90% of players are unimaginitive simpletons

[Vattenlarv 81]

@pilgrim*

I still don't get your point. Why did you quote a small portion of what I actually wrote in that post and base your entire philosophical thought process (or whatever it is) on that? Is that showing respect? 

Mate, you a strange character. There is no need to get all artsy and go full Platon in a game forum. Games and particularly gamers do not need any more ambiguity or vagueness. An early access game should be developed as initially marketed. 

"DayZ is a gritty, authentic, open-world survival horror hybrid-MMO game, in which you follow a single goal: to survive in the harsh post-apocalyptic landscape as long as they can. There are no superficial tips, waypoints, built in tutorials or help given to players. Every decision matters, there are no save games, no extra lives, every mistake can be lethal. If you fail, you lose everything and you need to play again from the beginning with nothing but your wits, and your two hands. Fight the hostile environment, where every other player can be friend or foe and nothing can be taken for granted. This is DayZ, this is your story"

gritty, authentic - No. 

harsh post-apocalyptic landscape - Post-apocalyptic landscape, alright. Harsh? No. 

Every decision matters - Zombies are still nothing but a nuisance, and apparently you can still A-D twitch your way out of most dangers. 

no extra lives - Huh? 

If you fail, you lose everything and you need to play again from the beginning with nothing but your wits - Uh... base building? Tents? Barrels? How long does it take a seasoned player to respawn and get to the most north western parts of the map? 

 

If all of these statements were actually true, the KOS frequency would be considerably lower. 

 

You see Pilgrim*, there is no need for a whole lot of mumbo jumbo or pseudo-intellectual word pooing when trying to convey a thought, or make a point. One coherent word after another is good enough. Respectful enough for you? 

[Vattenlarv 81]

10 hours ago, emuthreat said:

What can be done to get that chunk of players who want to interact but always shoot first because they think you will too,  to take the chance and try talking to players more?  What can facilitate that in a natural manner?

I'll say it again; 

"There is only one way to combat KOS without compromising player's freedom. Slow down gameplay and make it as realistic as technologically possible. Hardcore on steroids. Remove 3pp. Much more dangerous infected. Anything that makes the game more difficult and unforgiving. NOTHING else will make a difference regarding the KOS issue (if it is an issue)... nothing."

 

Maybe it should be players' freedom? This English thing is too damn complicated for its own good sometimes. 

Edited September 10, 2018 by Vattenlarv

[Sqeezorz 839]

General at games.
Players will always adapt to the game. When you start a new game, the learning curve is extremely steep, and the player tries to move on step by step. After a while, the game becomes easier with the experience you have gained: The player begins to take new risks or will use his experience to his advantage.

In most singleplayer games, there are various "difficulty levels" to keep up the challenge.

Dayz does not have "difficulty levels" there is only "you" and "the environment" and your "experience".
Increasing the "difficulty level" in DayZ will only cause frustration for "new players", on the other hand veterans will be bored because there is no challenge.
So it's a twist between "easy" and "hard".
One possible solution would be to have area-dependent levels of difficulty in the map, with words: just as the map is divided into "loot zones", the difficulty should also increase.
This peculiarity would lead to the fact that there are places and areas that even a veteran can hardly manage alone, which means he needs support, so interaction can be the solution.

So short and sweet: the approach to increase the difficulty is the right way, but not generally across the map.

[pilgrim* 3514]

10 hours ago, Vattenlarv said:

@pilgrim*

I still don't get your point...//..pseudo-intellectual word pooing when trying to convey a thought

It's not "pseudo"
I know you don't get it.

Do you think the things you <dont get> should be banned from the forum as well as from the game?
Read the bit about the AVERAGE AGE of VIDEO GAME PLAYERS again - these are adults, the'y can drive cars, vote, own real guns at home, get married, work, go to prison, pay income tax, & legally be held responsible for their actions, AND they play video games.. ... so WHAT is your BEEF with them?
I gave you the links to find out for yourself what's eating you up about the society you live in but you did NOT look at one of them.

Am I right?  Yes. {sigh}

I'm an average player, I have an average brain, I can read, I can understand, I can make decisions. JUST like YOU. No better no worse - don't call me a "pseudo intellectual" or I'll call you a "pseudo-player".  (frightening idea hu?)  - I gave you a few FUN simple links to the easy REAL stuff about games and people, and you think it's word pooing?  

lol  << word pooing? >>  

Go play DayZ,-  I tell you now dude you won't see me if I see you first.

OK - be happy - I'm out of this.

ENJOY

xxP

Edited September 10, 2018 by pilgrim*
statistic : the average age of a male video game player is 33, the average age of a female video game player is 37 - wake up.

[green_mtn_grandbob 594]

'm 78 so i'm helping some younger players  up the age average.

[cirkular 178]

For people struggling with KOS "mentality", I think the way it's now is pretty solid, because it's the player's actions/reactions in the environment we are focused on here. What annoys me is literally calling roleplaying only some polite and civilized behavior, law and rules in a time of lawlessness, chaos and disorder. But someone shooting at you on sight is excluded from the term "roleplaying" like it's far from ever happening in reality. Talking about this game's environment, forget about what we know as normal. It's like people are looking for suspension of disbelief, like wishing that some people would not act in KOS ways in a similar situation. There's not much fantasy or "unreal" in the game, except the infected, right? And apart from further developing and tweaking the infected AI, it's not that much about the game. And not much that can be done to naturally make people shoot less and talk more in the event of a player to player encounter.

I mean, it's easy, you've got to respawn. You're not getting locked out of the server when you're killed. There's literally always a player on the coast asking you to kill them because they want a better spawn. Many people play this game either with their friends on Teamspeak/Discord or totally alone.

I wouldn't like to see any ideas that would force complete strangers to act like everything is ok and no one is scared or in hunger crisis etc. So it's completely up to all persons involved how that encounter will develop. People see you first, rarely they talk and very rarely you end up a couple of happy campers. Or maybe you saw them and talked first. Maybe he was a bit farther so you had to yell actually. Fortunately, he is without a weapon so you approach. Then you exchange some items, search for food together... Maybe you meet someone else along the way who joins up. And what do you agree on along the way? To go to the airfield or some military checkpoint or base and get geared up. Or back up to the first step a bit, if they don't talk at all, they shoot first or run at you. Sometimes they miss, you hit, they loose. That happens to KOSers. Don't you want the experience of surviving such an attack? Any attack at all? Additionally, the infected in the vicinity possibly get agroed on them and you may try and use the opportunity to run away or watch them struggle or take them down then. Other players when they hear shots get involved often too.

