Learning by doing - the alternative to classes & professions

[edonovan 15]

strange that I missed this in my search. Just posted almost the exact same suggestion

[Quaby 93]

Think about this situation-

Cooking your food-takes 10 minutes

Halfway through with your cooking, somebody sees you. Knowing you are vulnerable, he attacks and kills you.

Ticks

You are walking through the woods and you randomly start to lose blood/get slower or be affected in some negative way. You cannot stop it at all, so as I said earlier, you are being buttfucked my something you cannot avoid. Add an action you can do at all time w/ mousewheel? "Check for parasites..."

And DayZ is not supposed to be 100% realistic. It's impossible to make a game 100% realistic. And the only people who would enjoy this are the super-hardcore people. And you clean your damn knife after you hunt. Stick it in the fire and you're good. Even I with my rather pathetic hunting knowledge know THAT ;)!

Back on topic-You would have to factor in so many details, everyone who just picked it up would get really confused, frustrated, and then just not play it. IT would also make it that much easier for really advanced people to stay alive. Since he is really good at everything, he has even more of an advantage over the guy with an enfield fresh out of elektro than he already does. And really, will making everything take forever add anything to the game? People would just tab out or listen to music while you go through the super-long process of cooking.

[Zera_Grey 28]

yea cooking takes time ina survival situation where you are being hunted stopping to cook should put you at risk. it is risk vs. reward situation plus the game isn't suppose to be fun it is a zombie apocalypse. everyone you love is dead or infected and you have had to make a decision to kill them or leave them for your own survival. you probably at this point had to shoot neighbors/friends and children so you could survive. not a fun scenario when it comes down to it. I for one am not a hardcore gamer I would play the game for the realism. the reason the mod is popular is because it has that. the bullet physics work like bullets should, you can starve and dehydrate and die, you can break bones bleed out and don't have auto regeneration of health. you have a semi perma death where everyone is on even playing ground when they start. people assume everyone wants to distance themselves from reality but at this point the cookie cutter generic games are pissing the gaming community off thats why this mod is popular with people though detached from reality in that it is a zombie apocalypse it falls in the realm or realism with the survival aspect.

do like your Idea for the ticks removal and having to clean your knife. even if you didn't you could still use it but chances increase to contaminate the meat. I would play a game with these features it make the environment more of a challenge so even a well established player can wind up dieing from getting sick or trying to regain blood from meat.

[L0G!N (DayZ) 149]

Where the difference from IRL & Ingame can obviously be used is in the time it takes to cook, you can have the used interact quite a bit in 40-120seconds. For an Authentic but still gamy cooking system. I guess something like this could work:

- When you put something on the fire, it shows an icon or pop-up menu of the flesh.

- When you 'hover' mouse over a slice it turn up to options: - take, - turn over.

- There is a timer on the cooking process, this timer takes 2,5x aslong to charr (ruin) both sides. But no indication or progress bar!

- During the cooking process the texture of the icon changes somewhat, when freshly put on the fire the sides start to brown, and the top pale a bit.

- Depending on when you turn over the meat (based on hidden timer) the texture changes and shows the 'underside'

- Both sides of the meat can 'charr' reducing the meats nutrician value by 40% for each side (80% total) , this happens at 1x the set charr time.

- If you leave one side to cook for 1,5x the cooking side, the whole meat burns up, and disappears

- Meat is best at 90% of the charring time applied to each side.

So assuming 125 sec or so to totally 'charr' and then have the meat go up in flames, you would put the meat on the fire, see textures slowly change and turn the meat over after 40-45 seconds, let the other side sit that long as well. 90 sec have passed, dinner time ... the whole system above already explains a small chance on spoiling the meat, so the 'meat' after it is taken from the animal comes with a certain state (clean, spoiled), then the cooking timer can 'whipe' the soiled status after a certain cooking time, say 60 seconds total time cooked. To make make matter more 'fun', you can eat the meat after you put it on the fire for 5sec for both sides (10sec total).

Then you add a state to the knife, clean, dirty, soiled (assuming other uses for the knife aswell, f/e as a weapon, or to open tin cans), and to the knife you add the menu-options: whipe, and only if you have a fire going: disinfect. If your knife is dirty it adds another 10% to the chance of spoiling meat, if your knife is soiled it ads 90% to this chance. And seeing you may also be able to open cans with it, or cut other food (in the future) these chances affect there as well...

