Bandit/Survivor Morphing to be removed

[Trips (DayZ) 32]

Well.

My first player interaction - well, the first one that wasn't randomly stumbling upon and shooting at each other - last night was going well. Someone hurt in a zombie infested area needed a blood transfusion, so despite my initial hesitation, I decided to be the better man and help him out. I figured he would be grateful for that enough to not murder us, but, of course, he did, as I was about to drop a spare compass, map, hunting knife and box of matches I had in my pack for him to use. I'm not upset by the loss of time (though it was my longest lived character by a long shot) or gear (I'm sure I can find it all again) but by the betrayal - also the fact my friend was killed who had been alive far longer than I was.

The game is a deathmatch and I will treat it that way. If I can't even earn your trust by saving your life, there is no point to doing so; and when there are no consequences for murdering someone other than the missing round out of the magazine and the corpse that gets left behind, I'd far rather be the one still walking and talking rather than the one shaking his head and asking why.

[DeadAimHeadshot (DayZ) 2]

I am not a bandit and i want bandit skins removed so your argument is invalid.

[Butters (DayZ) 0]

The "realism" line of argument is bunk. The focus of this discussion should be not on what is "most realistic"' date=' but instead on what provides the most reasonable and balanced gameplay experience for all types of players.

[/quote']

thank you, i'm rewriting my will to include you.

if the mod has everyone doing the same thing they can look the same; if it is a free 2d sprite game they can look the same. if it is a capable modern 3d engine with gameplay that allows radically different or opposite methods for players, that should be expressed in the game, through the players; visually indicated, like every other friggin thing in the game.

arguing that it shouldn't is like saying zombies going through doors and walls is fine.

the method of indication is the problem, but not knowing the ultimate goals for the mod makes speculating on that kind of impossible.

[DeadAimHeadshot (DayZ) 2]

why don't we just make it possible to become a zombie with the infection. if you get hit and escape and don't use a "cure"

then you could have a pvpish thing going on, the player zombies would be like "boss" zombies haha

[Mjolnir (DayZ) 1]

Nothing is ever going to be completely realistic; keep in mind we are talking about a game here, not an "apocalypse scenario simulator."

However in a real apocalypse scenario people who will kill others for supplies may well dress differently so others of their kind do not kill them; it is almost as if there are two teams. I realize this isn't necessarily a valid example, but many movies/books with post apocalyptic settings tend to portray these "bandits" as different from the "good" characters; in the Mad Max trilogy the "bad guys" wear a lot of leather (not sure why...) and similar examples exist in things like The Road and other media. Bandits appearing differently is not much of a stretch.

Also didn't Rocket say that before he added the bandit skin everyone was killing everyone else WAY more than he wanted, causing him to add it in the first place? What makes him think it won't just go back to this?

[Mutonizer 78]

Also didn't Rocket say that before he added the bandit skin everyone was killing everyone else WAY more than he wanted' date=' causing him to add it in the first place? What makes him think it won't just go back to this?

[/quote']

Rocket removing the bandit skin doesn't mean he gave up on trying to reduce random killings and, to some extend, the impact of PvP. It's just that it wasn't working, as he explained.

I quoted this before but I'll put it here again, from the dayz dev twitter feed, dated april 17th:

We've been trying to work on a new PvP damage model and trying to discourage PvP however if players want to kill we can't stop them

I think he's still in this mindset, which is perfect for me.

[johndstill@gmail.com 172]

You see, what I think people fail to see is that with this being a game, some balances need to be made. In real life, I can easily pinpoint people that might not be so nice to me, through speech and gestures and the like, but in game I cannot do this as the game has limits. The bandit skin is what I believed counterbalanced the non-ability to read people through non-verbal communication.

However, no complaints for me. Thanks for the hard work Rocket, I'll be sure to send you a hooker or a chocolate bar or something...

[sgt_hawkins 1]

Basically all the people that wanted to be a bandit early on...are realizing how hard it is to play the game without everyone shooting at you. So they cry about the bandit skins and now rocket gives in to their tears. Bandit skins are necessary because their needs to be repercussions for murder. Don't try that its not realistic bs with me. Because I know your real argument. If it was realism you wanted you would cry about something else. There are many unrealistic aspects that you don't mention. You guys are only crying because now that the game is harder and people need coop to survive. And nobody wants to play with the poor little bandit. It wont take rocket long before this gets changed back. Because the server is just going to be a giant death match. I don't kill people they way the game is now because I don't want a bandit skin. If I couldn't get punished by having to wear a bandit skin then I would just shoot people on sight..because there is no repercussion.

[ouberlord 4]

"The server is just going to be a giant deathmatch"

I keep seeing this, and yet ever since Rocket announced the removal of the bandit skin and the hibernation of the humanity system I've seen the exact same level of cooperation (actually slightly more thereof) and the same level of banditry. I've seen the same lines in chat of "Bandit killed me near X, be careful he was using a sniper rifle", and I've seen the same "You friendly, I'm friendly, lets work together". Haven't even seen anyone pissed about a betrayal yet ranting in chat.