If you reduce weapons and ammo loot on the map, we'll have more melee combat which sounds apocalyptic enough, but it's not spectacularly done, in my opinion. And like from the start of Dayz, we'll have more of the freshies rushing and fisting fully geared or somewhat geared players on the coast. If you have ammo, that could end bad for freshies. If you are low on ammo and you ran out of it at that moment, you can't react properly and on time. You must run away, holster the weapon and then put out your fists or choose a backup melee weapon. We are missing buttstock smack, and that should really hurt. Also, whatever happened to the bayonet on a Mosin rifle?

The difficulty increase such as utter removal of 3pp and crosshair from the game is too much since those are options to be selected when starting your server. There are still a couple of ways to add a crosshair overlay on your screen. But this is why we had 1pp only and 1pp/3pp servers separated. Only a handfull of public and private hardcore ones but this could change and is up to private servers owners mostly. Some of them were full and yet some of them were empty. When a player wants to try a more "difficult level" he'll up the game for himself and go to those hardcore servers.

[Vattenlarv 81]

@pilgrim*

If you can't deal with people responding accordingly to your passive aggressive and somewhat elitist manner, where you start your "arguments" by trying to belittle the person you are about to address, then yes, you should see yourself out. 

[pilgrim* 3514]

3 hours ago, green_mtn_grandbob said:

'm 78 so i'm helping some younger players  up the age average.

I'm 65, maybe we should team up?
If what we both say is true (and both male) - then statistically there are two players in the game who won't be born for five and a half years.

 

Edited September 10, 2018 by pilgrim*
If one treats others roughly in this existence, he will be roughly treated by them in the next, for karma is never-ending in all things. If one would rid himself of bad karma in this round of existence, he should treat well those who are not kind to him.

[Sooden 301]

Wonder if they will make damaged weapon have an affect, if you are in a 'shoot out' with someone and they have a damaged weapon, and i locks up bad... and they need a repair kit or something,not just a clean. (Tool box, sticky plaster to put the trigger back on?) Maybe they would be willing to talk :P sure, they didn't wanna talk at first, but now, 'you' as the players that wanted more involved interaction, could have the opportunity.

if only we knew more about that going to happen with game mechanics. The ammo and gun may amount may not be an issue, if damaged ammo fails (*1), damages gun more and damaged gun brake down. maybe some really messy problem, and ammo jams with the clip/mag and gun, and gotta have the tools, take 2-3 min of waiting, as its a game (can be done it bits, like drinking form a water bottle) (warn/damaged clip? mosin bad jam / M4 and a warn clip?)

At the moment, it seems a gun just works (apart from the shotgun :P). don't even know it they take damage, say from really poor ammo.

also means, there may be ammo just left where it is for the players with nothing... willing to take the damaged gun and load it with exploding death nails :P

*1: old ammo is self seem to be fine as long as its in good condition,even corroded seems fine, getting info on damaged ammo was not as easy, as if people didn't wanna try it :P something about barrel jams and gun explosions... but, (a nice safe test, could not call the ammo badly damaged)

as a game born from arma, i would think the weapons system is important, and would expect this sort of thing to be important in a survival game... not over the top realism. Guns being a bit more random ''may'' allow for more interaction, don't know unless it happens :) and its not some none organic system

[emuthreat 2837]

10 hours ago, Vattenlarv said:

Slow down gameplay and make it as realistic as technologically possible.

This pretty much hits the nail on the head.  There simply aren't enough factors affecting the player's decision making process and hierarchy of needs to address the regressive trends in player interactions.  Over the years I've suggested many things to diversify the range of motivations among the playerbase.  For those who wish to do nothing but find and kill other players, because that is the reason the are here. Not much can be done to change their goals and motivations outside of adding more "realistic" and diverse basic needs that need to be met.  A sort of extra layer of confounding issues they will need to address to become effective at sustaining their purposes. 

It's too easy to sustain a long term mission with the given mechanics.  Stamina has slowed down the process considerably, but there aren't any more considerations that need to be met and managed.  In previous patches, I used to like playing as sort of a park ranger.  I could carry with me everything I needed to to indefinitely sustain a mission lasting a dozen hours over most of a week, to roam the map and catalogue evidence of player activity; tents, crashed vehicles, discarded backpacks.  I would often be able to discern who was playing at what times by taking screenshots of tent contents and referencing the time elapsed between changes.  With this I could make contact with regular players on even a public official server after a few days of gathering information.  I feel that perhaps even that was too easy to do.  In most cases KOS wasn't even an issue, because I could easily choose to avoid engaging players who took longshots, even if they got a good hit; I could just use the terrain to my advantage, mitigate bleeding or bone damage and eat all my food that wasn't ruined and take a big loop to catch up on my rounds after a half hour or so.  I could pretty much do anything I wanted to do after a couple hours of prep looting, without any immediate concerns or challenges.

In this light, the game could surely use a few more factors in influencing the needs of players to drive behavior in a less linear and repetitive manner.  Things like normal wear and tear on clothing and shoes would provide diversions to make players need to make stops or go looking for things that they otherwise would ignore.  Maybe add socks to the game, and have boots contribute to blisters soreness and fatigue with longer periods of sustained foot travel compared to sneakers.  People will have to divert their attention to finding new or more appropriate shoes, replace worn socks, or stop and rest their feet to avoid loss of health.

Another thing I had suggested was a nutrition/comfort/morale system to encourage players to eat freshly cooked hot meals of diverse ingredients.  These things would be affected by diet, conditions of clothing and shelter from the elements, and the intervals between injury or conflict; and would contribute to behind the board metrics that affected things like healing rates, stamina usage and recovery, and perhaps even a dulling of hearing if these values are dismally ignored.

I tend to lean towards bonuses for taking more care, rather than penalties for ignoring factors.  That way it takes nothing form those who wish to ignore it, but will give a slight advantage to those who take the time and care.

[Sooden 301]

24 minutes ago, emuthreat said:

...
It's too easy to sustain a long term mission with the given mechanics.  Stamina has slowed down the process considerably, but there aren't any more considerations that need to be met and managed.  In previous patches, I used to like playing as sort of a park ranger.  I could carry with me everything I needed to to indefinitely sustain a mission lasting a dozen hours over most of a week, to roam the map and catalogue evidence of player activitye....

