Bandit/Survivor/Humanitarian Idea

[bazbake 456]

This thread had a system for Bandits, Soldiers, and Survivors and I saw his use of stances for the different roles. While I don't agree necessarily with the implementation, it did give me an idea on how to conveniently address the Bandit/Survivor conundrum (and if not, it could be added to whatever the resolution ends up being).

So, I keep hearing these stories:

• I was unarmed and someone shot me.
  
• I saluted someone and someone shot me.
  
• I bandaged this guy and then he stood up and hatcheted me in the face.
  
• I tried to socialize and then people shot me anyway.
  
• I put my gun down and people shot me.
  

And while some of these players eventually gave up, it's interesting how many players never gave up and keep trying to save what's left of humanity in this virtual world.

Then I read the thread above and it occurred to me: the players doing these things and sticking through it are a completely different kind of player. They're a completely different personality type. They keep sacrificing to maintain their moral code even when it risks everything they've gained. And then it also occurred to me that there are people who, when they see the vulnerable and see people who literally patch them up and save their lives, turn around and kill them. That's an entirely different kind of player as well.

Humanity is something real.

I tried to think about different signs of this. I remembered sociopaths who lack the capacity for empathy and have to learn to fake it. I thought about mental illness and the psychological trauma of murder causes. I thought about people with regret, and testimony from organized crime members who talked about how you eventually get so used to killing that it just fundamentally changes who you are as a person and how you interact and relate to other people. How it becomes harder to deal with family after living with that much violence.

Humanity is something real.

So, what if there was an invisible player tag that would trigger for every character whenever they did a particular action. And if they died or killed somebody while this tag was on, they would gain or lose humanity? And what if, just like in real life, after losing respect for human life and empathy, their entire personality changed.

Body Language

Among the list of things above, I can parse out some very Good Guy Greg actions:

1. Putting your gun down.
   
2. Healing somebody.
   
3. Trying to socialize.
   

Considering this, I propose we would have two toggled threat levels: Aggressive and Passive. Aggressive means you are ready for combat. Passive means you aren't in a position to attack anybody. Upon character creation, your passive/aggressive modes are both unlocked with all unarmed characters being automatically passive.

When you initiate a weapon change or the equipping of a weapon/item in your hand or switch from lowered weapon to raised weapon, a split second before the animation starts you are tagged with a persistent timer that lasts four or five seconds marking you as Aggressive. This timer is not visible to you or other players, it's just an invisible tag referencing the threat level another player would see you as, and it reflects the aggressive nature of you reaching for your weapon while preventing exploits by rapidly lowering and raising weapon to confuse other players (every time you tried to switch to aggressive, you would be fair game for a bullet wound for the next several seconds no matter what).

At the end of this timer, a check is made. If you are still in Aggressive mode, you stay in Aggressive mode until you put your weapon away or lower it. The timer reflects that any other person would still view you as possibly dangerous and be justified in taking defensive action until everyone has cooled down.

If you lower your weapon after the timer runs out or you remove your weapon, no timer is triggered at all and you immediately enter Passive mode.

To recap:

1. If you do anything involving changing to a weapon or readying a weapon, you are tagged Aggressive.
   
2. This timer restarts every time you swap into an Aggressive action.
   
3. If you are Passive after the timer ends, you stay that way until Step 1.
   

Let Me Hear Your Body Talk (Your Body Talk)!

The point behind these tags is simple. Many people only turn into bandits because they have no idea how to determine the actions of other players. Many get bandit tags acting out of self-defense. The system is ineffective because it only recognizes danger after you've been shot.

But no more.

Now every time a person raises their weapon or gets ready to swap to a weapon (or anything that might look like a weapon), they can be shot and killed without the shooter being punished. The other side of this is that, if you don't want to get shot in the Zombie Apocalypse, holster your weapon or put it away. The other, OTHER side of this is that every time you attack someone with a lowered weapon, you're going to lose humanity -- period.

We now have body language. We have a system where we can identify threats immediately. We can react without worry or panic to people who may be drawing a weapon. And we know that if someone shot you with your weapon down, they were probably a bandit. Other players will now notice when you look like you're about to attack because you won't always have your gun raised, and they won't be punished for responding. Of course, if you put your gun down for four seconds, then they don't have any reason to be paranoid or reactive anymore and shooting you becomes an act of cold-blooded murder. (If you attack a person who is Passive, you lose a smaller fraction of the humanity you would lose for killing them.)

The Poker Face Dilemma, aka, "That Creepy Dude in the Corner Keeps Staring at Me"

And since we have body language, we can now implement a system that reflects the effect that stress and morale have on that body language and the basis of human interactions. And the first of these is murderous intent and the negative effects of losing empathy on how you view and interact with other people.

