Why Bandit skins are a terrible idea.

[hombrecz 832]

What irks me some is, that even bandit of Adolf Hitler's proportions can hide behind ghillie suit or DMP camo clothing :-(.

Edited August 28, 2012 by Hombre

[RaxUK 61]

What irks me some is, that even bandit of Adolf Hitler's proportions can hide behind ghillie suit or DMP camo clothing :-(.

Your comment made me lol but also brought to my attention a point I had forgotten to mention.

[Mad Z 51]

I agree with the OP, but I'll post my own personal reasons for disliking it here, although they are pretty much a reiteration.

1. The towel looks dumb, the old bandit skin was bad ass.

2. You lose your backpack and your debug resets when you change skins, which happens every 5 seconds when you first spawn in.

[Jikfive 34]

Listen to the bandits whine now because they can't shoot people in the back.

[Double_Back 36]

I liked the old bandit skin system. The one where your entire skin changed to the 'bandit suit'. The humanity system wasn't perfect (self-defense without getting hit first, for example), but there was some sort of logic to the system. It didn't handle the exact cut off line between bandits and non-bandits perfectly (a player without a bandit skin might have just been a murderer recently re-spawned), but a serial killer certainly looked different. Now, my humanity jumps all over the place with seemingly no logic.

There was less of a KOS mentality back then. No doubt. If that particular humanity/bandit skin system was the biggest reason why - who knows for certain?

I've murdered people in this game and if I got a bandit skin for it - it didn't bother me. It added to the game. Personally, in the current state of things, I assume everyone is going to kill me on sight; bandit skin or not. Back in the days of the bandit suit, there was far more uncertainty about if a shoot out was going to happen when players met - if the other guy didn't have a bandit skin. There was more evaluating of the other guy's intentions intead of: I see another player! Fire! Fire!. Again, I can't say for certain if that's the reason or if the game just evolved to what it is now regardless of bandit skin/no bandit skin.

I don't know why muderers are so opposed to bandit skins. Hell, embrace it! Want to be an outlaw? Be an outlaw. Other than making it easier to kill other players, I'm not sure why killers are so adamant about facing repercussions for being a murderer - especially a mass murderer. Never bothered me. I think it would be cool to have a skin for those with 5 or 10+ murders. It would be a badge of honor for some and a source of increasing tension as you become a marked man. I don't mean a penalty like slower movement or anything too gimmicky like that - just a skin - a skin that looks realistic, doesn't penalize the player's visibility, and not silly like a black and red ninja suit or glow in the dark "bad guy" hat.

As for being 'realistic', well, it's not realistic that every person is dressed almost exactly the same and 90% are the same sex and age. In 'real life', we'd be able to describe someone: man/woman, tall/short, age, scars, tattoos, brown jacket, etc. It's also not 'realistic' that a man or group could roam a relatively small geographic area commiting mass-murder without some of the locals noticing that people keep getting shot in the head and getting wise to it. Then having the killers simply vanish to an alternate dimension (aka: another server)? Uh, no. Eventually, the killers would pick up a local reputation and, barring a 'normal' way of describing people, a bandit skin might be the best way of representing this in-game.

Edited August 28, 2012 by Double_Back

[SillySil 295]

The bandit skin is here to balance bandits and survivors a bit. But it's not doing good job at all. People who kill on sight assume that everyone else does it too. Nothing changes for them. Only those who like to befriend and then backstab people are punished because eventually they will get a bandit skin and people won't trust them. But they can just respawn.

The only change is that those who are friendly won't try to befriend serial killers (who don't have camo/ghillie) but shoot/avoid them instead. But again, not all murderers have the skin. So it's not that big of a change.

There needs to be a reason not to kill other than making up your own rules of engagement. Because not many people do that. The reason for it is that most people don't transfer their morality into a virtual world.

[ben_c 140]

Shooting 3 guys (even if they are bandits) doesn't make you more humane, so why would you expect humanity to rise? It's a reflection on your character not a linear score system where you shoot bad guys to make it go up...

Beans for this and I'll throw in some toast for them too.

The debug monitor is not a scoreboard IMO, although I'm sure the number increase is what gives some players their motivation.

[PeNguiN (DayZ) 10]

I think that all skins should be found on ground, and it should be up to the player which they like more and want to be in. They don't have to be labeled bandit skin, or hero skin neither, but I like the variety.

[tandwan 250]

I snipe.

It's what I do.

Prior to 7.2.5 I was shooting mostly only people who were hostile towards my group while we were clearing Northwest Airfield. Now, we don't have to kill 'everyone'. I have the hero skin, not because I was the medic but because I didn't run around shooting the shit out of every Tom, Dick, and Harry I came across. Bandit skins mean one thing for me now, I know when to shoot first and ask questions later on some people. I know when a hostile is coming up because your skin is different. Personally, the people I was running with prior to this patch said this change did fuck-all to their playstyle mainly because everyone outside our group was KoS prior to the patch and still is after it.

