Prediction: Life expectancy to fall sharply in 1.7.2.4 due to extended suicides

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

So, we know the stats on the front page, including life expectancy, are ignoring very short lives in an attempt to filter out the spam respawn behavior that has become so common in the game. (Source).

In 1.7.2.4 the Respawn button will be disabled, which will drastically cut down on this behavior.

However, many players - some by their own admission here on the forums - are going to try and work around this by finding other means to kill themselves. Suicide by zombie, suicide by ladder, suicide by standing on top of the Cherno hospital with a road flare and going AFK for a couple minutes, etc. People are clever and if they want to off themselves they will, even if some end up spending more time in the effort than they would have spent just running to where they wanted to be in the first place.

The problem that arises is that many of these "extended suicides" will cross the thresshhold of what is considered a respawn by the stats algorithm. Instead of respawning instantly, people will take 5+ minutes to kill themselves.

So my prediction is these very short lives are going to pile up and drag the life expectancy down in 1.7.2.4.

I've posted a suggestion related to this: Prevent Spawn Point "Choosing" by Suicide.

[SteamTrout 18]

If people are readily gonna spend more time to "suicide" then to actually run up to their desired location, let them. It's their own time being wasted.

[Grimlok (DayZ) 134]

Does it really matter? Like honestly the stats don't matter. People just like playing the game for the experience. Not always wanting to know how long the average life lasts in DayZ.

[mattwatson.mail@gmail.com 68]

If anything he's pointing out that removing the re-spawn button is going to prolong the inevitable. I didn't realize the counter ignored "very short lives", it will be interesting to watch the side effects of the change. I know for a fact I'll be feeding myself to zombies, spending an hour running to meet your friend half-way when you only have two hours to play is out of the question.

[Swineflew 480]

I'm more worried about suicides for better spawns than some stupid timer.

[Rising (DayZ) 99]

This wouldn't be a problem if everyone were devoted Christians.

[_val_ 4]

This wouldn't be a problem if everyone were devoted Christians.

LOL, good stuff man! You are so right though, so right - seriously, lets spread The Word... Chernarus would be such a better place! :thumbsup: :rolleyes: :beans:

Edited July 26, 2012 by DayZ_Survival_Expert

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Does it really matter? Like honestly the stats don't matter. People just like playing the game for the experience. Not always wanting to know how long the average life lasts in DayZ.

It starts to matter when rocket looks to the stats to gauge the effectiveness of his changes and updates.

As a game designer, stats are incredibly important. When you look at forum posts or read media reviews, you get a very thin slice and a skewed perspective.

Stats on the other hand don't lie. They can be misinterpreted, but if you gather the correct stats and apply careful consideration and analysis, they can often tell you far more about what's going on in the game than any forum or article will.

For instance, when rocket removed starting weapons everyone on the forums said "Newbies will be sitting ducks! They are going to be slaughtered by the thousands!" What really happened was that life expectancy rose steadily afterward - indicating that in fact many deaths were a result of newbies having starting weapons and murdering each other and disarming them made them focus more on their own survival and less on finding someone nearby to shoot.

So the forums said one thing and the stats told another story. If rocket had listened to the forums, he would have added starting weapons back in immediately because every thread was up-in-arms about it.

So, yeah. This isn't so much about what players care about as it is about making sure rocket and team are gathering useful statistics which they can analyze and interpret to inform their design decisions. If the stats are skewed or poisoned in some way, it will be more difficult to extract useful information and analysis.

[Rager (DayZ) 7]

Add a spawn here list and this would not be a problem.

[Swineflew 480]

Add a spawn here list and this would not be a problem.

A spawn here list IS a problem.

Also I think Rocket is smart enough to make informed decisions on game changing events based on stats. I don't think suicides skewing the stats are a real issue.

[dagon (DayZ) 17]

Zed speaks the truth. Pretty much every platform for software that has a net connection, tracks user input and data through some analytic tool like flurry or goole analytics. This is how companies are effective in anything from bug fixes to marketing strategies. It provides a pure look at what is going on under the hood. In games like halo that allow the api to track past games for analization is an example of the end user being able to view such data.

On the flip side Zed, if he is using a tracking tool its possible to filter out issues like that. death vs zombie , vs environment/ obstacles. But if its not it defiantly will skew the data.

[Rager (DayZ) 7]

A spawn here list IS a problem.

Also I think Rocket is smart enough to make informed decisions on game changing events based on stats. I don't think suicides skewing the stats are a real issue.

