Player vs. Environment campaign (bandits vs. survivors vs. zombies. long read.)

[takfar@gmail.com 24]

...A few words for an introduction:

This particular thread has obviously become too long, probably a bit intimidating to read. For those wanting a quick idea of what I propose, it's basically:

- Many players dislike the current state of shoot-on-sight PvP gameplay (see part 1)

- Many players want a more in-depth exploration of both character and world story in Day Z (see part 1)

- PvE against zombies, as they are now, would be easy and become boring fast.(see part 1 and 3)

- The solution: to create a separate PvE campaign for DayZ. (see part 1)

- PvP will be untouched and unchanged (see part 2)

- Friendly fire will be possible, but bandits will be clearly marked and always in a risky position. (see part 4)

- PvE characters will be locked to a server, will have story backgrounds and will be able to evolve in skills. (see part 5 and 6)

- Campaigns will have three phases (survival, preparation, and finale), which will take place over a suggested seven real-time days, with evolving threats and a definite end. (see part 7)

- Characters will always be in the world, regardless of whether the player is in. So find yourself a safe place to sleep when you log out, or your character may wake up dead. (see part 8)

- Loot will not respawn (see part 8)

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original thread below:

Hello, guys. I'm adding a new suggestion to the list I've started a few days ago. I'll get back to those threads later, but I really want to write down this idea I'm gestating right now.

The past threads are as follows:

http://dayzmod.com/f...cter-evolution/

http://dayzmod.com/f...ners-and-locks/

In this edition I'd like to brainstorm the PvE (Player vs. Environment) gameplay a bit.

0. Disclaimer

This is a thread for brainstorming possible additions to the Day Z gameplay. If you dislike the ideas, please criticize specific points and try to help by improving them. I'll debate and try to incorporate all ideas in the finalized proposal as my time allows. "GTFO, this is not WoW" Threads are not helpful, and will be solemnly ignored.

1. What is this idea and where does it come from?

Currently, the main draws of Day Z are the "survival" gameplay, the character's evolution through loot, and finally the combat between players (PvP). The ability to roam in a lawless world and either just try to survive or to make other's lives miserable is a mainstay of the game, it's something unique and exciting. I wouldn't want the PvP to go away, and I wouldn't want restrictions attached to the bandit/survivor mechanic (tho some way to more easily differentiate both, and some incentives for following either path would be nice). It's worth noting that the initial "help-or-kill" dynamic of Day Z human interactions has been largely supplanted by the "stay away from others and survive until you can fight back" dynamic, which basically equals "shoot on sight" in almost all situations. We've grown used to it, and we've adapted.

Many people, however, are uncomfortable with this dynamic. New players, especially, can't get very far in the game without receiving a severe beating from veteran bandits. Some people have demanded PvE-only servers to be allowed, which Rocket has very clearly refused (one, because it takes away from the DayZ concept, and two because they could be easily exploited to bring "easier" loot into the PvP arena. The more I thought about it, the stronger I felt this division between PvE and PvP could be used in our favor.

The main conceptual example I'm following here is Guild Wars. It's a game that tried to please (and, by all accounts succeeded!) both crowds: PvE people in search of story and character advancement, and PvP in search of greater challenges and recognition of their skills. In many ways, PvE has served as a way for players to learn the workings of the game, and entice them into engaging in PvP. In many cases, PvE players have not made the transition to PvP, but that's just fine, it hasn't hurt the game in any way - it just gives people choices. At firt, Arenanet tried to mesh both games completely, applying the same rules to both, but they finally decided this attempt was hurting both sides and decided to have some slightly different skill rules for each. Guild wars 2 is expanding this concept and adding World vs World gameplay, a type of PvP that will allow even the less-skilled to engage in PvP and feel useful, maybe learn a thing or two in the way, and graduate to full-on PvPers. This is the type of action that broadens a game's appeal without at all compromising the high-level competitive PvP, and Arenanet has proved again and again that it can work.

The second inspiration is the concept behind Epic's upcoming game Fortnight (http://kotaku.com/59...citing-in-years), itself clearly inspired by Minecraft, which has obviously also inspired DayZ. It's a game of cooperative defense against things that roam the night (well, if you don't know it, read the article I linked, really).

The third inspiration, albeit loosely, is the campaign structure of Left 4 Dead. I like the way it tells a story and it always ends in a harrowing finale.

