Bandit/Survivor Morphing to be removed

[Thadd 0]

Hallo everyone,

At first, sorry for my bad english, im from polish, never learn it in the school, i used the help from google translate so i can write here. I hope we can understand us.

I like this mod as well, its realy great!

My play style is like this, i never kill a another surviver, i help if i its possible. If i see a another man, i write in chat something like this "the man on car in novy sobor, i see you, i dont want to kill you, if you need help maybe i can help, dont shot, im friendly, ok?"

Bevor the change the bandit skin, its was easy, if i see bandits, i kill him or i go my way.

Now everyone is scary about see a other surviver, shot first, no question. Its f***ing bad!

I help someone, i give him blood, i give him food, i give him ammo, i wish him "god luck", turn around and want to go my way, and what is happens? he shot me in the head with the ammo i have giving him! its stupid!

What i have to do? the same? kill everyone i see? sorry, its bullshit!

Why happen something like this? The answer is, no consequences for the bad boys!

Player are camping with sniper on airfield or stary sobor and killing everything and everyone who ist comming. Why? The answer is, because of ranking!

Why player in diferent games used cheats, used cheesy taktik, used imba thinks in games like css or sc2, or other games? Becouse he want see the name in the top10, its ranking! nothing more.

Some peaple mayby dont have a life, maybe hes d**k is getting bigger if he sees hes name of the top, i dont know.

So, what the point of my "little" Rage.

Take the Bandits out from the Rankingsystem.

If someone think, he can kill everyone, without moral, without humanity, so let him do it, but nobody will see hes name on the ranking, nobody cares he kill 1000 people because one surviver is on the first place with only 50 zombie kills.

I hope you can understand what i mine.

thanks for reading and, one more time, sorry for my bad english.

[qfan 1]

Now everyone is scary about see a other surviver' date=' shot first, no question. Its f***ing bad!

I help someone, i give him blood, i give him food, i give him ammo, i wish him "god luck", turn around and want to go my way, and what is happens? he shot me in the head with the ammo i have giving him! its stupid!

[/quote']

Exactly. I played pretty conservative with other players my first few weeks. I found that whether people claim to be friendly or do the "head-nod" to show they are friendly I still got shot in the back. Since yesterday I shoot first and ask questions later, which is really a shame. It's reduced the game to pvp exclusively.

I see the claims of this being more realistic, but that description doesn't fit when you also have to play with teenagers who know they are safe behind their desks and not in front of a real barrel. It changes the way you play and removes any sense of realism at all, reducing it to Quake. Albeit, an incredibly slow, boring version of it.

[skyswimsky 0]

Also its still realistic that people get a Bandit Skin because in real-life u usually also recognize asshole's on their appearance, thats not always 100% true, but its a valid point

[CarpetBanger 0]

Also its still realistic that people get a Bandit Skin because in real-life u usually also recognize asshole's on their appearance' date=' thats not always 100% true, but its a valid point

[/quote']

I think taking out survivor/bandit is a huge mistake. Most people are complaining that it's hard to gain humanity and it's SO hard being a bandit. I call BS. I tried being a bandit. I killed a few people, but the humanity regen was so fast I was rarely below 2500.

People claim they want realism, but in reality, they want Call of Duty. They want to be able to kill anyone they see without any repurcussions (which is unrealistic btw).

When there was survivor/bandit skins, I would try to talk to people before and see if they want to work together (which is very realistic, we live in a civilization because it's human nature to be social creatures), but now I just camp in cherno and shoot anyone I see. Since there are no consequences to my actions, I don't care about shooting people (which is unrealistic).

Thanks Rocket for turning this mod into Call of Duty.

[jackdoe 0]

When there was survivor/bandit skins' date=' I would try to talk to people before and see if they want to work together (which is very realistic, we live in a civilization because it's human nature to be social creatures), but now I just camp in cherno and shoot anyone I see. Since there are no consequences to my actions, I don't care about shooting people (which is unrealistic).

Thanks Rocket for turning this mod into Call of Duty.

[/quote']

First of all.... you say we live in a civilization. Sure, but in this mod, we are in the role of a Post-Apocalyptic era, and you need to survive at all cost.

