A long, logical approach to the "Bandit Problem"

[JudgeX 1]

This is just me thinking aloud in public... responses welcome.

Why are there bandits?

1) Because people enjoy fighting other players in any online game.

2) Because in reality, killing people and taking their things would be beneficial, and not below some people's morality.

3) Because some people really get a kick out of "trolling" and "griefing" other players.

Why is this a problem?

Because the game rewards cooperation, and many people want to enjoy this portion of the game unmolested. It becomes a problem when the penalty for being killed for someone trying to cooperate and build is magnitudes greater than the penalty for someone spawning, sprinting, and blindly firing at anything non-zombie with a Makarov.

Why not Co-Op only server?

1) Because this is unrealistic, and allows for different forms of trolling and annoyance anyway.

2) There are a million other games you can play that are co-op only.

Why not a PVP only server?

1) Because this is unrealistic, and...

2) There are a million other games you can play that are PVP only.

So, you're a carebear advocate, right?

No. Dead wrong. I love the atmosphere that allows me to choose to murder someone for their beans if/when I want to/need to... I simply think it's too easy right now, and there's no thought process. "I see you first, your beans are mine."

However, as much as we want to just shoot people, we must admit that the penalty for death for a player who has worked carefully at establishing gear or attempting a goal such as repairing a vehicle or setting up a nice camp is much higher than that for a spawn-and-sprint bandit, whose entertainment comes for free, whose attack is generally unexpected, and whose lifespan is quite often extremely short.

So, what if we just leave it the way that it is?

You can only build a sandcastle to have it pointlessly kicked apart so many times before you tire of building sandcastles. Read the forums. People are tired of the "Call of Duty" factor.

So, what do we do about it?

That's the tricky one. We don't want to eliminate banditry for reason #2 at the beginning of this post. Reason #1 isn't wholly wrong, either. It's reason #3, mixed with reason #1 that really puts a bad taste in people's mouths - especially when you couple it with the risk-loss comparison between the builder and the bandit.

That being said, I would move to make banditry have an associated cost of inconvenience.

Good suggestions I've read/heard have been:

1) Bandits spawn farther away from Elektro/Cherno, so that they must travel a longer time to return and put their free Makarov against other players again.

2) Rewarding long term, healthy, active survival (you ate a lot of food, killed a lot of zombies, started some fires, bandaged some players) by giving random starting gear bonuses (extra beans, magazines, box of matches?) This could also be judged with an achievement system.

3) Give people a couple of free murders per day, but afterwards start spawning them farther and farther away.

4) Reward group-play by allowing survivors to keep a non-weapon item or two on respawn, to represent that this person has formed connections with people and through cooperation has gained for himself. Working to be able to spawn with a survival knife and compass, for instance, could be a good way to show that the player relies on self sufficiency rather than stealing, and is thus rewarded.

5) Zombies could have a slight taste preference for bandits, so that in a situation where two people are in LOS for an angry zombie, it chooses the more murderous of the two more often.

Now, if you think these are all care-bear ideas, I'd like to remind you to actually consider the results of what some of these would accomplish. Like-minded players spawning closer together... and also keeping more people in the game and avoiding some player-induced rage-quit... ultimately secures the violence-minded bandit more targets.

tl;dr:

Day Z is awesome, let's quit being all "omg carebear" and strive for better realism. This isn't EVE Online.

[DudelyPowers 0]

"1) Bandits spawn farther away from Elektro/Cherno, so that they must travel a longer time to return and put their free Makarov against other players again."

I could see this becoming a new problem if their spawns were too close to the northwest airfield. Although, in their mad scramble to get weapons there they might just keep their own numbers in check.

Would also increase the risks of running into bandits up north, so there wouldn't really be any safe places to go survive anymore. I think it could be interesting though.

[JudgeX 1]

I'm sorry, did you fail to read?

Did I mention removing PVP? The changes that I mention would actually strengthen it.

Is this another mod community that will devolve into troll-fodder?

[i wub pugs 16]

Bandits are not my problem. People that look like survivors that shoot me in the back with a Makarov are.

