacious freshspawns.

Give people "reasons" to work together, other than sheer PvP.

That's exactly why we're discussing that. You see, 8 out of 10 people try to kill you because:

  1. You don't risk much doing so . The game at this point is too forgiving with the running speed that enables people to escape from bullets, and the hitbox system makes people safe from a couple of bulllets by having a couple of cloth layers, etc
  2.  Death has no value other than the loot you have on you, so if you have more of that loot in your base, or your loot is ez to get, you can take the risks
  3. The environment is too forgiving for your aggressive actions. A couple of shots in a big city pass unnoticed if there are no players in the are. Infected reaction radius is too small and there's little changes of you getting caught in surrounded by trying to kill a player. 
  4. Also related to 3 and 1. Escaping from infected is way too easy. They don't grab you  slowing you down or stopping you, you just have to know how to run to escape form 10+ infected.
  5. Ammo is too common. People don't lose anything by trying to shot you. They know that they can find 200+ rounds in the next hour of playing. Self-defense is really easy right now.

The only way of somehow limiting that is to affect the Risk/Reward equation for any decision a player has to take when encountering other players or dealing with the environment. Any addition to the value of your character or the loot he has will influence that ratio.

And at this point we have:

  • Ammo/Weapons quantity: The less of them, the more valuable every bullet becomes and the risk taken in using it against random friendly players and having nothing for defense from infected/enemies will make everyone think twice
  • Food availability: The less food in a server, the longer it will take to a player to change his game objectives from keeping him alive, to searching some fun
  • Environment reaction to shots: The more infected/other players are attracted to each shot, the more risky becomes the use of your weapons for direct reason.
  • Skill systems that would add the things your character can do, to what he carries to your perceived value for the character (and for others in case of hard-skills)
  • Players per server: the more players in a server, the more you risk being detected by heavily armed players when trying to shot a bambi (for example)
  • Death penalties: We are afraid of death, because it means that we can't be alive. In game language it would translates with the limitation of your access to the game. A long respawn timer (there are a lot of suggestion about how to implement that depending on the time being alive, etc) or even the permanent ban from the server if you die, would add A LOT of value to your life. 
  • Incentives for being alive longer: In real life, you have the biggest incentive to survive you could have - your own life. In-game we can't have that, but there are ways to simulate an attachment to your character which would make you care more for him. (visual things, scoreboards, skills,etc)

 

Edited by exwoll
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Quote

just get killed after 4 hours of playing.i met one guy who just asked me that is there cars anywhere.

this second guy runned towards me and i say hello....he pull the trigger.

but it really doesnt make me mad that he took mu stuff,my bagbag my magnum...only that there is no any interact with people.
AND HOW YOU GET THIS QUOTE THINGY OFF!!!!!!!!!!...
but now im making new character and gonna go to meet some people.

Edited by kopo79

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On 18.3.2017 at 1:52 PM, dorn956 said:

I totally agree, and well said. 

Personally I feel the road to power could be enlengthened by having more than one aspect define "power". As of now the definition of having power in DayZ is by owning items such as Weapons food and munition and other valuable rare commodities. But what if there was more to power? Such as economy, electricity, running water, organizations, shelter and safety, and possibly a more pressing threat of zombies then the dumb group of all types that we see now?

Very very good point. A survival game should allow for more ways to rise to power than just your average search a gun and shoot what moves.

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