Roles system and information: two concrete ideas for deepening the game

[swayzesghost 14]

When I was thinking about the problem with players murdering each other for no good reason in DayZ, it occured to me that the missing component is the value of life. Player characters aren't important for any reason if your playstyle doesn't necessitate grouping. Players themselves are no more valuable than the items on their corpse.

With the addition of Roles and Information, this would change. A player's life in DayZ would have value.

The idea for Roles is similar to perks or traits in other FPS and RPG games. Roles give players valuable abilities based on their imaginary past before the zombie apocalypse. Roles should be useful, but should not dictate the overall gameplay. There should be enough unique Roles so that no two players on a 50 person server would share them. Players do not get to pick Roles, they are automatically assigned when you spawn. Some example suggestions, keep in mind these are just examples and may apply to features that are not currently in-game:

Character can pick locks

Character can crack safes

Character can salvage vehicles, making them require less parts to repair

Character can interrogate other characters to get their information

Character can reload cartridges (requires special items)

I mentioned Information in one of those. The basic idea for Information is that each player spawns with a unique piece of info. You might have a note in your inventory that says "my father buried a safe at X location north of Kamenka."

To make things really interesting, sometimes information will rely on other pieces of information. Two players could each have half of the same note, and would have to search each other out. This would be hard to implement and is a little more far fetched.

Please take heed that the idea of the note in the inventory is just to provide a player interface for the information. You cannot take someone's information, you cannot loot it or otherwise gain it by killing the person. You can, however, interrogate them under certain conditions, or coerce them into telling you the info even if your intentions aren't pure.

Information could thus create mini-quests. Go find your ex-partner's safe and use the combination to open it, or sell the location of the safe to another player who has the safe cracker role.

By giving players these additonal ways to interact, none of which are forced and could be completely ignored, the value of life is enhanced. Instead of just going to set locations to find the best items, you may be able to use someone's information to track down a good cache-- or they may use their information to deceive you and set you up. Certainly these ideas should provide leeway for people to be "evil" as well as team up out of genuine teamplay.

[Hesher (DayZ) 2]

no thanks, no babysitting or leader players by the hand, this is not cod. you want to be a medic? get bunch of medical supplies and head out to help people. This way you become medic.

A way of getting medics "outfit" the same way bandits work would be a much more acceptable and fitting idea for this type of game. do x number of transfusions or epi pens or get x amout of humanity and you change into medic gear. what im trying to say is please no artificial perks or advantages like do this and get x bonus to aiming, clip size or blood limit nonsense.

[swayzesghost 14]

no thanks' date=' no babysitting or leader players by the hand, this is not cod. what im trying to say is please no artificial perks or advantages like do this and get x bonus to aiming, clip size or blood limit nonsense.

[/quote']

Did I say any of those things? How does this idea resemble babysitting players whatsoever? I specifically avoided including anything that had to do with a combat advantage.

[flacracker 0]

no thanks' date=' no babysitting or leader players by the hand, this is not cod. what im trying to say is please no artificial perks or advantages like do this and get x bonus to aiming, clip size or blood limit nonsense.

[/quote']

Did I say any of those things? How does this idea resemble babysitting players whatsoever? I specifically avoided including anything that had to do with a combat advantage.

THIS ISN'T CALL OF DUTY! OK? YOUR IDEA IS LIKE CALL OF DUTY!

[Panzerfaust (DayZ) 5]

How bout no

[Brotagonist 0]

I agree with this. People are all obviously going to have different fields of expertise in real life. Not everyone is going to know how to perform more complicated medical procedures or how how to fix up a car. As it is right now you start the game as a true renaissance man, capable of doing EVERYTHING on your own, with the only exception being giving yourself a blood transfusion. Adding professions like this would make grouping up much more beneficial, while still making it so players can just keep to themselves should they want to.

And I have no idea what the hell you guys mean by babysitting, If anything, this would make the game harder.

