Bandit/Survivor Morphing to be removed

[pdxmark 4]

I would really like to play as Nico from GTA4

[ravilakhani.e@gmail.com 20]

It is already equally stupid not to shoot a survivor on sight. You have chosen to accept a morality system, but that survivor may not have. Once you've helped them clear the zombies rushing in, they could be low on ammo or beans, and decide they want yours. Survivors are just bandits waiting to happen.

I often play as a bandit with real friends, because stranger danger is safer dead. Too many times I have healed my friends or just not killed anyone for long enough to become a survivor again.

Three of us in our survivor skins had our guns trained on one guy who begged us to just let him leave town. He never left that barn. I hope he didn't feel safe because we didn't have bandit skins on. He's going to be screwed in the next patch. On the bright side, his whole bag was beans.

[blackbelt27 3]

RANDOM STARTING SKIN

[Turak (DayZ) 0]

Well I was thinking: we could have some general skins that everyone can use, and some skins that you can only use depending on yours humanity level, even for positive or negative values. For who that dont want to show himself as a bandit or "sherif" they can choose the general skins, but there would be some skins that only bandits (negative humanity) or "sherif" (positive humanity) could use.

Depending on how much negative or positive humanity points you have you would "unlock" more skins, but if you humanity points change too much (if you loose negative points or positive points) some skins would lock again.

That is just a thought. Dont know if this could work on ArmA.

[Ghost Jager 6]

I wonder if in the future we may be able to have skin sets? Not sure if Arma is compatible with such a system though. Perhaps one with 'bandit' morality can choose from certain skins and one with 'survivor' morality can choose from certain skins all of which having very little to no overlap between the two skin sets.

I personally am excited to go out and find different skins.

One question I have though is if a skin being worn is lootable? Say I see someone who has a great skin and I happen to need to shoot them for one reason or another ;) would they 'drop' their skin and if so what would the character look like after the skin is looted (I'm imagining a serial nudey killer now xD)

[consti2tion 1]

I wonder if in the future we may be able to have skin sets? Not sure if Arma is compatible with such a system though. Perhaps one with 'bandit' morality can choose from certain skins and one with 'survivor' morality can choose from certain skins all of which having very little to no overlap between the two skin sets.

I personally am excited to go out and find different skins.

One question I have though is if a skin being worn is lootable? Say I see someone who has a great skin and I happen to need to shoot them for one reason or another ;) would they 'drop' their skin and if so what would the character look like after the skin is looted (I'm imagining a serial nudey killer now xD)

i would assume they would have one of the Default survivor skins that we have now.

[DeadJohn 1]

Oof, what a shame, it was nice being nice for that short time. A definite wrong turn.

[Turak (DayZ) 0]

I wonder if in the future we may be able to have skin sets? Not sure if Arma is compatible with such a system though. Perhaps one with 'bandit' morality can choose from certain skins and one with 'survivor' morality can choose from certain skins all of which having very little to no overlap between the two skin sets.

I personally am excited to go out and find different skins.

One question I have though is if a skin being worn is lootable? Say I see someone who has a great skin and I happen to need to shoot them for one reason or another ;) would they 'drop' their skin and if so what would the character look like after the skin is looted (I'm imagining a serial nudey killer now xD)

Pretty much what I said, but there should be general skins for everyone. So who dont want to be showed as a bandidt or good guy can choose general skins.

[Ennui 0]

Sounds good to me. I always thought the bandit skin was a weird feature given that it sort of messes up the otherwise beautifully pure PVP metagame. I think not being able to instantly determine whether someone is a threat (e.g. no bandit specific skins) fits much more comfortably in with the design ethos of the rest of the game. It just makes your moral decisions all that much harder.

[sherlock (DayZ) 31]

Something else just crossed my mind. Quite a few argue against the removal of the bandit skins with balance considerations in mind. This, as many that argue from a realism standpoint have pointed out, seems misplaced.

However to argue that the removal would increase the realism of the mod seems misplaced too. It is partially correct that you can't visually tell a bandit apart from other people, although their ruthless methods would give them access to equipment others don't have. Yes, that equipment comes from the other survivors but the bandit will have the collective sum of all valuable equipment from all his victims, which would make him stand out. You could see the bandit skin as a indication of that.

