DayZ needs objective other than survival

[pogoman979 4]

Ok i am rather baked right now and it is 4am where i am, nevertheless i can't get this idea out of my head and need to share it, so hopefully this makes sense (and if it's a retarded idea cut me some slack :P).

Some of you may know of the numerous life missions there are (were?) for arma2. These missions involved players roleplaying cops and civilians in a gta style world. Anyway i spent a fair bit of time coding one of those missions and in the end i realised the biggest problem with them was that once players had all the toys (and money), there was nothing to do except grief/deathmatch and the game got really boring really fast.

This has parallels with DayZ:

The only goal in DayZ is to survive (other than subgoals like getting gucci gear to grief other players with), and in reality in this game you could technically survive for hours and hours if you stay in shelter with a couple of cans of food and some water (and perhaps a fire with the latest patch). The point is, staying alive is actually quite easy in this mod, however it is more fun to go out and explore, which happens to also be exponentially more dangerous.

My personal problem with DayZ is everthing feels a bit pointless, i.e. i'm looking for more supplies so that i can stay alive in order to keep looking for more supplies, etc. Now it seems most people enjoy this, or enjoy being bandits and dming, but personally if i dont have a tangible goal to achieve when i am playing a game i find it to be rather boring.

TLDR: MY SUGGESTION:

When you clear a town it is cleared for good (obviously its going to be much easier to clear small towns vs chern for eg). It then has a civilian population meter, which starts at say 10, and increments for the amount of trade that occurs in the town (diminishing returns tho). These towns trade all kinds of items in exchange for others, and have supply and demand (ie you cant sell 10 items of food to a town thats already trying to sell 30 items of food, but a town that has no food will value it more than weapons, so you'll get better deals (assuming you have food to trade)). The amount and type of items that are sold depend on the population meter (and obviously what has been traded), and depending on the town size you would have a population cap (so small towns cant produce crazy good guns (but cherno, tho say almost impossible to clear, would be able to after sufficient pop is reached)). Obviously a town with a pop of say 100 wouldnt have 100 ai civs, just a few to represent that it is populated and a dialog that shows the pop for the town or something like that.

Additionally a player to player trading system could be implemented.

Now i know this idea would be complex to implement but from my personal experience in coding the economy system for the life mods i can definitely see it being implementable and it also makes the gameplay a lot more exciting when players feel like they are influencing the game world. Furthermore having tangible safe zones where players can meet and trade, or towns that even bandits could control, would be FREAKIN COOL (liek stalker and shiii-).

So, thankyou to anyone who actually read the whole thing, and i'm off to bed!

[Gnyf 0]

I'm not touching this one with a 20 foot pole, can feel the haters incoming.

[n7snk 13]

support this, tho some kind of group system should be implemented aswell what is possible in domination/evolution/insurgency at default arma, thohere it should be implememnted as you interact with palyer and join his team,

also knowing your experience, aswell as the fact that your insurgency mission become best mission of 2010, i guess this is pretty much possible since you say so.

[sephirotic (DayZ) 1]

Everything is pointless, if you take away the competitive element, mmos are pointless, fps are pointless, life is pointless. Yet, they are not and you can still find joy on things.

But i do think adding some quests with special itens in this game, keeping the realism of course, would be nice.

[Nausicaa 3]

I don't disagree with you. As it stands the game is kind of confused (OH NOEZ, I CRITICIZE TEH GAMEZ!!!). I agree that it does get boring after a while. Survive to survive so you can survive some more. Like you say, if survival is the goal, you can pretty much just camp out in a barn and do nothing for five hours and you will be doing a great job!

The real fun of the game is raiding towns for supplies and coming into contact with other players. Unfortunately at this point in the mods life cycle, there aren't that many supplies or that many things to do with other players. You can get all kinds of guns, but ultimately you don't want to be in a position to use them. The other items make the game a little easier, and you can repair cars and stuff, and that's really it.

I don't think the game necessarily needs a set goal or story or quests or anything, but it definitely needs to expand the list of collectable items, things to do and interact with in the game world, and most importantly, devise a wide variety of ways to survive. I think the Devs are on track here. I would like to see less common ailments, but a greater variety. For example, maybe our bones don't break so often, but I like the idea of getting poisoned (or poisoning other players), getting sick or diseased, etc. and needing to find specific items to help you.

I would also like see expanded crafting.

I think these things will add to the re-playability. Just need to keep in mind things are still new and this is all largely an attempt to prove a concept.

