Skills and skin appearance

[the musical fruit 1]

I was interested to read that we might be getting changeable custom skins for characters and thought skills might be a fun adjunct to that, primarily as a means to incentivise coop play, differentiate players more and create more tension between high/ low humanity play styles.

Skills would be interesting as its always seemed unrealistic and a wasted opportunity to have every player capable of giving a perfect blood transfusion, able to repair a car perfectly or operate a helicopter.

The notion of a group of survivors with differing abilities is also a staple of zombie fiction and would definitely add something to the storytelling aspect.

This concept is already present to a degree in the game in the form of the blood pack which gave me my most memorable early play experience ; only another player can give you a blood transfusion, forcing coop. it might be interesting to diversify this into other areas.

Randomly assigned Pre apocalypse Careers.

Cop/ prison guard- rare spawn career for players who had positive humanity in their previous life. Players who killed low humanity players in a previous life have a higher chance of spawning as a cop.

Start with .38. dishevelled cop uniform

Skill - Sees player humanity. Negative humanity names are red, positive humanity names are green. Makes you a big target for convicts while in that uniform.

Doctor/nurse - rare spawn career for players who had positive humanity in their previous life - starts with blood bag or two. tattered white coat.

Players who healed a lot in previous life have an increased chance of spawning as a doctor.

Skill - Can perform perfect blood transfusions. restoring players to full health as we currently can do in game.

Reduce the amount of blood restored in a transfusion by unskilled players substantially, or prevent unskilled players from being able to perform transfusions entirely. perhaps even running the risk of hurting or killing a badly injured player. Will always be able to find antibiotics in hospital

Mechanic - uncommon spawn career - starts with toolbox, overalls

Skill - Only class able to perfectly repair things

As with the doctor allow unskilled players to attempt to repair vehicles, but with a greatly reduced chance of success. (maybe if successful the vehicle smokes like it is on its last legs)

Pilot - very rare spawn career - starts in flightsuit with m1911.

Skill- only class able to pilot a helicopter.

Office worker - default spawn class - starts with usual gear, wearing battered office drone clothing - no remarkable skills

Rural worker - uncommon spawn class - starts in rural gear with Winchester and 8 slugs.

skill - Starts with several animal traps which will randomly catch an animal depending on where it is placed

Escaped convict - uncommon to default spawn class based on humanity - garish orange jumpsuit - but otherwise nothing remarkable about them. Players who had negative humanity in a previous life have an incremental chance of spawning as a criminal in their next life. The Lower your humanity, higher the chance of spawning as a convict.

First priority - find something else to wear!

Players with exceptionally low humanity always spawn as a;

Hardened criminal - orange jumpsuit -

Skill - tough. more resistant to cold and illness. Start with a revolver with six bullets (stolen from prison guard)

Negative humanity classes could be elaborated - players who stole a lot of equipment from people they shot might spawn as a banker in pinstripe suit, with a very rare pistol, pockets stuffed with useless money but no backpack. Or the bad cop, who sees humanity, albeit with colours reversed.

Or the junkie doctor, who can perform transfusions but is addicted to painkillers.

This interplay between skills and percieved skills through player skin could lead to some interesting gameplay and unusual alliances.

for example - a band of convicts with a badly injured friend encounter a player in doctors garb and rather than shoot him, ask for help with a blood transfusion. Unfortunately for all concerned, the doctor is actually another escaped convict who stole the costume from a 'real doctor' he killed moments ago. The fake doctor fails to transfuse the blood correctly, the injured player starts bleeding again and dies. The forest echoes with gunshots as we pan out... If only he was a real doctor!

To prevent exploits you would need to fix respawn class to prevent players respawning constantly to get rare careers like doctor or cop. Perhaps for 30 minutes your class would remain fixed no matter if you respawned or not. Or do allow respawn to change career but with a limit to the number of rare careers on a server.

Awesome game!

[Minesplorer 0]

Although I strongly agree with you when it comes to implementing abilities in dayz allowing for more cooperation and tension, I have come to realise that a class system labels the player as something he may not identify with. For example someone may have killed many low humanity players but that does not mean he wants to spawn as a cop. Rocket has stated in interviews that he wants to give the player the possibility to create his own story.

I believe an ability system could be implemented in a more subtle way, thus allowing players to identify with their own character. What if players would have a limited amount of points that they could assign to abilities? Since points are limited no one survivor can be proficient at every skill so creating groups will eventually become natural; sure you may survive on your own but a group may accomplish much more for a given time. It could look somewhat like this:

Ability: Survival

For each point assigned more meat can be obtained when hunting animals.

