Idea for a new DayZ game mode: "Seasons" - Long Term Survival "Tournament"

[WOLFGEIST 122]

Idea for an official game mode or mod:

• This would be different from Survivor GameZ in that it's more of a long term strategy and survival contest rather than a free for all brawl, and could be played by players who are able to log in once every couple days or so. It would make use of all of the features DayZ has and put survivor's total skillset to the test.
   
• Basically it's a month long or season long tournament.
   
• You would sign up with a server a week/month or so in advance. Then the "season" begins. Anyone who's registered gets one life until the end of the season. If you die, you're out and you can't log back in for that season.
   
• The items that initially spawn are the only items available, but they do not decay (or items spawn at a low rate to encourage travel, but seemingly simple items could be extremely valuable). Wood harvested would permanently fell a tree. Bodies would stay visible unless buried with a shovel (doing so would create a grave mound and could still be searched to identify the victim) and apples would be a finite resource set during server launch or non existent.
   
• Common actions such as skinning, crafting, chopping wood, etc would have longer, more realistic action times to increase player vulnerability and exposure - or - doing actions would consume varying amounts of calories/water to simulate time spent, or a combination of the two could be implemented.
   
• How it would work is your hunger/ thirst is a persistent state that ticks while offline. The specifics can be determined later but let's say if you're completely hydrated/ energized you can log off and you would die of dehydration/ starvation in 48 hours (allowing people to play who aren't able to log in every day). So, you have to log in to get food/ water. Players would spawn in moderately full and hydrated.
   
• Hunting would be the most reliable source of food (you'd have to expose yourself to hunt/ skin/ cook meat). Another possible mechanic is something like a sleeping bag indicating the general vicinity where someone is logged (not sure how I feel about that yet but would create potentially interesting strategies and dynamics).
   
• At the end of the season you can view various statistics on each participant. Perhaps a log with information such as "May 5th 2018: Joe shot Dave in the left leg from 211 meters away with a trumpet" and stats like "2018 Season 3: Joe survived 13 days, cut down 8 trees, crafted 26 arrows, 3 bows (etc) and achieved 4 kills with 22.6% accuracy and 1 headshot and ate 21,500 calories worth of food and drank 9 gallons of water. Joe was the 28th person to die and took 72nd place out of 100 players", etc.
   
• Previous seasons statistics could be viewed online and overall individual statistics would be kept where players could build reputations for various characteristics.
   
• A point system could determine ranking - 1 hour spent logged in = 100 points, 1 deer steak eaten = 50 points. 1 player kill = 200 points, 1 zombie killed = 20 points, distance traveled = 10 points per km, being the last person standing = 10,000 points, etc.
   
• Perhaps rotating zones could be a mechanic: "Today, additional food can be found in Stary Sobor" accompanied with a few deer spawned in to drive conflict and interaction. These messages could possibly be broadcasted on certain radio channels, making a radio very valuable.
   
• Perhaps some sort of prestige reward could be given to winners, such as the ability to spawn with a unique clothing item, or even cash prizes.
   
• There could be various server settings on the hunger tick rate such as an ultra hardcore mode in which you would go from fully energized/hydrated to death by starvation/dehydration in 24 hours, and a more casual mode for players who can only log in once per week, where you go from full to dead in 1 week's time.
   
• Another option or mode would be Team Seasons (10 teams of 5? 5 teams of 10? Etc.) This could be accompanied by a feature that makes your character persistent while logged in a sleeping animation, vulnerable to attack. Players could then have various roles such as nightwatch and strategies including attacking when the enemy least expects it. Players would have to make hunting trips and perform other jobs and duties such as collecting firewood, gathering, fishing, etc. This mode would lend itself to more of a group focused combat game style whereas the previous mode would be more focused on survival.

What do you think?

Edited June 9, 2017 by WOLFGEIST

[exwoll 255]

I would like all of that inside a separate permadeath mod with no limited time :)

[BeefBacon 1185]

A permadeath mod would be neat. Maybe if your character dies you can't log back on to that server for a week or something.

Interesting ideas here. I hope to see more mod ideas as we approach beta.

[WOLFGEIST 122]

1 hour ago, exwoll said:

I would like all of that inside a separate permadeath mod with no limited time :)

You mean, once you die you can no longer play on the server? lol. Yeah that could be interesting... but the "seasonal" cycle would keep it fresh and interesting every month. I mean, it would suck to spawn in, lose connection, die by a zombie and then never be able to play on the server you have the best connection to ever again. And once everyone dies... then what? The server shuts down? Thanks for commenting, love to hear different ideas!

 

1 hour ago, BeefBacon said:

A permadeath mod would be neat. Maybe if your character dies you can't log back on to that server for a week or something.

Interesting ideas here. I hope to see more mod ideas as we approach beta.