[Stealth Pyro 3]

+1 for some sort of objective play. For example, go find a blood bag for X NPC player within X amount of time to save them. Maybe have random NPC survivors that are being cornered by zombies. Save them, and they'll give you food or something.

[zealous 13]

alpha

[Quasar (DayZ) 1]

Suggestion.

[n7snk 13]

alpha

pogoman is experienced modder and hey' date='

Suggestion.

thats just a suggestion. and quite good one.

[zealous 13]

I think it's a great suggestion. I just also think Rocket will inevitably implement it, at least to some extent, eventually :P

[Nausicaa 3]

+1 for some sort of objective play. For example' date=' go find a blood bag for X NPC player within X amount of time to save them. Maybe have random NPC survivors that are being cornered by zombies. Save them, and they'll give you food or something.

[/quote']

I was thinking something along these lines as well. Not sure how easy this would be to incorporate though. It's my understanding the only reason this game runs is because the zombies are aren't actually NPCs, but are remodeled ambient wildlife. Having actual NPCs that need to use the actual human AI could slow down the game too much - if you think about 50 players and even half of them doing NPC related quests at any time. Could get messy.

What I was came away with when thinking about this was some way that quests could be built AROUND players in the server. For example a bandit might get a mission to assassinate a certain player, and be given a general idea of his current whereabouts. Not sure how far you could take this concept though. It might not deliver a payoff worth the effort.

I really do think it will come down to findable items. I think in the end this concept needs literally hundreds of items you can use or combine in various ways. This way you can highly customize your character and develop a 'build' similar to the way you would use the accumulation of XP in an RPG to develop skills. Only here everything is based on found items.

They seem to be going this direction with findable skins, for instance. I can see camouflage becoming a really big part of the game.

[n7snk 13]

It's my understanding the only reason this game runs is because the zombies are aren't actually NPCs' date=' but are remodeled ambient wildlife. Having actual NPCs that need to use the actual human AI could slow down the game too much

[/quote']

they can be ambient life aswell.

[djshauny1 222]

I agree with the OP

[fullmetalmonkey 0]

I feel the same way as Pogoman, as much as I am enjoying myself whilst playing the mod in its current state, I can imagine the whole survival aspects of the game starting to dull after periods of time.

I do really like the idea of 'base building' ala CTI (Conquer The Island for all those new to ARMA) although not to the extent of being able to build A10 Warthogs or Challenger MBTs but things a lot more rudimentary such as a small 'medical tent' (or some sort of shack) where meatball surgery can be performed for severely injured players, another form of shack where repairs can be made to weapons and be cleaned etc.

Everything from the sandbag walls, razor wire fencing, barricades, buildings/shacks etc must all be found within the game and require multiple players to build and put together. These sorts of outposts/camps/bases, call them what you like, would be persistent to the server they are built on. This would should lead to emergent gameplay of bandits wanting to raid such places to get access to the goods stored inside and the survivors trying to create this form of safe zone would have to defend if they want to protect all of the hardwork they have put into creating it.

As I mentioned earlier about some form of weapon shack to repair and clean guns, a system could be implemented where guns have, durability comes to mind but I hate that term, but are liable to getting jammed and stop working altogether. This would then encourage players to go out and explore Chernarus for repair and cleaning kits for weapons. At the end of the day, we are finding these guns on the floor and in not entirely clean condition (plus they must have been used by their previous owners who left them there in these spawn points) and so in my opinion shouldnt work as good as new.

Plus having weapons jam on you and ultimately break can lead to some interesting situations during a bandit raid or zombie attack and in my opinion increase the already high tension within the game.

There was another thread I read a couple of days ago about a suggestion for introduction skill books. This system would work excellent with what I have mentioned as some players may specialise in surgery or camp building or weapon restoration and so therefore have a form of 'importance' within this small Freeport built by fellow survivors and if attacked by either zombie hordes or bandits would also encourage players to try and protect them to not lose a vital function within their camp.

Another thing which could be added is portable petrol generators which could be used to power spotlights, such as the ones which would be used to light up camps but again, zombies would be attracted to the noise and light but it would also be very noticeable at night to unsavoury types. This again would encourage players to actively go exploring for jerry cans to power them.

[crazy_ivan123 1]

I like where your going with this,

Here's what I imagine playing out.