So now what happens, you shot the cow through the belly (for some reason, i guess being a noob), giving you a high chance of getting soiled meat, you cook this meat both sides for 15sec (30sec total), and you eat this. Now a timer starts for 3min, if it ends you start to vomit, you health icon (the sides around it) turn to yellow, now anything you eat will make you vomit after a few seconds, not restoring any health or the 'food status', your thirst depletes 2x as fast (and gives a 50/50 chance of restoring thirstlevels/or not and when 'not' you vomit. Your 'sick' status influences your 'endurance/strength' (making you slower by being able to carry less weight). This continues untill you 'fix' your illness, and just effects you in the 'normal' way of dying of thirst or hunger.

How to fix this? Applying 1 heat pack will turn the sides of your health icon to orange and start a timer (say 5-10min), for this time you feel well again, you can restore your water level, and you can eat to restore health and hunger. If the timer runs out though you will vomit again (no direct penalty), and your icon turns to yellow, the whole thing starts again (blocking being able to eat, thirst depleting fast, and being weak). You can apply a heatpack for upto 4 times, repeating this process, after the 4th timer runs out you are 'bettter'. You can apply those 4 heatpack in one go, this will let you play on, but your icon will stay orange for those whole 40min, and everytime a heatpack runs out you will vomit (for a total of 3x, last time you ok). Or you can take some antibiotics and clear your infection in one go.

This will somewhat mimic how foodpoisoning works and how to somewhat deal with it IRL, and how meat from a fresh kill poses risks. Some of it may require a bit of creative coding, but nothing to serious, mostly if/then statements with a couple of variables and timers, and a few 'set/do' statements to change some things around and have you vomit. You can code it one time and enjoy it for the rest of the lifetime of the game ...

Edited July 16, 2012 by L0GIN

[Zera_Grey 28]

Where the difference from IRL & Ingame can obviously be used is in the time it takes to cook, you can have the used interact quite a bit in 40-120seconds. For an Authentic but still gamy cooking system. I guess something like this could work:

- When you put something on the fire, it shows an icon or pop-up menu of the flesh.

- When you 'hover' mouse over a slice it turn up to options: - take, - turn over.

- There is a timer on the cooking process, this timer takes 2,5x aslong to charr (ruin) both sides. But no indication or progress bar!

- During the cooking process the texture of the icon changes somewhat, when freshly put on the fire the sides start to brown, and the top pale a bit.

- Depending on when you turn over the meat (based on hidden timer) the texture changes and shows the 'underside'

- Both sides of the meat can 'charr' reducing the meats nutrician value by 40% for each side (80% total) , this happens at 1x the set charr time.

- If you leave one side to cook for 1,5x the cooking side, the whole meat burns up, and disappears

- Meat is best at 90% of the charring time applied to each side.

So assuming 125 sec or so to totally 'charr' and then have the meat go up in flames, you would put the meat on the fire, see textures slowly change and turn the meat over after 40-45 seconds, let the other side sit that long as well. 90 sec have passed, dinner time ... the whole system above already explains a small chance on spoiling the meat, so the 'meat' after it is taken from the animal comes with a certain state (clean, spoiled), then the cooking timer can 'whipe' the soiled status after a certain cooking time, say 60 seconds total time cooked. To make make matter more 'fun', you can eat the meat after you put it on the fire for 5sec for both sides (10sec total).

Then you add a state to the knife, clean, dirty, soiled (assuming other uses for the knife aswell, f/e as a weapon, or to open tin cans), and to the knife you add the menu-options: whipe, and only if you have a fire going: disinfect. If your knife is dirty it adds another 10% to the chance of spoiling meat, if your knife is soiled it ads 90% to this chance. And seeing you may also be able to open cans with it, or cut other food (in the future) these chances affect there as well...

So now what happens, you shot the cow through the belly (for some reason, i guess being a noob), giving you a high chance of getting soiled meat, you cook this meat both sides for 15sec (30sec total), and you eat this. Now a timer starts for 3min, if it ends you start to vomit, you health icon (the sides around it) turn to yellow, now anything you eat will make you vomit after a few seconds, not restoring any health or the 'food status', your thirst depletes 2x as fast (and gives a 50/50 chance of restoring thirstlevels/or not and when 'not' you vomit. Your 'sick' status influences your 'endurance/strength' (making you slower by being able to carry less weight). This continues untill you 'fix' your illness, and just effects you in the 'normal' way of dying of thirst or hunger.

