Tracking others.

[Shroud8 3]

I'd like to have more options to track other players, so I was thinking about how this could be done, what if players could leave behind "tracks" in certain spots.

They could be "items" on the ground that you can come across and you have the option to "Study Tracks" and it will give you an idea of which direction the person was heading and how fresh they are.

So you could be heading towards a town, through the forest and as your coming south through the trees, you find some tracks, you study them "These tracks appear to be heading south, and they are fresh", so you know that someone was here, recently. The description of the tracks could change depending on how old they are.

"Fresh" = 0-10 minutes

"Recently" = 11-20 minutes

"Fairly Recent" = 21-40 minutes

"A while ago" = 41-60 minutes.

After 60 minutes, the tracks disappear.

This would also be useful for stalking, lets say I spot another player heading west into the trees, I head in the same direction but lose him in the woods, I find some tracks indicating a movement west, but then 5 minutes into the forest I find some tracks turning north.

I don't think there should be tracks everywhere you go, but as you travel around in the world there could be a "chance" of leaving tracks, it could also depend on what type of movement you are doing, an all out sprint would have a greater chance of leaving tracks then slowly crawling through the woods.

Perhaps sometimes its not possible to tell which direction they are heading, just that someone was here.

Its just a basic idea and needs some fleshing out, what are other peoples thoughts? I think it could add a new layer of paranoia.

I'm about to enter a town and I find tracks, am I alone or is someone around?

[Bandit Hunter 29]

There's a suggestion to this exact tune that was posted earlier in the suggestion forum. His idea was far different than yours, and yours would be much easier to implement than his, without frying the games engine. Ask to have this moved to the suggestion forum/merged with the other topic for discussion.

[Omni (DayZ) 1]

The problem with this idea is, it's somewhat unfair, and it puts more stress on a server that is simulating 50 players and 500-1000 zombies, and spawns. This idea puts something out of your hands as they have a "chance" to appear. You won't know when these tracks spawn, and that you have no control over it. To change this you'd have to have a persistent tracking system, and I'm not exactly sure if the engine and servers could handle it.

In my opinion, we also do not need more influence for random acts of murdering as well. I'm not up to date on knowledge of stalking, but the last time I checked, you don't stalk someone to become their friend.

[beginner 4]

Did you guys play in theHunter?

[Shroud8 3]

Tracking does not have to be about stalking, if I am heading towards a town and I find several tracks indicating that other people are in the area and are just 10 minutes ahead of me, it can help to make a decision to avoid danger.

Crouching/slow walking could mean 0% chance of leaving tracks, that way you guarantee noone can track you in exchange for a slower travelling speed.

[UbiquitousBadGuy 846]

Moved to suggestions. :)

[SixPackAbs 13]

it would be interesting, but i don't think it would work too well. would all depend on what the "tracks" actually looked like and how you interacted with them. if it is something subtle like a broken branch on a tree that randomly shows up when you run in the forest or the bent long grass staying bent longer, i would be okay with it but if it is blatantly obvious like black footprints or a text prompt i would say no.

[Guest ragequitalready]

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Edited October 25, 2012 by ragequitalready

[scoffield77@gmail.com 192]

I love stalking players to see if they are good/bad (if they end up killing people i'll kill them, but if they are making friends i'll try to group up with them) though sometimes i'll loose them, it would be so cool if i could somehow find their tracks and refined them

I support this idea!

But you can already track players in game..

Rolling or prone crawling flattens grass

You can tell someone has looted an area when there are only tin cans and useless items' date=' or even zombies corpses

[/quote']

This only tells you where you've been. not where you're going.

[Samsquanch (DayZ) 8]

What if instead of physical objects (i.e. a empty plastic bottle), an option to "check for tracks" could be used. This would be a chance based action, and if it worked, you would get an estimate of the last time someone was in the area? Using the 3x3 grid reference would make sense.

A direction would take time to work though. Easiest way (not that it should be done), would to have "trackers" on each person (i.e. a pointer). This would allow the player who used the tracking option to identify the location of the tracked person through a series of communication through the grid locations, based on the reference of where you (the tracker) are currently. Having 10 people (just an estimate) doing this at one time probably would possibly add more strain on the already taxed servers. A work around would be to allow the person to do it only once every 30 minutes to an hour.

Finally, I agree with Doktor's points though. I've never really had trouble knowing when someone was just recently in the area.

TLDR; It is a cool idea, but would require a lot of work to make it work properly, and possibly tie up the servers even more.

[Guest ragequitalready]

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Edited October 25, 2012 by ragequitalready

[scoffield77@gmail.com 192]

Tracking only ever reveals where someone has been' date='

[/quote']

It also reveals the direction they are heading. ;)