In the current state, you really do need very little, meaning all that is left to do is kill or, like i'm doing now, raiding the largest bases and carrying stuff to the coast (not the guns, i dump them) :P

picked the player model cus he looks like hes seem some stuff :P but all i need right now are a set of good pants and jacket, when rain has a real effect, maybe a rain coat, but i'm guessing we are getting belts as well..so will have space for that by putting my hatchet on my belt (hope that what happens,bases on item slot icons in image)

I get that i'm surviving like this because i know the game, and that there is more to come, but i worry that people finding problems now will restrict how difficult the non combat survival is (as it gets in the way of pew-pew). Even knowing where most things are, i still wanna feel like the game is a bit challenging... Very little scope right now for benefiting from none combat skill sets

[Vattenlarv 81]

48 minutes ago, emuthreat said:

Things like normal wear and tear on clothing and shoes would provide diversions to make players need to make stops or go looking for things that they otherwise would ignore. 

 

If type of footwear in combination with the surface of the terrain the player is moving through would determine the pace, stamina drain, and wear and tear of equipped footwear, I believe we would see monumental changes. 

Imagine if a pair of running shoes would buff both speed and stamina when you are traveling on tarmac or in urban environments, but they wear easily on gravel roads and "off-road". Working boots wear much slower and there are no penalties in any terrain, but there is a speed and stamina nerf. Hiking shoes could be similar to working boots; durable but less of a speed and stamina nerf. Combat / jungle boots, speed and stamina buff "off-road", wears faster than working- and hiking shoes... and so on. Now imagine dynamic sounds in accordance with equipped foot wear. Jungle boots the quietest in woods, sneakers the quietest in urban environments, etc. 

This would add 5 extra levels of tactics to anything you do in game. I understand this will not happen. Just wishful thinking. 

[pilgrim* 3514]

On 9/8/2018 at 11:48 PM, emuthreat said:

..//..  passively favoring the chaotic evil playstyle.  ..//..

Emuthreat -  because we are friends (and I do ingame TRUST you), let me ague a little unkindly (against a trend of your argument over several posts) . Your views are always interesting.

*
There are many different kinds of recognized survivalists and preppers in the Real World.. Here are just a couple of well known, well-defined theories:

Rawlesian survivalists:
This group anticipates a near-term crisis and seek to be well-armed as well as ready to dispense charity in the event of a disaster or complete social breakdown.

Self-defense-driven survivalists:
This group focuses on surviving brief encounters of violent activity, including personal protection, danger awareness, John Boyd's cycle (also known as the OODA loop—observe, orient, decide and act), martial arts, self-defense tactics and tools (both lethal and non-lethal). These survivalist tactics are often firearm-oriented, in order to ensure a method of defense against attackers.

Legal-continuity-oriented survivalists :
This group has a primary concern with maintaining some form of legal system and social cohesion after a breakdown in the technical infrastructure of society.

.. terminology :

Goblin: A criminal miscreant
Golden horde: The anticipated large mixed horde of refugees and looters
SHTF: Shit hits the fan
WROL: Without rule of law. Describes a potential lawless state of society
YOYO: You're on your own.

FPS: The aim is to progress by shooting players and NPCs without getting shot.

DayZ: The game is basically concerned with man's moral duties and social responsibility & the ideal behavior for leaders (e.g.  Moses leading his people out of Egypt).  
Endgame: When the top leveled-up Medic players (level 200) with full stats, & disinfected gear and gloves - cure the plague and the zombies go back to being farmers and decent citizens. 

[ .. did I get this right? I think I read it in the game description,
or am I being ironic? ]

KOS: "Kill them all and let God sort out his own" - The Catholic Papal Legate, abbot Arnaud Amalric, August 1209.
 

In the whole list of survival scenarios , Survivalists do not mention looting and violent crime and the denial of human rights,  as being one practical & very effective method of survival. I guess this means that the Mafia, armed street gangs, extremist (terrorist) organizations, and hardcore military dictatorships (warlords) will NOT survive?
OR - it means that if someone published a survival manual based on those techniques, a lot of people would get mad about it?

xxP

Edited September 11, 2018 by pilgrim*

[INomadZ 211]

I got Shot On Sight in this scenario and how I dealt with the Shooter...

 

[Sooden 301]

To be fair, the game supports fps over survivalist.. kinda what the game is. Far from even a moderately hard survival game and more of a death-match game (><Looks around>>). So favours people running around with gun, killing whoever with not disadvantage to survival in the long run...

The devs talk about wanting to leave game play down to player skill (reason for no skill levelling) but its only relates to the FPS side of things, and i guess you can count knowing the map on both sides. but;

Water and fire:

No one needs to know how to build a water filter (or work it out in game, in a simplified manor), we have wells everywhere but i guess we can boil the water if we get that from rivers, without a filterer >< using the abundant matches, or the magical inherited skill of fire making (That's can take years of practice, knowing what wood, getting the drill and drill hole correct... then... well look it up yourself)...no mini game there ,no player skills needed there, you just get a stick and some wood and sorted :) -kinda like it was a skill perk that is already maxed. (Could be as simple as knowing when to take the embers out, really low level stuff... maybe when to blow on them as well)

where are the more in-depth survival ideas, that get the player to think? where having wits and understanding puts you above the rest? Example, make matches rare as hell, make fire starting with a stick a mini game (still cracks me up, go to any tree, get fire), you just have to keep trying at till you work it out ( player skill and no tutorials), and for the ones that have smarts, maybe they can pick up a car battery and some steel wool and make a fire. nah, this is all bypassed, cus it would be too real? not fun? I guess, if that's not the crowed your selling too, but rather the more chaotic, blast everything...

...and that's if you even need a fire, if there isn't food just laying around. Went into a base and ran out with 6 cans of tactical bacon, just laying there (the most powerful canned bacon). I guess fire will be needed when wetness makes you cold again (How about other issue of damp clothe?), as long as you have a knife, few minuets and bingo, all is good. no having to per carry the correct woods or a kit you made from the correct woods before hand (Woods you would have to find out about or trial and error). don't even need matches, you have a knife and skills that are given to the player, not worked out.

Medical:

Always a tricky one, so easy ot make this to difficult and un-fun... but mini game that take player skill could have been added there, but no, we have been give maxed skills.

-WE don't need to time CPR (as a mini game) - Its a FPS revive function only, no skill needed

-We don't need to place the IV (as a mini game) - player based skills and steady hands,finding a vain, trial and error... we have this innate medical skill already.. almost like a FPS health pack

i would only suggest them 2 where added, the rest would not really make a mini games worth. These aren't over the top mini game, like we may see a mini game for a lock pick system in a lot of other games.

