Roll the Dice | RANDOMESS SYSTEM FOR DAYZ

[dannyboyle 15]

"Roll the Dice" introduces hidden probability-driven systems into the game engine, making the world simulation feel more organic, less scripted, and increasing emergent unpredictability. It emulates the dice-roll mechanics of tabletop RPGs, but without visible UI or stats, keeping the simulation immersive and grounded.

-Core Mechanism: Hidden Probability Engine

-Each object, action, and environmental factor has probabilities attached.

-These probabilities can be modified by contextual variables: weather, terrain, time, proximity, behavior, etc.

-The dice roll (probability calculation) occurs silently in the engine and decides outcomes.

-These events don't break realism—they're believable, rare or common depending on situation, and organically affect gameplay.

ROLL THE DICE SYSTEM
INTRODUCTION
Roll the dice is a probability-based system. This system aims to improve the organicity of the situations within the open world DayZ videogame by adding randomness to the elements of the game, giving a perception of more realism and imperfection in the world simulation.

The system basically works with a mathematical probability algorithm and several detection systems determined for each situation, like the thunder system of RDR2 but expanded to many more areas and enhanced. The system affects objects, NPCs, weather and other elements that you want to incorporate. Is like rolling a dice  to calculate consequences, each surface, object, character, or perseverance over time can have a probability that may end in an outcome.

It is about adding unpredictability, not knowing what can happen, based on a dice probability system that the player does not see, all that probability happens in the game engine, as if it were a classic role-playing game where you roll dice to see if something happens or not.

This system can be taken as far as the engine allows, and obviously the players are not going to see dices like in Disco Elysium, the dice is not visible, the probabilities are not visible to the players, nor are there any dice.

RESUME: The game engine introduces a system of variables that makes world situations more likely to occur or not, something natural that happens in life, but not in many games that are mathematical and fixed, everything is square and not organic, this introduces organicity.

Several examples to make it easier to understand: 

SURFACES: surfaces could be conditioned with probabilities such as falling or breaking, these probabilities could increase other data elements, with rain or how many times a player has stepped on an area.

-Each surface in the game could have a probability based on the real probability of slipping and falling to the ground. Cement, mud, dirt, ice, each surface will have different probabilities of slipping and these probabilities can be affected by other elements like acceleration, how much we run, if there are holes or stones on the ground, we are close to them. The random NPC fall, together with the physics engine and collision detection could also cause the NPC to take a hit and get hurt. Whether or not harm is done could also be assessed by the probability system, taking into account the type of surface and the body area.

In this RDR2 gif you can see an enemy NPC running towards us and slipping, this isn't in the vanilla game, this is a game modification that makes that happen.

It must be said that the probability of slipping on concrete is very low, and we may hardly see it. This could affect the infected, to generate more realistic situations, although it could also be implemented in the player. It would be very funny to see how an enemy goes for you to hit you, it's a mud surface and the algorithm determines that the fall is triggered.

These falls of two-legged characters could be simply triggered if the physics engine was good at handling raggdolls, this generates a much more real dynamic feeling.

-A cracked wooden floor in a house could break if players pass over that spot multiple times, this value will be random and once delivered it will be fixed, it could also break if several players are in the same spot in that place due to the weight, although this would not require any probability.
-Ice in a season when it's no longer cold could break if we step on it.

OBJECTS: the probability system can also affect objects,

-Weapons can explode when used based on wear + usage.
-A pine cone can fall on us from a pine tree if we walk through a forest where there are many pine trees, the probability could be triggered if a player or NPC enters a detection area, wind increases the probability.
-A tree in poor condition can fall. Different asset trees in poor condition would be crafted and these would have the possibility of falling without the players knowing.The probability could be triggered if a player or NPC enters a detection area.
-If you are carrying a physical map or radio, falling into the water could mean that the map may break, or part of it, or the phone may stop working, depending on the time spent in the water and the depth.
-Wooden ladders could break when climbing and fall due to poor condition, or a metal ladder on a high antenna could also come loose in part.

 

NO PLAYABLE CHARACTERS: npcs could have a wide variety of probabilities, from having a heart attack, spraining an ankle, tripping, endless possibilities.

HUMAN NPCs: 

DIALOGUE NPCs:  This can also affect dialogue. If you have NPCs with interactive dialogue, what you say could sometimes be determined by probability. For example, an NPC might forgive you for losing an item you were supposed to return, or he might simply attack you for losing it, which would create a sense of real unpredictability.

INFECTED NPCs:
-Infected become distracted randomly and attack other infected briefly (AI confusion).
-If you have been infected by scratches from being hit by an infected person it would also be a probability.
-They can die and collapse, have a heart attack, a blood clot, organ malfunction, not having eaten, or having an infection.

