Stun system to force bandits to loot survivors instead of just killing them

[anothermartz 0]

Warning! Long read, lots of detail. TL:DR at the end

So I've been thinking hard on how PvP can be fixed in this game because at the moment I see survivors complaining saying that bandits need to be nerfed so survivors can kill them easier and then of course bandits are voting against that because then they'd get killed more and a lot of bandits didn't even want to be bandits in the first place.

So here's my perspective on the situation and my suggestion on a PvP overhaul:

Why I think playing survivor can suck:

You get killed in one random shot that you'll never see coming and most likely the guy shooting you didn't even want your loot, they were just bored and have loads of ammo in their sniper on a building. So all your hard work amounts to nothing as you start again on the coast as a noob. You may keep your humanity but it means nothing so either you continue being a humble survivor just to get shot and lose everything again or you say "fuck it" and kill someone to become a bandit.

Why I think playing bandit can suck:

Well now you're stuck and have no choice but to fight for your life, everyone tries to kill you so you can't gain humanity by healing people to become a survivor again and there's just no incentive to become a survivor again anyway or even to go looting buildings when you can just shoot the moving loot spots called "other players". Now you're on a free for all deathmatch server with a side helping of zombies that aren't really a threat anymore as you wait for your prey to take them all out then you shoot them. Hell you probably don't even want or need anything they have you're just bored and saw an opportunity.

Basically the mod is more about trying not to get shot by other players than it is managing equipment and surviving zombie attacks because none of your experience matters when a bullet hits you from some guy who loves FFA but is too bad to play it on a real server. Where's the accomplishment of a survivor? Where's the challenge of a bandit?

What I think will fix this:

Instead of survivors being able to just kill survivors all day, have it so you can rob them by stunning them with a special stun pistol ammo that can be found in special buildings similarly to how blood packs are found, it is one magazine slot per shot and you have to reload to it like a different ammo type (like chemlights and winchester shells).

Normal gun ammo for all guns only makes a survivor temporarily injured in the legs so they can crawl to safety then escape if you aren't close enough to stun them. You lose 250 humanity every time you shoot someone.

Stun ammo makes a survivor go unconscious and lootable for 10 seconds if shot instantly (you lose 500 humanity) and 15 seconds if shot when they're injured (you lose 250 humanity, so if you shot them to temp injured it's still 500 total), so it's worth shooting them normally and then switching to the stun ammo to knock them out as those 5 seconds will mean a lot and you better be close to them if you want a chance of stealing anything good and getting out quick before they wake up and shoot you.

What I think will happen:

This will keep cities and closed areas very dangerous for survivors because they can't just shoot you as soon as they wake up because you could've ran through an alleyway and they probably didn't see which direction you went. Which in turn will probably make survivors walk out in open areas which makes it easy for you to stalk them into a more secure area where you can leap. You can have survivor hunting sessions, taking out a stray of a pack.

"It only costs 500 humanity to stun someone, so a new survivor has to stun 5 people from default humanity before they turn to a bandit?"

No, when you have the stun ammo in your equipment you'll lose 4000 humanity which from default humanity (2500) you'll certainly be a bandit from carrying it. However, you'll only lose it when you have it in your active inventory, not your backpack...

"Why should I care about humanity, I'm already a bandit so I'll always get shot at anyway"

If your humanity isn't too low, you can put your stun ammo in your backpack and you'll gain the 4000 humanity to be a survivor again so you won't be able to be killed. This also means you could trick other survivors into trusting you and then pull out your stun bullets and suprise rob them! So you'd want keep your humanity high enough to have this ability for some cunning robbery tactics.

But beware, anyone can check your backpack and see that you have the ammo in there and even steal it from you to use it against you so they'd have to be gullable enough to not check it or you'll have to be swift enough to avoid them checking it (that could raise suspicion though).

Or even more cunningly, you could raise enough humanity to have more than 4000 and you could actually have the stun gun in your inventory so they don't see or steal it from your backpack, free robbery! This might sound bad for the survivor but considering that they've helped enough people (or organized a rogue group well enough) to get more than 4000 humanity (roughly 6 blood packs from default 2500), I'd say it's quite justified.

It forms a cycle of helping people to robbing people later, you want humanity so you can spend it on robbing people better and the ratio makes it so there's more help being offered than people being robbed.

"But my humanity is too low, I drop the ammo and I'm still a bandit!"

That means you've stunned over 5 or shot over 10 survivors without healing any to balance out your humanity. You can gain 250 humanity when you're a full bandit (bandit without the stun ammo) by being killed by a survivor. Being killed, Killing or stunning another bandit doesn't affect your humanity for bandits or survivors and you only gain humanity for being killed by a survivor if your natural humanity (without -4000 for the ammo) is 0 or less.

