Is losing everything... Enough?

[Deuzerre 64]

Been playing a bit. Quite a few lives actually. And there is one comman thing with all of these lives: They felt in the continuity of the last one.

I'm a Lone Wolf kind of player. I see this game as some sort of hardcore Fallout with some -sort of- smarter AI (survivors) roaming around and zombies.

But, even tho I like to play it; Finding loot, fighting for survival, running around with low blood and stuff, whenever I die, I don't feel anything. It's just a routine. The "Epic" loot that I gathered before I know I'll be able to get it in (around) 5 hours for the most flashy stuff like good guns, and quite a few more for the full set (watch, compass, gps, nvg, knife, matches...) but nothing really a hassle. Dying, and respawning, doesn't feel like a real punishment. It's a mildly annoying event, like your super nintendo crashing in the middle of a game you played quite a few times.

So, I've been wondering: What if reliable weapons were a really, absurdly rare drop? For example, it would be rather easy to find a double barrelled shotgun or a friken loud Lee Enfield, crappy Makarovs, etc... because these have rather large downsides, but still enough to fight Zeds and fighting back when faced with Bandits. But on the other hand, managing to find an AKS-74u would be the extremely rare, awe inspiring event. A goal by itself, an "End game". When you finally get your hands on that, you start reciting the mantra:

"This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.

My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will..."

And actually start to fear for your life. It was such a pain to finally manage to get it. You had to sweat blood for you to get that gun. And when you lose it... Now starts the pain.

Sure, it's actually hurting when you lose your fully equipped (Good gun + good bag + all the equipments) character. But that's normal, that's "completion and reboot". But most players only have the "good gun then hunt" philosophy. Having that good gun further, slightly away from reach. Having to do with what you found, and not what you are looking for... I feel that's the soul of DayZ. That frustrating search. Like a dungeaon crawler (Diablo-like) game where to finally get the sword of abmisal dimensional doom + >9000, you have to fight the whole dungeon. With a toothpick.

And finding guns that aren't really to your taste (If I can get an AK, whatever the version, over an M16, I will, even with less ammo) might even promote trade a bit if the game goes back to interactions > kos, in the kind of "You have an AK and you want my M16 SD? Trade!" sort of way.

Anyway, it was just an overall feedback with a bit of a suggestion. The Mod's Alpha is still great. We need more games like this.

Note: I play without looking at the loot tables and maps.

Edit and selfquote for a possible alternative:

If servers had "Level", basically life time limits. For example, server A is for characters that are less than a 2 days old. Most cherno FFA guys would hang in those. Zed spawn is slightly reduced, and loot above a certain quality would be locked. If you character gets one 24 hours old, you gain access to server B, an other servers that require over 1 day old characters, that are "Unlimited" in terms of Zeds and Weaponry.If your character is older than 2 days, you can't go back to "Less than a 2 days old" servers to farm the noobs or bring them good guns.

This would change several things: FFA players would have theirs servers with players of their mentality and the occasional guy that died would be able to roam the map almost freely as that's not where the fight is. This would weed out people that can't even survive one day long (I know it's elitist to say that). This also means that servers for characters that are older would most probably have people that feel sort of the same way about surviving. Both Bandits and Survivors that play for surviving, whatever the means they chose. This would also prevent some form of power levelling, prevent people from playing with their friends because they died (Oh the frustration!).

Good weapons would still find their way in lower level servers but only by the mean of between day 1 and 2 players.

Of course the "Time of life" could be different. I don't think most "Chern-lektro warriors" live much more than 12 hours, but 1 day is good punishment I think, and lets people relearn how it it to live with crappy weapons.

Edited July 14, 2012 by Deuzerre

[wurocket 3]

I feel like it would just make death more frustrating.

[SillySil 295]

There would be 90% less good guns without all the duping methods.

[Albatros (DayZ) 40]

Agreed. EVERYTHING needs to become more rarer, it's too easy to get anythng at the moment.