If days if going for FPS then sure, they don't need to offer non combative player base skills... but if its survival as well, where are the advantages for the not FPS? What do they learn and excel in (Not talking level in up skill, talking players skill at the game, as dayz say they want). Maybe this is why FPS come over to dayz and love it, yet survival (Broadly survival) used to other skill sets feel the game is a bit unbalance?

Cooking:

OMG, we have a mini game, have to time the meat. Have to cook it in the right manner, cant just drop it on the fire... I do remember Dean seemed very invested in the cooking aspect, is this why we see some what of a mini game when cooking?

I guess we should not go there... he did up sticks. So it's guess work, but maybe this concept of not combative player skill based mini games is not that far fetched? Was what dayz was meant to be about?

Hygiene:

This is a stretch but i know there was talk of clothes going smelly and having an effect (That dropped now? too survival for FPS?). But learning better ways to clean, collecting plants for soap. So if you running around all the time, getting sweaty, getting damp ... sure you can wash it in a stream, but that may not get it very clean - depending on condition... clean enough but someone that put in the time to workout and collect the right materials may have less smelly, parasite ridden/itchy clothes.

and no, i don't want poohin' and peein'...

I'm sure someone will say, ''well we could make the game supper realistic and it would be dull'' not what i'm getting at here, just pointing out that the survival side, survival skill set needed in dayz vs FPS skill is heavily swung to FPS. That is the state of the game as it is now. I'm not saying that they must put all these suggestions in the game

[emuthreat 2837]

@pilgrim*We are talking about the game.  While all of the survivalist theories might be interesting, and perhaps useful to someone writing a thesis on DayZ player behavior motives and modes, it is largely irrelevant to the discussion of how to balance motivations and player behavior within the game mechanics.
It is food for thought when getting acquainted with a private server, and all the regular groups operational trends, but purely academic and beyond the scope of how game mechanics influence player behavior trends.

  Some people will always shoot on sight, regardless of the benefits of cooperation; these players can be excluded from consideration in the sense of this discussion.

Everyone is aware of the possibility/prevalence of being shot on sight.  Many players will choose to shoot on sight out of fear of being shot themselves.  There is little to no incentive to cooperate with strangers, both in the short term and long term.

Things that may provide incentive for players to make contact and asses the benefits of cooperation; even if only in the short term to achieve a goal and then dispose of the cooperant:

Gradually developed, lifespan-bound, task specific, competencies.
Things such as medical, agricultural, mechanical, structural, handicraft, bushcraft, and culinary skills could be applied over lifespan experience to generate greater value to individual playthrough lives, both to the benefit of the player and anyone that they may meet.  In this manner, a player who has survived a long while farming and hunting will generate more food for any group into which he/she may integrate.  All of this should be "behind the board" and only perceptible by observation of results.
Said player-lives would carry greater value to the group, in terms of product produced per growing cycle or animal harvested.  Other players would see an incentive to protect that player, and have incentive to delegate experience based tasks to players with a higher experiential competency in that category.  Farmers would likely be kept safe behind walls and oversee plot preparation and planting to help give experience to others, while attending and harvesting for greater yields. Experienced hunters may oversee hunts and provide security, perhaps taking a few butchering themselves for a greater yield;  it would be dangerous for an experienced hunter to risk skinning the first deer out in the open (or perhaps the last).

As I discussed with a friend over beers earlier, the potential for abuse and trolling will always be there.  As long-lived and masterful player-lives come to be known in a specific server ecosystem/economy, there will invariably be people who want to take out those more valuable and skilled player-lives who contribute to the skill-based economy.  Such is already the case, if anyone has played on a server with developed groups and factions/clans. People target the players who build and defend bases; the players who secure and maintain vehicles and do supply runs; people camp out farming plots near tents full of food, to kill the farmer after they get tired of seeing the tent full of vegetables keep coming back after numerous despawnings.

All this would add is more incentive to cooperate for some, and more specific interference-based hunt and kill goals for others.  Whichever way one plays it, it can only lead to more diverse and layered player motivations and interactions.

And that is what I think DayZ so desperately needs right now, to rise above the years-long quagmire of incremental not-quite-progress...

[pilgrim* 3514]

10 hours ago, emuthreat said:

  ..//..how to balance motivations and player behavior within the game mechanics...//..

The game is already balanced.

Weighting the game to favor your own style of gameplay is deeply silly.  That's like saying << after the disaster only NICE people will be left, BAD people will be punished and find it more difficult to survive>>" Dude - that's religion, that's not not what happens in a country-wide disaster-survival situation.  If you want to be religious or moral go right ahead - its YOUR choice, what YOU want to happen in-game.. MAKE it HAPPEN.. don't change the game rules to suit YOU and make it harder for otherstyles of play.. Apocalypse Survival = NO RULES... You want rules? - make your own IN the game. The ingame itself is "No Rules". 

The idea of building forts is coming up - why the HELL would you want to build a fort if the game was already WEIGHTED  so that people who wanted to Attack forts were ALREADY penalized in-game for their BAD attitude to your life and property ?  THEY wouldn't even arrive at the walls,  they wouldn't survive to GET there,  and you WOULDNT NEED walls.. because everyone would be nice, sane, peaceful and respectful.

If you want to build a cooperative civilization - go right ahead, the GAME is not stopping you. Only other players will stop you or help you. They will decide for themselves.
If you want to move to a Private whitelist server where only NICE people can play, go right ahead, the GAME is not stopping you.
On a private server that only permitted similar people sharing YOUR attitude I'm sure you'd find it a lot EASIER, everyone on there would agreed with you.. Then you could get what YOU want, DONE efficiently.

Meanwhile - the game is already balanced. If players want to eat raw worms or human flesh OR have three hot nourishing means a day - that's THEIR choice. If they want to form a military armed group and TAKE what they need from the bodies and tents of other players, that's THEIR choice.

Since day 1 of DayZ there have ALWAYS been 100% deathmatchers running round in Cherno (some GREAT ones) - and at the opposite extreme, for a LONG while there have been lone hunters out in the wilds who live off the land (some GREAT ones) . - Their CHOICE = their CHOICE...  Survivors who spawn into the game will find out for THEMSELVES what is wrong about the way they play and if it doesn't work they will change the way they play.. they will find a better strategy.  They will fit into DayZ and LEARN - or DayZ will kill them. And if DayZ does it's work PROPERLY then DayZ will kill them anyway.

.. What IS DayZ?

= It is a game about a place where society and all rules of law and conduct have collapsed. 

= 100% - that is what DayZ  IS, that is what it was DESIGNED to be.