At least when I see a bandit I know I can maybe kill him for some decent loot. The scared guy with the Makarov is just a dick.

Solution, I shoot everyone when I'm playing by myself unless the other guy makes some gesture that he is friendly, sit, salute, eat some beans, fucking anything other than pointing a weapon at me.

[LastShenanigan 8]

All your suggestions are moral observations that don't apply in an apocalypse. I've never murdered another player and generally die from being shot in the back, so I'm a "survivor". That said, I could sum up your entire post by saying "Punish Bandits!". I don't agree...

[deadbolt (DayZ) 10]

if you really want to solve your problem try to come up with ideas that fit within this

(04-30-2012 01:01 AM)rocket Wrote: DayZ was designed to be impossibly cruel, dark, and brutal. It was not designed as a game it was more of an experiment, I prefer the term "anti-game" - in other words the mechanics are not designed to be balanced, or offer a way out for different situations. These are things game designers normally take care with.

I discussed this with the our team members at great length of many arguments, the idea behind safe zones. The eventual consensus was that it went against the ethos of the project. This whole concept, and the reason it "works", is that there IS no safe zone (unless you make it). Your actions have real and brutal consequences. There are no game designed safety nets.

It is the kind of system/environment that will sometimes make you want to punch the computer screen. But with that kind of risk, comes great emotional reward when you carry something off. The sniper you describe - there are people like this in the world, and in the breakdown of order I can bet that there would be people who would sit on a roof and shoot people "just for the lulz".

The system makes no judgement on player actions, and this is one of the only real rules that was adopted for the development. While consequences may occur for a particular action (e.g. humanity loss), no judgement is implied or placed on that behavior. Beyond hacks, and misuse of exploits, regulating player behavior is not a scope of this project. If players, themselves, wish to group together and attempt to regulate the behavior. Well, that's entirely up to you.

This kind of activity is not for everyone. It really is more of a social experiment than a game. There is no intention to change that, if you dislike the PVP, then I would recommend playing Dynamic Zombie Sandbox or Celery's excellent Chernaus Apocalypse - there is no point in these being recreated through this mod.

Why make something that has already been done?

[JudgeX 1]

All your suggestions are moral observations that don't apply in an apocalypse. I've never murdered another player and generally die from being shot in the back' date=' so I'm a "survivor". That said, I could sum up your entire post by saying "Punish Bandits!". I don't agree...

[/quote']

There's not one "moral" observation in there. The entire post is not "punish bandits". It's also "reward/strengthen cooperative play".

In the apocalypse, if you walk around randomly shooting everyone you see, you are not going to be selected for survival long-term. That's a fact. In Day Z, you survive exactly as long as everyone else with this behavior... which is unrealistic.

[BlackZodiac 0]

I see a lot of bla bla but consider the following.

Team up with other people.

Find people outside of the game (because you can't trust anyone inside the game) and just go at it with 2 or 3 people.

It's kind of naive from soloists to survive against that whole cruel world.

But just two people, can favor the odds in your way greatly.

Two good coop partners can beat all the expensive gear you got.

[Clovis (DayZ) 1]

Isn't this only a problem if you are playing near the coast? Yeah, it's no big deal to lose a newly spawned PC after 30 minutes of manshooting. So don't hang out on the coast. What goofball is going to walk to other side of the map just to popshot another survivor?

Personally, the fact that a fresh off the beach character can take out a fully equiped 10-hour character is fantastic. If I managed to takedown a fully equipped bandit after a respawn, that would be a pretty amazing experience.

I think there's like zero chance rocket will change this. It appears that he relishes in the tears of that fully kitted player who made the mistake of wandering around on the coast.

[deadbolt (DayZ) 10]

Why is this a problem?

Because the game rewards cooperation' date=' and many people want to enjoy this portion of the game unmolested. It becomes a problem when the penalty for being killed for someone trying to cooperate and build is magnitudes greater than the penalty for someone spawning, sprinting, and blindly firing at anything non-zombie with a Makarov.