The last consideration on this is that, of course, most of the stuff needed for this type of game campaign already exists in the Arma engine, and would only have to be directed accordingly so as to create this new game type. So, let's go for our concepts and guidelines

2. Prime directive: the PvP game will remain untouched

This is very important. The idea here is to expand the game so people frustrated due to being harshly treated by bandits when first getting into the game can enjoy it, and finally move into the PvP. I've personally been through this myself, being constantly mad for being shot at while playing a newly-respawned character, and then constantly afraid of all human interaction in the game... until I finally had a character who managed to survive. I now know all the basic skills and I'm constantly itching for player battle. It also means if you're in a PvP game, you know you'll be target by bandits from the very start, and you agree to "man up" and survive in that harsh world... or go back to PvE.

So, again. DayZ will still be DayZ. No changes, other than whatever new developments Rocket is planning (bug fixing, dog training, underground bases, and all that good stuff). If you're a seasoned PvP'er who dislikes PvE, you never have to touch it. If you feel you are losing something because you'll be out of green newbies to shoot at while sitting on a hill off the coast (since new players will probably be learning the ropes in PvE ), then you're a sad, cowardly, and shameful human being.

3. What's the objective? What will we be fighting for? What do I lose if I die?

One of the main criticisms directed at PvE-only Day Z servers is that, without the threat of rampant banditry, the game will become too easy and will quickly become boring, once the player is fully kitted-out. The idea here is that, in a PvE game, rather than playing a freeform sandbox game with no definite ending, the player will be thrown into a battle against ever growing AI forces, and against the clock itself. I will describe the actual campaign further down the line.

The first thing we have to deal with, in order to keep the game interesting, are the stakes involved. If I die, what do I lose? In the current PvP game, you lose your equipment, and if you can make it to your body again and it hasn't been looted, you're good to go. In this game mode, you would lose your equipment, but also any progress made in character skills (discussed in part 6) and your score would be reset to zero. you'd be a new character, starting out with no additional knowledge of the world around you. It's also important that the characters should be server-locked to allow persistence and coherence in the campaigns. Each player would be allowed to have one PvP character, as is current, and maybe three ongoing PvE characters (so he wouldn't be locked out of the game if one or two of his servers went down for a while).

Then, there's the fact that some people will *want* competition, even in a PvE game. The success of each survivor will, then, be measured in a score board once the campaign ends, and all positive actions will be counted, whether it's zombie killing, healing other players, or fixing vehicles. This final score will not be a crucial part of the gameplay, and shouldn't, by principle, affect any persistent character or ingame stats, but would be recorded in a player's stats, and maybe shown in global leaderboards (eg. Player "Dude" has played 10 campaigns. He has 1000 points as a survivor, 500 points as a bandit. He has succeeded in 8 out of 10 campaigns played). This is just to create a way to record his progress and achievements, for those who like such things.

4. Tension is essential: Friendly fire and Banditry.

This is an idea for a PvE game, separate and different from the base game's PvP. For some, this will make this mode "not what Day Z is about". For others, it'll be a different face of Day Z, a different way to be part of this world. Those are the people who will be interested in this game mode.

How, then, do we turn this PvP game into a PvE game? The first, most obvious - and worst, imo - choice would be to turn off Friendly Fire. While it would solve the banditry problem for good (as in: there would be no bandits, since there's no player killing), it would greatly detract from the game's realism and tension. Anyone could run around with an axe in the line of fire of a friend who's shooting down a zombie horde, with no consideration to tactics or self-preservation. Everyone would be able to trust everyone, and never be on their toes at the sound of gunfire. This would not be good.

There's a way out of this, however. We keep friendly-fire on. We give the victim (anyone wounded by friendly fire) an option to either forgive the shooter or punish him. If the shooter is forgiven, all is well. He loses some points so he'll be more careful next time, but he keeps on playing normally. If the wounded player feels the shooting was purposeful and decides, to punish, however, that player is labeled a bandit. In this game mode, bandits will be severely punished.

First of all, they get identified clearly. Whether it's different clothing, blood on their hands, eyes shot with red or whatever, it should be easy to tell if someone's a newly-converted bandit. Notorious bandits (anyone with more than one player kill) would become even easier to identify, first by having their position revealed in the map to anyone when they fire a gun, and then by having their position permanently revealed in the map to everyone, if they kept on player-killing. (Maybe they would laugh out loud wildly after a kill, too). The only way a bandit could score points from now on, would be by killing players (and not zombies) or aiding other bandits. Killing a bandit would add a large amount of points to a survivor's score, rather than detract them.

