Training over time (Character skilling)

[bazbake 456]

Your skills do go up. It's called playing the game and getting better at it.

Rewarding people for not dying by making it harder to kill them is kiiiiiiind of a one-way street toward mediocrity and boredom with regard to game content. The game won't get harder. It won't scale up. There won't magically be enemies that are harder to kill the longer you play. It's just a boost so that veteran players have an extra advantage against new players, which is the category of suggestions I find myself least likely to support.

Seriously, this idea will just make it easier for veteran players to coast through content even more than they already do. While it will really, really suck if they play for a long time without dying and then die, it will consequently make it harder for them to die in the first place.

The mindset that people are entitled to extra powers and strength and the ability to more easily dominate other players just for the fact that they have been around longer is one of the perspectives crippling this game's flexibility. If a single inch of leeway in that direction is given, players will exploit it to the point of breaking the game completely. Again.

[Gordon Axeman 191]

Your skills do go up. It's called playing the game and getting better at it.

Rewarding people for not dying by making it harder to kill them is kiiiiiiind of a one-way street toward mediocrity and boredom with regard to game content. The game won't get harder. It won't scale up. There won't magically be enemies that are harder to kill the longer you play. It's just a boost so that veteran players have an extra advantage against new players, which is the category of suggestions I find myself least likely to support.

Seriously, this idea will just make it easier for veteran players to coast through content even more than they already do. While it will really, really suck if they play for a long time without dying and then die, it will consequently make it harder for them to die in the first place.

What can help the other players dominate? Faster running? Or, maybe, good driving? Lol. These are just small, but useful features helping you to survive.

The mindset that people are entitled to extra powers and strength and the ability to more easily dominate other players just for the fact that they have been around longer is one of the perspectives crippling this game's flexibility. If a single inch of leeway in that direction is given, players will exploit it to the point of breaking the game completely. Again.

[SquirrelGott 4]

Would still only grant people the satisfaction of destorying other peoples time put into the game by killing them.

Which is why the issue of random killing needs to be addressed, and for all of you arguing that this game is about total freedom, that the zombies are only in the back-drop. You couldn't be more incorrect. The fact that "Bandit," "Murders," "Humanity" are labeled in the HUD debugger menu (that there was a tried sort of penalty) is proof of intent that this game is NOT about random killing it has been hijacked by players just senselessly killing each other, and Rocket hasn't yet figured out a reasonable way to address this issue.

[Mos1ey 6301]

These skills are already in the game.

Want to improve your aim? Practice shooting.

Want to improve your driving? Drive.

And so on...

I don't really think a gun should be more accurate in another players hands just because he's fired more rounds in-game. It should be down to your actual skill. :)

[starwarsfan@gmx.de 450]

Which is why the issue of random killing needs to be addressed, and for all of you arguing that this game is about total freedom, that the zombies are only in the back-drop. You couldn't be more incorrect. The fact that "Bandit," "Murders," "Humanity" are labeled in the HUD debugger menu (that there was a tried sort of penalty) is proof of intent that this game is NOT about random killing it has been hijacked by players just senselessly killing each other, and Rocket hasn't yet figured out a reasonable way to address this issue.

Nope. You sir, couldn't be more incorrect. Rocket himself has said himself that he will never add penalties that pretain to a certain style of play.

[xximrtwoixx 104]

Your skills do go up. It's called playing the game and getting better at it.

Rewarding people for not dying by making it harder to kill them is kiiiiiiind of a one-way street toward mediocrity and boredom with regard to game content. The game won't get harder. It won't scale up. There won't magically be enemies that are harder to kill the longer you play. It's just a boost so that veteran players have an extra advantage against new players, which is the category of suggestions I find myself least likely to support.

Seriously, this idea will just make it easier for veteran players to coast through content even more than they already do. While it will really, really suck if they play for a long time without dying and then die, it will consequently make it harder for them to die in the first place.