Yeah... I thought about that too. One thing I really like about the "seasonal" formula is you have neatly divided... well, seasons and finite resources. Once the resources are exhausted, or all of the players are dead, the world resets and the statistics are saved. If you make a mistake, you can always play normal mode and then come back in the next season, perhaps with several friends who you've been working out survival strategies with. It will also make it easier to chronicle for histories sake. People could say "Oh man, I played in the legendary year 1 season 3 where so and so happened", etc. Also, it would be much more devastating (and therefore meaningful) to lose a friend during a season. You know that was it and they couldn't just come back next week. Thanks for your input!

Edited June 9, 2017 by WOLFGEIST

[exwoll 255]

11 minutes ago, WOLFGEIST said:

You mean, once you die you can no longer play on the server? lol. Yeah that could be interesting... but the "seasonal" cycle would keep it fresh and interesting every month. I mean, it would such to spawn in, lose connection, die by a zombie and then never be able to play on the server you have the best connection to ever again. And once everyone dies... then what? The server shuts down? Thanks for commenting, love to hear different ideas!

No not forever (well that would be neat and really hardcore XD), but for a good amount of time (lets say a couple of weeks or a month)

The thing with a seasonal system is that you limit the playability and just cut the experience at a certain point. Which will make people take it as a  battleroyale mod and just play it for the sake of points given (which means pvp ftw) and it will kinda of waste all the potential of the realistic things suggested there.

In other words: the first time people will just play it and enjoy as it is, but after they see how points work, the second and next times they will just focus on the most effective way of getting it, which would just be like a PUBG with a longer timeframe.

I really like the idea tho, and I'm sure someone will make a mod or a server that works like this, it has a lot of stuff people had been asking for the game in the last years! 

 

 

Edited June 9, 2017 by exwoll

[WOLFGEIST 122]

22 minutes ago, exwoll said:

The thing with a seasonal system is that you limit the playability and just cut the experience at a certain point. Which will make people take it as a  battleroyale mod and just play it for the sake of points given (which means pvp ftw) and it will kinda of waste all the potential of the realistic things suggested there.

Yeah... I see what you mean, however the idea was intended to be a competitive platform to showcase all of the various features and strategies within DayZ. I envisioned it as something that people could tune into and keep up on, similar to the t.v. show "Alone" but with combat, of course. I feel this kind of competitive atmosphere would be great for building the DayZ fanbase. Keep in mind however that with food scarcity and the primary need to always be searching for food will severely limit people's ability to go around and kill people. Consider that a strategy may be to live a very stealthy existence, avoiding all conflict (which i'm sure many people would do). You won't see people running inland and going to Tisy or NWAF just to kill people. I mean, you would see those folks but that may not be the best strategy as those areas would possibly be extremely dangerous. 

But yeah, in the end it IS designed to be a long term survival tournament. It would differ from a normal server with a perma-death mechanic in that it will have a clearly defined goal (survive to the end/be the last person standing). Player conflict is a huge part of DayZ and this tournament would showcase that aspect of the game as well as the survival elements.

[exwoll 255]

In that case it would be great, I see it as a 1-3 times a year tournament  with cool prizes !:3

[WOLFGEIST 122]

4 hours ago, exwoll said:

In that case it would be great, I see it as a 1-3 times a year tournament  with cool prizes !:3

Yeah, I was thinking either monthly or seasonally. I like the monthly idea because then you'd always be able to play, but with 4 events per year each event would carry more weight in terms of hype/preparation, etc. Maybe each "season" could last 4 months, like, well, a season. That might be dragging it out a little too long though.

[ImageCtrl 719]

11 hours ago, BeefBacon said:

A permadeath mod would be neat. Maybe if your character dies you can't log back on to that server for a week or something.

As far as I know Private Servers will have this option without a mod.

Edited June 10, 2017 by ImageCtrl

[WOLFGEIST 122]

7 hours ago, ImageCtrl said:

As far as I know Private Servers will have this option without a mod.

Interesting,  do you remember where you heard that? 

[ImageCtrl 719]

No, it was mentioned in a video talking about how make death more painful. (Something like... only private servers can set a time how long you get blocked from the server after death)

Edited June 10, 2017 by ImageCtrl

[exwoll 255]

14 hours ago, WOLFGEIST said:

Interesting,  do you remember where you heard that? 

Hardcore servers as DUG, ProphecyRP, RedZone will certainly implement stuff like that once that the server files are available, or even mods are up. 

Heard from some admins that they would really like to try perma-deaths experiments to see how things go. 

[Komalt 27]

Various permadeath server ideas have been talked about.  I can't wait to see any implementation of them once Beta and server hosting comes out. 

[pilgrim* 3514]

 

Ah! DayZ Hunger Games .. like Minecraft did it already

 

                                          

 

                                           lest we forget                     

 

           

Edited September 2, 2017 by pilgrim*
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[liquidcactus 719]

i think this idea more so appeals to the old school veterans that would like to see more out of dayz. This kind of thing is a good incentive to play the game, we need more non gimmick events in the community. Great ideas.. tho i  don't like the hydration and hunger affecting your character while offline.