1/3: Can set up fire even during raining

2/3: Able to set traps, can built temporary shelter out of wood (for multiple players)

3/3: Able to identify useful plants (food or medical purpose)

Ability: Medicine

1/3: Bandages stop bleeding faster (You should be able to bandage someone else).

2/3: Drug administration more effective. (How could Joe Sixpack possibly know how to use the right concentration of morphine, he could die of asphyxia!). Able to use splint for players with broken legs, quicker healing.

3/3: Able to transfer blood effectively and without risk of infection.

Ability: Repair

1/3: Can repair cars (although still smoking)

2/3: Can repair cars more effectively, broken weapons found in the world can be repaired

3/3: Can repair helicopters and other heavy vehicles (maybe even fortify existing vehicles?)

Ability: Firearms

For each point assigned weapons stop wavering a lot faster (increased accuracy) as well as lower recoil.

[jason.jblackman@gmail.com 3]

Abilities are wrong and prevents the equal opportunities that all players currently have. Players can change their own inventory to suit what kind of player they want to be, such as medic filling their backpack with medical supplies, or an engineer filling their backpack with various vehicle parts.

[Minesplorer 0]

I can see what you mean, but since everyone has the same amount of points to spend, how could it not be of equal opportunity? After all you chose how to play.

I could hardly call someone a medic if they are running around with meds but everyone else could just do what he does. Matter does not equal mind. Humanity has survived crisis not by preying on fellows but by working together, it is therefore of great value to simulate something along those lines in dayz. Without skills there is no incentive to team up, it even becomes an unnecessary burden. This promotes an unrealistic kill or be killed approach to the game (nothing wrong with it but currently the mod promotes such gameplay unrealistically, somehow every human being turns up as a psychotic murderer) instead of thinking "Hey this guy could be useful because I can do A and B but I can't do X and Y".

[iashford 73]

There's too many problems with this. It'd getting tiring having to redo an ability system every time you die, and what if suddenly you find a whole bunch of bandages and say "shit, I wish I was the medic right now"? You wouldn't have the ability to just change then and there. It's pretty much throw in the tools the players need in the world, and let them do what they want, swap and change what they wanna do at any point in time.

[John (DayZ) 62]

There's too many problems with this. It'd getting tiring having to redo an ability system every time you die' date=' and what if suddenly you find a whole bunch of bandages and say "shit, I wish I was the medic right now"? You wouldn't have the ability to just change then and there. It's pretty much throw in the tools the players need in the world, and let them do what they want, swap and change what they wanna do at any point in time.

[/quote']

Well, yes, but there's also an element of realism to consider - which makes the game both more rewarding and more enjoyable for all involved. If I brought a half bled-out man into your study, right now, and demanded that you give him a blood transfusion at gunpoint - what would you do, exactly? Not a whole lot, I presume, because you don't know how to give a man a blood transfusion.

On the same token, I myself have grown up around firearms - with an uncle in SOF, a grandfather that was a dog fighter in the Air Force, and a cousin in the Navy - not to mention a wealth of information available from other sources - I know a great deal about pistols and modern rifles/shotguns. However, if the engine of my Lincoln started spitting up black smoke and the car ground to a halt - I'd have absolutely no idea what to do! Well, what if I had a mechanic in my car? You can guarantee he'd know.

Point is, for the sake of realism, not everybody can do everything. It only makes sense, to me, to have a system in which we can choose what to specialize in - or even to be a broad, but less effective, amalgamation of each "class" - and then thrive on our new talents, either through group dynamic or solo play.

EDIT: I'm also very eager for any form of clothing system. I'm very tired of spawning in blue khakis with a white shirt. I look like a clown.

[Minesplorer 0]

What I am suggesting is not a monopoly of ability but rather a proficiency. As a non-medic for example you can use bandages, however they may take a bit longer to stop bleeding or you may just take longer to place them (in real life you may be able to lone-wolf taking care of your injuries but you risk to succumb without proper medical attention for more life-threatening injuries or sickness). I have to stress that it shouldn't be in such a fashion that players are obligated to team up, it should however simulate the usefulness of skill networking.

What would you think about skill learning? In this post http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=6986 a player suggested letting survivors find rare books to obtain a skill.

Also, does anyone have suggestions as to how cooperation could be balanced to lone-wolfing?