How to fix this? Applying 1 heat pack will turn the sides of your health icon to orange and start a timer (say 5-10min), for this time you feel well again, you can restore your water level, and you can eat to restore health and hunger. If the timer runs out though you will vomit again (no direct penalty), and your icon turns to yellow, the whole thing starts again (blocking being able to eat, thirst depleting fast, and being weak). You can apply a heatpack for upto 4 times, repeating this process, after the 4th timer runs out you are 'bettter'. You can apply those 4 heatpack in one go, this will let you play on, but your icon will stay orange for those whole 40min, and everytime a heatpack runs out you will vomit (for a total of 3x, last time you ok). Or you can take some antibiotics and clear your infection in one go.

This will somewhat mimic how foodpoisoning works and how to somewhat deal with it IRL, and how meat from a fresh kill poses risks. Some of it may require a bit of creative coding, but nothing to serious, mostly if/then statements with a couple of variables and timers, and a few 'set/do' statements to change some things around and have you vomit. You can code it one time and enjoy it for the rest of the lifetime of the game ...

love the idea actually I was thinking longer time if you just put the meat on the fire and then watch the area as it cooks but this works just as well. either way adding a venerable side to cooking makes people more cautious while using fire and cooking when they can possibly get killed. login get more beans.

[Dr. Toros 8]

Randomness is bad to introduce to a game, especially a binary 90% success, 10% failure.

Perks are better for a zombie survival game than just pure learning, because people *would* come into an apocalypse with prior training and knowledge, and those people would be far more likely to survive.

A combination system would be best, I think. You start with some prior knowledge and can build in other areas.

%effectiveness is a better way to go than succeed/fail percentages, because it is more satisfying to get 50%, then 52%, then 54%, instead of 100%, 0%, 0%, 100%

[Zera_Grey 28]

Randomness is bad to introduce to a game, especially a binary 90% success, 10% failure.

Perks are better for a zombie survival game than just pure learning, because people *would* come into an apocalypse with prior training and knowledge, and those people would be far more likely to survive.

A combination system would be best, I think. You start with some prior knowledge and can build in other areas.

%effectiveness is a better way to go than succeed/fail percentages, because it is more satisfying to get 50%, then 52%, then 54%, instead of 100%, 0%, 0%, 100%

I see no problem with randomness when it comes to survival two people can do all the same activities but one person would die because something completely out of their control happened by random chance. it is about adding human error into the equation we are not infallible and nothing is 100% except death. their is always a chance something you have done 100 times will not work the same way each time. you are never guaranteed success. human error can be random, like no one writes their name exactly the same each time they do it. I would think they would translate the number to code it is easier for people to work with percents I was not looking to write it in program read ability. success and fail I use interchangeably with each other for the example I gave as again human error factors in.

I agree a combination would work especially for engineering, but items should not have 100% success rate since they degrade over time and due to exposer.

Edited July 16, 2012 by Zera_Grey

[kovalhuk 19]

I like this system very much, it reminds me of Ultima Online. :)

[hoik 415]

Skills/Perks are definatly a value that can be given to players aside from the loot their carrying - very good to make people think before they shoot (maybe..)

Edited July 26, 2012 by Hoik

[nacrom 82]

+2

[L0G!N (DayZ) 149]

I am bumping this thread in hopes of getting some more input for the suggestion forum community. Now that DayZ has been announced as going standalone i personally think that making this suggestion as good as it can be will be detrimental to winning over the community and the dev-team to actually implement it and as such make DayZ a better game with a decent early/mid-game progression system!

As such i'll be paying a bit more attention to this thread and the ideas in it over the comming weeks :)

Edited August 7, 2012 by L0GIN

[L0G!N (DayZ) 149]

Just some stuff i think I may have to add:

- reloading speed?

- animal training?

what about other 'character progression' area's? <- these currently in the 'full physical' thread.

- strength (weight carried)

- stamina (sprinting)

- endurance (jogging, longdistance)

Edited August 8, 2012 by L0GIN

[hunter2123 106]

Wonderful ideas, put a ton of work into it!