[Deuzerre 64]

I feel like it would just make death more frustrating.

That's kind of the point of the mod actually. "Rocket said!".

There would be 90% less good guns without all the duping methods.

About the exploits, it's really easy to get guns even without them. In less than 3 hours, I can get a good military grade rifle with 4 or 5 mags. With a bit of luck I can even get the SD version.

Agreed. EVERYTHING needs to become more rarer, it's too easy to get anythng at the moment.

Maybe not beans and soda :) But everything weapon-related and the already rare NVG and similies, yeah, maybe.

Edited July 14, 2012 by Deuzerre

[Sutinen 635]

What about bringing up the common weapons (Makarov, for example) even more common and the military weapons even more rare? I have never found a makarov, but I had like 10 mags for it last time..

[CaptainPlanet (DayZ) 23]

So I once had an m24, nvg's, rangefinder, gps, and all the nice things in life.

Then 1.7.2.3 came, tore it all away from me.

Friend spawns in stary, dies to sniper on my way to meet him.

FUCK NO

I ran up and kill him with my winny.

DMR acquired.

Tried to loot friend, crashed every time.

Search tents, ACU backpack.

Another tent, M24.

Go to Elektro, start sniper rampage.

After 5+ kills a guy comes in my tower, oh shit is that my friend? NOPE

He goes back down (could have killed me)

Kill him, get another DMR, gps, nvgs, and rangefinders. (killed another guy for a gps during the beginning

[athrins 39]

I think one of the things making death not so frightening is the fact that we can store our stuff or have friends pick it up for us until we run back.

I think we should have locks and safes in the game to store our stuff in. When we die, our new character does not know the lock combination/password (best way to simulate a totally new character waking up on the beach), so even if you go to the location, you can't easily get to your old gear within it.

Opening a locked safe could be done with advanced tools to not ruin the content and these tools is extremely hard to find (perhaps only in the barracks with the spawnrate of rangefinders, or so) and might be heavy objects that you can't just carry around (requiring a truck or a base camp to set it up in).

Your old body should not be lootable by/visible to you.

I have had a radically different idea as well, when it comes to respawning after death (I have not posted it, because not sure if good or not). This idea includes different instances of the world. Chernarus would have several instances (maybe instance cycles so you don't get lonely after a while, say 10 levels) which you progressively spawn into after each time you die. This would mean that you cannot get back to your friends after you die, unless they kill themselves, too. You can not avenge your killer. You cannot retrieve your, or your squad's items.

You know nothing about what is going on in the world you spawn into (loot spawns should really be made more dynamic, and items should spawn outdoors - maybe all items dropped on the ground or somehow lost in the world should persist and never despawn until picked up? Would need easier way to locate objects on ground, though).

With such a mechanic in place, everyone would consider dying to be a truly impactful event resulting in literally ceasing to exist as far as everyone else around you is concerned.

Each instance would have a cooldown timer of a few hours which locks you out of that instance, to prevent chain-spawning to get back to your old world-instance. Suicide would also require actually hurting yourself fatally, with a gun or falling from a high building/mountain, etc.

This mechanic also makes a noob-instance necessary for newcomers to get used to the game in. This instance would be severely limiting in what you can do in the long term, to discourage veterans from joining.

Maybe this should be put in suggestions, after all..?

Edited July 14, 2012 by Athrins

[semipr0 402]

Perma-death with infinite lives is not perma-death.

Thats why it has no teeth in DayZ.

DayZ needs more reasons to survive, than it needs more reasons to disregard your own safety.

[SponceUK 24]

I agree, weapons need to be rare. Military weapons need to be extremely rare but with the duping problems it's not possible at the moment anyway :/

[Recalibar 28]

Weapons need to be rarer. Zombies could run slightly less quickly however. Nothing sucks more than being caught by a zombie without a weapon. It's a good tradeoff I think.

