Incentive not to kill people in DayZ

[moonboots 0]

Someone else has maybe already suggested this but I remember in the earlier alpha stages some (if not all) servers use to globally broadcast who killed a player, instead of just broadcasting who actually died. Maybe a mechanic could be added that utlizes the zombie LoS where if you see one player kill another, their name gets broadcasted at least locally as the killer. this would essentially create an added incentive to group up with players, and also not to attack players in groups unless you were hidden or could take out the entire group safely with no witnesses. This obviously wouldn't affect solo players/fresh spawns, and any hacker/geared sniper would also be largely unaffected but it may be a step in the right direction.

But just a suggestion :)

[Adjta (DayZ) 37]

What this would end up doing is tell the killer that there's another person nearby that they can kill.

[dev0 19]

I strongly believe that adding character customization would actually help in this regard much nicer. If you want to essential stigmatize bandits as being outlaws, allowing them to e.g. be hunted down by vigilantes, or similar, you only need to make killers (or any other survivor) recognizable. Without any character customization it is impossible to distinguish characters and thus it is not possible for bandits to build up a reputation as a bandit (and the other way around). Adding character customization will help much more in fixing this problem in my eyes, and even without adding additional "out of game" information. I personally think the "Player was killed." messages should be removed all together from the game. Currently they are an essential source of security for bandits and alike that their target actually is dead and not just prone or unconscious.

[Vigilance 9]

Making them recognizable is important, but cannot be done with skins alone (so many more bandits than skin options).

My simple suggestion, which I posted, was to have player usernames appear over time in proximity with other players, to simulate familiarity with another players face/person. So if you see a player without a username you should take realistic precaution whether or not they are friendly.

Part of my suggestion also includes that the longer you spend time with someone, the greater the distance can be for the username to appear. This would solve the huge hurdle of promoting trade and identifying friendlies to prevent accidental/friendly player kills.

I also suggested an optional system of user-end player flagging after another player becomes familiar. The flags would be group, friendly, default/unknown, and hostile.

Naturally, it would be easier to become familiar with a person not hiding in cover, and easier in daylight vs night. This idea requires no new skins ( but that would be great) and relies on simple timers/counters to function.

Bandits can still be bandits. No more automatically tagging people as bandits for self defense. A more realistic ID system without the morality nonsense.

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/47325-familiarity-player-identification-bandittrade-solution/

Edited July 28, 2012 by Vigilance