Ideas for creating a more immersive experience (on the standalone)

[hiush 3]

Just me feels that when i apply a blood bag or cook some meat is my character doing it not me?Before unloading your troll cannon let me explain: Rocket always say that your skills IRL will carry on in the game but i honestly don't feel it, IRL i can't apply blood bags or pop a guys head a kilometer away, but i'm not talking about making that impossible just look at this threat. That is what i'm talking about, making your IRL truly matter and i think the best way to do this would be adding minigames for doing stuff like gutting animals or applying a blood bag on your bleeding teammate, something simple like a browser game like dark cut, it could be used to test your skills: if you're a real first responder you know how to threat a guy with a bullet stuck in his leg or an arrow in the torso.

Now some examples: Imagine that you obtain an m16a2 kill some zeds then notice that the weapon jammed you run and open your weapon interface (a 2d image from the side of your gun) and try to unjam it, if you're a IRL m16 user you probably will notice that the weapon misfeed and will remove the magazine and pull the charging handle a few times to make sure that the unejected round is gone PS: i just saw it one time inform me if i got it wrong) if you aren't well it's a matter of trying untill you get it right. After that you got away and is thinking of cleaning your weapon to make sure that will never happen again. you obtain all the resources but when you open the weapon interface you don't have any idea of how to do it, now you have 3 options:A)give up and go back to the hatchet B)go on the method of trying untill you get it right (again) with the risk of breaking the gun C)research some m16 manuals in the internet for some information on how to clean the damn thing.i know it sounds like a overcomplicated process but my opinion it's much more immersive having to search how to do IRL to do it in game than just having to up my char a few levels to get gunsmith level 3 to just do it in two clicks.

It shouldn't be something so hard to implement it's just some minigames designed to test your skills and they don't need to have super graphics or mechanics, so what do you guys think? And if know how to do something that can help in survival on dayz suggest a challenging minigame to test the person skill (ex:Gutting animals, cooking the meat, creating armour, applying morphine, customise your gun or repair it...)

Edited August 19, 2012 by hiush

[RaysGoodLiquor 93]

Rocket is right, but you're not seeing the big picture. The part where real life experience comes in comes in the survival part of the game, not the fighting/performing mouse wheel tasks. Let's say you're group sets up a plan to run through the NW airfield, and a different group on the server is on the opposite end of the runway, planning a run from the other direction. While we're at it, let's say the group of guys you are about to cross paths with are all former MARSOC Marines with excessive operational experience. Do you think that your group would approach and execute the airfield run in the same ways? Tactical advantage comes into play in this game, and knowledge of such will really excel your ability to play and experience the mod.

There are also a lot of little things, like if you get lost at night, look up. If you know how to find your way with the stars in real life, you can do it in the game as well.

Edited August 19, 2012 by RaysGoodLiquor

[bazbake 456]

Someone suggested an America's Army style treatment/diagnosis system once.

EDIT: The only way for Rocket to accomplish the goal of having real-world knowledge benefit gameplay is to have the in-game world reflect the real world in some fundamental ways.

For instance, if you wanted to get into combat and have real-world knowledge influence your tactics, then you would need guns to have real-world stopping power and effects. Which means until the DayZ engine reflects how bullets affect the human body, then that's not going to be the case. If you want survival knowledge to reflect real-world knowledge, you'll need a system that closely falls in line with a real-world environment.

Edited August 19, 2012 by BazBake

[hiush 3]

Rocket is right, but you're not seeing the big picture. The part where real life experience comes in comes in the survival part of the game, not the fighting/performing mouse wheel tasks. Let's say you're group sets up a plan to run through the NW airfield, and a different group on the server is on the opposite end of the runway, planning a run from the other direction. While we're at it, let's say the group of guys you are about to cross paths with are all former MARSOC Marines with excessive operational experience. Do you think that your group would approach and execute the airfield run in the same ways? Tactical advantage comes into play in this game, and knowledge of such will really excel your ability to play and experience the mod.

There are also a lot of little things, like if you get lost at night, look up. If you know how to find your way with the stars in real life, you can do it in the game as well.

I understood you but overall i just find weird if on the standalone version everyone knows how to gut animals apply morphine and operate and maintain military weapons. and you bazcake i also understood your point but i think a decent injury system is close enought.

[BurritoBandit 24]

I think the medical system could use improvement, but that will have to wait until the standalone probably. What you are saying is way too complicated, and there is a REALLY fine line between fun and semi realistic, and shitty but more realistic. That crosses the line.

