Make Death Last a bit Longer

[ElGandarko 0]

So currently, death is pretty punishing. You lose all your gear and you're thrown back to the ol' bean coast. But now you've got your Makarov in hand, I usually find there is nothing to fear. When I have nothing but my Makarov and a couple tins of beans, I have no qualms with charging into cherno/elektro. If I get shot, what do I lose? Typically, I gain something. By the time I die, I'll have usually used a Makarov clip, maybe eaten some beans; so when I return, I am restocked with these items.

Furthermore, sometimes death isn't that punishing. If a player dies, they have the chance to return to their corpse to get all (or most of) their old loot! As long as nobody else has found it before them, they can lay claim to everything there. Now, I do enjoy this little feature, though it is rather immersion breaking. And when you have a squad, you can pretty much guarantee you will be able to make it to your stuff, as they can just set up a defensive perimeter around your corpse.

What I suggest is a countdown before the player can respawn, maybe 10, 15 or 30 minutes, depending on how brutal Rocket is feeling. Now I know a lot of people won't like the sounds of this, as it not only does it lead to less playtime, but it'll be much harder to get your old equipment should you die. But the benefits it brings, such as preventing "Makarov modes" from laughing in the face of death and also bringing that extra bit of punishment to death, should far outweigh the times players have to walk away from their keyboard for a bit as they wait for the player to respawn.

Before you reply to this, let me just remind you this game is designed to be brutal. It is designed to evoke emotion from the player, and it is designed to be unforgiving. Having to wait for awhile after you die isn't that bad, unless you spend your time on the bean coast and you get shot every half an hour.

Edit:

I realise this change would make bandits even more aggravating and would also annoy a lot of people. But that is the general point of the game. It isn't supposed to hold your hand while you have fun frolicking around a zombie apocalypse. It is supposed to slap you in the face and tell you to live on your own, survive as you can. This means staying out of the way of bandits, if you're crying because bandits kill you then that is precisely what the game wanted you to do. It wants you to feel pain and suffering, not just joy and excitement. Or at least, that is what I have taken from the things Rocket has said and the way the game plays already.

There is a plus side to this though, with players knowing that death is that much more punishing, they may be less likely to wildly shoot other players. I'm not saying it will definitely prevent some of the playing killing, but those of us with more of a conscience than others will probably think twice before sending someone to the respawn screen.

[Legacy (DayZ) 1091]

I think this should be an optional feature for servers, a 'extreme' variant of the server since we're getting so damn big.

Also this suggestion reminds me of this

[mooncabbage 2]

Right now all you'd have to do is kick someone from the server on death, someone else would take their slot and that'd be it.

Pros: A delay on respawning, if coupled with ejection from the server, would allow more people to get on to the currently packed out servers. It'd also add a significant death penalty. I remember when I started playing, I was quickly down to no ammo in my makarov and a single tin of beans, death would have been advantageous. I played on anyway because I like a challenge but I can see the point.

Cons: Too serious a death penalty could make bandits into something truely reviled. Right now being a bandit is fair play for the most part. Making death too serious could have a very profound effect on the tone of the gameplay.

Just my thoughts. A 5-10 minute delay would probably be ok, especially if it helped take a tiny bit of strain off the server, and remind noobs to be a bit cautious. It's definitely a double edged sword though.

[Shyoto 1]

Being as how I spend little enough time as it is trying to get into the frackin' servers as it is with all the goddamn waiting, I absolutely refuse to add more time to that.

As far as "looting your old stuff back" goes, Hell, my squaddies don't even bother setting up around the corpse any more. We simply loot the best bits, throw tools like map and compass into someone's backpack, then we all go meet somewhere else. So all adding time to our deaths would do is... Stop us from playing.

Think about it realistically now...

You want to punish players by stopping them from playing?

I don't really have anything else to say other than "This is a terrible idea."

[ParaB 114]

No, thank you.

It's still supposed to be a game and be enjoyable. I can deal with losing all my items and stats when I get killed, but having to wait half an hour before I can actually play again after some guy sniped me is breaking the line from "harsh" and "brutal" to "annoying" and "unfair".

My advice: hit yourself over the head with a frying pan every time you get killed.

^^