Now, honestly i'm not sure how Bandit skins made that fucking big of a change in your playstyle if you were a hardcore bandit before this patch. You got a shemagh on your head, whoop-dee-(fucking)-doo.

[grizzle 21]

What's this? A bandit complaining about getting shot on sight now? Pity... NOT.

[sausagekingofchicago 4711]

Humanity is buggy and I really hope they at least fix the weird morphing back and forth with the next patch. If they fix that and come up with some type of hero and bandit alternative for the camo and ghillie then the system would work better. The hero/bandit variants of the ghillie should be very slight but still have enough of a difference to spot if you're paying attention. The camo would be easier, bandanna or hat to set them apart from survivors while maintaining the current camo suit.

Btw, I only shoot bandits on sight, assuming I've got the shot. I'm just giving them a taste of their own medicine and half the time they cry about it, which makes me laugh. Before the bandit skin, I was reluctant to shoot on sight. Now, I let regular survivors go free which is pretty dangerous given the bandit skin bugs. Still, I'd rather let a few bandits go than mow down every freshspawn or new player.

[Entaro (DayZ) 33]

Game mechanics telling me who are "good guys" and "bad guys" suck.

[Maxgor 2314]

Humanity needs to be removed till it works properly. I got a few kills, basically went bandit, didn't really mind since I was going for action in the cities, but now everytime I die, I respawn as a bandit...Every time I log back in, I'm a bandit, my humanity resets to 0 every time and it makes it really impossible to play as a survivor/hero now cause the system is broken. I haven't even killed anyone in a few days with numerous deaths. I'll eventually revert to normal after some random length of time, but during that time, I might as well be running around with a flare on me. The idea is kinda interesting, but it hasn't been fleshed out too well.

[RaxUK 61]

Listen to the bandits whine now because they can't shoot people in the back.

What's this? A bandit complaining about getting shot on sight now? Pity... NOT.

You guys are retarded. I clearly said I'm not a bandit. I killed 3 people with snipers in bandit skins because that's a clear sign of actual bandits however they counted as murders because the players were not actually bandits yet despite their gear, humanity and skin.

But what can I say:

[corbon_hydrashock 14]

Perhaps if there was a way to holster all weapons? As it is right now, if someone looks at you they are also aiming at you...does not make for a nice meetup for sure.

+1

That's the thing that really gets me about it all - if the devs wanted us to be friendly we wouldn't point our guns around constantly.

It's silly, and on the verge of only being acceptable to crazy-mass-killer types in real life.

[Wargunner 55]

There is still way too much uncertainty for me to care about the system at the moment. Sometimes humanity gets set back to 0 on login/respawn. So you might see a survivor but deep down they could have -100k humanity.

So I still shoot survivors when I need to. I've had plenty of surivors try and kill me.

Oh, and just to add. I don't think the idea is terrible.

It's just the bugs it has so far that aren't desirable. And these are the problems you have highlighted, not the idea itself.

Edited August 28, 2012 by Wargunner

[Sakeoe (DayZ) 115]

I don't see the problem OP get a hero skin and your humanity keeps increasing automatically (every time you log in your humanity starts at 0 and climbs up to 2500 which gets added to your actual humanity).

Kill erryone on sight and never lose your hero skin. If you wear the bandit skin you choose to wear it.

Edited August 28, 2012 by Sakeoe

[Nyz 42]

Time for me to bitch about something.

First a foremost: The skin system is so terrible as it is. Every skin change causes a temp stat reset and this is where things get interesting. On respawn with a bandit skin your humanity is at 0 and you skin will change almost randomly until you either get a player kill or wait half hour for the game to load up again.

2: You don't know if somebody is actually a bandit. I had 4k humanity today until a group of 3 people in bandit skins with half decent gear started moving towards me. I took all of them out. For that I got 3 murders against people who were clearly bandits. Now I have a bandit skin which leads me onto my next issue.

3: Shoot on sight. When there were no bandit skins, the shoot on sight mentality seemed far less common. People, like me, with bandit skins now have to shoot basically everyone they see or be shot.

Bandit skins should either be made optional or be removed until the whole skin system actually woks. They should also not be reliant on somebody's humanity but whether or not they are actually a bandit.

1. Agreed. You shouldn't respawn with 0 humanity. The system was designed to let other players know exactly what kind of player you are. Currently bugged.

2. They were bandits. The humanity system is borked.

3. Negative. It was far more common before the skin was reintroduced. You are the victim of a bug in the humanity system. If you choose to shoot people now because you have a bandit skin, that makes you a bandit. Nothing is stopping you from raiding tent cities and searching for vehicles until your humanity comes back and you lose the bandit skin. Or just avoiding people.