[indominator 95]

imo, when you know something, like cooking, breathing, whatever with and can do it normally, its so easy that you can do it without thinking, so no complex stuff

[RaysGoodLiquor 93]

Weapons aren't hard to figure out, especially military weapons. They are designed to be used by soldiers, Marines, airmen, sailors, etc. and a lot of dopes make their way into the service. Military weapons are built around simplicity and reliability, and any 15 year old that had one for 15 minutes would be able to figure out how to load and fire the weapon. In a real survival situation, if you found an animal, would it matter than you don't know how to properly field dress an animal? No! You would chop that bitch up and grab everything that looked like good meat. They could add a system that increases your ability/yield to complete a task by the more times you do it, but your in game life span is so short anyways...

[Honest Bill 37]

I don't particularly like the gun jamming idea, but in principle i think your point is good. One simple thing which you already alluded to was cooking.. I mean it might not be a bad idea if you had lots of ingredients which you could combine which might give you different benefits, like more health restored or something like that.. That way, your actual knowledge of cooking and what ingredients combine to make what are what determines your skill at cooking.

Maybe if we had a notepad like many people have suggested, we could write down the recipes for others.

You could apply the same basic principles to medicines, or perhaps even building materials, chemical agents..

Basically just lots of things which can be combined which the players have to figure out for themselves.. That allows for very real and tangible skills and transferable knowledge within the game..

[U-GeeN 0]

Nice try. I agree that some sort of sysem that determens how good you are would be nice. But it eventually will end up in all kinds of tutorials that provide all answers. And there you have it everybody is able to do everything again.

Everyone speaks here of using weapons, but how about helicopters? Ti is possible for everyone to fix a helicopter and fly it! Its not what every 15 yo can learn by just doing.

So yeah, some system would be nice.

[hiush 3]

Nice try. I agree that some sort of sysem that determens how good you are would be nice. But it eventually will end up in all kinds of tutorials that provide all answers. And there you have it everybody is able to do everything again.

Everyone speaks here of using weapons, but how about helicopters? Ti is possible for everyone to fix a helicopter and fly it! Its not what every 15 yo can learn by just doing.

So yeah, some system would be nice.

That's exactly my point if you want to do something that require a lot of skill you should at least require a youtube tutorial, and it would be interesting to see people asking for help in the forums on how to fix a helicopter or to clean an AS50, and even if everybody knows how to clean an weapon a veteran survivor will know how to do it in half of the time.

[L0G!N (DayZ) 149]

I think it's important for this whole discussion to properly identify the various sets of skills needed for this game, and the level in which they can be realized as 'authentic-systems' in the game. Then i will agree with the OP and some others here, that the aim should be to pull up systems from the lower levels, upto the higher levels of 'authenticity' if this is possible in an authentic way, where it should never be forgotten that this is still a game! so to start off:

Top-level: The systems in the game that facilitate the 'feature' (for a lack of a better word atm) make it possible to use a reallife skillset to transfer over into the game. Examples of these are: Navigating during day or night, based upon shadows/time or stars (knowledge); Aiming your gun, hand/eye coordination (skill/practice); Patern knowledge, evaluation&recognition, not just used for zed movement, but also used in identifying loot locations, and ofcourse attackpaterns for group movement; etc.

Intermediate-level: The systems in the game that facilitate the 'feature' are elaborate and extensive, in order to reach a certain level of authenticity, so that a reallife skillset may become a part of using the 'feature'. Or the feature has an integrated system that mimics how a person would improve upon a skillset IRL. There are not many of these around in the game, to a certain extend i would scale operating vehicles (cars, choppers, etc) in this level, seeing that the controlls&behavior try to be authentic and while learning to operate these vehicles is not so difficult as in reallife there is still a learning curve involved (most noticably with the chopper).

Bottom-level: The systems in the game that facilitate the feature are shallow and simple, while not everything need to be elaborate and extensive to be authentic, these bottom-level systems can be considdered as just to simple. As there is no IRL skill nor Game skill involved in dealing with these systems. Currently f/e Reloading, Gutting & Cooking would be good examples of these, repairing anything might be too...

Now for every 'feature/system' in the game one can scale it into one of these 3 levels. Then the biggest questions concerning these are whether they can be moved up a level, and whether this actually improves the game, and HOW to move them up a level. In regards to the HOW, as that is what this thread is about, you (OP) can hopefully see that you are suggesting to take currently bottom-level features and implement some sort of intermediate level system ('mini games') to pull them out of the gutter they are in...