Normal people don't kill in cold blood. They usually require a push of some sort. And even in a zombie apocalypse, there is very little chance of a desk jockey picking up a gun, hunting down humans for sport, and still seeing them as complex individuals with wants, needs, desires, and separate personalities. Basically, the less you view humanity as something to which you belong, the less need you have for normal social graces and the less you will be able to interact in these very subtle human ways that put others at ease.

But videogames don't let you read poker faces (except in LA Noire) because of technology limitations. The easiest way to resolve this is by making certain levels of humanity do things more easily than others.

For example, normal people carrying guns are afraid of shooting other people. Even when armed, they don't point at anything unless they intend to kill it just in case they accidentally shoot an innocent person. Mass murderers, on the other hand, want to kill everything in sight. Why would they worry about accidentally killing people since they don't even see others as human beings anymore?

This natural aggression would translate easily to the new system. Since Bandits are always aggressive, they can never lose their Aggressive mode and shooting them never decreases your humanity. Ever. Even when they're unarmed. In addition, they can never lower their weapon until their humanity goes back up. Instead, every time a bandit tries to lower his weapon he aims down the sights instead -- becoming extra aggressive. And instead of saluting a Bandit could make a motion with their thumb across their neck like they want to slit your throat (or...no salute at all). That way Bandits could willingly identify each other but no one can identify them unless they interrogate them first.

This still allows bandits to bluff by swapping out a weapon to look less dangerous and doesn't necessarily put a flag over their heads unless they try to interact too deeply with other players.

How Would Something Like this Play Out?

Let's say there's a group of survivors standing on the side of the road with their guns down. They may look dangerous but not necessarily aggressive. Then a group of robbers come over the ridge with their guns raised.

"Give us everything you have or we'll shoot."

Now, we are in an interesting situation. If the first group fired on the robbers, they wouldn't lose any humanity. They're threatened. If the robbers fired on the first group, they would instantly lose humanity points for attacking unarmed people and maybe even more points for murder. But it's completely possible the group doing the robbery may have a high humanity level. They could be completely bluffing and not be actual "bandits".

No matter what, if the first group fires back, they don't lose humanity points at all. They didn't go looking for trouble, they're threatened, they're justified. But the robbers, not so much. Even if the robbers change their mind, shooting a robber in the heat of the moment while his gun is raised is justified, but not necessarily killing him while his back is turned and he's running away. Plus, bandits are always aggressive, so if a bandit runs away, no matter how far he runs he will always be a threat and you can kill him no matter what. But if a robber was bluffing and puts his gun away when you catch him, you know that he was probably never going to kill you in the first place. You've read his body language.

Now, this doesn't mean you can't kill him and still stay a survivor. If you don't kill many people, you can afford to kill one or two robbers just to teach them a lesson without becoming a bandit. you'll lose the same humanity, but in the long run it may just balance out.

And what if the ambushed survivors turn around and walk away calling their bluff? If the robbers are bandits, they'll lose more humanity by shooting them. If they're bluffing, then they'll just have to let them walk away.

This system actually allows people to rob others without firing a shot just by playing an elaborate game of "poker" using threats.

To recap so far:

1. If you do anything involving changing to a weapon or readying a weapon, you are tagged Aggressive.
   
2. This timer restarts every time you swap into an Aggressive action.
   
3. If you are Passive after the timer ends, you stay that way until Step 1.
   
4. Bandits are always tagged Aggressive. In addition, they can't lower their weapons or salute normally. Instead, they either aim down the sights for the former or get a special threatening bandit salute if it can be coded in.
   

Back from the Brink

So, you've shot a bunch of people in cold blood and now you can't salute or put your gun down and no one trusts you. Or maybe you slipped a little bit into the negatives for humanity and you want to slow your descent? Try on some humanity.

One way to see humanity increase would be to have it tick back up over time. A small amount, gradual, a tiny fraction of the amount you get for killing or wounding someone. Basically, if you don't kill people your humanity will eventually increase. But a faster way to see your humanity return would be to keep others alive by helping them.

If you heal someone who is Passive, that is, who isn't a bandit and isn't battle-ready, you should get a small number of humanity points. This way you wouldn't be rewarded for being the medic in a group of bandits since bandits could never go into Passive mode and you wouldn't be rewarded for helping keep a squad alive while they kill things. You would specifically gain a small number of points for helping people in danger (like random people bleeding out).

And it's just common sense. If some guy won't put his gun away and instead demands that you heal him, that's not humanity, that's duress. This only rewards you for helping people under your own initiative.

