Familiarity Player Identification (Bandit/Trade "solution")

[Vigilance 9]

Preface:

ARMA as a simulator for military combat is subsequently oriented towards the representation of two or more large bodies of men, mostly homogenous in visual appearance to satisfy the interest of identifying friend from foe when focusing on large military operations.

DayZ is an individualistic survival mod. This causes a problem in that players lack an effective means of identifying friendlies from hostiles when players are visually or logically indistinguishable from one another.

The more obvious but limited solution is more skins... Barring a more detailed outfit customization setup (limited to what ARMA can provide), more skins would be welcome to increase diversity for visual identification. While a few more fatigue colors would be good, more civilian/hunter/survivalist outfits would definitely enhance the realism.

But to truly get over the visual limits of player customization the game should have a means of simulating the human capacity for recognizing faces/persons. Here is one such suggestion which doesn't fall into the morality trap of automatically tagging players as bandits and friendlies, but does offer players a means to tag "known" players after they can be visually identified.

The idea: 

Incorporate an in-game/in-game RP player identification system to simulate recognition of familiar users, and a completely optional user-end means of flagging known users as friendly, unknown/neutral(default), or hostile.

The system would set, according to distance and lighting/visibility conditions, the rate at which another player becomes memorable to the observer, activating username display after meeting certain conditions. Higher familiarity would speed up recognition or make recognition possible at greater distances.

Usernames would not be automatically visible in close proximity but instead appear according to player familiarity and environmental factors.

Proximity is a factor. If you know a player very well they should ID at greater distances. Night time should reduce this, with ID of players slower to confirm when shrouded in darkness.

Studies have shown that facial recognition degrades from a distance of 13 meters and beyond, peaking at 46 meters. The visual acuity in recognizing a face at 1.6 meters distance is 8x that of 13 meters. Implementing a familiarity system requires approximating this, and good judgment for the time factor.

Here is a rough draft of how the system could function...

At max player visibility, +1 familiarity to that player for every 4 minutes @ 1 meter proximity. Multiply time as distance increases. Multiply time as players are more hidden.

Time of day to limit maximum distance that this feature functions within, normal maximum distance being 40 meters.

Username display true @ 5 meters per 1 familiarity, max 60 meters leaving, 45 meters approaching (trigger).

Display distance, persistence, and speed of display limited at night or when player is less visible optional.

For example, you and a friend are investigating a building at nigh time. Your friend leaves your sight and moves out of ID distance, when your friend returns you won't see their name until they are within your familiarity threshold, and only then if lighting/visibility is sufficient based on your friends visibility/posture. Also, if the friend appears through a doorway, a short delay could be added before the username ID appears. Can ARMA handle line-of-sight username toggling??

Any player you are familiar with will now be flaggable at your discretion.

Over time players will become forgettable, -1 Familiarity every 24 hours, minimum 1 familiarity, never below.

This system would replace the way usernames are currently handled.

Conclusion:

This will allow sneaky 'bandits' to be rewarded for sneaky banditry and let players recognize familiars/friendlies at a greater distance, remaining cautious against anyone they don't know and realistically cautious until they can verify via approach. It should allow trade and other social infrastructure to manifest according to player desires without having to overhaul the game with complex artificial social features.

This will help Day Z establish an unbiased infrastructure for player reputation and make username display more conditionally appropriate. No more arbitrary factioning or being branded a bandit for self defense.

I suspect this is very easy to implement as it is based on timers and counters, and maybe a user list feature, but I defer to actual experts to correct me if I am wrong.

(No need for magic notebooks. Though notebooks could be interesting on their own, or inscribing items with comments/names.)

Edited July 26, 2012 by Vigilance

[magno353 1]

sounds good.

that could be te solution to one of our problems

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Great post.

I invite you to read and comment on my idea which is quite similar in many ways: Player Identification & Classification System.

I also added it to the ARMA dev queue here: https://dev-heaven.net/issues/37277

I have linked to your thread from mine, and provided beans to boot! Beans would be appreciated in exchange. The more support we show for similar systems, the more likely the devs are to pick up on a trend.

Cheers and best of luck out there!

Edited July 26, 2012 by ZedsDeadBaby

[Deathtrap 9]

I have been the victim of and the guilty party in unintentional pk situations. I support this idea in its concept and in the spirit of what I believe the game is trying to accomplish. Paranoia can run high in this game and having some form of visual marker to identify people that your character is familiar with whether it be friend or foe I feel would be logical under the right circumstances. In real life its hard to forget the faces of those who saved or had nearly taken ones life and having a similar method of identification I feel would be a welcomed addition to the game.

[drseptapus 49]

My first choice would be more customization, however if that is unfeasible then I would support this.

[Vigilance 9]

My first choice would be more customization, however if that is unfeasible then I would support this.

Well, the two ideas are not mutually exclusive. If no other skins are added to the game, a familiarity system can still solve the major issue of socializing in Day Z.

It should also prevent a majority of accidental friendly PK incidents, and make it easier to discern hostiles who surprise you: If a player with hostile intent can get in close and you spot them at the last second, you ought to be able to tell that they are not a friend/familiar player and respond accordingly vs getting mowed down while asking if they're a companion.

More realism FTW.

[Vigilance 9]

After thinking about ZedsDeadBaby's post, I think it would be acceptable to add another flagging option.

Group

Friendly

Unknown/Default

Hostile

But I'm not completely sure about color coding usernames yet.

I would appreciate more feedback on the technical details such as timing or distance. Should it be slower/faster? I imagine eventually this system would be converted into different sized ticks for distance/visibility to fill up a familiarity +1 counter.

Can this sort of feature be limited to player field of view cone? If so then shorter timing could be justified.

[Vigilance 9]

Some people have suggested that a player's characters memory should reset after they die, but I'm opposed to this idea for several reasons:

A player who chooses to be a bandit working with other bandits often returns to their group after death, often gaining back their items and carrying over an affiliation that is unrealistic in RP terms. They are still the same person. They may have a new character, but the player is still the same one who considered PK a viable survival strategy.

Bandit groups will repeat this cycle to a non-RP gaming advantage.

Death happens in DayZ a lot.

A good bandit will not expose their identity, but in the case that they do this system will bring some balance to bear against those who use strength of numbers to dominate the game and ignore strict RP principles.

[CLewis 31]

I like it.