So i fully agree, BUT ONLY, if these systems would then be deviced in such a way that they adhere to the mentioned requirements for systems of the intermediate level. So, aka, these mini-games should be made in such a way that they mimic IRL to such an extend that they become 'authentic' (enough), while not becomming a big frustration. I had a discussion about cooking in the thread linked below, and i quoted an example of a possible cooking 'mini-game', with features that resemble cooking at an authentic level, while not becomming to much of a hassle:

Taken from this thread's discussion, quoting myself: http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/32582-learning-by-doing-the-alternative-to-classes-professions/

Where the difference from IRL & Ingame can obviously be used is in the time it takes to cook, you can have the used interact quite a bit in 40-120seconds. For an Authentic but still gamy cooking system. I guess something like this could work:

- When you put something on the fire, it shows an icon or pop-up menu of the flesh.

- When you 'hover' mouse over a slice it turn up to options: - take, - turn over.

- There is a timer on the cooking process, this timer takes 2,5x aslong to charr (ruin) both sides. But no indication or progress bar!

- During the cooking process the texture of the icon changes somewhat, when freshly put on the fire the sides start to brown, and the top pale a bit.

- Depending on when you turn over the meat (based on hidden timer) the texture changes and shows the 'underside'

- Both sides of the meat can 'charr' reducing the meats nutrician value by 40% for each side (80% total) , this happens at 1x the set charr time.

- If you leave one side to cook for 1,5x the cooking side, the whole meat burns up, and disappears

- Meat is best at 90% of the charring time applied to each side.

So assuming 125 sec or so to totally 'charr' and then have the meat go up in flames, you would put the meat on the fire, see textures slowly change and turn the meat over after 40-45 seconds, let the other side sit that long as well. 90 sec have passed, dinner time ... the whole system above already explains a small chance on spoiling the meat, so the 'meat' after it is taken from the animal comes with a certain state (clean, spoiled), then the cooking timer can 'whipe' the soiled status after a certain cooking time, say 60 seconds total time cooked. To make make matter more 'fun', you can eat the meat after you put it on the fire for 5sec for both sides (10sec total).

Then you add a state to the knife, clean, dirty, soiled (assuming other uses for the knife aswell, f/e as a weapon, or to open tin cans), and to the knife you add the menu-options: whipe, and only if you have a fire going: disinfect. If your knife is dirty it adds another 10% to the chance of spoiling meat, if your knife is soiled it ads 90% to this chance. And seeing you may also be able to open cans with it, or cut other food (in the future) these chances affect there as well...

I would suggest you read the threads-OP aswell as it suggests a possible way to deal with bottom-level features and pulls them up to an intermediate level, by integrating systems that mimic how a person would increase their skillset IRL ... Another interesting thread to read might be this one: http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/66500-full-character-progression-compilation-thread/ as it deals with all sorts of bottom-level features that do not involve a true skillset, but could still benefit from progression in regards to the game.

Now a last bit about the intermediate-level, as you can see in the discription, it could actually fall apart in two different 'levels', one that facilitates the feature with some sort of 'mini-game', and another that facilitates the feature with a learning-by-doing system (seeing all other skillsystems, like perks/skilltrees/etc are frowned upon). While most of my suggestions for improving bottom-level features to the intermediate level are of the 'learning-by-doing' kind, i would actually prefer a more active approach. The problem here though becomes: what are the details of the system, is it authentic enough to bother with it, and is it gamey enough to not become a huge hassle. The learning-by-doing thread linked above, actually has a mixture of the intermediate-level 'systems' as i try to move it more and more towards using atleast some IRL skill... if this interests you please participate in the discussion about the details, as those are much more interesting and much more needed than a poll about merely suggesting to 'pull-up' some bottom-level features out of the gutter... most people will agree, with a big BUT HOW attached!!

[RiggsUK 69]

Are you seriously talking about implementing Mini-games. I already hate the map how it has its own screen and detracts from the game killing the atmos. Map should be laid out on the floor onRy. Same with the whole inventory guff. Why cant i get more and more over-encumbered and never have to look at my inv. Doing the equivalent of meleenas ***lity to unjam my gun sounds complete BS. People are missing cool things like other peoples gunfire puts off your shot, or booby-trapping tents. I guess its a bit much to ask that i can make my own foxhole with a grenade, but remember nothings impossible.