[vedicardi 7]

A class system would be interesting, but too game-y. A big and important concept of this mod is that when you spawn, you are no different from any other survivor (unless you're a bad guy!). That's what hesher was trying to say. Adding some small scale RPG elements for those that are trying to go for survival time (like if you use 10 bloodpacks, you get a max health boost, or if you run X kilometers, you can run just slightly faster, etc). All of these EARNED perks would have to be removed after you die, however. I doubt this would be easy to implement, as well, but whatever, it's the only way that idea would work at all. Stuff like lock picking is stupid and defeats the purpose. Limiting what people can do so they have to work with others is stupid as well. What are the chances you'll find someone willing to help you in situation X? You have no health but have NO good way of increasing it back up because there's no one on the server that can help you with it. That's just arbitrary difficulty and it's not fair, which again is a big part of Dayz, everyone starting the same.

Adding stashes to game would be cool, but you shouldn't start with that stuff. Maybe you could find notes in houses, notes meant to be left for family members but found by you (obviously). These could all change locations and respawn every 24 hours or something, and all be hidden inland or in not-often-traveled locations (to get people out of the cities).

[jimgun 64]

From your previous posts, and the first line of this thread I'm guessing you dont like people killing you, or you disagree with PvP for some reason in this game.

Anyway, as to "roles" in DayZ, not my cup of tea thnx.

Everybody should be the same . ie/ buggered.

Have you played a lot of arma2 Swayze? Do you know the limitations of what is possible?

Interrogation? I understand its a suggestion but it will never be able to work.

I hate the idea of roles. I hate the idea of mollycoddling.

With this mod, myself on my own, or with a group of people I meet in my game sessions, have the complete freedom to be/do/act however I/we like. To me, thats whats great about this game.

I dont want to be forced into a role.

This is one of the most brutal yet fantastic mods I have played for this game, and I, and many others enjoy the lack of roles and the mistrust between people and the feeling that comes with that.

I, personally, would not want to see it diluted in any way.

No to roles.

No to PvE.

No to everything I've seen you post on these forums tbh. (Not trying to be argumentative, just not found one thing I agree with you on yet, but I support your right to post whatever you want)

Yes to the freedom to either try and survive as a good guy, or be a complete and utter bastard to survive. And all shades inbetween.

My life in DayZ has enough value already to me, be it in a group or on my own, even at alpha stage, without the addition of roles, or any of your other suggestions I've read so far thnx.

Freedom ftw.

[swayzesghost 14]

Jim Gun, I never stated having any problem with PvP in any of my posts, quite the opposite. I have a problem with sociopathic murder of players, which is pointless and bad for gameplay.

My suggestions would not "dilute" anything, as someone else just said, if anything they would make the game harder and deeper.

Please critically evaluate before you post. It seems like no matter what you suggest, people will say you're "dumbing down". My ideas vastly INCREASE the complexity and depth of PVP.

Interrogation could easily work within the confines of the engine. It works like this...Mousewheel player, interrogate (while pointing gun at them), and you gain access to their information. If the mod support of ARMA 2 can't handle that I fail to see how it could handle DayZ to begin with. I'm someone who has extensive experience modding FPS games in the past and I'm quite familiar with the type of ideas that cannot work vs those that can.

---

Limiting what people can do so they have to work with others is stupid as well. What are the chances you'll find someone willing to help you in situation X? You have no health but have NO good way of increasing it back up because there's no one on the server that can help you with it. That's just arbitrary difficulty and it's not fair' date=' which again is a big part of Dayz, everyone starting the same.

[/quote']

You're adding your own suppositions into my ideas. Where does the health increasing thing come from? You could still increase your health in every single way that you normally can right now.

"What are the odds of finding someone to help you with X"...Much greater when the gameplay contributes to this type of cooperation!! That's the whole point.