TL;DR: Experienced survivors don't get their run ruined by some noob FFA killer, but instead can be ambushed and robbed by a skilled bandit in a fair fight.

Encourages:

Survivor co-op: so your partner can take out a bandit if he stuns you

Bandit co-op: to easier ambush targets

Bandit stalking: predator shit while a bandit waits for his moment to strike

Dramatic survivor betrayal: if your partner really has a stun gun and was waiting for you to turn your back

Bandits fighting amongst themselves: "no it was MY survivor!"

Getting good grades and a high paid job

Discourages:

Camping, just killing survivors: You can't and trying will turn you to a bandit so people can kill you

Monotonous play style: "man I've robbed so many people now I need to help some so I won't be a target!"

Monotonous play style: "hey I have lots of humanity, I can rob someone and get away with it!"

Getting all pissed because your friend accidently shot you in a zombie rush and now you've lost everything: "dude just get up I'm sorry man have this blood pack"

Unsafe sex

Let me know what you think, I started off with a simple overall idea but then I thought of a counter argument and then a solution to that and another counter argument and so on so I feel I've covered everything but I bet there are flaws.

I'm aware that some of the things I mentioned might not be possible but I still wanted to throw this out there; that there might be a possible solution to people randomly getting killed without disabling the integrity of having bad guys in the game and maybe an alternative, possible method of achieving that could be made instead.

[trauma.au 14]

Or just making it so zombies are more of a threat than players...

[lev 39]

Why would you want to add a strange non-native system to Arma's already good ballistic model?

There are many ways of dealing with bandits as is. In Arma2, unlike other shooters you may be accustomed to, having a makarov can be as good as any other weapon as long as you know tactics and how to maneuver in the environment.

[anothermartz 0]

Or just making it so zombies are more of a threat than players...

So what you're saying is that in addition to being insta-killed by death matchers all the time, you also want zombies to insant kill you as well?

Or that nobody ever pays attention to each other because they're too busy fighting zombies to be able to do anything else?

[oktyabr 53]

Or just making it so zombies are more of a threat than players...

Or that nobody ever pays attention to each other because they're too busy fighting zombies to be able to do anything else?

Yeah, I bet he meant that bit.

[anothermartz 0]

Why would you want to add a strange non-native system to Arma's already good ballistic model?

There are many ways of dealing with bandits as is. In Arma2' date=' unlike other shooters you may be accustomed to, having a makarov can be as good as any other weapon as long as you know tactics and how to maneuver in the environment.

[/quote']

So when you're checking out a building in town and you find something cool that you need and all of a sudden you instantly die because some guy who is server hopping on a roof sniped you, you deal with him with a makarov? And you also keep your stuff?

This is about preventing everyone from killing each other by giving them a reason to actually move from their place and co-operate and interact with people in a way better than staying away and purely killing.

Yeah' date=' I bet he meant that bit.

[/quote']

Damn if that's true, why would someone play this zombie RPG when all they want to do is shoot hordes of zombies? Aren't there a few of those missions in ARMA II alone never mind countless other engines?

[Stew514 0]

You should lose significantly more humanity for killing a player and not looting him, since you can at least rationalize murdering somebody to increase your chance of survival. I would think down the road humanity is going to play a bigger role in (someone has suggested Bandits cannot perform blood transfusions which I think is a great idea, they would have to find someone stupid enough to think they wouldn't instantly murder him after he healed them). Certain levels of Humanity (high and low) may provide advantages with starting gear or inventory space.

[falcos 6]

all ready gave the script to other players post about this yes can be done i have video coming soon.

[naizarak 41]

I agree that PvP needs an overhaul, but a stun-gun is just silly.

[trauma.au 14]

Or just making it so zombies are more of a threat than players...

So what you're saying is that in addition to being insta-killed by death matchers all the time' date=' you also want zombies to insant kill you as well?

Or that nobody ever pays attention to each other because they're too busy fighting zombies to be able to do anything else?

[/quote']

Somewhere in between. I'll give you an example from last night, I was in the firestation at NW airfield and had another player creeping up on me. I put a 12g slug into the side of his head knowing that it would pull several zombies in the area to me, if I believed the zombies were a real threat to me I would not have taken the shot.

Players need a challenge to stay interested, play enough and you work out that zombies are not a challenge, but players are. Not rocket science at that point.

There will of course still be a time/place when people will fell that they can get away with a player kill, also harder zombies will encourage players to team up and this will 'spread' trust through the player base.

[pyroflash 1]

This idea should not be implemented on the following grounds:

1. People should die when you shoot them. Having bullets "wound" them and reducing them to a crawl is not the correct way of dealing with PvP. It is a reckless solution to the problem of too many people crying about getting killed. "If it's hostile, kill it". The idea that I should have to stun someone in order to prevent getting bogged down in a firefight is complete inane, and I don't really understand what benefits such a system would introduce. It seems more complex than it is worth.