[indominator 95]

rocket said he wont implement rpg stuff

[venthos 605]

I am wholly against any sort of skill point, experience, or any other 'character advancement' system. One of the major draws to DayZ is the fact that the only difference that separates your character's in-game power against another is what items you've found. Not how long you've played the game. This means that sniper who has lived for multiple days/weeks is just as vulnerable to a 15 minute old noob with a makarov/hatchet if that noob gets the jump on the sniper from behind. It's that fact that makes the frustrating part about dying something that's tolerable. All you need to do is re-gear and you're good again.

Any suggestions that create 'character advancement' coincidentally increase the punishment for death and widen the gap between a new character and one who has survived for a long time. It makes it that much more difficult to survive as a new character and makes it that much more prudent and rewarding to be a kill-on-sight bandit to 'keep the other players down' at low advancement levels.

This, and all other character advancement ideas, would be a negative impact to the DayZ experience as it stands. Unless, that is, your goal is to increase punishment for death and further encourage kill-on-sight bandit behavior.

[bazbake 456]

My opinion?

Turns this game from a zombie apocalypse survival sim into an RPG. I get that the first instinct is to replace skill with stats and give yourself constant progress to make sure that you're not wasting your time by playing when you could just lose it all with stray gunshot, but this idea of inevitable progress is what, in my opinion, will hamper the dynamic of the game and the freedom for new players to step right in. Tents have already provided a combination training wheels and parachute.

Basically, I'm anti character progress in any way except for a humanity meter and maybe a beard to reflect the days it's taken you to survive this long.

[xximrtwoixx 104]

I dont see how people would be prevented from exploiting or grinding, I personally hate grinding and think if its an option people will take it and that defeats the purpose of even having skills included.

[L0G!N (DayZ) 149]

I am wholly against any sort of skill point, experience, or any other 'character advancement' system. One of the major draws to DayZ is the fact that the only difference that separates your character's in-game power against another is what items you've found. Not how long you've played the game. This means that sniper who has lived for multiple days/weeks is just as vulnerable to a 15 minute old noob with a makarov/hatchet if that noob gets the jump on the sniper from behind. It's that fact that makes the frustrating part about dying something that's tolerable. All you need to do is re-gear and you're good again.

Any suggestions that create 'character advancement' coincidentally increase the punishment for death and widen the gap between a new character and one who has survived for a long time. It makes it that much more difficult to survive as a new character and makes it that much more prudent and rewarding to be a kill-on-sight bandit to 'keep the other players down' at low advancement levels.

This, and all other character advancement ideas, would be a negative impact to the DayZ experience as it stands. Unless, that is, your goal is to increase punishment for death and further encourage kill-on-sight bandit behavior.

None of these skillsets should give a player any bigger chance to survive a bullit/hatched to the head, so i don't realy understand where your first 'now italiced' response comes from. Though perhaps i should include it in the OP under the 'Do not affect these things'-list.

I will have to admit that the OP is still a work in progress, and I may have not stated every 'if / but / etc' in regards to this suggestion. But, I personally would like a 'what players need / and what they want' distinction in this suggestion. As such what players need should not be restricted (if you read the thread you will hopefully see my responses to some other suggestions on this topic to be in line with that statement, aka. unlocking abilitities is something i would not like to see!), but in regards to the things that people want, yeah i think progression in these skillsets, for as far as they can not be realized as IRL skills in the gaming environment, should be open to failure.

I do not want to make a new player fail a 100% untill they did some arbitrairy action 100x, but in another thread i mentioned starting at 40% with a quick progression to 60%, to then have half the speed untill 80%, and long progression from 80 to 100%. Where these % are not fail/success ratio's but more or less some sort of 'skill level'.

Last, YES! the goal is to make death a bigger punishment because once tents & vehicles work correctly death will be nothing more than the inconvenience of running back to your tent! ... and while i think a camp should lighten the burdon of dieing, there obviously needs to be something to replace it... a reasonable progression skillset system COULD be just the thing!

I dont see how people would be prevented from exploiting or grinding, I personally hate grinding and think if its an option people will take it and that defeats the purpose of even having skills included.