The mindset that people are entitled to extra powers and strength and the ability to more easily dominate other players just for the fact that they have been around longer is one of the perspectives crippling this game's flexibility. If a single inch of leeway in that direction is given, players will exploit it to the point of breaking the game completely. Again.

These skills are already in the game.

Want to improve your aim? Practice shooting.

Want to improve your driving? Drive.

And so on...

I don't really think a gun should be more accurate in another players hands just because he's fired more rounds in-game. It should be down to your actual skill. :)

Both of you show a very closed mindset when you think about skills, just because most other games replace player skill with character skill doesn't mean thats the way DayZ has to go about it.

@BazBake

Skills or a skill system don't have to make it harder for older characters to die, they may be better at surviving but if there are no health/damage skills then how would it be harder for them to die? I guess if they have a medic buddy and there is an actual medical/damage system then maybe it could be harder, but they would still be taking the same damage as any other player and be just as killable. IMO skills add value to a characters life because they can't be replaced/carried over, if they don't increase health/damage or provide active abilities they should be added.

@mZLY

I'm not advocating to replace or even supplement player skill with character skills. How you shoot/drive/fly etc should be based on your skill as a player, without any random "spread" mechanics like BF3, where your sights are is where the bullet should be. I am however for making all of the above more difficult, more standing sway, easier to get "shock" status, increased exhaustion effect, etc. People should not start out as Special Forces soldiers IMO. These things could be made more managable via skills, but being a skilled player would make a bigger difference than the game skills. Skills should also work on the subsystems that players can't directly control, things like reload speed, or fixing a damaged/worn weapon or item. Time to apply a bandage, or give a blood transfusion, these things don't stop people from doing something but instead make having skills give players benefits that they don't want to lose.

[Pandemia 4]

This is a fantastic idea for the game. It also ties in with a lot of other threads talking about ways to lessen pointless killing.

People getting better at the tasks they are doing, or getting stronger or higher skills in game, whatever it may be, would make the majority of players have at least some interest in surviving and possibly teaming up.

This game is all about realism, anything too unrealistic should just be dis-guarded. Skills are seemingly unrealistic because they usually pertain to MMO's / RPG's and most relate them to unrealistic skills or grinding.

But in real life, do you get better as you do things? Do you get better as you practice? As you train? Absolutely. Practicing with vehicles will give you more knowledge and better skills working with them. Same goes for shooting, practice shooting and you will get better working with the gun. Getting into gunfights will give you the experience of it. It's like fighting, you can watch the UFC for 5 years, know everything about fighting, but its a completely different story when you get in there and do it, it takes time to adjust to the moments.

Of course though making things too realistic / unrealistic is going to hurt the game. So adding boosts or ways of getting better at what you are doing can only go so far so that it cannot be unrealistic and cannot be grinded. For example someone said about shooting your friend and healing them to gain skills. First off, you shoot your friend and he might start bleeding, or break a bone, or pass out, anything. Now you face that direct problem, as well as needing to use supplies to fix him up. It would be easy to combat a problem like this simply by having supplies be more valuable than to just waste them like this, which is the way the game is supposed to be anyway, or adding a time frame where he is recuperating and is less efficient.

Same thing goes for vehicles. Parts should be more valuable, as well as them being hard to carry and obtain all the supplies. Making the idea of breaking your vehicle and repairing it to gain skill less possible.

The idea that dying also takes away all skills gained will make it so people are less worried about grinding than they are about surviving. And in any case, skills should be minute compared to what skills do in other games.

Excellent idea kpekep2

[Farkinob 19]

Seems to me this will crave hackers... even in the stand alone version. I do not think it will be in the best interest of gamers. Also, some things make no sense. If you're good at repairing cars, then you get better MPG... lolwut

This will also cause conflict in the team and shy away new characters; because recruitments in the forums would be like 'LF Driver 1500+ xp' or 'LF Sniper Max XP req.'. People will also have to give the mechanic parts, which will be overly complicated; and just be a huge pain in the rectum.