2. Such a system would produce unexpected outcomes in terms of battle. A one shot gun, that completely incapacitates a player only benefits the attacker, and will not help the situation. If a bandit is stalking you at night with the stun gun and lands a hit on you, then he can just put a round in your head without any risk of being countered.

3. When you are shooting another survivor as a survivor, if he gets slowed down to a crawl on the first shot, and then he shoots you back, in the span of about three magazines both of you will be bandits at -5000 humanity and the entire point of the system will be nullified.

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Now, as it stands, I do agree that there isn't very much risk in becoming a bandit other than the fact that two bandits cannot currently occupy the same vehicle. Having said this, the system does need a reform of some sort, however the reform needs to come in a way that utilizes the existing system rather than fundamentally changing it.

I propose that if (when) trade posts get implemented, bandits will be killed when entering the post. Considering that the trade post could be a potentially game breaking important feature to bandits and survivors alike, bandits would want to keep their humanity high enough to where they can access this important feature. This will inevitably lead to a lot more people at the very least thinking much harder about the risk-reward ratio of taking that next shot at a player.

This however, still does not fix the issue of self defense, and the current humanity buffer does not counter the hordes of people who shoot first(but are really bad shots and miss) and thus get killed by "bandits". Take me for example, I rarely ever shoot people unless it is in self defense, and if I do, it is because I am doing something that I consider important, and do not want to run the risk of another person interfering. However the way the current system works has me painted at -5000 humanity, which is particularly infuriating to me. Being as it is, that is to say so black and white in terms of survivor-bandit, I propose a graduated system that runs through a series of changes from survivor all the way down to bandit.

This would be divided into several levels as follows, and of course could be subject to modification.

1. Pacifist: has perfect humanity. Player model is a priest with white robes :)

2. Woodslander: somewhere between normal and perfect humanity. Player model is a dude wearing a heavy vest and an Ushanka.

3. Survivor: normal humanity levels. current PMC player model.

4. Rogue: just below 0 humanity. Player model is the current bandit model.

5. Militant: -10,000 to -19,999 humanity. Player model is something akin to a lightly equipped soldier.

6. Bandit: Below -20,000 humanity. Player model is that of the sandpeople.

Bandits and Militants would only be allowed to trade in Outlaw trade zones, where regular survivors CAN access, but this would be at their own risk.

Rogues and above would have full access to the entire game, including the survivor trade outpost.

-------------------------------

These above ideas represent what I feel would be the best fix to the problem of rampant PvP (note, that I use the term rampant because I do not feel that there should be any direct restrictions upon it).

[lev 39]

Why would you want to add a strange non-native system to Arma's already good ballistic model?

There are many ways of dealing with bandits as is. In Arma2' date=' unlike other shooters you may be accustomed to, having a makarov can be as good as any other weapon as long as you know tactics and how to maneuver in the environment.

[/quote']

So when you're checking out a building in town and you find something cool that you need and all of a sudden you instantly die because some guy who is server hopping on a roof sniped you, you deal with him with a makarov? And you also keep your stuff?

This is about preventing everyone from killing each other by giving them a reason to actually move from their place and co-operate and interact with people in a way better than staying away and purely killing.

Yeah' date=' I bet he meant that bit.

[/quote']

Damn if that's true, why would someone play this zombie RPG when all they want to do is shoot hordes of zombies? Aren't there a few of those missions in ARMA II alone never mind countless other engines?

There are already reasons to cooperate and like someone else mentioned, just make zombies a greater threat so lonewolfing/PK-ing is not as easy. In addition, players who cooperate should have a much easier time dealing with a PKer so if you are concerned about PK-ing then find other players who will work with you.

I agree there is a problem with server hopping at the moment and how items spawn which is allowing PKers to camp certain areas and server hop to get the equipment they need. Once that is fixed, PKers will need to move around more and hence server hopping tower camping PKers will no longer be an issue.

If you are complaining about a scenario where a PKer is legitimately camping a tower to kill players then it is simply the victim's fault for not checking out that tower and making sure it is clear. Also what I meant with a makarov is fine is that if you have to engage someone a makarov then maneuver yourself into a tactically advantageous position and use the makarov to kill them. In A2, as good as a weapon is, tactics and positioning are more important determinants of a fight. In the situation with the sniper in a tower, I'd simply avoid the tower and take routes that keep me under cover and avoid the PK-er. Furthermore, towns tend to attract players both friendly and enemy so if you aren't prepared to deal with that then don't go into town. There are plenty of other areas to explore and scavenge. If you are trying to make the argument that players should safely go anywhere they please and do what they want, then this isn't the right game for you. Don't put yourself in a situation you can't handle and then blame the game mechanics for casuing you to lose.