[Sandersson Jankins 2]

I have thought of no way to allow full PvP and disallow mindless killing. You get both or you get neither. I'd take both over neither any day. I've been killed by players something like 3 times over a period of 18 or so hours playing. I spend a good amount of time on the coast. All my friends that I have got to play this mod have had the same experience. Perhaps some people are simply unlucky. The only times I have been killed by players is when I have had more than my starting gear, and they looted me afterwards. No mindless killing. Well, except one time, but I blasted the fucker in the face before he could finish me.

[Malarky (DayZ) 0]

A way of getting medics "outfit" the same way bandits work would be a much more acceptable and fitting idea for this type of game. do x number of transfusions or epi pens or get x amout of humanity and you change into medic gear. what im trying to say is please no artificial perks or advantages like do this and get x bonus to aiming' date=' clip size or blood limit nonsense.

[/quote']

I think this is a FANTASTIC idea. Why just give bandits a special skin? It doesn't add any artificiality to the game or force players into anything. It simply categorizes them just like the bandit skin categorizes PK's.

- Act like a medic, get some sort of "medic" armband

- kill enough bandits, get something that signifies you're a "good guy"

- check into enough areas (not sure how you'd do this) get a "pathfinder" or "scout" outfit

- Fix a car: mechanics overalls

- Stay alive for a REALLY LONG TIME: grow an epic beard (i don't know)

the point is, these skin changes would give people a slight reason to let you live, to depend on you, or to give you a second chance without changing the game's mechanics -- just by influencing the behavior of the players.

[jimgun 64]

Sorry Swayze if I came across as a bit blunt.

I just don't see why you need pre-defined roles. In my opinion there is just no need.

At most I would say the game may benefit from some sort of ingame grouping system, and then the players in that group can make their own roles, but please nothing forced.

And to get back onto your interogation idea - what you do when they refuse to cooperate with your questioning? Shoot them ? Then you are back to the sociopathic killing you dislike so much. If you decide to let them go, then whats the point in having it in the first place...

ps. I like the "epic beard" idea though :D

[swayzesghost 14]

And to get back onto your interogation idea - what you do when they refuse to cooperate with your questioning? Shoot them ? Then you are back to the sociopathic killing you dislike so much. If you decide to let them go' date=' then whats the point in having it in the first place...

[/quote']

Interrogation is a skill that extracts information from other players, they don't voluntarily get to decide whether to give you the information or not. Sure, you could then execute the player after extracting the information. To get to the point of using the interrogation skill to begin with, you'd probably have to either sneak up on someone or take them prisoner.

Part of my idea for these systems was that it'd become viable to kidnap other players. Once again these are just ideas and they may seem overly complex but they're really just vehicles to get some kind of demi-questing into the game. Random objectives are fun.

[anzik 0]

I don't think this role system is enough. If everybody can do everything, than for professional PK may killing you because of your successful career be even more rewarding.

But what about inspiring in real life? We all have some sort of different skills that gives our lives some value. What do you think about this? https://dev-heaven.net/issues/30907

Yeah, it adds some limitations, but nothing serious one cannot live with. You still can be lone wolf. You still can be PK psycho. And it even create more scenarios, like teaming up to kidnap someone you need. Can you imagine that? Being kidnapped when baking your meal? Maybe you even develop Stockholm syndrome and group with your former captors. :D

[Tom212 52]

I think you are rather close-minded to compare this to COD simply because he used the phrase "perks".

I like this idea, I do not think your suggestion is anything like the perk system in games like COD. You are simply suggesting a way to increase depth to the game and I like that, I love roleplaying in games and this would help make the game more immersive. I am not too keen on the examples you have given although I like a few of them, however I think its the idea in general that is good and can easily be developed. I might even add a few ideas of my own when I am less tired.

Think of any other RPG, a large proportion of them let you pick some sort of background. I would disagree with anything that affected combat however things that grant some sort of special abilities would be nice.

Perhaps something like the campaign character generation in Mount and Blade would be good. You are given a number of multiple choice questions that slowly allow you to create a background for your character, these generic questions will come to a conclusion where they generate some details about who you are. Then depending on some of the choices you made you will be geared towards certain specializations.