Bad idea is bad

[Gordon Axeman 191]

People, chill out. I did not make such suggestion that would give players pvp advantages. Some interpreted my idea like I'm trying to introduce a WoW system, where 1 lvl can't win lvl 3. You're WRONG. Things like more skillful driving, or upgrading gutting skill to get more steaks (new idea), will never lead to pvp advantage. About shooting accuracy and recoil - that's more against zombies. Cuz a shit-handed camper will never do a good shot even if his char is skilled. And a zombie headshot is vital for you sometimes.

If someone wants to grind the skills, let'em do it. Let them spend hours on it. Idiots are idiots. Someone said about AFK grinding - OK, give me a an example. There is only one kind of that - put a brick on "w" to grind running. But there is a good risk to run into shit. So, haters gonna hate.

Edit: there will be no "XP levels", you just become better at something over time. Everything is realistic.

Constructive critic is welcome, comments " this is shit because I said so" - please go to hell.

Edited August 28, 2012 by Kpekep2

[Pandemia 4]

Seems to me this will crave hackers... even in the stand alone version. I do not think it will be in the best interest of gamers. Also, some things make no sense. If you're good at repairing cars, then you get better MPG... lolwut

This will also cause conflict in the team and shy away new characters; because recruitments in the forums would be like 'LF Driver 1500+ xp' or 'LF Sniper Max XP req.'. People will also have to give the mechanic parts, which will be overly complicated; and just be a huge pain in the rectum.

Bad idea is bad

Rofl. Bad post is bad.

Crave hackers? Hackers are not an intentional part of the game, as well as the stand alone version should contain that much more effectively. Either or hackers exist and kill for the hell and fun of it at the moment. I will give you that being good at repairing cars is absolutely stupid that it would get better MPG. That's highly unrealistic.

Everything should steer towards the highest levels of realism with the best implementation possible. First off, the fact that if you die it resets, makes the LF idea, a bad idea.. Also because this is not an MMO/RPG and you lose all your gear if you die and the guy next to you can blow you away. The LF would be irrelevant in this game. No one would listen to or trust it. I don't even understand why you brought that idea into this.

Having experience levels like 1500... or anything you can see is also very unrealistic. The skills should be more subtle and less visible to the players.

I think people are too stuck on unrealistic things being added to this game. The game is intended to be as real as possible, in case people haven't noticed. Adding things that are not realistic in the basis of the game just takes away from the experience.

[xximrtwoixx 104]

I think people are too stuck on unrealistic things being added to this game. The game is intended to be as real as possible, in case people haven't noticed. Adding things that are not realistic in the basis of the game just takes away from the experience.

Its so realisitic that we are all SF soldiers with flight training, medical training, hunting, butchering, demolitions, and are experianced with the operation of firearms from multiple nations.

Your simply using your experiance with skill systems from other games and applying it here, there doesn't have to be XP or SP, you don't have to see a character sheet.

[Pandemia 4]

Its so realisitic that we are all SF soldiers with flight training, medical training, hunting, butchering, demolitions, and are experianced with the operation of firearms from multiple nations.

Your simply using your experiance with skill systems from other games and applying it here, there doesn't have to be XP or SP, you don't have to see a character sheet.

Smart ass answer is.. dumb.

Please grasp this: Making things too realistic will kill gameplay and make it less fun, more boring, and more annoying. Like in real life all the BS you have to do like bills and taxes and other shit. Obviously not fun. You cannot implement absolute realism to a video game. VISE VERSA, a game as realistic as this will also lose its experience with increasing unrealistic qualities that people suggest or support.

So if absolutely no one could do this stuff, or have any knowledge of it, it would kind of kill the experience. As I've said, realism needs to be as high as possible with the BEST implementation possible. For obvious reasons things can not be completely realistic from the get go.

Needless to say you kind of just help support the point of what the post is about. Your right, not everyone is a trained soldier, or has medical training, or have hunting experience. Implementing increased skill with use, does however add to the realism the best it can without removing the knowledge of them entirely, which you cannot do.