The ONLY good change that could be made to DayZ now is =BOOT UP THE ZOMBIES=, make them BADDER, different, more of them, with varied behaviors, more unpredictable, give them more NPC processor time and more AI software space. 

Sorry, but that's the way it is..  new players to this game (once Xbox is really working) - should realize that their expectations don't count after the total collapse of civilization.  Their ideas of "dayz" are totally IN their HEADS.. not in the gaming reality. 
  You are on a beach in a place where there ARE NO rules of conduct.. if your expectations don't fit what happens, then DAMN, you have to change your expectations..

*

Better Zombies = definitely (if BI can DO it without making the game-instance too big, because bigger = more expensive to hire server space)

HUDs, statistics, kill counts, levels, zones, skills =  No point..; christmas tree glitter.. makes no difference to the REAL game.. icing sugar.. Who cares, doesn't CHANGE ANYTHING.

Guns: Ask Gews.

Game balance or weighting = No.

 

Edited September 11, 2018 by pilgrim*
xxP

[emuthreat 2837]

6 hours ago, pilgrim* said:

The game is already balanced.  I would have to disagree here, as it is still under development, which would be by definition unbalanced.

Weighting the game to favor your own style of gameplay is deeply silly.  That's like saying << after the disaster only NICE people will be left, BAD people will be punished and find it more difficult to survive>>" Dude - that's religion, that's not not what happens in a country-wide disaster-survival situation.  If you want to be religious or moral go right ahead - its YOUR choice, what YOU want to happen in-game.. MAKE it HAPPEN.. don't change the game rules to suit YOU and make it harder for otherstyles of play.. Apocalypse Survival = NO RULES... You want rules? - make your own IN the game. The ingame itself is "No Rules". 

Show me one thing I've said that would make it harder to shoot everyone a player encounters.  Just one thing, please. 
Tell me how adding benefits to lifespan experience favors only one group, and please identify that group as anything besides players who CHOOSE to do so. 
Tell me how being able to cut up peppers and zucchini and chicken, and boiling it together with rice for faster consumption and digestion would hurt any section of the player base in any real way, aside from their feelings that others maybe should not be able to do it if they choose.
Tell me how needing to wear socks to slow down the wear of ones shoes enforces any moral leanings whatsoever?

Tell me how any of those things would hurt others, and help me, based on my perceived virtues of their actions in game?

6 hours ago, pilgrim* said:

If you read carefully, nowhere am I at any point suggesting rules, or systems that assess player intents and demeanors.  Nowhere do I suggest penalties for moral decisions.  The closest thing that I suggest to any penalty, is shoe wear, and foot fatigue, both of which could be mitigated by keeping fresh socks; and that doesn't seem too out of order in an apocalypse survival simulator.  It actually feels like the game would be lacking by not having such considerations. I've seen multiple suggestions for socks. I'm sure someone will eventually mod them in as a consumable that decreases the decay rate of footwear. Extreme shoe wear was a thing back in one of the early .5x patches.  It is not out of the question, and it certainly does not benefit one play style over another--except maybe using vehicles--and why the hell should doing/using certain things or not, either benefit or hobble the player???

The idea of building forts is coming up - why the HELL would you want to build a fort if the game was already WEIGHTED  so that people who wanted to Attack forts were ALREADY penalized in-game for their BAD attitude to your life and property ?  THEY wouldn't even arrive at the walls,  they wouldn't survive to GET there,  and you WOULDNT NEED walls.. because everyone would be nice, sane, peaceful and respectful.

Again you misunderstand and interject your own ideas out of the blue.  What, specifically, about cumulative experience from food gathering and growing, would penalize someone who wants to raid a fort?  Would it not just make such forts more lucrative targets?  I fail to understand how you see any mechanic that improves the quality of outcomes over time, in any way penalizes other players for anything other than dying too frequently.  And if such is the case, I find it preposterous that you, or anyone, could object to a game penalizing the player for dying.  If some players don't like that the game rewards longevity of player lives with incremental improving outcomes, they can do something about it; arguably the same thing they would do regardless of the existence of such systems.

If you want to build a cooperative civilization - go right ahead, the GAME is not stopping you. Only other players will stop you or help you. They will decide for themselves.Already been done.  This is not necessarily what I'm talking about.
If you want to move to a Private whitelist server where only NICE people can play, go right ahead, the GAME is not stopping you. I'm starting to grow concerned for your reading comprehension skills.
On a private server that only permitted similar people sharing YOUR attitude I'm sure you'd find it a lot EASIER, everyone on there would agreed with you.. Then you could get what YOU want, DONE efficiently. Again, completely missing the point.  I' really starting to wonder if you read what you reply to.

Meanwhile - the game is already balanced. If players want to eat raw worms or human flesh OR have three hot nourishing means a day - that's THEIR choice. If they want to form a military armed group and TAKE what they need from the bodies and tents of other players, that's THEIR choice.
Hot nourishing meals??  Do you mean plain meat, cooked on one of two different ways???  OOOOHHHHH I'll take one bite of steak, then put it away and take out a zucchini and take a bite of that, repeat ad nauseum.  It makes no difference.  May as well just chug tacbac and call it a day...
This is exactly what I'm talking about, there is absolutely no benefit to eating one kind of food over another, and if you remember Dean's earlier statements, there was talk of punishing players for surviving on nothing but sodas.  It's one of the reasons i became interested in this game.
I truly thought they were trying to create a sandbox with a diverse ecosystem of choices and motivators.  Now the only choice as I head inland is should I avoid Stary and Novy if i want to survive?  And the answer is almost always YES

IIRC, the decision to damage items in player inventories was a direct measure to try to mitigate the trend of players almost always choosing to kill and rob other players, instead reward them for taking a different approach by getting more intact gear by robbing.
There is already a precedent for trying to influence player behavior (mitigate rampant KOS) through adjusting game mechanics.

And before you misread this again as me saying I want to eliminate all KOS players from the game and confiscate their GFX cards.  Get the fuck real here...  Come on, seriously, enough with this bullshit about wanting to force people to be carebears.  NOBODY IS SAYING THAT.

I want to see more motivators, more choices, more consequences of those choices, and the opportunity for some combinations of choices to take on synergistic benefits or detriments to the overall condition of the player.  It is boring as fuck to get a raincoat and a gun and a knife, maybe a water bottle and hatchet, and never have to worry about anything but other players again for the course of a lifespan.

A player who eats nothing but tacbac, baked beans, and spaghetti is going to have elevated sodium levels and use more water; and have higher blood pressure, which might appropriately translate to bleeding out faster from injuries.
Please tell me, how does this concept force a player to be nice to me, or distinctly benefit myself to the detriment of all others?