If the game is going to devolve into deathmatch it hasn't happened yet, and the point can be made that it was just team deathmatch before. The previous system both allowed for too many people to "accidentally" become bandits (self defense shooting is the main cause there) as well as lulled people into a false sense of complacency. It was/is incredibly easy to get your humanity back up after making a kill, especially if you play with another person, so a cunning bandit could make a kill a day and look like a survivor for every one of them. Additionally, since killing bandits had no repercussions whatsoever you had no reason *not* to shoot them, as you didn't know under what circumstances they got that skin.

The point is you can't truly trust anyone in the game, period. Adding mouseover tags or a reputation system is the same thing as a bandit skin. I like the idea of being able to wash away the blood as a middle ground between realism and gameplay, but even that just assumes that a bandit doesn't just stock up on the items to clean themselves with and clean up between kills.

Every action in the game has benefits and drawbacks, and choosing to interact with other players is one of them (and one of the things that makes the mod unique), regardless on if that interaction is shooting at them, talking to them, or simply watching them from afar. Putting in a "I can trust this person based on X" or "This person is a cold blooded killer because of Y" feature would to me be about the same as putting in the ability to see all players on the map; either way the ambiguity and suspense is thrown out in favor to make the gameplay easier to digest.

[robosheriff 13]

Stop talking about zombie game realism as its not the reason why the skin is being removed. (and i do understand why some people want to have player killers identified, but you right now its really unfair at least with the current system).

Its more of a technical or gameplay issue, Like the op stated it caused more problems than solutions, "good" people are actually the ones getting affected here since things like trying to defend themselves from other players or shoot one of their teammates by accident just gave green light to every player in the world to shoot them down.

And all that "if i see a bandit i'll just shoot on sight friendly or not, no questions asked" in the whole thread just confirms that bandit skin is just not working as it was first intended.

Bandits will keep killing survivor skin or not, we just have to deal with this as it is the way the game works.

[Tukker 0]

Sorry what is the draw back to just murdering everyone you find and stealing their stuff? I know there used to be a draw back but not so anymore.

[ouberlord 4]

Sorry what is the draw back to just murdering everyone you find and stealing their stuff? I know there used to be a draw back but not so anymore.

There wasn't a drawback before the change. If you only killed a survivor once every couple days with enough playtime in between you could revert back to the survivor skin for every kill, and far less time between kills as such if you had help in boosting your humanity artificially. It only identified the serial killers, and you can already identify those by the fact that they are using a sniper rifle as their primary weapon and/or are waiting on a rooftop in Cherno/Elektro.

[Tukker 0]

Well they don't have to hide on the roof tops with sniper rifles anymore do they? and if you read through this thread the main boo-hoo that pro bandits have is that they were "unfairly" shot on site.

Oh and I should mention for the sake of full disclosure :) before this patch I had never killed a survivor but I did kill bandits. But since the patch I have killed 1 survivor but I have also had my best "team work" moement in the game since the new patch. Even though I'm not in favor of it - it hasn't "broke" the game as far as I can tell...yet.

[radioghost 2]

If I was murderous and trying to survive in the zombie apocalypse by shooting other people, I would dress as inconspicuously as possible and try to charm people before stabbing them in the back... just sayin'.

I, for one, support the new skin system.

[ouberlord 4]

Well they don't have to hide on the roof tops with sniper rifles anymore do they? and if you read through this thread the main boo-hoo that pro bandits have is that they were "unfairly" shot on site.

Well, no. My point is that they didn't have to hide to begin with if the bandit cared about keeping up their appearance, due to the relative ease in gaming the humanity system.

[Tukker 0]

You're somewhat right - it was well balanced before. Now it's free for bandits - they don't have risk or consequences to how they play - pure profit now. Agreed.

[miqueloz 33]

Risk:

- Starting a firefight is always risky. You might attract zombies, you might attract bandits, you might actually, you know, lose the firefight. All of which you could have avoided if you didn't shoot someone.

Consequence:

- Death because of the risks mentioned above

- Not being able to work with the people you kill (obviously)

On the other hand, smart survivors have no risks and no consequences! Nerf! OP!

[ouberlord 4]

You're somewhat right - it was well balanced before. Now it's free for bandits - they don't have risk or consequences to how they play - pure profit now. Agreed.

How was it well balanced before? Survivor shoots someone, steals their gear, becomes a bandit. Plays the game as normal in the sparsely populated north to get their humanity back up and/or boosts it back up, becomes a survivor again. Repeat.

Alternatively: Bandit posts up with a rifle in Chernogorsk. Shoots lots of people, and stays a bandit. Server buzz generates over "Theres a bandit in Cherno", and the smart people avoid the area.