Furthermore it is questionable if the realism would rise at all since the phsycological aspects of murder is not (cannot and should not be) simulated in any game. Murderers in reality have shown a disconnect with the outside world and their environement. More often than not they would isolate themselves. This isolation renders them uncapable (after a while, mind you) to not raise eyebrows when trying to blend in or lead a casual conversation. The bandit system might be seen as a representation of that and the reasoning a human concience would bring forward against murder. I'm sure noone would want a game that realistically touches those aspects because it wouldn't be entertaining anymore. The bandit system seems a sort of way to incentivise "correct" behaviour while still remaining fun to play and explore it.

I'm convinced that not everyone will now just shoot everything that moves but strangers will mistrust each other even more, hence my only real concern for an increasing segregation of player groups (for reference see my initial posts on page 34).

As I tried to show, both lines of thinking, balance and realism, have some inherent problems. I focussed mainly on presenting a counter-argument to the realism dogma because it went relatively unchallenged and all other arguments were coming from balance concerns and therefore weren't directly addressing the realism arguments.

So, let's not abandon or keep something because of either balance or realism (even I will put my reservations about it due to my other concern away ;)), let's try something new for the sake of experimentation and let's see if the result is any better or not.

[katana2665 2]

Nice decision. I also like the idea of other skins to loot. I hope that means more civilian attire.

[TeaLeaf 5]

Hi, first post.

I haven't read all 39 pages but I think I have a general idea of where this discussion is going and would just like to point out that further, less "artificial" features further down the road could naturally punish pointless killing. The difficulty of fighting zombies could be ramped up so that surviving solo is incredibly difficult, meaning that friendly players are often more valuable then the supplies they carry.

Killing a guy for his AK47 would still be a tempting proposal, but murdering a potential ally over a tin of beans would be useless.

[sorophx 25]

be careful guys, so much QQing, you just might drown poor Rocket in tears

[DeadAimHeadshot (DayZ) 2]

i totally support this and any other added realism. it just isn't realistic that you're gonna be able to see who's a "bad guy" by just looking at them always.

the paranoia and realistic survival is what makes this game so unique and intense, not the zombies.

keep the good shit rolling!

[Magpie (DayZ) 0]

Hi;

Just wanted to register with an idea on how to implement Humanity going forward.

While I fear how much more trigger-happy everyone is going to be once you remove bandit skins, I respect your decision rocket.

However, as there still needs to be some differentiation between bandits and survivors and what influences the decision to go either way, and while you seem reluctant to implement a system that directly affects gameplay, I would like to suggest that when the leaderboards become active, you calculate a players score using a humanity based formula.

Something like:

{(Humanity * Zeds Killed) / Players Killed} * Hours Alive

Then modify humanity penalties so that killing ANY OTHER PLAYER, including bandits, reduces humanity. Including both Humanity and Players Killed in the formula should ensure against artificial score boosting, say by giving transfusions. Hours Alive means the leaderboard will stay dynamic, and will hopefully increase the "Average Life Expectancy" as reported by the site.

Then make the leaderboards easily viewable, with local ones on a per server basis and a global leaderboard on the site.

It sounds like fluff, but look how much stock people put in achievements these days.

Doing something like this means you wouldn't be touching the games mechanics, but people would still have a goal to aim for (if they wanted to).

[Kolchak (DayZ) 5]

*locks and loads* Whelp, guess the days of trusting anyone at all are over. Spread the word: Dayz can now be considered Deathmatch with zombies.

[dogsbd 12]

The thing everyone needs to keep in mind at all times when discussing this change or any other change is that this mod is ALPHA.

Changes are made to test concepts.

If a particular change works out well maybe it will be kept, if it doesn't work out then something else will be tried.

Just keep that in mind before you whine too loudly about this or some other change ruining the mod etc.

IT"S ALPHA PEOPLE. ALPHA ALPHA ALPHA!!!!!

Now, back to your regularly scheduled whining :)

[TeaLeaf 5]

@Magpie

But if you're a bandit, wouldn't your goal be to get your score as low as possible? Also many people don't give a damn about achievements or score, especially the more "hardcore" players this mod appeals to.

I think the only way for humanity to work is if the game can figure out what counts as self defence, which is pretty difficult especially when you factor in friendly fire etc. If that's not possible there should just be a more natural mechanic that encourages cooperation over being a mass murderer.