Edited August 28, 2012 by Pandemia

[Gordon Axeman 191]

Smart ass answer is.. dumb.

Please grasp this: Making things too realistic will kill gameplay and make it less fun, more boring, and more annoying. Like in real life all the BS you have to do like bills and taxes and other shit. Obviously not fun. You cannot implement absolute realism to a video game. VISE VERSA, a game as realistic as this will also lose its experience with increasing unrealistic qualities that people suggest or support.

So if absolutely no one could do this stuff, or have any knowledge of it, it would kind of kill the experience. As I've said, realism needs to be as high as possible with the BEST implementation possible. For obvious reasons things can not be completely realistic from the get go.

Needless to say you kind of just help support the point of what the post is about. Your right, not everyone is a trained soldier, or has medical training, or have hunting experience. Implementing increased skill with use, does however add to the realism the best it can without removing the knowledge of them entirely, which you cannot do.

Its so realisitic that we are all SF soldiers with flight training, medical training, hunting, butchering, demolitions, and are experianced with the operation of firearms from multiple nations.

Your simply using your experiance with skill systems from other games and applying it here, there doesn't have to be XP or SP, you don't have to see a character sheet.

No one is going to make fresh-spawns shit that can't do a fire. But character skills should be reduced comparing to the current state. You both are right

[xximrtwoixx 104]

Smart ass answer is.. dumb.

Please grasp this: Making things too realistic will kill gameplay and make it less fun, more boring, and more annoying. Like in real life all the BS you have to do like bills and taxes and other shit. Obviously not fun. You cannot implement absolute realism to a video game. VISE VERSA, a game as realistic as this will also lose its experience with increasing unrealistic qualities that people suggest or support.

So if absolutely no one could do this stuff, or have any knowledge of it, it would kind of kill the experience. As I've said, realism needs to be as high as possible with the BEST implementation possible. For obvious reasons things can not be completely realistic from the get go.

Needless to say you kind of just help support the point of what the post is about. Your right, not everyone is a trained soldier, or has medical training, or have hunting experience. Implementing increased skill with use, does however add to the realism the best it can without removing the knowledge of them entirely, which you cannot do.

I agree that certain things are needed for gameplay like a run speed that is 30km/h, the ability cary things that you'd never be able to, or bandage a wound/out infection, or instantly heal from wounds that don't kill you.

I don't agree that you can't remove the ability to do everything from everyone when they start or at any point in the game, you let the people pick what they want to know when they start and let them learn some of or all of the things in game via other players or items.

I do agree that upgradeable skills would be authentic, i think upgrading them through their relative actions simply results in grinding and IMO thats a waste of my time.

[Pandemia 4]

I agree that certain things are needed for gameplay like a run speed that is 30km/h, the ability cary things that you'd never be able to, or bandage a wound/out infection, or instantly heal from wounds that don't kill you.

I don't agree that you can't remove the ability to do everything from everyone when they start or at any point in the game, you let the people pick what they want to know when they start and let them learn some of or all of the things in game via other players or items.

I do agree that upgradeable skills would be authentic, i think upgrading them through their relative actions simply results in grinding and IMO thats a waste of my time.

I sort of agree with that second part I guess. I do not think it would be too much of a problem allowing people to pick certain things at the start to have knowledge of. Learning skills from other players so you can do more then what you choose at the start is also a good idea, so players are not stuck on one thing til they die and restart. One problem would be you might not be able to play alone because you need other skills or other people to help you, which shouldn't be implemented in my opinion, you should be able to solo if you choose to. Unless by items you meant something like books you could find to teach you, then.. I love the idea you just presented.

Knowledge and skill increasing as you do it, is authentic. There just needs to be a fix for people who would try to grind. But I think the strongest ones off the bat would be value in items. People would not want to waste things to skill up, or more precisely, people SHOULD NOT be able to waste things to level up. IT would hurt their survival, risk them dying, and overall wasting the time entirely.