Day 1: Celtic and friends meet in Lopatino, while scavenging they come across a military transport truck that's beat up but repairable, so they beg and/or trade with other friendlies and get enough to get the truck working.

(I'm assuming we'll get a truck sooner or later)

Day 2: After hiding their new toy, the group starts using it to ferry large amounts of materials to camp and begin building up.

And so, can you imagine where it would lead? the amazingness of it, bandit bases, survivor bases, declared neutral zones?

[fullmetalmonkey 0]

I like where your going with this' date='

Here's what I imagine playing out.

Day 1: Celtic and friends meet in Lopatino, while scavenging they come across a military transport truck that's beat up but repairable, so they beg and/or trade with other friendlies and get enough to get the truck working.

(I'm assuming we'll get a truck sooner or later)

Day 2: After hiding their new toy, the group starts using it to ferry large amounts of materials to camp and begin building up.

And so, can you imagine where it would lead? the amazingness of it, bandit bases, survivor bases, declared neutral zones?

[/quote']

Exactly.

The only potential issue I can see arise from this is farming weapon spawn points and the game would eventually lose its survival aspect and end up being More like the tv show The Tribe.

It would also make respawners have it 'easy' as they could get picked up by someone who they were allied with at one of these base camps and then receive higher end gear for very little work.

But then my envisioning of it would be that to make/build a base would require a lot of materials and a lot of scavenging for rare parts to build some of these structures.

[TeaLeaf 5]

I agree there needs to be more of a long term goal. Even a basically un-completable one.

I think the OPs idea, while it's pretty good, would only work if the game had like 3 or 4 regional uber-servers instead of hundreds of 50 player ones. It's too hard to get on a particular server to build mechanics around always being able to visit the same one. Same goes for Full Metal Monkeys suggestion. Basically the issues caused by the server meta-physics means any kind of progression has to be based around individuals or small groups, and can't have much to do with "real estate".

That said I can think of a few ways around these limitations. Too complicated to write down now though, time for sleep.

[raptorak 2]

Perhaps the game needs more stats shown on the scoreboard - kills, cans eaten, soda drank, transfusions performed, zombies killed, time alive etc.

Also, there do need to be some objectives added - switch on the power, get the train working, turn on the lighthouse, build a base etc. We already have the vehicles which is great - I think we should be able to build some kind of infrastructure back into the world, and have others bring it crashing down.

[svenson 0]

I think, objectives or goals are opposite to the game concept: Emergent gameplay. Atm, there is a lack of game aspects, which allow people to evolve this kind of gameplay (form a team, establish persistant values, etc.). In my opinion, emergent gameplay is impossible with a bunch of lonewolfs.

We need a bit more COOP in the mod.

[TeaLeaf 5]

alpha

I think' date=' objectives or goals are opposite to the game concept: Emergent gameplay. Atm, there is a lack of game aspects, which allow people to evolve this kind of gameplay (form a team, establish persistant values, etc.). In my opinion, emergent gameplay is impossible with a bunch of lonewolfs.

We need a bit more COOP in the mod.

[/quote']

The only way I can think we could make co-op more relevant is to make the game even more brutal.

[hazzard65 64]

You were obviously baked when you wrote this... tell us how you feel when you are sober and clear headed ;)

[sappo569 0]

Having not bothered to read the 3 pages preceeding this;

I think the whole idea of the mod is to encourage free-thinking.

We don't need missions and objectives, as that is what the player themself will create.

Specifically when you start to get involved with more than 2-3 players in a group... Send 2 on a scouting mission for goodies, and maybe 1 to defend the loot you already secured.

This is free-form on the fly mission making!

[prospekt 8]

Most people here have never met a working chopper in DayZ and want pre-built missions... you're doing it wrong.

[dale 11]

I think the choice should be there to do missions, but not a crucial aspect of it, so you run around and choose if you want to do missions.

This should also not affect players who are not content with missions (i.e. giving players doing missions amazing loot)

maybe the missions should just initiate a part of the game such as:

You have to clear out all these zombies to take control of this town/castle.

[ezdaroth 1]

Dale' pid='53398' dateline='1337771548']maybe the missions should just initiate a part of the game such as:

You have to clear out all these zombies to take control of this town/castle.

Why?

I already have a reason to clear the zombies - the supplies in the town which help me and my friends survive. I don't want NPC telling me to clear it and rewarding me with an extra can of beans for it.

Your ultimate goal is surviving as long as possible and you create the other goals for yourself, which you can change at any point you want.