[/quote']

people that work together in groups will survive much longer, and if they do die they can almost always get their gear back

lone bandits vs groups of survivors .. groups of survivors usually win

[JudgeX 1]

if you really want to solve your problem try to come up with ideas that fit within this

(04-30-2012 01:01 AM)rocket Wrote: DayZ was designed to be impossibly cruel' date=' dark, and brutal. It was not designed as a game it was more of an experiment, I prefer the term "anti-game" - in other words the mechanics are not designed to be balanced, or offer a way out for different situations. These are things game designers normally take care with.

I discussed this with the our team members at great length of many arguments, the idea behind safe zones. The eventual consensus was that it went against the ethos of the project. This whole concept, and the reason it "works", is that there IS no safe zone (unless you make it). Your actions have real and brutal consequences. There are no game designed safety nets.

It is the kind of system/environment that will sometimes make you want to punch the computer screen. But with that kind of risk, comes great emotional reward when you carry something off. The sniper you describe - there are people like this in the world, and in the breakdown of order I can bet that there would be people who would sit on a roof and shoot people "just for the lulz".

[b']The system makes no judgement on player actions, and this is one of the only real rules that was adopted for the development. While consequences may occur for a particular action (e.g. humanity loss), no judgement is implied or placed on that behavior. Beyond hacks, and misuse of exploits, regulating player behavior is not a scope of this project. If players, themselves, wish to group together and attempt to regulate the behavior. Well, that's entirely up to you.

This kind of activity is not for everyone. It really is more of a social experiment than a game. There is no intention to change that, if you dislike the PVP, then I would recommend playing Dynamic Zombie Sandbox or Celery's excellent Chernaus Apocalypse - there is no point in these being recreated through this mod.

Why make something that has already been done?

1) I didn't suggest "Safety Zones" or "judgements"... I'm talking about something that simulates the realism and balances the risk and reward of different playstyles.

2) Spawn and shoot playstyle is exploiting the fact that you don't actually die in the game forever when you are killed. Players are wielding the respawn mechanic as a weapon against players who want to explore the environment...

3) Thus, my suggestion was to put stress on respawning too frequently after shooting a bunch of people... to "gently" segregate players based on playstyle, while still allowing full interaction between them in a manner no different than what exists.

In reality, for this "experiment"... people would not be stepping off of a boat in Cherno and shooting other people in the back of the head instantaneously, being shot, reappearing magically, and shooting someone else over and over again for 4 straight hours.

Would someone camp a tower and rifle down some innocent folks for their stuff? Sure. THAT... is the fun experiment part, is how survivors deal with that problem. When you deal with that problem and then he holds in W until he can finish you off with his makarov after you killed him fair and square, and as a result of burning his two lives he gets all the stuff in your tent you worked for for 4 hours... he's just exploiting the respawn mechanic.

That's why people complain. Not because they are carebears or they want some kind of "judgement" for player behavior.

if you want to just observe how people behave when unrestricted, there are plenty of games out there for that, too, so neither is "new" material.

[feriluce 2]

Realism is all well and good, but in the end this is a game and people are going to treat it like a game no matter what you do.

That is why I like the philosophy of introducing unrealistic game mechanics in order to incentivize realistic behaviour. Sure, you lose some of the raw realism aspects, but in return you have players acting more like they would in a similar real world scenario, which I feel is way more important.

That is why incentivizing being a survivor or disincentivizing being a bandit in order to limit the amount of deathmatching, is fine imo.

[JudgeX 1]

Isn't this only a problem if you are playing near the coast? Yeah' date=' it's no big deal to lose a newly spawned PC after 30 minutes of manshooting. So don't hang out on the coast. What goofball is going to walk to other side of the map just to popshot another survivor?

Personally, the fact that a fresh off the beach character can take out a fully equiped 10-hour character is fantastic. If I managed to takedown a fully equipped bandit after a respawn, that would be a pretty amazing experience.

I think there's like zero chance rocket will change this. It appears that he relishes in the tears of that fully kitted player who made the mistake of wandering around on the coast.

[/quote']

I agree to an extent. My first advice to new players is get the hell away from the coast first thing.