The most important part, however, is that bandits will not be able to respawn. There are two options after this:

a ) The player is locked out of the server for the duration of the campaign. His character would be dead and gone until a new campaign opened in that server. This would create bands of roaming bandit-players, terrorizing different servers (up to 3, if 3 characters were to be allowed, as described before), but leaving the server clear of their nefarious presence once killed.

b ) Any bandit killed will rise back as a random zombie in the map, and will be locked to that form until the end of the campaign. This player could still get his kicks as a roaming zombie trying to kill unaware survivors, but he would have reduced senses (blurry vision, muffled sound), and would be noisy and easy to kill. On the other hand, he would be able to move very fast and would feel no hunger or thirst. Maybe if he killed a player, he might be allowed to respawn as a bandit again, although with no equipment, and going against stronger survivors (since the survivors will have improved in skill and equipment by that time). I personally like this idea best.

This mechanic would create several overarching dynamics in the PvE game:

- Most players would want to cooperate. Being a bandit would be a tough life, as the more one killed, the easier he would be to spot, and the only way to push on in the score board would be to keep killing. If the choice was to lock the player out of the game, he would soon become completely unable to play PvE. If we adopter the zombie-bandit path, then he would be locked in zombie-mode, which could be exciting, but also disorienting and frustrating, especially against a group of organized survivors.

- A strong, organized team of bandits could premeditate a coup and strike against a survivor group in the middle of a coop game. This could cause a game to melt down completely, causing a failed campaign - which would be a great emergent dyamic, in fact! Or, maybe the bandits could better survive the final event with the loot they took from survivors? So many possibilities.

- Survivors would have an incentive to organize bandit hunting groups. Some players would keep on getting food and fixing vehicles, while others would strike out to destroy bandit encampments. Both would be making good scores, if successful.

5. PvE will be about story and growth first, competition second.

I'm an avid consumer of stories. I love reading books, I love playing RPGs and adventure games. I love movies and series (zombie movies and series too!). Don't get me wrong, I love shooting people in the face in combat simulators, too, but there's a lot a game can achieve beyond that visceral pleasure of repetitively testing your skills to press buttons and slide a mouse around.

That said, what are the stories we create and consume in Day Z? There's the basic story of getting yourself to learn to survive in the wasteland, learning to sneak around the zombies and run away from gunfire. The story of how you found your first hunting knife and how you camped yourself near that barn where you found your trusty winchester rifle. And then there are the other stories, the best ones, about how you defended your barn from a group of invaders, and how you gave a dying man morphine and a can of beans, and he became your friend (or shot you in the back, in return). All these stories, about interaction with the world and with other players, are derived from the emergent gameplay allowed by the amazing sandbox that is the Day Z mod.

Many people, however, have questioned themselves about the rest of the story:

Who is this character I'm playing as?

Why did I wake up in this beach?

What happened in Chernarus?

What is the zombie infection? Is it a global pandemic? Has the world as we knew it ended for good?

How the hell can my guy do all the stuff he can do?

Of course some hints to the background of the infection could eventually be added to the PvP game, but the first questions would still be left unanswered. The character questions. Everybody knows the best zombie movies are not about the zombies or the plague, but about character interactions. If all characters in every movie or series were military-man #5467, the super-genius who's the lovechild of McGyver and Chuck Norris, able to fix cars, perform leg surgery, hunt like a pro, run a marathon without breaking a sweat, sneak like a ninja and shoot like a veteran, what fun would any of these stories be?

So, the PvE campaign would be a way to answer exactly these questions. How would we do it? Keep reading.

6. Each character is a character of his own

In my first suggestion thread, I created a set of rules for character advancement, and suggested some possible player kits for starting out. The idea was that characters should have individual personalities, strengths, and weaknesses; they would work best as a group, and would have a chance to advance in a path parallel to the loot-hoarding that is the current objective in the game. As the character survived and performed other tasks, he would be able to pick up other skills, or improve his own specialties a bit. Here is the thread link again:

http://dayzmod.com/f...cter-evolution/

The main criticism the idea received is that the need to improve skills would create an imbalance between starting characters, leaving them even weaker against the environment and easy prey to ill-intentioned veteran players. Well, in the PvE game, everyone would start with different skills, and the environmental challenges would be initially smaller, as well, increasing exponentially as the players developed their skills and equipment. If a survivor died along the way, he would spawn again an untrained (or rather, specifically-trained) character, and would need extra help to survive, and a group of survivors who dies too much would easily face defeat in the campaign.