I have thought about grinding a lot already, and if there is any risk in the learning-by-doing system it is the grind. The main reason i hope to combat this is to simply not show any stats on skills *period*, if you don't know where you are then you don't know how far you can (have to) go. Another thing is the availability of items to grind with, one can only 'grind' bandaging on bleeding people, bloodbags on people that are hurt, cooking/hunting on animals, etc... and the idea is progression through doing the things you progress in, so no matter how many zeds/players you kill there will never be any skillpoints to put in some skilltree, as there is no skill to progress by killing zeds! Well there is shooting them through the head, but that is a skill YOU as a player can learn yourself, so there is absolutly no reason to put a +1 system on it ;)

@BazBake, Don't feel left out by not being quoted, i hope i answered some of your concerns in the responses above, but your statements did leave me with little room to respond. All i can say is that i will try my best to replace as little systems with 'rpg-like +1' systems as possible. And I am more than open to suggestions that make sense, f/e through discussion i think 'we' came to a cool cooking system that is on page 2 somewhere, while it is realy detailed it also ads a bit more than 'put meat on fire/take meat', because if that is all there is, why not just eat the damned meat raw! If it's fresh you won't die from it, it may be a bit harder to digest but if you chew realy good... and it's not like we humans only started eating meat AFTER we learned how to cook it, if you think so, then please check on monkeys diet's there are several that also hunt for meat and just eat it after a kill, no cooking involved...

@All three of you, as already mentioned this is a work in progress suggestion, and the fact that i respond to your concerns should hopefully show that i do not ignore them, I too see these concerns to a certain degree. But then again, learning by doing is the least evil of all other possible systems, like XP for zed kills & skill trees, or perks that make no sense or lock people out of content untill they did something 1000x or even worse killed a 1000 zeds before they can repair a chopper ? like wtf!

Learning-by-doing could provide decent mid-game content, while also keeping the tension in the game in regards to dieing. But please keep visiting this thread and keep tabs on the OP, I will add and make changes to it in the weeks to come, to give more meat to the idea. Be critical and ask questions, though if you still don't like it, well there is little i can do about that up untill a certain point, in that case you stated your dislike, i took note of it, and if you don't see it resolved i just ignored it ;) don't feel bad about that, as it's my suggestion not yours :) ... but do note that i gave you the opportunity to make it the least resentfull as we both could...

Edited August 8, 2012 by L0GIN

[venthos 605]

Last, YES! the goal is to make death a bigger punishment because once tents & vehicles work correctly death will be nothing more than the inconvenience of running back to your tent! ... and while i think a camp should lighten the burdon of dieing, there obviously needs to be something to replace it... a reasonable progression skillset system COULD be just the thing!

See, that's my problem with any sort of character advancement mechanic. I always see that the individual proposing the idea provides an example of "This is how it will punish a bandit" or "This is how it will punish a well established character!". Case in point, your example about punishing a well established character with a tent/vehicle/campsite. It's toted as an attempt at "leveling the playing field" and "protecting the little guy".

However, you seem to gloss over the fact that the punishment is more severe for the less established player. This is precisely the opposite of what you state as your intentions.

Examples:

[1] Player A with tent and/or car and/or well stocked teammate(s) dies. They run to their tent and gear up and grind/farm (wow do I hate using this in the context of DayZ. Makes me shudder) the skills you've laid out in the OP.

Inconvenience: Minor. With gear in hand immediately, it's just a pure time grind to resume their prior skill set that presents zero risk and will be lightning quick as compared to a character spawning in with no gear.

[2] Player B is a player who lacks any sort of storage beyond their own personal inventory that has died. This person was quite well geared to the teeth, they just didn't have any "reserves" via tent/whatever. Not only do they have to work at getting basic gear/supplies together just to survive, they now have the added burden of their skill set. By the time this player even gets a remedial set together, Player A is back in business with their skill sets where they were pre-death.

Inconvenience: Significantly higher than the well stocked player

The end result is that Player A is now given even MORE of an advantage by being able to widen the gap between them and players without tents/vehicles by having the added skill sets that they're readily able to re-max after death while others are scavenging for gear.

If you punish the non-tent/car players too much, they simply won't play DayZ anymore. Some will complain, but most will be silent and just give up and move on. You can't just think about what would be most convenient for yourself or your clique of people that you run around in DayZ with. You need to think about this from a "how will this ensure DayZ continues to grow or remains well populated so that I *can* play with others?".

My main problem is that these class, leveling, experience, skill, and other character advancement systems are toted as "Hah, bandits will think TWICE about getting killed now!" when the punishment they describe is always more severe for the less geared survivor. This is not to say that such a ratio of punishment is invalid/wrong, but it's contradictory to the goal you've set outright.