[NFK 102]

But, even tho I like to play it; Finding loot, fighting for survival, running around with low blood and stuff, whenever I die, I don't feel anything. It's just a routine. The "Epic" loot that I gathered before I know I'll be able to get it in (around) 5 hours for the most flashy stuff like good guns, and quite a few more for the full set (watch, compass, gps, nvg, knife, matches...) but nothing really a hassle. Dying, and respawning, doesn't feel like a real punishment. It's a mildly annoying event, like your super nintendo crashing in the middle of a game you played quite a few times.

Been thinking about this, and it occured to me that currently death's only consequence is the loss of items (and not even that if you've got a stash). If there was a significant respawn delay, the loss of the player's time might hurt more. For example, you die, the client notes your death and locks you out of multiplayer for say, half an hour (or whatever your preferred time increment).

An even more sadistic method to make death matter: Go old school and have a counter with a limited amount of lives (say, one hundred, or whatever your preferred number). No continues. And when you're out of life, you're dead for good, can't play anymore.

This would turn risking your life into risking your opportunity to play the game.

[Partypants Pete 7]

So I once had an m24, nvg's, rangefinder, gps, and all the nice things in life.

Then 1.7.2.3 came, tore it all away from me.

Friend spawns in stary, dies to sniper on my way to meet him.

FUCK NO

I ran up and kill him with my winny.

DMR acquired.

Tried to loot friend, crashed every time.

Search tents, ACU backpack.

Another tent, M24.

Go to Elektro, start sniper rampage.

After 5+ kills a guy comes in my tower, oh shit is that my friend? NOPE

He goes back down (could have killed me)

Kill him, get another DMR, gps, nvgs, and rangefinders. (killed another guy for a gps during the beginning

Hey, whoah, I get it man. You're a hero. You take pollution down to zero. But do you really need to combine the powers of all those weapons to be be yourself? Is that how you really want to define yourself?

[WalkerDown (DayZ) 296]

Spawn (~15 seconds) > Respawn until u spawn in Cherno or Elektro (~2 minutes) > Find a Lee Enfield (~5 minutes) > no need for food/water (you'll envetually die before u need em) > start the deathmatch. Penalty suffered for dying: less than 8 minutes. Repeat forever (or until you get bored).

The other option is to go to north.. but for what reason? To collect gear that you'll never use or that you'll eventually loose because of a bug or a cheater? A waste of time! Stay in cherno and shoot on sight collecting kills.

^^^^ This is not what this mod is made for ... but "unfortunately" the players are just that: videogamers! :)

[Katana67 2907]

Meh, certain things need to be rarer and refocused whereas other things need to be made more common. List is too long here, plus server hopping needs to be discouraged, and Cherno and Elektro need to be made MUCH less attractive to new players.

[Lukio (DayZ) 24]

This has bugged me as well. Currently death is not grave / meaningful at all. That is why I suggested that Death should have more meaning to it. Unfortunately it seems no one understood what I meant, everybody seems to think that just seeing the "You are dead" screen and clicking on Respawn is fine.

Some kind of camera slowly zooming out from your character while you are being eaten up by infected or just laying there in a puddle of blood after falling off a roof would be pretty awesome.

[Paraguin 1]

Been thinking about this, and it occured to me that currently death's only consequence is the loss of items (and not even that if you've got a stash). If there was a significant respawn delay, the loss of the player's time might hurt more. For example, you die, the client notes your death and locks you out of multiplayer for say, half an hour (or whatever your preferred time increment).

An even more sadistic method to make death matter: Go old school and have a counter with a limited amount of lives (say, one hundred, or whatever your preferred number). No continues. And when you're out of life, you're dead for good, can't play anymore.

This would turn risking your life into risking your opportunity to play the game.