Since day 1 of DayZ there have ALWAYS been 100% deathmatchers running round in Cherno (some GREAT ones) - and at the opposite extreme, for a LONG while there have been lone hunters out in the wilds who live off the land (some GREAT ones) . - Their CHOICE = their CHOICE...  Survivors who spawn into the game will find out for THEMSELVES what is wrong about the way they play and if it doesn't work they will change the way they play.. they will find a better strategy.  They will fit into DayZ and LEARN - or DayZ will kill them. And if DayZ does it's work PROPERLY then DayZ will kill them anyway.
Yes this is true.  To put it plainly, the majority of the playerbase is intensely polarized into seeking out anyone to shoot and kill, and people who take great measures to avoid other players--likely because of the deterministic credo of the first group.
In what way is it either objectively or subjectively wrong or harmful to either group, to try filling in the middle ground a bit more, by adding more choices and motivators to the game?  How would any of the things I mentioned prevent either group from doing what they do?

.. What IS DayZ?

= It is a game about a place where society and all rules of law and conduct have collapsed. 

= 100% - that is what DayZ  IS, that is what it was DESIGNED to be.

The ONLY good change that could be made to DayZ now is =BOOT UP THE ZOMBIES=, make them BADDER, different, more of them, with varied behaviors, more unpredictable, give them more NPC processor time and more AI software space. 

Sorry, but that's the way it is..  new players to this game (once Xbox is really working) - should realize that their expectations don't count after the total collapse of civilization.  Their ideas of "dayz" are totally IN their HEADS.. not in the gaming reality. 
  You are on a beach in a place where there ARE NO rules of conduct.. if your expectations don't fit what happens, then DAMN, you have to change your expectations..  Again with rules of conduct.  You get bogged down in moral determinism, and avoid the reality that a game is the sum of its systems and its players.
To a very predictable degree, the type of assets and choices in a game will determine what players CAN do, but not necessarily what they WILL do.  In a game where you cannot directly harm another player, there is still griefing.  A good example of this is COD zombies introducing grief mode, as a means of hopefully getting antisocial players to play in those servers, rather than ruin the game for everyone else.  (Disclaimer, because apparently it is necessary to repeat this every time I hint at the prospect that some behaviors have possibly negative effects on the overall outcome of a game.  I'm not saying that KOS necessarily ruins the game or that KOS are all bad people, but rather acknowledging that the prevalence of the violence begets violence attitude that has turned into a feedback loop in which vastly more players seem to kill than cooperate.)

The facilities of the game influence and inform the conduct of the players.  Radios are in the game.  Are we to believe that radios are in the game solely intended as a means to shit-talk over distance or troll other players into a trap?  I will make the inductive leap here, that radios were added to facilitate communication and cooperation between players; the notion that communication and cooperation are some of the expected behaviors that the game was designed to facilitate.  Along the same lines, on might argue that guns were also put into the game, so they are there for the express purpose of shooting players.  This is misleading however, because zombies and wolves and deer and chickens may also be shot; guns have a mixed purpose of cooperative defense and resource collection as well as aggression.

If there were to be items in the game that required two players to move, to lift into a flatbed or the boot of a car, would this be seen as forcing cooperation?  Perhaps.  Would it literally force players to cooperate? NO.  Would it exclude players who don't cooperate from certain activities? YES.  
Is this necessarily a bad thing in a game, to have items, actions, or opportunities that the player must perform a specific task in order to achieve? No; rather I believe it is something close to the definition of a game.  Does a lone wolf sniper lose out on an opportunity to collect a generator or some other large piece of equipment? YES.  Does he do so because of barriers to success, or personal preference?  Does a new player who wants to build a base, but has no friends who play this game lose out?  Possibly; depending on his ability to find another player to cooperate with.

Is cooperation in DayZ a bad thing?  According to your anarcho-regressive analysis, possibly.  But you balk at making any judgements about what is desired or expected behavior based on the design and purpose of the game.  What seems important to you, or not, is that the people who play the game do so because they enjoy it.  Some players enjoy shooting others which is wholeheartedly facilitated by all the guns and ammo, and other players running around; it doesn't matter what kind of players, as they all equally can be shot.  Some players enjoy meeting new people and going on adventures.  This is somewhat less readily facilitated by the current offering of game assets.  Players who shoot on sight do not need any incentive to do so, and there is nothing meaningfully obstructing their means of doing so.  Players who wish to cooperate are obstructed by the reality of 4 out of 5 encounters involving being shot at for no apparent reason other than they are there to be shot, and the other player has a gun.

Measures taken to incentivize cooperation would not harm the ability of any player to shoot another player.  The first group would lose nothing.  Measures taken to incentivize cooperation might cause players who wish to accomplish something other than creating dead bodies, to take more risks and shoot fewer people on sight; opting instead to assess their willingness to cooperate.  Players from the first group would lose being shot at as often, which is subjectively good or bad based on their expectations.  Players from the second group would gain more opportunities to talk to players instead of being immediately shot, which would be a net benefit.


As you can see, incentives to cooperation will have a net benefit on the overall playerbase.  Those who do not wish to do so, will lose nothing, and those who do, will gain more opportunities to have a richer play experience.  Please, tell me how I am wrong.  Don't go off on a tangent about rules and expectations again, as I am not talking about forcing people to make "morally acceptable"  choices.  I am talking about more diverse game mechanics providing rewards for cooperation and longer periods of survival.  They will be available to everyone who CHOOSES to want them, and will not take anything away from uninterested players, that they have not already refused.

Better Zombies = definitely (if BI can DO it without making the game-instance too big, because bigger = more expensive to hire server space)

HUDs, statistics, kill counts, levels, zones, skills =  No point..; christmas tree glitter.. makes no difference to the REAL game.. icing sugar.. Who cares, doesn't CHANGE ANYTHING.

Guns: Ask Gews.

Game balance or weighting = No.

 

I really have a hard time trying to understand why so many players object to allowing players to have things that cannot be taken for future use by another player by killing them?  It's not like nobody has ever seen a movie or television show where a doctor is kidnapped and forced to perform a procedure at gunpoint?
Does it really hurt the snipers of Sverograd if some guy they are shooting at has survived for two weeks, and can repair a truck tire in 30 seconds instead of a minute and a half, because he has done it many times before and it is now easier?  Should anybody care if it hurts the players who are only taking potshots at other for lolz.  I believe response to it might appropriately be "git guud."

Is there really any logical chain of reasoning by which ADDING MORE to the game, WILL TAKE ANYTHING AWAY FROM ANYONE???