[Gordon Axeman 191]

So, we have the grind solution for now.

But what do you mean by picking skills when you start? This is going to a class system now, and I am categorically AGAINST it.

This may be combined (IMO) with the spawning idea: for example, as a soldier, you spawn at balota, with glock and 1 mag. You get higher accuracy and quicker reloading. You may start as a medic - to spawn on a hospital roof, with two bandages and morphine. Etc.

What do you think?

[bazbake 456]

Seems to me this will crave hackers... even in the stand alone version. I do not think it will be in the best interest of gamers. Also, some things make no sense. If you're good at repairing cars, then you get better MPG... lolwut

This will also cause conflict in the team and shy away new characters; because recruitments in the forums would be like 'LF Driver 1500+ xp' or 'LF Sniper Max XP req.'. People will also have to give the mechanic parts, which will be overly complicated; and just be a huge pain in the rectum.

Bad idea is bad

This guy right here is right. Unless these skills are invisible and noone knows what skills they have, there will be tiers of players who specifically choose other players based on their stats. We act like we've never played multiplayer videogames before and have seen exactly how this all works.

1. Rewarding long-lived players with increased skills and stats for surviving will create an entry tier barring new players from joining in with the game.
   
2. Giving people increasing stats won't stop them from shooting YOU, they'll just discourage people from being shot. How will this slow down KoS?
   
3. I'm still hazy on your ideas for preventing grinding, kpep...
   

If someone wants to grind the skills, let'em do it.

Okay, nevermind, you don't care.

[flimsypremise 94]

Skill training completely undermines everything DayZ is about. Everyone, no matter how old their character is, and how much gear they've managed to acquire, is fundamentally the same. That means that a 20 minute old character can find a gun and kill a 2 month old ghillie suited sniper if they're clever enough. Changing this dynamic would just introduce the same grind bullshit and level whoring that infests every other MMO on the planet. I don't want to log in to DayZ and have to grind up skills so that I can compete with other players. If you want to play that game, go play Eve or WoW.

[Pandemia 4]

So, we have the grind solution for now.

But what do you mean by picking skills when you start? This is going to a class system now, and I am categorically AGAINST it.

This may be combined (IMO) with the spawning idea: for example, as a soldier, you spawn at balota, with glock and 1 mag. You get higher accuracy and quicker reloading. You may start as a medic - to spawn on a hospital roof, with two bandages and morphine. Etc.

What do you think?

I agree in a way with both what you are saying and what Mr Two is saying.

This is why I said what I said in the first place. Make it as realistic as possible with good implementation for good gameplay.

The skills cannot be seen, they cannot be grinded. There must be a way to nullify anyone that would attempt to do that from the start.

@flimsypremise Skill training is indeed a terrible idea for Dayz.

@BazBake In an earlier post I explained that skills need to be subtle, and nothing unrealistic, as well as less visible to players. This is not a game about grinding and leveling. But becoming better at the tasks you perform is realistic and authentic, and would make for a better experience. It also gives more worth to your character staying alive.

These things could be as simple as bandage time. Say you apply numerous bandages to yourself or other players, over time you get better at it, more efficient/faster. The first time you ever do something for yourself, even if you generally know what to do, you go slow, because you are trying to think about every step, or not forget, or not mess up. So it is very realistic to say that after performing a task such as this many times, would make you more efficient at it.

But like I said, it needs to be subtle, realistic, and not visible to the players to where they can see stats and start grinding. It should be impossible to grind unless you started cheating. Time would be valuable, items would be valuable. Creating sound or commotion would be dangerous.