That is a terrible idea.... I paid for this game and I am sure I am not the only one that would be in a rage if I was no longer able to play the game just because I died a few times. Do you honestly think thats a good idea? Not to mention the amount of customers they would lose to that. Even the getting locked out of multiplayer for 30 minutes is idiotic at best. I am a married man with a life and sometimes only get an hour or 2 to play at a time. If dying kicked me out of the game for 30 minutes I wouldn't even waste my time.

[Techercizer 82]

That is a terrible idea.... I paid for this game and I am sure I am not the only one that would be in a rage if I was no longer able to play the game just because I died a few times. Do you honestly think thats a good idea? Not to mention the amount of customers they would lose to that. Even the getting locked out of multiplayer for 30 minutes is idiotic at best. I am a married man with a life and sometimes only get an hour or 2 to play at a time. If dying kicked me out of the game for 30 minutes I wouldn't even waste my time.

You paid for this game, yes, but we're not talking about this game. We're talking about this mod: the thing you haven't payed a cent for.

Edited July 14, 2012 by Techercizer

[Deuzerre 64]

@WalkerDown: I see where you're coming from, but I can't agree. You're limiting yourself to <5% of the map and <10% of the equipments available and say "This is DayZ, what it is made for". No, you are thinking of red orchestra or something, not DayZ. DayZ is a survival game, not a PvP game. Sure, there is a possibility for bi scale PvP with bandit groups VS bandit groups, but the pointless FFA in a town with an average life time below 20 minutes is... Not really what you should be looking for: There are other games that do this a lot better.

@ Captain Planet: The guy who's camping with his sniper would have had to look hours and hours for that Sniper Rifle. Would he dare lose it just sniping for fresh spawns? Nope. Because that griefer is here just spawning, rushing to get his sniper, coming back in a really well oiled routine of less than 3 hours. The same guy would abandon the game if it meant looking for hours for that rifle, or would play differently.

@ NFK: Long waiting time after death isn't a punishment. It's always time for a coffee break or a piss when you die, so it wouldn't change much. Also, it would prevent many people that have below 30 minutes game time/day from playing.

@ Semipr0 Yes, there needs to be reasons to stay alive: Basically high level content, "End Game". What I'm proposing is to have uncommon weapons as part of that End Game, a reason to live until you have it, and a reason to stay alive when you have it.

@ Athrins: I think it might be possible to play it an other way than this (as your idea is technically difficult to implement). Ahow, wall of text!

If servers had "Level", basically life time limits. For example, server A is for characters that are less than a 2 days old. Most cherno FFA guys would hang in those. Zed spawn is slightly reduced, and loot above a certain quality would be locked. If you character gets one 24 hours old, you gain access to server B, an other servers that require over 1 day old characters, that are "Unlimited" in terms of Zeds and Weaponry.If your character is older than 2 days, you can't go back to "Less than a 2 days old" servers to farm the noobs or bring them good guns.

This would change several things: FFA players would have theirs servers with players of their mentality and the occasional guy that died would be able to roam the map almost freely as that's not where the fight is. This would weed out people that can't even survive one day long (I know it's elitist to say that). This also means that servers for characters that are older would most probably have people that feel sort of the same way about surviving. Both Bandits and Survivors that play for surviving, whatever the means they chose. This would also prevent some form of power levelling, prevent people from playing with their friends because they died (Oh the frustration!).

Good weapons would still find their way in lower level servers but only by the mean of between day 1 and 2 players.

Of course the "Time of life" could be different. I don't think most "Chern-lektro warriors" live much more than 12 hours, but 1 day is good punishment I think, and lets people relearn how it it to live with crappy weapons.

Edited July 14, 2012 by Deuzerre

[schmotto 32]

30 mins till you can respawn after dying. Would make your life more valuable and make people start from the location they spawn in rather than to spam the server with respawns.

[opticalshadow 27]

acording to rocket, player skills/traits will be added in, you can specilize in being a doctor, or engineer, the better you are the more you can do, the more importent you become, and when you die, you lose all of that progress.

when this gets implemented death will be alot more harsh, when your groups best doctor dies, and your overall survivability falls with him, you might all actualyl mourn him.

the subject of lives being more valuable and death meaning something more has been touched on in the past, sticked threads contain the links.