Please, if there is tell me.  Explain to me how a player surviving long enough to perform a dozen or more blood transfusions getting better results than a fresh spawn trying for the first time, takes anything away from anyone?
From my perspective, it would only add value to certain players, both as a resource to coerce into service for oneself, and as a higher LULZ factor target for trolls.


It would be super cool if anyone who responds could actually respond to the content of my posts, rather than regress into some diatribe about forcing people to behave nicely and wanting to directly control what people can or can not do.

I've read back over my posts, and so far, all I can get is the impression that I think it would be beneficial for everyone if there was more depth of play, facilitated by many of the player choices already in the game having more than just a superficial and immediate effect.

[cirkular 178]

On 9/11/2018 at 12:18 AM, soods said:

Wonder if they will make damaged weapon have an affect...

Actually, that's the way it worked for some time now. I mean you'd get weapon jams so you have to recock the weapon to eject the faulty bullet. It'd be cool if some really powerful gun was that badly damaged and maintained that it could finally explode in your hand or even face hahah

8 hours ago, pilgrim* said:

The game is already balanced.

.....

Better Zombies = definitely (if BI can DO it without making the game-instance too big, because bigger = more expensive to hire server space)

HUDs, statistics, kill counts, levels, zones, skills =  No point..; christmas tree glitter.. makes no difference to the REAL game.. icing sugar.. Who cares, doesn't CHANGE ANYTHING.

Guns: Ask Gews.

Game balance or weighting = No.

 

This is clear. I was also just addressing to some people who might have some ideas of punishment mechanics in game to prevent or reduce PVP ... I mean it should be just as real as possible. 

What @emuthreat says here strikes chords in my book too, as he is not really talking about balancing the existing features, but the features that are missing from the game and really should be there to make this game stand out with its already great shooter mechanics. That could incent people to do something else other than run around, loot and shoot. I'd also go for these medical/crafting skills to be totally unknown to a new character. He'd be hardly able to do shit, say he bandaged but it won't stop bleeding just yet. Or later the wound from that first fight soon reopens. So he needs to use more bandages in the beginning of his life. And then as time progresses and with practice he is actually able to do something properly with that. Similar goes with crafting and farming. Just make the player use more materials and resources.

These are all good ideas but massive to produce. And I can't wait to see how much the Dayz devs want it to be different from other games. Many popular multiplayer games are much simpler compared to this, many people buy and play those games and the developers and publishers can pay their bills (and more). Which is fine as not everyone has time and patience to deal with the more complex stuff.

[pilgrim* 3514]

3 minutes ago, cirkular said:

..//
I can't wait to see how much the Dayz devs want it to be different from other games.
..//..

Leveling -  skills -  score -  make DayZ the SAME as 100 other games.  = Skills, HUD, Leveling, Stamina, Score,  turn DayZ into Tomb Raider multiplayer. 

[emuthreat 2837]

39 minutes ago, pilgrim* said:

Leveling -  skills -  score -  make DayZ the SAME as 100 other games.  = Skills, HUD, Leveling, Stamina, Score,  turn DayZ into Tomb Raider multiplayer. 

Reductive and misleading.  You seem to conveniently ignore that character death will remove all progress, and infer that leveling will need to have some sort of stats management interface.  I don't even know where your interjection of keeping score came from.

The mod touted its brutal environment by having a ticker of the average player lifespan.  The game was hard, and survival in itself was the reward.  In SA, survival is too easy, players get bored, and the only engaging thing to do is go shoot people or troll them by despawning bases.
Nothing about that is gritty or authentic.  Nowhere in a lawless apocalyptic landscape would the prevailing behavior be to kill other people and torch their resources.  Face it, DayZ has stagnated into little more than a platform for trolling people.
Only on private servers or with dedicated communities, does anything really interesting emerge from this platform, and those people have to try very hard to make anything worthwhile happen.

DayZ already has so many other things that other games do not, that seemingly go to waste.  All of the books in the game.  More or less just a pointless novelty, good only for curiosity of tinder.  Why not add technical, medical, and survival manuals, and make them actually DO SOMETHING?
Would it be so terribly frustrating to have to find a truck manual to change the sparkplugs for the first time without downgrading the condition of the plugs; or simply avoid the manual and know that you'll have to do it 4 times to not damage them. Maybe after changing them ten times in a life, the  player can now do this as quickly as possible without damaging any parts.  This would reward survival, which was the main goal of this game, or at least that's what it was initially sold to me as.

It is telling, that rather than directly respond to my points, you again throw out the red herring of making DayZ the same as other games by adding all kinds of things which i never even mention.  I'm starting to doubt if you are capable of responding directly and honestly to the issues I raised.

Darn those amyloid proteins, sooner or later they'll get us all.

[Devast8r 6]

Unimaginative simpletons? The excellent feeling you get when you ambush a 3 man squad will change your mind its a survival game you can't trust anyone only your real friends

[pilgrim* 3514]

19 hours ago, emuthreat said:

While all of the survivalist theories might be interesting, and perhaps useful to someone writing a thesis on DayZ player behavior motives and modes, it is largely irrelevant to the discussion of how to balance motivations and player behavior within the game mechanics.

 

51 minutes ago, emuthreat said:

You get bogged down in moral determinism, and avoid the reality that a game is the sum of its systems and its players.

wow EM, make your mind up !  this guy derides theories" then spouts -<< moral determinism >> - then launches into his THEORY =     !!!! (LINE of AMAZED exclamation marks) . And you are the guy who says I avoid the REALITY of the GAME,  when I am the guy who asks:

What is DayZ .. ??

Dear Emuthreat:

I think changing your socks would be GREAT in DayZ (but not vital) [BNV] (BNV = "but not vital", OK?)

I think changing your broken shoelaces AND using them to strangle other players would be GREAT in DayZ [BNV]

I think making Zuccini & mixed-fruits salads with handmade goat's cheese & Pasta and Beef Stroganof would be great in DayZ [BNV]

I think WASHING you face and CLEANING your teeth would be great in DayZ [BNV]

And manufacturing black Pudding from pigs blood and intestines - (with alternatives for players of alternative faiths, naturally) [BNV]

p.s. I think having blankets and bedsheets would be great in DayZ. A WHOLE COUNTRY with ZERO blankets is very odd.. what happened to them all?