Anyway, i understand what you say about cooperation. in some cases, is fun to cooperate.

and about to kill with no consequences, its true. i think this game should have any consequences if you kill someone or not but this cant be a skin (thats not real).

Anyway, people isnt scared of zombies. when you are playing for 3 or 4 days, you know how to evade, or kill all zeds attacking you. and then only point at this moment, is find good stuff or repair a car. if you did all this things, you get bored, and kill anyone for fun. AND THEN, then only objective is the pvp, because all the other things are made :-/

Maybe in the future, we will have some objectives and anything to cooperate and stop pvping everywhere.

[Reign19k 1]

Pretty fucking sure in a real situation like this the OTHER SURVIVORS

would be more of a threat than some blind shambling dudes that can run through walls but not doors.

[qfan 1]

Pretty fucking sure in a real situation like this the OTHER SURVIVORS

would be more of a threat than some blind shambling dudes that can run through walls but not doors.

If you want to seriously roleplay this story, there's no way the vast majority of people would turn into murderers as it is right now. You'd have your few bad apples in every situation, but mostly people would band together as it's proven fact you survive longer in groups. The only reason people don't play that way here is they are safe from any real threat and there are zero consequences to their actions.

There's usually anywhere from 500 to 1000 z's on every map, with player count ranging from 20 to 50+. This means the vast majority are outnumbered. If humanity did turn on each other, it would only be once the common threat is gone.

[miqueloz 33]

Average life expectancy now without bandit skin: 30 minutes.

Average life expectancy just before bandit skin removal was 26-28 minutes.

I think that alone proves not much changed.

[qfan 1]

Average life expectancy now without bandit skin: 30 minutes.

Average life expectancy just before bandit skin removal was 26-28 minutes.

I think that alone proves not much changed.

It only proves that there are more people that have played the game longer and know how to survive that extra few minutes. This is beside the point anyway. You can't use life expectancy of a growing game to show that devolving into permanent pvp isn't a problem. Nice side step though :)

[miqueloz 33]

Average life expectancy now without bandit skin: 30 minutes.

Average life expectancy just before bandit skin removal was 26-28 minutes.

I think that alone proves not much changed.

It only proves that there are more people that have played the game longer and know how to survive that extra few minutes. This is beside the point anyway. You can't use life expectancy of a growing game to show that devolving into permanent pvp isn't a problem. Nice side step though :)

The extra 3 minutes shows that people are learning how to survive better, yes. That's exactly my point. It's increasing. The bandit skin removal didn't really do anything to the life expectancy. If DayZ suddenly became a deathmatch, like some people are claiming, it would be decreasing rapidly regardless of minor increase in average player skill.

[qfan 1]

Average life expectancy now without bandit skin: 30 minutes.

Average life expectancy just before bandit skin removal was 26-28 minutes.

I think that alone proves not much changed.

It only proves that there are more people that have played the game longer and know how to survive that extra few minutes. This is beside the point anyway. You can't use life expectancy of a growing game to show that devolving into permanent pvp isn't a problem. Nice side step though :)

The extra 3 minutes shows that people are learning how to survive better' date=' yes. That's exactly my point. It's increasing. The bandit skin removal didn't really do anything to the life expectancy. If DayZ suddenly became a deathmatch, like some people are claiming, it would be decreasing rapidly regardless of minor increase in average player skill.

[/quote']

Nah you've missed my point. It's got nothing to do with life expectancy, it's the type of game it has become since this change. You've also missed the point that life expectancy for beginners has increased as they know how to handle zombies better. Don't forget they have as much, if not more effect over life expectancy than bandits.

There are almost 0 players now that are interested in team play, including myself, which is a huge disappointment to have to change play style like that. There needs to be a balance so people can have the best of what this was originally about, both teamplay and pvp.

[DirtPoacher 0]

I'm tired of all the excuses I'm seeing on this post. The bandit skins made perfect sense because you could Identify people. With the large amount of new people coming into the game everyone just shoots each other now because there are no consequences. I'm tired of hearing "but bandit skins aren't realistic". I know it is not realistic for someone to instantly change clothes because of an action. This is part of the game that should have stayed and don't make excuses just to contradict me. Bandit skins helped hold the game together and now its just a shootem up.

[FAAmecanic 5]

Average life expectancy now without bandit skin: 30 minutes.