ANIMAL NPCs: The same thing with NPCs would happen to animals, they could have more realistic randomness systems where they have unpredictable behaviors.
-A dead bird could fall from the sky onto someone's head/car.
-An animal may appear dead or die when you see it due to natural causes.
-A bear might attack you or run away.
-Bee swarm near a hive (can be triggered by player proximity or a change in weather).

 

CLIMATE: the climate would also be influenced by this probability system
-Weather such as a storm could cause an object to become detached, a sign could come off and could hurt someone.
-The wind could make you drop your cap and have to fetch it.
-Rain could flood an area, or not.
-Lightning in a storm could strike a player, especially on high mountains or under trees, It could also fall if you are on a metal antenna.

 

VEHICLES: vehicles can also have variables like these.
-Randomly catching fire.
-Engine stalling.
-Steering breaking
-Flat tire.
-The car horn might stop working, or the radio.
Door gets jammed and takes longer to open, we can exit through the passenger seat. 

 

I'm not saying DayZ has to have all of these things, but I think some of them could be implemented and over the years the system could be improved and made better. The system would not be constantly calculating probabilities because that would cost a lot of resources, probabilities could be activated by entering the interactive elements area or by the random activation of the probability system, always with random timings based on data from the objects. Additionally, a probability system creates a better impression of AI in animated elements since they have unpredictability, and unpredictability is the key to making a player feel that a game seems real, without abusing it.

It would make players feel that random things can happen to them or their environment, unplanned by surprise as happens in life. Not everything would depend on your control with the controller, there would be things that you could not control and that would happen sporadically.

I could go on because the creativity with a probability system is infinite and would give a lot of organicity to the games, I know that games use probability for some elements, but not in this way, and if they do it is in very specific elements.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 18 by dannyboyle

[Riddick_2K 193]

You noticed that you are writing in the DayZ forum, yes? Have you ever played it before? How many hours do you have? Do you really think that these are priorities or, in any case, things that are really possible to see in a future in DayZ?
Anyway, great presentations... 😉

[dannyboyle 15]

17 minutes ago, Riddick_2K said:

You noticed that you are writing in the DayZ forum, yes? Have you ever played it before? How many hours do you have? Do you really think that these are priorities or, in any case, things that are really possible to see in a future in DayZ?
Anyway, great presentations... 😉

Yeah, I know that is the dayz forum.

I think Bohemia can incorporate some of this randomess elements, it's really not something complex to incorporate, some are simple spawns or values, for example:

-A bird falling from the sky is a spawn of an object falling from a certain height using gravity physics, in this case a bird with health value to 0.
-A helicopter that stops working is simply an engine that is shut down with no way to restart, engine value to 0.
-An infected dying from collapse is simply setting its health value to 0 as if you had shot it enough to kill it + ragdoll physics.
-A tree falling unexpectedly is simply activating its falling physics.
-A bear that decides not to attack you is simply AI acting with passive mode, just like a deer or a goat escaping from you.
-An infected attacking another infected is just AI targeting someone else.

None of these systems require rewriting core mechanics — mostly they leverage what's already possible via scripting in DayZ or similar sandbox environments. Perhaps the most complex aspect is knowing how to manage this randomness so that it doesn't occur constantly and appear artificial.

For example, a random event could be triggered every hour or two on the server by selecting a random player. When the time comes, it picks a player, then checks where the player is and what interactive elements are around them. It randomly selects one and executes it—sometimes the player won’t even realize something happened.

Thunder would perhaps require using an effect and giving coordinates on the map to that effect during the storms, if the coordinates match the player, he dies, it doesn't seem like a complicated system to me, to be honest.

 

As you can see, it's nothing sophisticated, low development cost and high gameplay impact. Anyone who makes mods with scripts can create something like this with many elements.

 

[Riddick_2K 193]

@dannyboyle

Well, said like that, obviously, it's all easy... I don't know if it is also in practice, I don't know C/C+ programming (DayZ is written in C, if I'm not mistaken).
I only think of 2 things (not unique but as examples):
*) How things went, patch after patch, since I started playing and "managing" a server (first vanilla 2020, then I added a modded 2023, both offline, now.).
*) A simple (trivial) fact that is there for all to see: the number of glitched hats inside the heads of the infected... for a long, long time already. Don't tell me that it's a "rare and random" thing and that the programmers, "normally" taking care of the writing of the game before distributing it, couldn't notice.
All this leads me to think that you are overestimating them.
And I don't mean only as "ability", but also as "interest in taking care of the game". Many choices are deliberate, not "errors" in programming or... "oversights".
And the more players tell them "good, good, what great things you do" (blissfully ignoring all the previous flaws and bullshit; unfortunately even many "famous" Youtubers), the more they will feel entitled to add weapons and hats and "not care" (or, in some cases, "take it easy") about everything else.
In any case, it is your right to try to "suggest" these changes...
Best wishes... 😉

P.S.
Personally, even if I agree with many of your suggestions, I would be happier to see the game "fixed at the base", before any other changes or additions. 😔
My 5 cents.