So what you mean to say is that the humanity system is bugged. Someone in a bandit skin is a bandit. There is no optional clothing skin to put on that makes you look like a bandit. Bandit Skins are fine, humanity system needs to be adjusted. If someone dies and respawns still in a bandit skin, it is due to a bug in humanity not the bandit skin. If a bandit dies, they are still a bandit even with 0 humanity. If you get a murder for killing someone in a bandit skin, it is a bug in the humanity system. So the title of your thread is a bit off. Bandit Skins are a great idea. Humanity system is borked.

Edited August 28, 2012 by Nyz

[bazbake 456]

Bandit skins are making a positive difference. They're not working perfectly, yet, but it's better than the system we had before.

But seriously, stop shooting people.

[johan (DayZ) 21]

So many people who comment without reading properly. He shot three guys who had masks, yes, but had you actually read both the OP's post and various other posts (and actually played the game a bit) you would've realized that the way the stats work atm means that humanity levels can jump up and down like a kangaroo which will lead to unexpected humanity drops.

I had a guy in my group last night who kept switching every time he died from survivor to bandit and then back again, despite not killing anyone. Changes also happened on logins seemingly at random. His humanity kept changing also.

Had we a bigger island to play on, a much bigger player cap and some more sandboxy features, such as bases or camps, etc. we could experiment with persistent characters and a persistent world so you'd know where you could find bandits, heroes, where the big wilderness of potentional doom were, etc. without the need for any special skins (i.e. we don't go to ravenholm, they're always shooting there). But that's just a part of my daydreams, I guess.

At the end of the day the system is sadly a bit broken and I hope Rocket will ponder deeply on it in time for release of the standalone. But as mentioned above, and I agree, the system only detracts from the unexpected and brands many unwilling bandits to a vicious cycle of destruction of whom the OP is one.

[discombobulated 27]

The humanity system is broken, the skin system is catering to the people that are too trusting/can't play properly. The whole thing needs to be removed.

There is no system that could be implemented where humanity will actually work properly. And if you seriously need a different skin to know if you can trust someone or not, then you're doing it wrong.

[kander 80]

The humanity system is broken, the skin system is catering to the people that are too trusting/can't play properly. The whole thing needs to be removed.

There is no system that could be implemented where humanity will actually work properly. And if you seriously need a different skin to know if you can trust someone or not, then you're doing it wrong.

Whilst I agree that the skin system is quite artificial, I think that it is a slightly flawed way to achieve a realistic end result.

Trying to model this IRL: people would trust each other more. You wouldn't go wasting your ammo deathmatching and you wouldn't enter into battle with someone who would not otherwise know you were there because even if you get the jump on them every battle just might lead to (permanent and possibly genuinely painful) death.

We have a human instinct towards sociability. If you meet another cold and hungry survivor IRL you are more likely to help each other out and share stories. I think this is where the skins come in. The skins to me represent things we would otherwise 'learn' about certain players in a real life situation. I meet you on the road. We chat. I tell you about the kind guy who gave me morphine in the woods North of Balota, you tell me about the bandit at NW airfield who murdered two of your buddies. We give each other physical descriptions of these people: their face, build, backpack, gun etc. Then we meet these people and we know whether they are heroes or bandits not because they have, in some unrealistic sense, 'chosen' to don certain clothes, but because their reputation has preceded them and we know to look out for them.

This to me is what the skins mean, in the absence of any real need to socialise and share, they are the next best thing. They are a slightly unrealistic way of making sure that folk end up a little more clued up about the intentions of their fellow survivors.

Edited August 29, 2012 by kander

[SillySil 295]

There needs to be something to make people ask "do I really want to kill that guy?" before pulling the trigger, not a way to differentiate who's who.

[sofaplayer@hotmail.com 22]

First and foremost we have to think why we have the kos problem in dayz, and that is bandits, people who revel in killing other people for whatever reasons they mention.

So even with the glitch the OP comments about, the skins are a positive idea for those who want to play in a more social way. Before the only way to play in groups was with pple who you actually knew and this update has brought more interaction. So sorry for the bandits but they were getting away with it since it was impossible to distinguish them.

So, my opinion is that i feel sorry for the OP, but in many cases the skin system works and the bandits who have been preying on survivors for so long now have to be more careful so i want the system to be fixed but to be kept implemented.

[SillySil 295]

First and foremost we have to think why we have the kos problem in dayz, and that is bandits, people who revel in killing other people for whatever reasons they mention.

So even with the glitch the OP comments about, the skins are a positive idea for those who want to play in a more social way. Before the only way to play in groups was with pple who you actually knew and this update has brought more interaction. So sorry for the bandits but they were getting away with it since it was impossible to distinguish them.

So, my opinion is that i feel sorry for the OP, but in many cases the skin system works and the bandits who have been preying on survivors for so long now have to be more careful so i want the system to be fixed but to be kept implemented.

The reason why people kill on sight is because there is no reason not to. And skin isn't changing that.