Average life expectancy just before bandit skin removal was 26-28 minutes.

I think that alone proves not much changed.

Wonder how much of that statistic is affected by MANY people spawning in, seeing they are not where they want to be, clicking respawn and dying... lather,rinse, repeat....

I have seen many vids on YouTube of groups of people wanting to play together doing this so they can spawn closer together. I have done it a few times myself when I first started...now I find it quicker just to hoof it where I want to be.

Solution: at least allow the player to pick thier spawn point.

Now back to the origninal topic.... I was looking forward to my bandit skin but understand why it was taken out. I DO like the idea of finding different skins...but with my last skin change, and ending up in the ocean and loosing all my gear....I wont touch a skin now.

[miqueloz 33]

Average life expectancy now without bandit skin: 30 minutes.

Average life expectancy just before bandit skin removal was 26-28 minutes.

I think that alone proves not much changed.

It only proves that there are more people that have played the game longer and know how to survive that extra few minutes. This is beside the point anyway. You can't use life expectancy of a growing game to show that devolving into permanent pvp isn't a problem. Nice side step though :)

The extra 3 minutes shows that people are learning how to survive better' date=' yes. That's exactly my point. It's increasing. The bandit skin removal didn't really do anything to the life expectancy. If DayZ suddenly became a deathmatch, like some people are claiming, it would be decreasing rapidly regardless of minor increase in average player skill.

[/quote']

Nah you've missed my point. It's got nothing to do with life expectancy, it's the type of game it has become since this change. You've also missed the point that life expectancy for beginners has increased as they know how to handle zombies better. Don't forget they have as much, if not more effect over life expectancy than bandits.

There are almost 0 players now that are interested in team play, including myself, which is a huge disappointment to have to change play style like that. There needs to be a balance so people can have the best of what this was originally about, both teamplay and pvp.

Of course it has everything to do with life expectancy. If the game had become one where no one wants to work together and people shoot on sight instead, we'd see a dramatic drop in life expectancy because people would be shooting other people a lot more.

[qfan 1]

Of course it has everything to do with life expectancy. If the game had become one where no one wants to work together and people shoot on sight instead' date=' we'd see a dramatic drop in life expectancy because people would be shooting other people a lot more.

[/quote']

In a game where there are no other threats than other players, yes. But in a game which is growing rapidly, i.e. lots of new players, which die mostly at zombies hands in the first 20 minutes, quickly learn how to deal with them. That means the majority of new comers are now surviving much longer. Bandit kills should not have a huge impact on that number.

Life expectancy isn't the issue as this is a convenient statistic used to prove a point without being thought through. It's the frequency of the players that choose to be bandits now. I say this because a vast majority (90% at least) in my gameplay time on Euro servers are those that don't care about killing someone senselessly, without repercussions.

You're also speaking as if I haven't played the game extensively. "If the game had become one where no one wants to work together and people shoot on sight instead" in my experience this is what it has boiled down to the last few weeks.

[blitzcloud 1]

shooting on sight hardly average life time.

1: The player killers that do enough to modify those stats don't care if they're bandits or not. They are camping getting sniping kills for no pupouse at all (not even going after their loot).

2: As the poster above said, players are starting to adapt to the game. It has a learning curve. I died more the first day than in the week after.

[belt 0]

Make a "psychological state" condition like food/water/blood. If you do too many bad things your character will shoot himself out of remorse.

[WalkerDown (DayZ) 296]

About the "life expectance"... did you realized it is "bugged"? Or to be exact it is "exploited". This has been mentioned by rocket weeks ago already. It accounts numbers that shouldn't be accounted, like in example those ppl respawning (suicide) for a better respawn point, etc.

So even a huge difference in the gameplay won't change those numbers.. in fact actually they are more around "hours" (3-4) than 30 minutes, if we extrapolate the real numbers from the "fake deaths".

The bandit skin removal changed dramatically the gameplay, you don't need a statistic to notice it, you have just to look at the user behavior.. i see myself: i didn't killed a single player for 8 days, then suddendly (after the skin removal) i killed EIGTH in 2 hours.. and so i continued.. why? Because it was too risky to do not (the only two times i didn't i got shot in the head...) and because i weren't paying any price to do so (it's tons easier to shot someone down, rather than asking him if he's friendly). So boring and childish that two days of this were enough.. so i abandoned the game until something will be done.