However, what happens is you get a good thing going and even if you DO overcome that certain bandit who found you, you are forced to immediately relocate... if he sees you have a tent set up, he's probably coming back, especially if he spawned anywhere even remotely close. With enough tries, he'll wear you down or catch you unprepared... I fought the same guy 3 times a good clip north of Power Plant yesterday on US9... didn't lose much when I finally died, but, I couldn't help but think how horribly annoying that would have been if I had good stuff.

[LastShenanigan 8]

All your suggestions are moral observations that don't apply in an apocalypse. I've never murdered another player and generally die from being shot in the back' date=' so I'm a "survivor". That said, I could sum up your entire post by saying "Punish Bandits!". I don't agree...

[/quote']

There's not one "moral" observation in there. The entire post is not "punish bandits". It's also "reward/strengthen cooperative play".

In the apocalypse, if you walk around randomly shooting everyone you see, you are not going to be selected for survival long-term. That's a fact. In Day Z, you survive exactly as long as everyone else with this behavior... which is unrealistic.

I think we need to seperate the people who spawn, run, gun and dumb from bandits. There are plenty of players who aren't bandits, who respawn and continuously run into town shooting zombies until they find some loot. Also not effective for long-term survival. Currently, cooperative play is naturally encouarged for survivor and bandit alike. What you suggest is perks for people who play nice beyond the benefits that are already present. I agree that people like Ranger Respawn should be addressed. I don't think any magical god points should be rewarded for being friendly. I prefer my apocalypse full of danger and tense social interactions. As it stands there are plenty of "survivor" groups that headed north, got geared, got bored and now run around murdering people. Also, working together isn't beneficial in every situation. Adding rewards for working together that don't exist in reality is an observation of morality.

[deadbolt (DayZ) 10]

1) I didn't suggest "Safety Zones" or "judgements"... I'm talking about something that simulates the realism and balances the risk and reward of different playstyles.

2) Spawn and shoot playstyle is exploiting the fact that you don't actually die in the game forever when you are killed. Players are wielding the respawn mechanic as a weapon against players who want to explore the environment...

3) Thus' date=' my suggestion was to put stress on respawning too frequently after shooting a bunch of people... to "gently" segregate players based on playstyle, while still allowing full interaction between them in a manner no different than what exists.

In reality, for this "experiment"... people would not be stepping off of a boat in Cherno and shooting other people in the back of the head instantaneously, being shot, reappearing magically, and shooting someone else over and over again for 4 straight hours.

Would someone camp a tower and rifle down some innocent folks for their stuff? Sure. THAT... is the fun experiment part, is how survivors deal with that problem. When you deal with that problem and then he holds in W until he can finish you off with his makarov after you killed him fair and square, and as a result of burning his two lives he gets all the stuff in your tent you worked for for 4 hours... he's just exploiting the respawn mechanic.

That's why people complain. Not because they are carebears or they want some kind of "judgement" for player behavior.

if you want to just observe how people behave when unrestricted, there are plenty of games out there for that, too, so neither is "new" material.

[/quote']

sorry, but when the game rewards/punishes behavior it is making a judgment

however i wouldnt mind if the game spawned people in different areas and not just on the coast

[i wub pugs 16]

hmmmm, spawning randomly in the middle of nowhere.

This sounds more difficult. You'll no longer have the reference of the coast.

I am for it.

[Cecala 0]

I think a large problem with what you're saying Judge is that why would a 10-hour character with a full kit be messing around on the coast where new players spawn? The advice for everyone is "coast is a death trap, go north ASAP," so I don't really think the problem is all the geared and grouped together survivors are getting killed by bandits who start firing as soon as they spawn. If you get killed on the coast (including Cherno and Elektro) it is your fault for being in the most dangerous and pvp-heavy area of DayZ.

Forcing bandits to spawn away from the coast is penalizing players for playing the game within the rules, as stated before in this thread by rocket himself. Rewarding players who group together with others or stay alive for an extended period of time by no nefarious means similarly goes against the principles of letting players decide how to act in this game.

This is the game judging (haha your username is Judge) players and treating them differently. Again, this is explicitly against rocket's intentions for this mod.

