Increase of zombie spawns with decrease of humanity

[diroberto 5]

note: I haven't scoured the forums in much detail. I have read some posts about zombie spawning through the search function. However, this idea is not about the spawn radius increase or any form of spawn-zones. This isn't about regions at all. This will only affect players themselves. However, this may resemble ideas posted before or be completely the same. In that case, i apologise and if you can tell me the post I will link them here. Several posts I have skimmed are this one, this one, and this one.

Problem: People have too little incentive not to player kill.

Right now, as soon as you have some more equipment there isn't much to do and you can get bored. The only thing left is to hunt players. Thus as a player survives longer they will often start to edge more and more towards a bandit life. That is my assumption. Regardless, there is in my opinion (and I believe partly shared on these forums) too little incentive not to start player killing and taking on a bandit life or just pk right from the get-go. For example, I just got killed in cherno after a fresh spawn by two guys in ghillie suits with silencers who hunted me down in to the supermarket and killed me. Even though I have nothing to offer them. So there needs to be some drawback for player killing.

Suggestion: A simple drawback where an individual's humanity is linked to the amount of zombies one spawns.

Simply put, if one person kills another their humanity goes down. Now, I haven't seen variation in the amount of zombies one spawns when one enters a town or region that will spawn zombies. But if this were linked to one's humanity, this would make it for bandits much more difficult to enter cities or military spawns. For example, you have a humanity of -5000. Then you will spawn more zombies around you than when you have 0 humanity (e.g. 20 vs. 15). If you have -10,000 humanity you would spawn more zombies around you than when you have -5,000 humanity. (e.g. 30 vs. 20). This would give people that kill other people a much harder time navigating through the world while people with a higher humanity will have less issues. This would force the bandits to have to pay more attention to the zombies around them and less attention to focus on players around them.

Now, this will of course also affect other players in their vicinity. However, these other players will have an ability to run away while zombies continue to spawn around the bandits and they will be much harder to be reached by the bandits. Also, this may not affect their ability to snipe people from a distance from the woods. Yet, it will still give them a drawback when they are not sniping, for example when trying to loot the body they just shot or the world around them, but more importantly when they are with a group of friends as the group will then have more difficulty to raid lootspawns and enter settlements when they have one or more bandits in their group.

Personally, I think this is not an intrusive gameplay change while giving bandits a harder time navigating the world and effectively using the zombies as a barrier between the bandits and the heroes.

Let me know what you think, or any additions you come up with.

[run4way 45]

Right now, as soon as you have some more equipment there isn't much to do and you can get bored. The only thing left is to hunt players.

This. Just give players a what to do. Spawn less zombie it's not reward IMO, it's punishment - often, killing zeds is the only way to obtain food/water.

[Morda (DayZ) 12]

If you do not agree with other players' gaming style you always have your gun to give them lesson or two. So take you guts and have a real fun. It's no need to call police hordes of dead to punish bandit.

[diroberto 5]

@Run4Way, personally I rarely get my food and drinks off of zeds. I usually just scavenge residential areas in small settlements as well as look in the less frequented supermarkets to get a whole stack, or gearing up from other people's tents. I do not have enough bullets to go zombie hunting and I want to spare my bullets too. I wouldn't know how you could keep that up. Furthermore, won't the increase of zombie spawning only give you more zombies to hunt? I'm not saying spawn less zombies for new lives, I'm saying spawn more zombies for people that put more value on the deaths of others than on the lives of their own to increase the challenge for them to keep up that attitude.

@Morda, It's not that I have any problem with their gaming style. It's that I'm having a problem with their approach to the game's ideology. Player killing doesn't seem to be about survival. It's a sport. Considering the very intense zombie-apocalypse survival atmosphere the developers of this game have manage to create-which I think is brilliant and the immersion in to the whole setting for me was what drew me to this game- I think it's unfortunate that it ends up in a cycle of people killing each other for bragging rights. Right now, I'm at the point where I no longer value my life and am edging towards just collecting some set-up (by means of simply running to loot spawns) and then just rambo my way through survival. The excessive player killing for me takes away from immersing in to the game's atmosphere. as this game is basically playing russian roulette: you may dodge one bullet, you may dodge two, but at some point a bullet is going to hit you. So why waste time on your belly trying to play it stealthy. That's why I want some kind of reprimand for the players who kill people for sport and not for survival.

Yes, the threat of humans should be there and I think that this way it will always remain there. What comes added to that is that it increases the threat of zombies for people that think it's more challenging to senselessly kill other players.

[Morda (DayZ) 12]

@Morda, It's not that I have any problem with their gaming style. It's that I'm having a problem with their approach to the game's ideology. Player killing doesn't seem to be about survival. It's a sport.

I see. Actually this excessive player killing is result of mere boredom to a large degree. In current game version once you get enough equipment to survive you will face serious lack of challenge and fooling around become your only joy.

I would like to promote two mutually complementary means to resolve this issue correctly:

1. General game development, like implementing more features and content to keep players well entertained.

2. Improving means of socialisation and communication to launch natural social processes which actually prevent outrage and extreme violence in real life. It may be social network with shared friend and foe lists for example.

As you possibly noticed I'm against crude technical penalty for formal immorality.

[run4way 45]

@Run4Way, personally I rarely get my food and drinks off of zeds. I usually just scavenge residential areas in small settlements as well as look in the less frequented supermarkets to get a whole stack, or gearing up from other people's tents. I do not have enough bullets to go zombie hunting and I want to spare my bullets too.

May be you're just never been at Grozovoi pereval or Petrovka with lack of water. But i was. It was after long trip from Olsha to Grozovoi.