[reuben5150 83]

Rockets first big mistake, removal of bandit skin has turned the mod into a steaming pile of shite, whatever any of you say or think, you dont just rip these things out and hope for the best.

[trinsic (DayZ) 2]

Im pretty dubious about this "its full of CoD players' date=' everyone just shoots on sight". The number just don't support it. Do you get backstabbed? Yes you do. That is part of the tension and the learning. You need to be fucking careful. Bandit skins were an interesting attempt but they did not achieve what was desired of them, and they're standing in the way of another feature... choosing your own skin. So we fucked that shit right off.

[/quote']

85 pages deep and wanted to respond to this. Im a survivor and like helping people. at first I thought this change was gonna suck, but now I realize that it doesn't make much of a difference. Player actions speak for themselves. You just need to be careful, pay attention and observe people from a distance before you make decisions on whether or not you can trust someone, And even then you still need to be careful. This practices helps you learn how to trust people and I think it was a good idea to remove the bandit skins now.

After this feature was removed there were alot of times when I could have been shot by players walking right into the room i was in with weapon down and they didnt shoot. and I in turn would not raise my weapon or point it at them unless I knew they were getting twitchy with me. There is good deeds just as much as bad deeds in this game. It just really depends on the player.

---

Servers de-evolving into a total DM match is not unprecedented. Rocket himself explains that the bandit system was created BECAUSE servers had become gigantic DM matches.

From Rocket HIMSELF on the Rock Paper Shotgun interview:

Anyway' date=' what happened when we set up the original European server was very different from the original, relatively peaceful New Zealand server. Suddenly everyone was killing each other. I think the language barrier came in there – German, Russian, and English speakers – and it rapidly descended into chaos. The average life expectancy dropped to something ridiculous like thirty minutes. We knew we had to do something!

So what we did was implement that bandit system, which highlights the killers. But I don’t think it works. I think we need to have skins that are based not on your humanity, but on things that you find, craft, and use. That should allow people to craft their characters how they want. To appear as the character you actually play.[/quote']

The system is clearly flawed, but it needs to be improved, not removed. The server rapidly fell into chaos because of a language barrier, and this was early on with limited servers. This game has attracted the attention of Kotaku readers, RPS, PC Gamer, Reddit... it's not just a friendly or mature ARMA2 mod community who would be interested in playing this game as a social experiment, it's safe to assume the growth has introduced a number of people, if not a large segment of the population, that would much rather DM then scavenge and survive.

This is an important point. This game is not a death match game. If people want to play this game that are are coming from console shooters they are going to have to adapt to the way this game was designed. Not the other way around.

---

Average life expectancy now without bandit skin: 30 minutes.

Average life expectancy just before bandit skin removal was 26-28 minutes.

I think that alone proves not much changed.

It only proves that there are more people that have played the game longer and know how to survive that extra few minutes. This is beside the point anyway. You can't use life expectancy of a growing game to show that devolving into permanent pvp isn't a problem. Nice side step though :)

The extra 3 minutes shows that people are learning how to survive better' date=' yes. That's exactly my point. It's increasing. The bandit skin removal didn't really do anything to the life expectancy. If DayZ suddenly became a deathmatch, like some people are claiming, it would be decreasing rapidly regardless of minor increase in average player skill.

[/quote']

Nah you've missed my point. It's got nothing to do with life expectancy, it's the type of game it has become since this change. You've also missed the point that life expectancy for beginners has increased as they know how to handle zombies better. Don't forget they have as much, if not more effect over life expectancy than bandits.

There are almost 0 players now that are interested in team play, including myself, which is a huge disappointment to have to change play style like that. There needs to be a balance so people can have the best of what this was originally about, both teamplay and pvp.

Sorry you are flat out wrong. I see lots of team play happening regardless. quit whining about it and find people to play with using team speak or find another server to play on that have more friendly people playing.

[trinsic (DayZ) 2]

Honestly' date=' I also think this new change is not a good idea. It removes a main point of the game. There was a downside to killing people - aside from your own "pseudo-moral" (because it's only a game) thoughts. And you were marked for others...an outcast.