Just as an anecdote, everyone saying "all these new COD players are ruining the game" now sound like a broken record. Everyone who kills a player is not from COD. Did a couple thousand COD players just decide to download ARMA 2 and this mod just to fuck with all the other "mature" and "hardcore" people? I really doubt it. If someone wants to run around shooting everything they see then they will die very quickly; I don't see a problem with that.

Some people also like to kill other players for entertainment. It's a fact of this game and it won't be changed.

[JudgeX 1]

All your suggestions are moral observations that don't apply in an apocalypse. I've never murdered another player and generally die from being shot in the back' date=' so I'm a "survivor". That said, I could sum up your entire post by saying "Punish Bandits!". I don't agree...

[/quote']

There's not one "moral" observation in there. The entire post is not "punish bandits". It's also "reward/strengthen cooperative play".

In the apocalypse, if you walk around randomly shooting everyone you see, you are not going to be selected for survival long-term. That's a fact. In Day Z, you survive exactly as long as everyone else with this behavior... which is unrealistic.

I think we need to seperate the people who spawn, run, gun and dumb from bandits. There are plenty of players who aren't bandits, who respawn and continuously run into town shooting zombies until they find some loot. Also not effective for long-term survival. Currently, cooperative play is naturally encouarged for survivor and bandit alike. What you suggest is perks for people who play nice beyond the benefits that are already present. I agree that people like Ranger Respawn should be addressed. I don't think any magical god points should be rewarded for being friendly. I prefer my apocalypse full of danger and tense social interactions. As it stands there are plenty of "survivor" groups that headed north, got geared, got bored and now run around murdering people. Also, working together isn't beneficial in every situation. Adding rewards for working together that don't exist in reality is an observation of morality.

Rewards for working together don't exist in reality? News to me. Last I checked having a good reputation was quite valuable, and would remain so in a Zombie apocalypse situation. Since the only way to really "team up" effectively is to "bring your own friends" I don't see why handing a player who very rarely murders other humans a free compass or an upgraded backpack every couple of re-spawns would really be "unrealistic".

Let's look at it this way:

Player 1 wants to run around and shoot people for the lulz. Level of satisfaction with Day Z? 100%.

Player 2 wants to test his skills in a realistic zombie apocalypse that allows for banditry and cooperation. Level of satisfaction? 100%... until he runs into Player 1 50 or 60 times, then more like 50%.

I don't want the game to become "coop players are God" or "Coop players start with an MP5SD and 10 mags"... just want it to take a couple short steps away from "Call of Duty w/ griefing"

[Karko (DayZ) 2]

Honestly I see the best system for punishing bandits to be related to a possible mission system or the retaking of towns.

Say if rocket did implement retaking towns, NPCs would spawn to protect it, you'd get a vendor you could trade tins of food / water for ammunition or something similar. The NPCs wouldn't talk to bandits and the guards would warn bandit players away before simply opening fire if they approached too closely.

Bandits in turn would attempt to destroy these reclaimed outposts since they'd probably be amazing places for a raid.

As a bandit, I would love to see it. Maybe even give a chance to create a "bandit" outpost, it has less survivability against Zed hordes and isn't viable for long term survival but it'd be a great place to get harder to find gear at (comparatively) exorbitant prices. The only requirement to enter is to have one murder to your name.

[deadbolt (DayZ) 10]

Rewards for working together don't exist in reality? News to me. Last I checked having a good reputation was quite valuable' date=' and would remain so in a Zombie apocalypse situation. Since the only way to really "team up" effectively is to "bring your own friends" I don't see why handing a player who very rarely murders other humans a free compass or an upgraded backpack every couple of re-spawns would really be "unrealistic".

Let's look at it this way:

Player 1 wants to run around and shoot people for the lulz. Level of satisfaction with Day Z? 100%.

Player 2 wants to test his skills in a realistic zombie apocalypse that allows for banditry and cooperation. Level of satisfaction? 100%... until he runs into Player 1 50 or 60 times, then more like 50%.

I don't want the game to become "coop players are God" or "Coop players start with an MP5SD and 10 mags"... just want it to take a couple short steps away from "Call of Duty w/ griefing"

[/quote']

how about you just group up with people + dont stay near the coast? then your problem is solved

---

Honestly I see the best system for punishing bandits to be related to a possible mission system or the retaking of towns.