[TheMachine 803]

When you die in DayZ it should void your CD key.

1 life, that's it.

[athrins 39]

@WalkerDown: I see where you're coming from, but I can't agree. You're limiting yourself to <5% of the map and <10% of the equipments available and say "This is DayZ, what it is made for". No, you are thinking of red orchestra or something, not DayZ. DayZ is a survival game, not a PvP game. Sure, there is a possibility for bi scale PvP with bandit groups VS bandit groups, but the pointless FFA in a town with an average life time below 20 minutes is... Not really what you should be looking for: There are other games that do this a lot better.

@ Captain Planet: The guy who's camping with his sniper would have had to look hours and hours for that Sniper Rifle. Would he dare lose it just sniping for fresh spawns? Nope. Because that griefer is here just spawning, rushing to get his sniper, coming back in a really well oiled routine of less than 3 hours. The same guy would abandon the game if it meant looking for hours for that rifle, or would play differently.

@ NFK: Long waiting time after death isn't a punishment. It's always time for a coffee break or a piss when you die, so it wouldn't change much. Also, it would prevent many people that have below 30 minutes game time/day from playing.

@ Semipr0 Yes, there needs to be reasons to stay alive: Basically high level content, "End Game". What I'm proposing is to have uncommon weapons as part of that End Game, a reason to live until you have it, and a reason to stay alive when you have it.

@ Athrins: I think it might be possible to play it an other way than this (as your idea is technically difficult to implement). Ahow, wall of text!

If servers had "Level", basically life time limits. For example, server A is for characters that are less than a 2 days old. Most cherno FFA guys would hang in those. Zed spawn is slightly reduced, and loot above a certain quality would be locked. If you character gets one 24 hours old, you gain access to server B, an other servers that require over 1 day old characters, that are "Unlimited" in terms of Zeds and Weaponry.If your character is older than 2 days, you can't go back to "Less than a 2 days old" servers to farm the noobs or bring them good guns.

This would change several things: FFA players would have theirs servers with players of their mentality and the occasional guy that died would be able to roam the map almost freely as that's not where the fight is. This would weed out people that can't even survive one day long (I know it's elitist to say that). This also means that servers for characters that are older would most probably have people that feel sort of the same way about surviving. Both Bandits and Survivors that play for surviving, whatever the means they chose. This would also prevent some form of power levelling, prevent people from playing with their friends because they died (Oh the frustration!).

Good weapons would still find their way in lower level servers but only by the mean of between day 1 and 2 players.

Of course the "Time of life" could be different. I don't think most "Chern-lektro warriors" live much more than 12 hours, but 1 day is good punishment I think, and lets people relearn how it it to live with crappy weapons.

I'm not sure if you understood me. Just to reiterate: I was not talking about amount of time played or anything other than just when you respawn, you spawn in the next instance of the world. Sort of like a playlist but with the instances having cooldowns so you can't respawn repeatedly and rapidly and get back to playing an instance you recently left.

Your alternative offers the same sort of concept and technical difficulties. Besides, instancing isn't really new, nor difficult to code (I think, I have no professional insight on this).

Your idea, if I understood it correctly, is having the instances based on how long you played. You are also confusing instances with servers (nvm, I misread that part) and you are suggesting that these "servers" be different in what loot spawns to give a sense of progression? No offence, but I'm not liking it. It would mean that new players can't meet with older players and constant/lasting "progression" isn't anywhere near what Rocket wants for the mod, apart from that he wants us to build and change the world (organizing the environment, really).

Edited July 14, 2012 by Athrins

[Deuzerre 64]

When you die in DayZ it should void your CD key.

1 life, that's it.

Nice try at sarcasm. The thing is, a good attempt can pass for a true post.

[TheMachine 803]

I'm serious.