Now, what should stop players from just shoothing on sight every time?

A lot of people wrote: the bandit/survivor system would not work propperly and that you can also be killed by a survivor.

First: Yes, a survivor skin is not a guarantee, that someone will not shoot you, but it is less likely than an encounter with a bandit. Also the survivor with intentions to shoot you has to consider that after that he will be marked as bandit and his chance of surviving will decrease due to that.

Second: The humanity would not work propperly. Here would be a proposal.

- Allow Humanity to increase only if you help a Survivor!!

This would inhibit people from giving just a blood transfusion to a fellow bandit.

-For Bandits: The only way to increase Humanity again, besides helping survivors (also through e.g. giving them stuff from your inventory) should be TIME. If you do not kill a survivor for a long time, you could finally get back your survivor skin again.

What do you think to these ideas?

I think some way to divide players in two groups: those I "clearly don't trust" and those I "might trust", is essential for the game.

Oh and... to the whole: In the real world you wouldnt be able to distinguish peoples intentions by their clothes. No, you wouldn't. But a game is not the real world. In a real world, people would remember and warn others about a killer going around. This is not possible in this game with changing servers etc. So if it is not possible to implement something in a realistic way, you have to find a good "virtual solution" for it.

In a real world you would also not find the food just lying on the floor but you would have to search for it etc... but this doesn't mean, in a game you have to go through all the drawers.

[/quote']

Maybe im not thinking this all the way though but why can we just publish everyone's humanity stats on the web so we can look them up. I mean IRL if the internet was still around something like this might be implemented. they do it with sexual predators and people that are wanted by the law. We could even use a bounty system where people would place bounties on certain players for specific reasons like "killed my friend 3x times for no reason other than to take his stuff" and the money or loot could be put into a storage container and be unlocked when the player was killed in his current life iteration...

Just some thoughts.

---

I think the only true solution to banditry being way too preferable a playstyle is to increase danger. If you shoot one player' date=' no matter where, you better damn well have enough ammo for the 20-30 zombies who heard that gunshot and are coming for you.

Increase zombie pathfinding, increase the danger in the environment so you need to work together in order to survive. You can still kill others and take their stuff if you want to, but it's not something you can just spontaneously decide to do with no repercussions.

[/quote']

I thought it was already like this? There have been a number of times where I got killed by someone with a twichy finger and got killed by zombies in the area.

[reuben5150 83]

Increase zombie pathfinding' date=' increase the danger in the environment so you need to work together in order to survive. You can still kill others and take their stuff if you want to, but it's not something you can just spontaneously decide to do with no repercussions.

[/quote']

Yes, its not a matter of punishing those who shoot others or has it anything to do with "carebears", its about balancing.

Regardless of the bandit skin issues it was a far better game experience before the feature was removed.

The Bandit skin should be put back in immediately.

[miqueloz 33]

Maybe im not thinking this all the way though but why can we just publish everyone's humanity stats on the web so we can look them up. I mean IRL if the internet was still around something like this might be implemented. they do it with sexual predators and people that are wanted by the law.

You think there would still be internet in Chernarus...? This brings up the same question as before, though: how do you get infamous if everyone you attack is killed? There's no one to tell the tale.

[The Killing Joke 43]

Yes' date=' its not a matter of punishing those who shoot others or has it anything to do with "carebears", its about balancing. Regardless of the bandit skin issues it was a far better game experience before the feature was removed. [b']The Bandit skin should be put back in immediately.

You forgot "in my opinion". In my opinion, there is no balance to being arbitrarily labeled just because of the skin you wear. Proof? Ask a Bandit.

[reuben5150 83]

Because humanity is the feature DayZ deserves' date=' but not the one it needs right now. So we'll remove bandit transitions, because its not helping. Because its not a good feature. Humanity remains as a silent guardian, watchful protector. An ... unfinished feature.[/b']

"unfinished" means it should not be there ?

Put it back ASAP, you made a mistake accept it.

You forgot "in my opinion". In my opinion' date=' there is no balance to being arbitrarily labeled just because of the skin you wear. Proof? Ask a Bandit.

[/quote']

Balance- Zombie threat : survival elements : PVP

Bandit skin is prefered to what is now.

Do we understand yet.