Say if rocket did implement retaking towns' date=' NPCs would spawn to protect it, you'd get a vendor you could trade tins of food / water for ammunition or something similar. The NPCs wouldn't talk to bandits and the guards would warn bandit players away before simply opening fire if they approached too closely.

Bandits in turn would attempt to destroy these reclaimed outposts since they'd probably be amazing places for a raid.

As a bandit, I would love to see it. Maybe even give a chance to create a "bandit" outpost, it has less survivability against Zed hordes and isn't viable for long term survival but it'd be a great place to get harder to find gear at (comparatively) exorbitant prices. The only requirement to enter is to have one murder to your name.

[/quote']

i think he wants us the players to do things like that, i've seen it a couple times but they dont last long

[Cecala 0]

As said in my previous post on this thread, why is "Player 2" still anywhere near the coast?

And this game isn't anything like COD, even when people decide to shoot everything that moves. Please stop making these statements.

[JudgeX 1]

sorry' date=' but when the game rewards/punishes behavior it is making a judgment

however i wouldnt mind if the game spawned people in different areas and not just on the coast

[/quote']

Again, it's not "punishment" to simply move a player away from other players. It's basically saying "you are playing this way so you spawn here" ... not "you are playing this way so next time you spawn with half the amount of ammo and blood".

If you want to continue spawning and running around and shooting people, you're 100% free to do so, the only thing different is that now you are spawning somewhere closer to like minded players who might shoot back... and if you want to shoot people who most likely won't shoot you first.......

you can always travel...

the same exact prescription you give to people who DON'T WANT to be randomly shot............

Do you not see the equality here?

"Oh, you don't like being randomly shot? Travel!"

"I like to shoot people randomly! Cool. Go ahead."

We know the behavior. We can document it. Hell, we could even analyze it statistically across tons of games even as far back as Dark Age of Camelot and Ultima Online...

Day Z has a good opportunity to be the first game that logically handles it, not by "Judging" players, but simply by grouping them based on their natural playstyles, assigning no negativity to either one, but increasing the likelihood of like-minded players interacting with one another *slightly* more frequently.

[Karko (DayZ) 2]

i think he wants us the players to do things like that' date=' i've seen it a couple times but they dont last long

[/quote']

It's unfortunate. I think until we either get NPCs who take over after the players have cleared a town (or fulfilled some other critera) or the community as a whole fixes the shoot first, ask later mentality, it just won't happen.

I actually attempted to fortify a building in Cherno earlier today but as I was unable to put a tent inside, no way to keep a stash there so it rendered the entire exercise pointless.

[JudgeX 1]

Honestly I see the best system for punishing bandits to be related to a possible mission system or the retaking of towns.

Say if rocket did implement retaking towns' date=' NPCs would spawn to protect it, you'd get a vendor you could trade tins of food / water for ammunition or something similar. The NPCs wouldn't talk to bandits and the guards would warn bandit players away before simply opening fire if they approached too closely.

Bandits in turn would attempt to destroy these reclaimed outposts since they'd probably be amazing places for a raid.

As a bandit, I would love to see it. Maybe even give a chance to create a "bandit" outpost, it has less survivability against Zed hordes and isn't viable for long term survival but it'd be a great place to get harder to find gear at (comparatively) exorbitant prices. The only requirement to enter is to have one murder to your name.

[/quote']

i think he wants us the players to do things like that, i've seen it a couple times but they dont last long

I like that idea a lot, but I don't like the idea of "punishing" bandits. Nobody should "know" you are a bandit, really.

[pack.wolf 0]

What I'd like to see is a respawn timer that increases if you die to often. So trying to survive for as long as possible instead of "spawn, rush some looting place or player, die if you find nothing good and retry without punishment" is being rewarded. Call it natural selection.

If you are a capable bandit you will not die very often, so if it happens you will respawn quickly. If you are a capable survivor you will not die very often, so if it happens you will respawn quickly.

If you are a COD noob you will run around like a headless chicken and die. And die again. And die again. And wait longer and longer between each respawn until you stop acting stupid and start thinking.