You shouldn't have implicitly trusted survivors before, because they could have easily been a bandit just 15 minutes prior. All the bandit skin did was made the mass killers easily identifiable (to which they already were and are at least until global chat is removed) and punish those who killed in self defense (even in scenarios where they didn't shoot first).

[Tukker 0]

yes but the "honest" bandit if that's what you want to call it had to work to get humanity back (which is fair) now they can just slaughter endlessly. They will farm other players. And I would say the vast majority (my guess only from time playing) weren't killing - running up north - getting humanity back and repeating. Whatever I'm pretty sure this is just another one of Rocket's social experiments to see how people would react to such nonsense. Well played Rocket :) back to DayZ for me - still the best thing ever.

[ouberlord 4]

yes but the "honest" bandit if that's what you want to call it had to work to get humanity back (which is fair) now they can just slaughter endlessly. They will farm other players. And I would say the vast majority (my guess only from time playing) weren't killing - running up north - getting humanity back and repeating. Whatever I'm pretty sure this is just another one of Rocket's social experiments to see how people would react to such nonsense. Well played Rocket :) back to DayZ for me - still the best thing ever.

True. I mean I believe that there should be some form of mitigation that can be done, but it shouldn't be as simple as shooting people who look different. Really, I think there should just be more reasons to need to group up; right now there isn't anything that can't be done solo. Either that, or put enough options into the sandbox that a community could be formed of some sort.

[qksilvr73 4]

Just last night' date=' in-game as Jayne Cobb (the character I play) I was in some larger industrial section, and down to two bullets in my last Makarov clip atop a large building. I had scavenged some supplies, including my first ever smoke grenade, and night was falling.

I heard some commotion a couple of floors below, and noticed that some new zeds had spawned. Scratch that, a LOT of zeds had spawned. I could hear a few in the building, and crossing the rooftop, I looked around the area and counted no less than twenty zeds around. Figuring I wouldn't have enough rounds to escape successfully, I tested my aim from the rooftop, and was happy that the two shots I put in the zed nearest kept it down.

I had been using chat to keep in touch with some people, and made them aware of my predicament. All the while, I was dropping flares off the rooftop in an effort to get someone's attention. A character named 'user' (original, eh?) offered to traverse the expanse and give me some ammo, so I launched my smoke and watched as he proned his way to my position. When he got to the roof he advised me that he was armed, and that there wasn't to be any funny business.

I said, "you do hear this, right?" as the telltale 'click, click, click' of my empty gun sounded off.

He gave me a clip, and as we garnered a quick truce, a new zed shambled it's way onto the rooftops with us. We put it down, and I told him there wasn't much luck in us escaping, since I was - again - low on ammo. I thanked him for the help, and told him I'd run cover for him.

I ran down and out of the building, pulling as many zeds with me as I could. I shot my pistol in the air outside, and briefly saw 'user' escaping before I blacked out... He kept talking in chat, thanking me for helping him out, and I got ready to log as he added me on Steam.

And all the while, I was wearing a dirty, beat-up bandit skin.

So, to all of you who say "this is going to devolve into a deathmatch", I say to you: UP YOUR GAME. If that's the only solution you see, then I say you are part of the problem.

Trust a little. Not all of us are going to shoot you in the back all of the time.

TK "I fight for the User!" J

[/quote']

I think i was in that server too. Met a guy at a lighthouse and another and tried to save a guy in Elektro on top of the hospital. Several dead zombies and my mates that went with me died. I suvived to try and help the guy on the roof. Then I see him jump off. Lmao. That was actually the most fun i have had.

Every bandit and i meane everyone has shot me. I have only shot once back once. So

[PercussiveScruf 2]

I have killed, been killed by and killed others as both a survivor and a bandit. I've also been in groups with survivors where they trusted me even though I was a bandit. I think it's sort of akin to The Walking Dead television series (I'm a bad nerd and haven't read the comics). Everything is about trust, and once global chat is gone, it'll be all we have.

[Trips (DayZ) 32]

I probably wouldn't mind the current system if everyone's name was locked to their GUID and unchangeable. So if some random user, Dmitry556 (a made up username) guns me down as the result of calling friendly and betraying my trust by blasting me in the head with a Makarov for my sweet sweet beans, I can personally hunt his ass down - or, even more appealing, getting a posse to go do it for me. With permanent naming individuals can garner a reputation, not through any kind of in game mechanic, but through word of mouth - "Dmitry556 is a known traitor", or "Dmitry556 is legit and will help you out if he can", and so on. Just a thought.

A sure fire way to reduce PVP would be more helpful player interactions that require two or more people, similar to the blood transfusion and other medical mechanics.

Until such a time, fuck you guys; I am killing every single one of you on sight. No hard feelings.

[DJE1337 8]

This is definitely a great idea!!

Thanks rocket

[Scuddles (DayZ) 0]

Hi there, searched the thread but can't find any results of this.

Apart from the skins, are the (Bandit) and (Survivor) nametags going to be removed as well?