7. The campaign phases

So, we finally arrive at the campaign itself. A bunch of survivors are thrown into the world, unaware of the existence of other survivors, or the nature of the threat ahead of them. The campaign would play itself over phases, more or less. The main objective would be, of course, to survive against the environment, the zeds, and the bandits. The secondary objective would be to learn more about the zombie plague. And the final objective would be to get the hell away from the game area before the final, cataclysmic event. All the time the city is quarantined, and any attempt to leave the city will be met with stiff military resistance (ie. "you are dead" screen) I'm thinking about splitting the campaign into three phases, which would play out over seven real-time days (the amount of days could vary from server to server). A player would be able to join the campaign at any time, but newly created characters would be unskilled, as described above. The phases would be the following:

- Phase 1 (Day 0 to day 2):

Characters are scattered around Chernarus. They are weak, cold, disoriented, and completely defenseless. At this point, players would have to go into town, attempt to gather basic survival resources (canned food, bottled water or soda) and gear. The city suburbs are sparsely occupied by zeds, making it slightly easier than what we're used to to sneak around and obtain these basic items. A few individual, scattered zombies roam the wilderness.

The city is out of power, and all important loot-generating places are either firmly locked (skilled players could unlock or bust them, by finding the correct items) or impossibly crowded with zombies (I'm looking at you, supermarkets and airfields). Once the characters have the basic survival needs covered, they must focus on reaching each other and organizing themselves. The priority is to reach the power plant and get it working again. This could allow for street lights to be turned on, but more importantly, it could allow for the radio and cellphone towers to be activated. The radio and cellphones themselves would be found in the sparsely-zombified suburbs and small towns. Cellphones would allow for communication between any pair of survivors anywhere in the map, while radio towers would allow any survivor to broadcast to all others, but only within range of the radio antenna.

Possible random events in this phase would be civilian helicopter crashes, cryptic radio transmissions, abandoned ships hitting the beaches with supplies loaded, a medium-sized band of zombies moving from place to place.

- Phase 2 (Day 3 to day 5):

The zombie threat increases. Bodies that were littering the towns have now risen up as zombies, making going to town more dangerous. Several medium-sized bands of zombies start to roam the wilderness. In this phase, players must concentrate on preparing to get out of the city and creating defensible bases to fend off zombie attacks. They should, by now, have enough numbers and firepower to invade industrial sites and military bases, in order to get military-grade guns and vehicle parts.

A secondary objective will be to find out more about the zombie plague. Listening to scattered radio transmissions in strange frequencies, finding classified documents in the military bases or finding evidence in crashed helicopters will both reward the player points, and give hints on what the cataclysmic even of Day 6 is going to be, and how to prepare for it. Finding a character's own family house and picking up an object of sentimental value could be a personal objective awarding points to that one character.

Possible random events in this phase would be military helicopter crashes, large roaming zombie hordes, and invasions from small teams of hostile human military AI.

- Phase 3 (Day 6):

This is when all hell breaks loose. Over the day, radio broadcasts will easily pick up hints on what is about to go on in Chernarus. At a certain time of the day or night, one of three cataclysmic events (with a duration of a couple hours) takes place in order to end the campaign.

a ) A massive, never ending, zombie horde overcomes the military quarantine and invades from one of the roads. The only way to win is to manage to get a motorized vehicle through the one road through which the horde came from. Expect to face hundreds and thousands of zombies. Shooting them is fruitless, so the players have to either avoid or go through them with vehicles. Running over a zombie will damage a car, so players would have to prepare cars with fortified fenders or risk maneuvering through them with a motorcycle.

b ) A large army team invades from one of the roads. They aim to exterminate all moving creatures, zombies or survivors. This scenario can be won by eliminating or avoiding the military AI and exiting through the one road from which they came from. Players would have to prioritize firepower and tactical positioning for this defense.

c ) Chernarus is going to be nuked! The military blockade on the roads remain, but a radio transmission says a rescue boat/chopper is coming. Players have a few minutes to find out which port it'll land at, clear the area of all zombies, send a signal and get out. Players have to split between getting enough transports to get everyone to the right port or airstrip on time and having enough firepower to kill all zombies surrounding the area.

In this phase, killed characters do not respawn. Their scores will be tallied, but they will be left out of the game, and can spectate through the eyes of live characters.

8. Other gameplay mechanics

After the third phase, the campaign can end either with success or failure. Success happens if even one survivor is extracted off chernarus alive. Failure happens if all survivors die in phase 3 (either killed by zombies, or the military, or bandits, or the nuke). Scores will be counted by character, so if someone loses a character along the way, they go back to zero.

There's another very important aspect: each character will be permanently present in the world, whether or not the player is connected. So, not only will ALT+F4ing to avoid death be useless, but the player will have to find a secure place to leave his character when he logs off, as the character goes to sleep. An asleep character has his items safely stored, but he can be killed by a bandit or have his face eaten by a zombie (at which point he becomes a lootable corpse), so he better find a safe, protected place to sleep in. Any character who hasn't been used for over two days will be considered to be "in a coma", marked in the map and anyone will be able to loot his items.