Noone is perfect and this fix is to help stress on the servers, The reason people kill themselves is so they can start closer to friends. To travel so far to meet up, and how easy it is to die in this game makes playing with friends a hassel.

That is why i know many servers not going to update. Not being able to meet up with friends easier=no show.

[Mojo Jojo 6]

If anything he's pointing out that removing the re-spawn button is going to prolong the inevitable.

Which, if they're concerned with server load, is precisely the point. Mission accomplished. If a bunch of people are continuously respawing, making it take 3 minutes to kill yourself instead of 10 seconds will noticeably drop rate of new spawns the server has to contend with.

[Survivor-Kyle 148]

IIRC, deaths do not count toward the life expectancy stat until they pass the 20min mark. If it takes more than 20 mins for you to kill yourself, maybe you should just keep playing any how. I think it's a good thing to force random starting locations; it helps encourage players to actually play each life separate. Less "Woops I died, let me just respawn until I am close and then get my gear back".

[Ujinty 9]

You run at approximately 20 km/h (or more.) You can run the length of the coastline in less than 30 minutes. And, if you're trying to meet up with a friend, you can both run towards each other, cutting the time down to 15 minutes. This is markedly less then the average amount of time it takes (me, at least) to respawn repeatedly to spawn in near your friends.

[Mooseocalypse 59]

This wouldn't be a problem if everyone were devoted Christians.

So you're saying that the problem would be negated if everyone joined one of the most divisive and violent sects in all history? I'm skeptical.

[Swineflew 480]

Noone is perfect and this fix is to help stress on the servers, The reason people kill themselves is so they can start closer to friends. To travel so far to meet up, and how easy it is to die in this game makes playing with friends a hassel.

That is why i know many servers not going to update. Not being able to meet up with friends easier=no show.

But this catering attitude and making the game "easier" by picking spawns to be where you want to be is a slippery slope and to me against the traveling aspect of the game.

I'd sooner support punishing people abusing the system than catering to them.

[mattwatson.mail@gmail.com 68]

But this catering attitude and making the game "easier" by picking spawns to be where you want to be is a slippery slope and to me against the traveling aspect of the game.

I'd sooner support punishing people abusing the system than catering to them.

Clearly this is a lack of the proper feature at this point rather than an issue of catering to anyone. You have those that respawn to simply spawn at a higher loot area, and then there are those who simply want to play with their friends (like myself). Personally, I hope to never be punished for trying to enjoy the experience with my friends.

[JerFeelgood 34]

Noone is perfect and this fix is to help stress on the servers, The reason people kill themselves is so they can start closer to friends. To travel so far to meet up, and how easy it is to die in this game makes playing with friends a hassel.

That is why i know many servers not going to update. Not being able to meet up with friends easier=no show.

Surely the core game concept is permadeath. actively seeking to rejoin friends after one has died is deliberarely circumting this core concept of the game. Subscribing to the concept of the game means upon each new spawn you have NO friends. Mechanics should be built into the game to make it much much more difficult to rejoin groups and to reclaim gear from from previous iterations. That is deliberate circumvention of the concept of permadeath.

You run at approximately 20 km/h (or more.) You can run the length of the coastline in less than 30 minutes. And, if you're trying to meet up with a friend, you can both run towards each other, cutting the time down to 15 minutes. This is markedly less then the average amount of time it takes (me, at least) to respawn repeatedly to spawn in near your friends.

As (according to the map) it is approx 14km from the northeast city to chernarus, this distance should take 1hrs to cover in game at full run and a similar time to the west end. either the game is 225 square kms or it is not. giving your players superhuman run capability (even a cheetah couldn't hold down 60km/hr for 15mins) is surely a flaw in the game mechanics. Simply saying the map is 225 km sq does not make it so. If you can cover said ground in approx 15 mins of running then the map is actually about 10 km sq.

[Askar 177]

Clearly this is a lack of the proper feature at this point rather than an issue of catering to anyone. You have those that respawn to simply spawn at a higher loot area, and then there are those who simply want to play with their friends (like myself). Personally, I hope to never be punished for trying to enjoy the experience with my friends.

If you want to play with your friends, start running. It sucks, we've all had to do it, but it's not nearly as bad as you make it out to be.

For instance, last night I was in Zelengorsk. One buddy logged in quite literally at the farthest south-east coast in the game (spawning error, we've run into it a lot recently. He still had all his gear.), and the other was logged out northeast of the northeast airfield. We decided to meet up roughly in the center of the map, and guess what, it took us all of 25 minutes. That was with multiple stops by all parties (except me) to gain supplies and such.