And to recognize your fearless self-sacrifice, if you get killed by a player while you're in Passive mode, your humanity gets a boost.

• If you run out into the middle of a firefight to drag your friend to safety and die?
  
• If you are patching up a stranger and he hits you in the face with a hatchet?
  
• If you turn the corner unarmed and wave to someone and take a shot to the face?
  
• If you're a newspawn on the coast between Elektro and Cherno and a sniper guns you down while you're on the move?
  
• If a group of robbers appear and demand your loot and instead of shooting them you give a speech about choices and civility and they shoot you in the back while you walk away with your dignity intact?
  

Boom, humanity points.

Humanitarian of the Year!

Okay, so now you can figure out if someone is trustworthy or not even though they are a bunch of polygons on a screen in low resolution incapable of physical nuance or action. And hesitating before pulling the trigger now has substantive rewards along with the risk.

So what's merely surviving if you're not thriving?

For those people who strictly adhere to a code of honesty, civility, diplomacy, and generosity, or just those who never got so angry that they decided to hunt other players down and kill them just because they had it done to them, we have a new category on the opposite spectrum from bandit.

Humanitarian!

Humanitarians are indistinguishable from normal survivors except for tiny details.

1. Normal survivors that look at them and can see their nametags see their names as blue.
   
2. Normal survivors standing near them have a subtle decrease in their hyperventilation and panic responses.
   

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

So, to recap all of it:

1. If you do anything involving changing to a weapon or readying a weapon, you are tagged Aggressive.
   
2. This timer restarts every time you swap into an Aggressive action.
   
3. If you are Passive after the timer ends, you stay that way until Step 1.
   
4. Bandits are always tagged Aggressive. In addition, they can't lower their weapons or salute normally. Instead, they either aim down the sights for the former or get a special threatening bandit salute for the latter if that can be coded.
   
5. Killing and wounding Passives loses you humanity. Killing and wounding Aggressives loses you no humanity.
   
6. Healing a Passive gains you some humanity. Being killed while you're Passive gains you more humanity.
   
7. Humanity level carries over after death.
   
8. There is a limit to positive and negative humanity (to prevent farming it).
   

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

Some other possible future options.

• When dogs are implemented, humanity may make it easier for you to befriend dogs (thousands of years of parallel evolution and all that). It may make it so that wild dogs won't attack you at all while you're Passive. Friend to all creatures great and small and all that.
  
• Certain uniforms could only be worn by certain humanity levels. Medic and police uniforms for Humanitarians, Bandit and Mercenary uniforms for Bandits. Completely by choice, though, so humanitarians can't be exploited and bandits not necessarily hunted down from across the map.
  

Edited August 5, 2012 by BazBake

[General Dickbutt 41]

Lol no, kill everyone.

[bazbake 456]

Well, after considering your eloquent and well-written response...

[matthewbflanagan@gmail.com 36]

I actually wouldn't mind this. Good suggestion.

[Zera_Grey 28]

wow I like this idea, it doesn't hurt anybodies play style and adds rewards for both ends. only problem it might be complicated to code certain things but overall I would like to see this in game.

[bazbake 456]

I think I posted this in the wrong thread...ugh...what I get for reading two forums at the same time.

(Can a mod move this or should I just repost?)

[Zera_Grey 28]

let the mods move it they will get to it eventually

[ixtilion 39]

This idea is EPIC

[Rono 56]

Wouldn't really matter, huge wall of text for that last little paragraph, and I'll still just shoot you before I bother seeing if you can salute or not.

[Trajado 22]

Wouldn't really matter, huge wall of text for that last little paragraph, and I'll still just shoot you before I bother seeing if you can salute or not.

If from the OP all you had to say was that... You should stop eating dirt. It's not good for you.

[justinsider 4]

nice post, great idea for the time of writing it? you have my kudos and props. Be nice to try it out

[bazbake 456]

Wouldn't really matter, huge wall of text for that last little paragraph, and I'll still just shoot you before I bother seeing if you can salute or not.

Of course, if you're walking around with your rifle out and someone says "Put your gun down" and you don't, they can shoot you and move on with their lives. And if they see you running through an open field hunting people down with your gun raised, they know to either steer clear or put a bullet through the back of your head and that the game won't punish them for it.

They also know that every single murder a person commits won't be just another tick on the map. It'll be a gradual drift toward a dark, twisted point of view that changes your relationship to people if not your appearance. And every good deed you do is one step closer to the light turning you into a beacon of hope in the apocalypse.

Because right now DayZ is about 90% metagame.

[mac 80]

Some good suggestions