Case for Clothing System (and supplemental add ons)

[Zefoxe 0]

Hi, after watching the Rezzed video I got a better understanding of what the dev's are looking for in game.

Survival.

After playing for half a month, i love the game and love that i hate it so much that I end up playing an hour later after cursing it out lol. What I have gathered is that the hunger/thirst system is great as well as injuries. I also have noticed the temperature system as well but don't feel its implemented to its full extents yet. This is where I figured clothing can play a huge factor as well as affect many aspects of the game itself.

First, clothing should have wear and tear to them like in real life. After a few run ins with Zeds, crawling across the ground for hours, your clothes reduce your protection to the elements. As the clothing completely wears down it can turn into rags which players can use as a bandage or even to create other items (Molotov's anyone?)

Second, I know there is talk of statistics so maybe when a character is created they are given a random sized character that requires a specific size of clothing. Since this is an apocalyptic setting, a player can always wear whatever size clothing they find, but they'll also find their character slightly hindered by incorrect sizing (reduced movement from clothing too small, reduced accuracy to aim from clothing too large) At the moment with beta, this can be simply tested by creating women's vs men's clothing.

Third, proper clothing for proper weather. Players may find their character become too cold at night and require the need for a coat whereas during the afternoon theyll find their character overheating from their jacket after a nice jog with Zeds.

With these points across, i feel this may help develop a barter system amongst friendly players to help share clothes for food or ammo, etc. It could also make the character feel more individual. This also gives bandits something else to play with, strip a fellow player down to their undies and leave them to die :)

With this in motion I would expect the devs to make ghillie suits difficult to attain. My suggestion (in a finalized version) would be to implement either a huge building structure filled with Zeds that would be almost impossible to infiltrate solo, and in effect create an end game / party system to infiltrate these structures (i.e. underground military base / giant sports stadium that was taken over by military before virus took over the land) Bandits of course could always creep behind a party or join then sabotage the party if they'd like to try attain high end items and ghillie suits on their own

A system that I would try to implement to prevent a player of logging off and going to another server to reloot this type of structure would be to somehow create an Invisible flame (so other players wont be able to see them) attached to the character for a limited time (30 secs maybe?) that would attract Zeds to the player within a ~0.5 mile radius. This would encourage players to log off in a safe area out in the wilderness and wont penalize people playing by the rules. Please let me know what you think or can build off of with this! :D

[Zefoxe 0]

Only gonna bump this once since I posted it kinda late last nite

[thedog88 180]

i also like the clothing idea. what i suggested on dev heavon. if u wear ur clothes for a while they turn dirty and the smell attracts zeds and wild animals make a run from you. you should be able to wash them at ponds and wells to get the smell out. it should take hours to get then dirty though. also make a larger variety of clothing. i doubt we all would be wearing the same clothes durig an outbreak. also wear and tear like u said. for example. u could loose 2 slots of inventory if your cargo pockets rip off. but add sewing kits to fix partially shredded clothes. this whole would force the player to keep his clothing semi clean and wearable. just my 2 cents

[InbredScorpion (DayZ) 1]

Whilst I don't think the first idea would work too well mostly due to the fact that, it would be insanely difficult to make a system where clothes slowly degrade, and different clothing being too small/large, et cetera. I do like your idea for the whole needing a jacket to keep warm (assuming temperature ever gets to a state where I am not at a brain-melting fever constantly). Overheating is a little bit extreme, it'd take a lot more to overheat. Maybe your thirst decreases as you continue to run.

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i also like the clothing idea. what i suggested on dev heavon. if u wear ur clothes for a while they turn dirty and the smell attracts zeds and wild animals make a run from you. you should be able to wash them at ponds and wells to get the smell out. it should take hours to get then dirty though. also make a larger variety of clothing. i doubt we all would be wearing the same clothes durig an outbreak. also wear and tear like u said. for example. u could loose 2 slots of inventory if your cargo pockets rip off. but add sewing kits to fix partially shredded clothes. this whole would force the player to keep his clothing semi clean and wearable. just my 2 cents

The problem with this I have is that it would require an entirely new game mechanic (smell).

[Ribano 46]

I think you took it a little two far, not everything needs multiple uses such as motilovs etc, but clothing wear and tear would work. there is no snow etc so we only have to deal with rain and as such i don't think there would be any need to create new clothing, just for the ones you are wearing to offer less protection eventually

[evolution (DayZ) 51]

I think this post is a little over-the-top. I mean they're great ideas but if you strain everything into the tiniest thing it would be too much...effort. Although I do liek the ideas of the buildings infested with zeds.

[thedog88 180]

well actually, it wouldnt take much to script this. i've been scripting for arma for a few years now. you could have it so it uses time. i.e.

player spends 3 hours in game without "washing clothing" then it adds the "smell" effect. now zombies are more atracted to him and animals run when he gets close. player washes his clothing that effect goes away. not much too it honestly.

now we can get into details on that, player spends 1 hour in the prone position, his clothes get dirty as hell. so if we are using the same time, we could have the minutes doubled for crouched and tripelled for prone movement.

3 hours of game play needed for dirty clothing

crouched is double time, so only 1.5 hours crouched and ur stuff is dirty

prone is triple time, so only 1 hour and your stuff needs a wash

so, that being said, you move in the prone a lot your shit gets dirty quicker and might need a wash. this is not even really over the top, its easily do-able even without implementing any new units or addons, all script. besides that, believe it or not this would be a aspect of survival.

wear and tear could operate on a similar system using time. player wears the same clothing for x time, it starts to rip up. when it gets to a certain point the player starts loosing inventory slots simulating that your pocket ripped off. can be fixed with sewing kits and with cloth pieces. simple stuff would add another aspect to the game.

as far as the overheating goes, dehydration is a big thing. lets say you are wearing a jacket and you are dehydrated, the sun is blazing, yeah you might pass out. im in the army and when it gets too hot outside i force my soldiers to hydrate and sometimes take gear off. so again, realistic and can be done easily. for the rain they could make ponchos that a player can throw on to defelct the rain, preventing cool down and becoming ill. player is ill, he caughs alerting zeds and making animals run yada yada.

anyways, all do-able with mainly script, except adding clothing, that requires new unit models.

Edited July 11, 2012 by thedog

[moosehugger 1]

I'd be in favor of adding a few non essential survival requirements like new clothing. I do not know if they have the current systems (blood, food, water, temperature) to the point where they would start adding on aditional modifiers to those yet though. But definetly could see in the future them adding in more ways that you are effected by nature and thus more clothing options. Rocket seems pretty serious about making scavenging pretty much the catalyst for avoiding zombies and our interactions with others, so adding in more things to scavenge for seems to be a reasonable direction the game will go towards.

[Zefoxe 0]

I don't really feel like its over thinking it (especially compared to some other posts such as sexual intercourse / defecating & urination :| ) If anyone here has done actual camping/hiking, you know how easy it is to ruin clothes and how much it sucks when you stuff gets ripped and tears or if you dont dress warm enough, etc ^_^ Its definately a factor in survival which is what i feel makes this game.