Likewise, a new spawn would be able to meet up with friends rather quickly too. Sure, he'd have to make extra stops for supplies, but at most that should add maybe 5-10 minutes onto the total travel time. No matter where you spawn in game, you can't really be much farther than 15km apart without being outside the map boundaries. That's a 45 minute walk at most, and that's assuming you've got one guy at Kamenka and the other at Olsha. In reality, almost 100% of the time you'll be much closer together than that. If your buddies are just waiting on you to run to them, you're doing it wrong. Meet up somewhere, or just accept that you'll have to run twice as long.

It sucks that you only have two hours to play and you spend a quarter of it walking, but that's the game. There's no real way to change that without introducing systems that would be far more harmful than helpful. The ability to choose a spawn would just let people spawn near high-loot areas if they wished, or near areas where they died and want to recover their gear. I personally find that negatives like these far outweigh the ability to spawn near friends, and judging by these forums a lot of players agree with me.

If you really can't stand the 20-60 minute walks this game throws at you constantly, then you need to get your hands on a vehicle.

On-topic, I think the threshhold for deaths to be tracked is closer to 20 minutes than 5, but I could easily be proven wrong. Either way, it will certainly be interesting to see what happens.

[lordopeth 274]

There should be a lot of suicides in a zombie world. Not everyone can handle it. :lol:

Although Im for if someone deliberately suicides they can't join a server for an hour or 2 or 3.

[Askar 177]

As (according to the map) it is approx 14km from the northeast city to chernarus, this distance should take 1hrs to cover in game at full run and a similar time to the west end. either the game is 225 square kms or it is not. giving your players superhuman run capability (even a cheetah couldn't hold down 60km/hr for 15mins) is surely a flaw in the game mechanics. Simply saying the map is 225 km sq does not make it so. If you can cover said ground in approx 15 mins of running then the map is actually about 10 km sq.

I think you're a little off there, at least on the time it takes to run 14km in game. I've personally calculated run distance many times (using waypoints and a timer) in an attempt to lock down the sprinting speed for my group, and it turns out to be roughly 300m per minute. In a little over three minutes, you can run 1km. To go 15km (pretty much one of the farthest distances you can run in-game and still be within the map) you'd need a little over 45 minutes assuming you made no stops. Extrapolate that to how far you can run in an hour, and it does indeed come out to be nearly 20km/hr.

Our characters are indeed practically superhuman. They can run at a full sprint indefinitely. This throws off calculations that use 'realistic' speeds considerably, since the average DayZ survivor can run 300m in a minute, indefinitely and without slowing. I hope this gets adressed in coming patches, but for now you must assume that our survivors have superhuman endurance.

[Zymi 64]

Length of this timer isn't specified, half the respawns could be included.

Who cares anyway?

[JerFeelgood 34]

I think you're a little off there, at least on the time it takes to run 14km in game. I've personally calculated run distance many times (using waypoints and a timer) in an attempt to lock down the sprinting speed for my group, and it turns out to be roughly 300m per minute. In a little over three minutes, you can run 1km. To go 15km (pretty much one of the farthest distances you can run in-game and still be within the map) you'd need a little over 45 minutes assuming you made no stops. Extrapolate that to how far you can run in an hour, and it does indeed come out to be nearly 20km/hr.

Our characters are indeed practically superhuman. They can run at a full sprint indefinitely. This throws off calculations that use 'realistic' speeds considerably, since the average DayZ survivor can run 300m in a minute, indefinitely and without slowing. I hope this gets adressed in coming patches, but for now you must assume that our survivors have superhuman endurance.

i apologise, somebody said earlier that they could cover the entire coast in 30mins, meaning 15mins down the side, from which I extrapolated the 60km/hr speed. my bad

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Length of this timer isn't specified, half the respawns could be included.

Who cares anyway?

I think we already addressed why we "care" in this thread. The statistics are used to inform design decisions so we all benefit if they accurately represent the game and are not skewed by odd behavior patterns.

But, yes, we need Vipeax or someone from the staff to comment on what the threshhold is for a death to be considered a respawn. I was under the impression it was 2 minutes, not 5 and certainly not 20... but I believe the post I saw that in was lost in the forum hack earlier this summer.

I also know the algorithm for calculating life expectancy has undergone at least 2 major revisions in the past 5 months so my information might be out of date.

Hopefully a bored dev passes through and enlightens us. :P

Edited July 26, 2012 by ZedsDeadBaby