I continue to say that character advancement in DayZ would ruin a lot of its charm for me. I love the fact that everyone is on even footing "character" wise with the only difference being pure items. I do NOT want an MMORPG/FPS. I do not want to gain skills/level/achieve anything with my character other than finding loot. I love that even the well decked forest sniper will go down like a rock if someone has the tactical wherewithal to get the jump on him. I sincerely hope that no character advancement mechanics are ever introduced to this game.

Simplicity is what makes this game so amazing. Every darn shooter nowadays has experience/advancement. DayZ is a bit of nostalgia for me with a throwback to the games of ye old '90s where whether you've played the game for 3 months or 3 days, your characters' in-game capabilities are no different and the only advantages you get are pure items (that aren't restricted from anyone) and pure player skill.

I appreciate your coherent and calm reply, as I know many can get really irritated when someone disagrees with their idea. I hope I'm conveying my responses in a similar fashion. My goal isn't to get you to "change your mind" and have you tell me I'm right. I only wish to convey that there is opposition to a mechanic like this so that anyone reviewing this suggestion understands it's far from unanimously desired (with my reasons/justifications stated).

[xximrtwoixx 104]

See, that's my problem with any sort of character advancement mechanic. I always see that the individual proposing the idea provides an example of "This is how it will punish a bandit" or "This is how it will punish a well established character!". Case in point, your example about punishing a well established character with a tent/vehicle/campsite. It's toted as an attempt at "leveling the playing field" and "protecting the little guy".

However, you seem to gloss over the fact that the punishment is more severe for the less established player. This is precisely the opposite of what you state as your intentions.

Examples:

[1] Player A with tent and/or car and/or well stocked teammate(s) dies. They run to their tent and gear up and grind/farm (wow do I hate using this in the context of DayZ. Makes me shudder) the skills you've laid out in the OP.

Inconvenience: Minor. With gear in hand immediately, it's just a pure time grind to resume their prior skill set that presents zero risk and will be lightning quick as compared to a character spawning in with no gear.

[2] Player B is a player who lacks any sort of storage beyond their own personal inventory that has died. This person was quite well geared to the teeth, they just didn't have any "reserves" via tent/whatever. Not only do they have to work at getting basic gear/supplies together just to survive, they now have the added burden of their skill set. By the time this player even gets a remedial set together, Player A is back in business with their skill sets where they were pre-death.

Inconvenience: Significantly higher than the well stocked player

The end result is that Player A is now given even MORE of an advantage by being able to widen the gap between them and players without tents/vehicles by having the added skill sets that they're readily able to re-max after death while others are scavenging for gear.

If you punish the non-tent/car players too much, they simply won't play DayZ anymore. Some will complain, but most will be silent and just give up and move on. You can't just think about what would be most convenient for yourself or your clique of people that you run around in DayZ with. You need to think about this from a "how will this ensure DayZ continues to grow or remains well populated so that I *can* play with others?".

My main problem is that these class, leveling, experience, skill, and other character advancement systems are toted as "Hah, bandits will think TWICE about getting killed now!" when the punishment they describe is always more severe for the less geared survivor. This is not to say that such a ratio of punishment is invalid/wrong, but it's contradictory to the goal you've set outright.

I continue to say that character advancement in DayZ would ruin a lot of its charm for me. I love the fact that everyone is on even footing "character" wise with the only difference being pure items. I do NOT want an MMORPG/FPS. I do not want to gain skills/level/achieve anything with my character other than finding loot. I love that even the well decked forest sniper will go down like a rock if someone has the tactical wherewithal to get the jump on him. I sincerely hope that no character advancement mechanics are ever introduced to this game.

Simplicity is what makes this game so amazing. Every darn shooter nowadays has experience/advancement. DayZ is a bit of nostalgia for me with a throwback to the games of ye old '90s where whether you've played the game for 3 months or 3 days, your characters' in-game capabilities are no different and the only advantages you get are pure items (that aren't restricted from anyone) and pure player skill.

I appreciate your coherent and calm reply, as I know many can get really irritated when someone disagrees with their idea. I hope I'm conveying my responses in a similar fashion. My goal isn't to get you to "change your mind" and have you tell me I'm right. I only wish to convey that there is opposition to a mechanic like this so that anyone reviewing this suggestion understands it's far from unanimously desired (with my reasons/justifications stated).