Edited August 29, 2012 by Pandemia

[Ajvkorn 72]

Pretty easy problem for the shooting idea. You can't just shoot at nothing. You have to kill players or at least HIT players for it to count as "xp". So you can't go to an empty server and just shoot. Add exhaustion to the game and you won't have a problem with people just auto running. Animals are sort of rare, so I doubt anybody would just go around hunting animals.(even then it is still boring and can still get killed.) People need to realize this is a simulator and these ideas fit perfectly into it. Maybe not ALL OF THEM, but some. Increased accuracy and less recoil, faster reload are all something you would practice in real life. If somebody purposely grind stats and died, you know how mad they would be? All that time wasted instead of just doing it naturally. Dayz isn't suppose to be a casual game. If you want that, just go up north and do your little live off lakes and animals RP.

[Johnny Rico 8]

These features will be bound to your current char. If you die the skills are rolled back to default.

What do you think?

not good, it should stay simple. I hate "the more you play the better you are" system, this is not BF3.

[Gordon Axeman 191]

Guys, some of you make me laugh, and some of you make me think about closing the theme.

As Pandemia and some others said, becoming better at tasks that you perform is realistic and doesn't create "level whoring". The skills are invisible (you can't say who is that character - a medic, a driver, if he hadn't written it on his forehead).

About the spawns - they just have to be balanced. For example, the soldier spawns with a weapon, but nothing more and in a dangerous area. Hunters have "hunting set", some food and water, but they are completely lost in forests. Medics get buffs, but they are not huge, and they also spawn in dangerous areas.

Skill training completely undermines everything DayZ is about. Everyone, no matter how old their character is, and how much gear they've managed to acquire, is fundamentally the same. That means that a 20 minute old character can find a gun and kill a 2 month old ghillie suited sniper if they're clever enough.

I told several times - the skills are survival only, THEY GIVE YOU NO PVP ADVANTAGE. Just give me an example, what skill can help that sniper? If you are good enough, you will kill him. If you are a dumbass/carebear who wants everyone to be the same - sorry, this will never happen. Just because some players have more straight arms.

[USMCDADY 3]

STANDALONE SUGGESTION

Edits will be done if new ideas occur.

For now amount of time you' ve survived is just a stat. Nothing more.

I thought about how to use this and now here is a solution. I suggest a training system. For example, the more you run, the higher becomes your endurance (you can run more without exhaustion).

It is introduced in:

1) Running. The more you run, the longer you can run without exhaustion.

2) Shooting. The more you shoot a current weapon, the more skillful your char becomes in shooting it. It gives you an accuracy bonus and makes reloading quicker. Also lowers the recoil. IMHO, sniper rifles should not be buffed. (This is for you to decide)

3) Driving. The more you drive, the smoother is the steering (you don't lose agility along with this).

4) Repairing (optional, i dunno about its necessarity). If you do lots of repair, parts of car will be better installed and buff the car with:

Hull - harder to break body (more body "hp")

Wheels - speed bonus, harder to break down competely (tires do not become harder to pop)

Engine - speed bonus

Fueltank - less fuel consumed

5) Hunting - you get more steaks from gutting

6) Medic - it takes less time to perform medical operations.

These features will be bound to your current char. If you die the skills are rolled back to default.

What do you think?

Edit: Got another idea. I read a topic about spawn variety (military, residential, hunter, etc.) So if it's implemented in-game, maybe various spawns should have different skill sets?

P.S. This is a rough conception, your additions and ideas are welcome.

I think this would make a great idea.its benefits for surviving smarter.

[Dimes123 60]

the only thing that matters in this game right now is gear. and with groups protecting a downed players gear so the downed man can run back and pick everything back up breaks the game. having character skills that vanish on death would make it so life and death matter again.

[flimsypremise 94]

I told several times - the skills are survival only, THEY GIVE YOU NO PVP ADVANTAGE. Just give me an example, what skill can help that sniper? If you are good enough, you will kill him. If you are a dumbass/carebear who wants everyone to be the same - sorry, this will never happen. Just because some players have more straight arms.

You don't think running faster and shooting more accurately help you in PvP?

I don't see what this adds to the game, besides benefitting obsessive grinders at the expense of everyone else. What specific lack is this addressing?