This last part is important becase, in the PvE game, loot will not respawn. This is a zombie apocalypse, and as resources are used up, they will be gone. It is very possible for a team to have completely expended all the resources in chernarus by the time phase 3 comes, and will be unable to complete the campaign. This will also make it even more important to loot every single loot spot, even the smallest houses, for important goods. Since characters are server-locked, there won't be a risk that a player will strip one server clean in order to help the fight on another one.

9. Other maps

This is simple: in order to stave off boredom by repetition of the campaign cycle, other maps could be converted from ArmA to PvE DayZ, or even made specifically for the campaign. They could have different objectives and finales, and different survival strategies.

10. Final words

This post obviously became much larger than I originally thought it would be. From an idea, it grew into a design document. Maybe it's too much for Day Z, maybe it's too different. But maybe that will be enough to inspire some kind of PvE mod once standalone Day Z is out (after all, Day Z is a mod or ArmA2, there's nothing stopping anyone from making a mod for standalone Day Z).

There are so many other ideas in my head right now. Maybe contrast the big noisy finale with a "bleak" version of the PvE in which there are no vehicles and no survivor respawn: you die, you turn zed. The threats to survivors grow, resources dwindle, and only death awaits all. Everyone is infected and ultimately dies after the third campaign day, if not gutted by a zombie sooner. The one with the highest score is the winner.

Of course there are problems with this idea. Servers would have to be stable for the whole duration of the campaign, or at least have a way to periodically save all loot and character locations, in case of any problem. Maybe the players would be able to prepare too fast, being completely equipped in the first day, and then just wait bored for the finale? Who knows. These things would need testing.

I'm tired now. My eyes hurt a bit. Thanks for reading.

Edited July 18, 2012 by takfar

[SuperGhost 0]

If some people can't hand the shoot at first sight i suggest not even playing this game XD So much complaints for that hehe

[tnoy23 4]

good idea, but way more important things to be working on like stability

[takfar@gmail.com 24]

If some people can't hand the shoot at first sight i suggest not even playing this game XD So much complaints for that hehe

I agree. I will personally shoot any armed person that I see in the game. I'm suggesting something else, tho. A different game mode based on the Day Z engine.

good idea, but way more important things to be working on like stability

Absolutely. There are way too many bugs, random deaths, disappearing inventory, crazy tents, and whatnot, in the game. That doesn't mean we shouldn't discuss possible additions for the future.

Edited July 18, 2012 by takfar

[SuperGhost 0]

Well maybe a just shoot zombie kind of thing for the people who dislike PvP.

[Ramboness (DayZ) 15]

If you don't like getting shot often join a server with low population. I like PvP as how it is, I always like the paranoia back in my head telling me to be careful with what ever I place with zeds I choose to raid. There will always be someone out there to hunt you, that's what I like.

[takfar@gmail.com 24]

If you don't like getting shot often join a server with low population. I like PvP as how it is, I always like the paranoia back in my head telling me to be careful with what ever I place with zeds I choose to raid. There will always be someone out there to hunt you, that's what I like.

Eh. Which part of the posts disagrees with that mindset in any way? I like PvP, many people do. Can we get back to the point of the thread?

Well maybe a just shoot zombie kind of thing for the people who dislike PvP.

We already have House of the Dead, Left 4 Dead, Resident Evil, and countless others for that. PvE DayZ would be a large sandbox survival game, with zombies and hunger, thirst, infection, cold, bandits, hostile military, and character progress.

Edited July 18, 2012 by takfar

[euryale 72]

what you are suggesting is creating a new game. Or a game on hardcore mode in Killing floor

[SGTFledge 43]

So, I read all of this suggestion.

And I like it. I like it a lot. I would leave to be a part of it. The only thing that I find questionable is the "seven days" deal. Seven back to back days. Some of us can only afford that at certain times out of a year. That aside, this idea is great and extremely detailed and somewhat unfeasible.

The greatest restriction DayZ suffers is what it modifies: ARMA 2. There's just so many hurdles, I can't even find a place to start and tell you why this idea might not be completely feasible. Then again, I like it so much, I would definitely look forward to it and support its implementation.

What bought me off was the character restrictions: your character can't disconnect from the server to save their life AND they're restricted to that server. Of course, that would require a lot of dedicated servers, and constant community communication concerning the coming or ongoing campaigns. Hell, if such a feature were implemented, imagine how the forums would blow up, becoming hubs of communication, a thread for each server with each campaign.

I only speak for myself, yet I believe a lot of people would be interested in this. And those who don't like it can just go to the regular DayZ servers, were nothing is changed and they can play to their hearts' content.