I think a skill system can be developed that stays authentic to the rest of the dayz experiance, I realize that some players will not like this but I also think it is something that is necessary to establish both re-playability and continued growth. Developing a skill system will introduce specialization by players and this will breed co-dependancy, something that is needed to a degree IMO, I don't disagree with KOS but I do believe that the game is meant to be more than DM, to me the focus is surviving against the odds. Another aspect that skills introduce is mutual destruction, groups may choose to leave each other alone rather than have a war simply because they know it will not benefit them in the long run.

You are 100% right that skills can widen the gap between the have's and have nots, and that people will attempt to keep other people down by killing them before they can develop skills. I am fine with both of these things, I think that both of them fit into the the theme of the game, your in competition with everyone for everything, so their success is at the cost of your own. I disagree that skills will make gap to wide, they can be implemented in a way that punishes both fresh spawns and established players but a skill hit for death would always be worse for an established player, death should suck. Skills can also be implemented in a way that does not effect player skill, I think that is what your mostly afraid of, instead of impacting were your bullet goes when you pull the trigger they could effect how fast you reload your gun, or how fast you become winded. Things that are not random and a player with skill can overcome, I don't think random chance should be included when the stakes are as high as they are.

[L0G!N (DayZ) 149]

@Venthos, i do not seek to punish anyone more than anyone else (not bandits nor survivors nor teamplayers with tents), i just wish to make death an equal big deal through-out the gaming experience, and add more mid-game content. See if you just spawn death isn't realy an issue, more than often i draw agro from some bugged zed that saw me through a wall by chance, so i start running through town find a building and loose all i picked up... though once you found some basic gear, then death starts to suck a bit, as you have to go through the whole 'get basic stuff back' routine. This would increase as you gain more and better gear, BUT, the moment you find a tent (and I find them all the time) you turn into a little squirl and stock up on stuff, now death has hardly any meaning, you die? well run back to your tent/base/car and continue ... in a sense a base/tent/car works somewhat a [save game] function, it negates the death is a big deal thing entirely. And i too like this game for some of it's nostalgic mechanics, but in my views the [save game] ruined a lot of the tension in gaming... And i see it return in the storage feature, so in my views there should be something that brings back that tension, and seeing collecting gear isn't one of them anymore, the only thing that is left is to replace it with some other progression. Learning by doing any skillset that can not be transferred over from IRL, or isn't authentic (like becomming more accurate, or having more HP) should not be a part of it...

I also wanted to add that, as it currently stands your A & B examples are already unequal, A will gear up fast and beat that part of the game with a simple run, B will have to gear up entirely again. There is a difference though, player A will have likely 'trained' other skills than player B, because of the simple fact that player B (as i read) is a lone wolf, he will not have been applying bloodbags, fix cars (or else he had storrage), but it's likely he will have hunted... Player A might have been the engineer, medic, hunter, w/e of the team. His death caused the whole group to be less effective... so in the end i think the impact on both players will be tramendous, but atleast I am not proposing some system in which they start at lvl0 again, have to kill 1000 zeds or do something 1000x just to be able to do the next thing. So everybody can do everything, but also get better at it ... which increases the tension for all players ... and as said it's not supposed to be like the newb can't do shit, the noob may fail a bit more often but if they persist they will prevail (and 'learn' from it).

Anyways, it's hard to convince somebody that just doesn't want to see what it could add, and in a sense

You can't just think about what would be most convenient for yourself or your clique of people that you run around in DayZ with. You need to think about this from a "how will this ensure DayZ continues to grow or remains well populated so that I *can* play with others?".

Because in my clique people are already seeing that they now know some good locations to get stuff, and after they build their tents/car there is NOTHING there to do but hoard more ... this means there HAS TO BE some sort of progression, that fills the 'mid-game' experience, atleast in my views. Now i hope you don't feel to agitated by using your own argument against you, but look at it this way, I spend most my time in the suggestion forum and i seen all sorts of skill/perk/profession/class systems pass by, and a lot of players pretty much expect there to be some progression, so the reason for me to make this suggestion was my aversion to these suggestions, as all other systems either lock players out of doing things (profession/classes) or just make no sense in relation to DayZ (you kill 1000 zeds and you get to put +1 in your medical tree/perk to unlock using sterile bandages instead of the starter 'rags', how does that even make sense?) ... so while you can uphold your aversion to any skillsystem, you may want to look at it this way, IF there were to be a skill/perk/class/profession system in DayZ what sort of system would I want ... and which wouldn't i want? ... i would not be surprized if this will lead you to conclude the suggestion I am working on here (or 'we' since i hope people will help out through discussion) will be the most in line with the DayZ experience, and the least MMORPG like, giving the most freedom or least restrictions ... while it does keep tabs on the excitement of playing by making death mean more and more the longer you survive, and also provides something that you can't 'prepair for' (like stocking items in your base does now).