I think pillowcases would be very useful in DayZ [BNV]

I think chopping up wooden doors, woodn walls, whole shacks, and furniture to make fires (or boats) would be great in DayZ [BNV]

I think several different species of fish and the different kinds of bait and tackle you need to catch them would be great in DayZ [BNV]

I think wearing a cap on backwards would be brilliant in Dayz [BNV]

I think an extended pocket edition fireside cookbook of delicious meals and Tasty Burgers would be Great in DayZ [BNV]

I think making BREAD would be a necessary part of any emergent agrarian peaceful society in DayZ [BNV]

I think extracting salt from seawater would be a fine way of preserving animal products [BNV]

Dairy farming would be great in Dayz, and each cow could be given an individual  calling name, like in Real Life dairy farms [BNV]

I think building a monastery would be great in DayZ [BNV]

I think a viking long-ship would be brilliant in DayZ, to raid monasteries. As well as helicopter gunships. [BNV]

I think sewing leather patches on the elbows of your jacket so it lasts longer would be great in DayZ [BNV]

I notice there are BOOKS in DayZ but no one spends a lot of time reading, but more books by the ancient classical authors, (and some soft erotica)  would be great in DayZ [BNV]

Catching rare butterflies and mounting them in frames would be a great activity in DayZ [But Not Vital]

Especially cooking up complex gourmet meals would be totally the best PEACEFUL UNLESS RAIDED  activity . [BNV] And wine to go with it would be great in DayZ, [BNV] Add wineglasses to the loot list. [BNV]

Folding camp chairs? [NV]

*

If I were YOU -  I would PUSH to have these beautiful additions included in th game. Then players could NOT make use of them unless they wanted to, except for the list of NECESSARY actions - such as changing your SOCKS.. The list of things you have to do could be made longer and longer and longer..

and longer

see?.. no moral determinism here, dude just a simple statement (which you missed?)

You ask  << Is there really any logical chain of reasoning by which ADDING MORE to the game, WILL TAKE ANYTHING AWAY FROM ANYONE??? >>

well, yes, of course there is.

Firstly - if you double the size of the game  - the price of hiring a server instance will double.

Secondly - If you have to gut a deer the way you gut a deer in real life it will take a whole long series of more complex actions than waving a knife over it to turn it into spare ribs & steaks. Really.

Thirdly - If you want a game that imitates the total breakdown of law and order then the ONLY weighting you can give to the gameplay "direction" is the weighting that EACH PLAYER brings to the game themselves.

WE do not want to ENCOURAGE players to play in ANY manner whatever EXCEPT their OWN

 

1 hour ago, emuthreat said:

Show me one thing I've said that would make it harder to shoot everyone a player encounters

well .. It would be harder to shoot someone if you did not point a gun at them.
Yoda told me, ..but  I thought even kids knew this.. Basic gun safety rules apply before AND after the apocalypse. But it has to be the PLAYER who decides that, otherwise the player is NOT in a Decide For Yourself game.. The consequences of player's actions are already built into the game.. If a player wants to shoot someone it is NOT my problem unless he's trying to shoot Me. But I can MAKE it my problem if I choose to..  WHY would you want to make it harder or easier to shoot people (marksman Level 19 versus handgun Level 06 ?) (or  maybe a shootout between Mechanic level 22 versus  Root Crop Farmer level 43?) ...  don't be silly. 

A ) - Trying to twist this game about a LAWLESS zombified country  into a Jesuitical Educational Game to encourage human nature to change will in fact Destroy DayZ utterly.

If you want civilization in the game.. go into the game and create it.

<<Please don't shoot me I've got fishing level 9 and bandaging level 14>>  BANG.

If you want socks to wear out regularly (and decrease your stamina) and ladders to rust unless you paint them regularly, etc  .. lobby for it. (but it will not happen). Tweaks will happen. Hell, maybe one day you will even get socks you have to change and carrots you have to boil for 7 minutes. - That will b'e sooooooooooooo NEAT. It will radically change MY game play (and lose another few % of players).

B ) - No levels, no skills, no specialties, no experience points, no scores - dump all that shit. Why turn DayZ into a too-complicated STANDARD game? = BIG waste of effort. DayZ is NOT and NEVER WAS and Never Will Be a levels, skills, experience points, awards, scores, GAME. That is why it was made.

If you think that is what you want, you are mistaken. When you have those things is the day you will leave the game, because it will not be different from any other game.

Just get the zombies up to speed; that will cheer you up. 

xxP

[pilgrim* 3514]

1 hour ago, emuthreat said:

Would it be so terribly frustrating to have to find a truck manual to change the sparkplugs for the first time without downgrading the condition of the plugs; or simply avoid the manual and know that you'll have to do it 4 times to not damage them

YES

1 hour ago, emuthreat said:

Only on private servers or with dedicated communities, does anything really interesting emerge from this platform

{sigh}  THREE posts and 11 hours ago Pilgrim (that's me) said :

11 hours ago, pilgrim* said:

On a private server that only permitted similar people sharing YOUR attitude I'm sure you'd find it a lot EASIER, everyone on there would agreed with you.. Then you could get what YOU want, DONE efficiently.

So you DO live on a private cooperative server and you STILL want the game changed ? wow.. is it getting boring in there? .. I thought we were talking about the REAL DayZ for any player.

2 hours ago, emuthreat said:

Show me one thing I've said that would make it harder to shoot everyone a player encounters. Just one thing, please. 

er.. "Living on a private server with a dedicated community."

1 hour ago, emuthreat said:

In SA, survival is too easy, players get bored, and the only engaging thing to do is go shoot people or troll them by despawning bases.

Right before the START of this long green (?) diatribe on the vapid boredom of living on a private cooperative server [ which I was NOT talking about -  but that is a choice DayZ lets you make. ] -  Back at the start of the long green comment, Pilgrim (that's me) said:

11 hours ago, pilgrim* said:

The ONLY good change that could be made to DayZ now is =BOOT UP THE ZOMBIES=, make them BADDER, different, more of them, with varied behaviors, & more unpredictable. Give them more NPC processor time and more AI software space. 

 

[cirkular 178]

2 hours ago, pilgrim* said:

Leveling -  skills -  score -  make DayZ the SAME as 100 other games.  = Skills, HUD, Leveling, Stamina, Score,  turn DayZ into Tomb Raider multiplayer. 

Alright I get that completely, but surely I did not write anything like leveling and scores. And no one is really changing the game here until we get a riot about it. These are just talks and suggestions. Anyway the "skill" term for some people goes as far as changing a light bulb. What we can do in this game, other than shooting are features like crafting, sometimes critically needed and similar.

What I implied is that these features could have different rates of success and time needed which could add some more diversity, for want of a better word. Nothing like stats, but only a result should be really visible.