Even though it's a vastly different game, L4D was a good example of how to force teamwork in selfish players. Many of the zombies had attacks that immobilised you and required a buddy to free you before you died. While this wouldn't stop organised groups of bandits killing everyone, it would at least make a meeting between two randoms less likely to result in shoot-on-sight behaviour.

So for example if basic zombies had a 1/4 chance of grabbing you and starting to eat your face and you had no way of getting out of it on your own, the first priority when playing would shift from acquiring the biggest gun to making friends so they can watch your back.

[bobbyweenus 17]

IT"S ALPHA PEOPLE. ALPHA ALPHA ALPHA!!!!!

Now' date=' back to your regularly scheduled whining :)

[/quote']

It is alpha, but the players are entitled to their opinions and giving feedback and criticism (which on this issue, has actually been pretty constructive with tons of ideas suggested), and if people aren't supposed to speak out negatively to an idea or concept, what's the point of the forum?

It's just so stupid how people write anything off that disagrees with an idea as whining. Some people are still going to play, they just think an idea might miss the mark or need improvement. It's not all whining.

[Magpie (DayZ) 0]

@Magpie

But if you're a bandit' date=' wouldn't your goal be to get your score as low as possible? Also many people don't give a damn about achievements or score, especially the more "hardcore" players this mod appeals to.[/quote']

Yep, true enough, but most people are on the fence, and I'm guessing a lot start out with the intention to stay good and just survive.

You're never going to stop someone bent on becoming a bandit from doing so, and to be honest, you shouldn't want to prevent them; this game simply wouldn't be the same without the human threat. What a score system would do is just nudge people who are already inclined to be good and give them a goal.

And where you say many people don't give a damn about achievements, the evidence would suggest that the majority do.

From reading rockets posts, he seems reluctant to do anything to change the core gameplay mechanics of Day Z, something I think is right, so something esoteric like a high score system might be just what the doctor ordered. It wouldn't eliminate bandits completely, and those who like achievements and high scores would have something to chase, keeping them on the straight and narrow. It's a more psychological approach than a mechanical one.

[faceman (DayZ) 3]

IT"S ALPHA PEOPLE. ALPHA ALPHA ALPHA!!!!!

Now' date=' back to your regularly scheduled whining :)

[/quote']

It is alpha, but the players are entitled to their opinions and giving feedback and criticism (which on this issue, has actually been pretty constructive with tons of ideas suggested), and if people aren't supposed to speak out negatively to an idea or concept, what's the point of the forum?

It's just so stupid how people write anything off that disagrees with an idea as whining. Some people are still going to play, they just think an idea might miss the mark or need improvement. It's not all whining.

I agree. It makes discussions impossible if you are going to be called a whiner every time you disagree with something.

[jonryan32@gmail.com 2]

Sure it can devolve but it doesn't mean it will be an all out death match. I got my bandit skin in self defense but those two kills dropped my humanity to a whopping -8000 so I just stopped caring and shot those I felt were untrustworthy on sight, though I'd still at least try to help out anyone that needed it.

Anyway, the point was I was in bandit skin, I'm shoot on sight for just about every player and yet today I was wandering through the woods trying to meet up with a friend when another player approached me out of the blue. We took our positions behind trees and the conversation went something along the lines of,

"Just walk away and we won't have any problems."

"I could've shot you already several times I'm just looking to tag along."

"Fine come on."

And we proceeded to have a grand old time playing for two hours before he pulled a massive zombie mob that I couldn't save him from.

Basically I was already shoot on sight for pretty much everyone, I wouldn't have blamed him one bit if he shot, hell I probably would've in his situation. Yet as a bandit I still managed to find someone friendly enough in survivor skin to play with for two hours. So I'm not too worried about finding someone friendly enough to play with once bandit skin goes away. Can't wait for this update, release it already D:<

[Katana67 2907]

Right on.

Looking forward to whatever mechanic y'all cook up! Interested to see how the lootable/selectable skins work out!

[DTsoy 3]

YES.

YES ROCKET. YES.

I am a friendly survivor bro myself, but I LOVES ME MY REALISM

THANK YOU FOR THIS CHANGE!!!!

It will make survivor/survivor encounters EVEN MORE TENSE AND HEART POUNDING!!!

[Thrack (DayZ) 6]

Maybe add a buff of sorts to positive "Humanity" levels, such as higher degrees of blood (endurance).