But enough time spend on this now, I don't expect you to see it my way, but i do hope you look passed your innitial fear for anything skill related to be able to see this is atleast the least horrid of them all ...

Edited August 8, 2012 by L0GIN

[xximrtwoixx 104]

I think a system that gives you Skill points based on the time you have been alive would be the least horrid as it can't be farmed, ie servers have iddle timers. So you get points for being in game surviving exactly what the point of the game is. This means people can't grind there way to epic levels faster than other players, but it does reward players for playing more and being successfull in game.

Also skills should not be random or lock people out of actions just as OP stated, they simply make you better (mostly faster) at doing certain things. They can be a simple 0-100 scale and at spawn you select them via point buy so there is no advantage and everyone can make the character they want. The points available in point buy can be set to a timer so if you die over and over they are reduced and this reduces DM mentality and punishes new characters perportionally to older characters.

Example skills

Chopper pilot- at 0 you have no training of fligh so getting through the preflight check list/starting the chopper takes a long time. At 100% you instantly start the chopper. (This doesn't effect player skill, flying the chopper but does provide a reward)

Hunter/Butcher- At 0 you have never butchered an animal you get 1 steak for 3 min spent butchering IG, at 100 you get all steaks at 2 min IG butchering.

Weapon hadling- Specific to each gun with synergy for types (Hand gun, shotgun, assault rifle, sniper, etc)

At 0 you've never fired the gun before and have no idea how it works, Reload time is 15seconds maybe no reload while moving, at 100 you reload in 2 seconds or whatever it is now. Could be incorporated with weapon wear, jamming, readying your weapon, even drift when not prone, etc. This should not have sway though as bullets should go where you shoot them.

Synergry would give fewer points to weapons in same category as they are fairly similary, this could be diffrent ratios based on number of points so you get to 25% for all fast then slower to 50 etc.

The focus should be on getting value out of specialization while still allowing player skill to shine through. Also health damage ect should never be associated with anything all characters are the same meat bags and all 7.62's do the same damage.

[RoastLamb 4]

I don't like this suggestion at all, as it means lone wolfs can never truely learn skills? ... there is also no reason why a person can't learn by trial&error or rather, learning by doing. If anyone has any constructive critisism feel free to join in, http://dayzmod.com/f...es-professions/ , i am almost done fully revising the OP ... all the people that want to scream NOoooo, you just had your fix, please read the full topic and discussion, if you still feel negatively about the suggested learning-by-doing suggestion please leave concrete reasons asto why you think it's so bad.

I think the important thing is to avoid grinding at all cost. But I do get your lonewolf argument, but is it authentic (as Rock like to say)? Even a skilled real life sniper, who operates on his own, had to learn all his survival skills and shooting skills from a mentor.

cont...

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maybe a system where a player can get to a certain proficiency in any discipline but to get highly skilled requires cooperative learning and mentoring

[L0G!N (DayZ) 149]

Updated the OP with more details on 9th August, please read it again as it gives a much better overview of what this system could be like ...

Seeing i value input even though i might not agree with it, i also added the optional starting levels to be changed by choice. I would prefer everybody to start equally, but i can also see other's peoples preference to have some sort of starting choices which could fuel their roleplay experience, it would also give a player some sort of idea of what this character was before (s)he ended up being a survivor.

@Roast Lamb, while i need to let it sink in a bit, one thing that did cross my mind in relation to your post above here, is that IF a novice performs a certain action close to somebody that would be an expert (say a 30% higher level in the particular skillset), that the game could give a +2 to the novice instead of a +1. Depending on how it is set up, it may even be possible to give a novice a +0.25 for being around an expert performing a certain task. As learning by example is also a way to learn IRL. ;) ... but i'm just done typing this and it's nearly bedtime, so i'll sleep on it a bit ...

Edited August 9, 2012 by L0GIN