Humanity-What is it good for?

[rpatto92@hotmail.com 26]

Sorry if this isn't as concise as it could be but it’s essential to the understanding of the ideology and reasoning behind this system; if you wish to get straight to the meat of the topic go straight to: What do I propose.

Humanity

What is it good for?

This is a harshly debated topic and I've seen plenty of suggestions; most of which from disgruntled survivors with a few from bandits but generally most bandits players outright dismiss the possibility of change and as for survivor’s players suggestions, well most would ultimately turn off PvP.

In fact there seems to be no common ground what so ever and neither seem prepared to suggest a really compromise.

So want can I bring to the table:

Well the first thing I suggest is to think about what's missing from DayZ, in fact games in general and the first thing I turn to is; real life and how it could be mimicked in game. For me what’s missing is the sense that my actions have consequences and that they may come back to bite me, quite literally in the ass. There is however always a bunch of people who just don't give a shit and to quote the Dark Knight "some people just want to watch the world burn" but in reality actions at-least most of the time have consequences.

Now I’m not saying there should be some sort of in-game prison for player killers; though I’m sure given the correct tools players wouldn't take long in setting one up. What I'm actual saying is what are the real life consequences of being a "bandit" or killer. Though being a bandit you would expect them to associate with sorts that’d likely kill another player on sight without hesitation. Knowing this fact; you have to ask yourself: are these the same sorts of players I’d likely trust? I think playing on this idea is the key; while not stopping player killing it may lessen or at-least make these choices seem meaningful.

Want do I propose:

So to sum up before I get into detail of how I think this system could work; it’s like taking the recently popularised game by Seananners and Hutch created by Bad King Urgrain "TTT" or Trouble in Terrorist Town and turning it almost on its head.

Mechanics of the system:

• Heroes and bandits should be completely oblivious to each other and also to survivors
  

  – Implementation: this could be implemented by having the crosshairs appear white or by using another visual aid: such as clothing or facial appearance; to signify the player is neutral or at-least that their humanity is hidden. – Opinion: this helps maintain the air of mystery when meeting a new player and stops the slaughter of innocent players due to their humanity being visualised.
  

  
  

• All bandits should be able to distinguish each other easily
  

  – Implementation: this could be implemented by having the crosshairs appear red or by using another visual aid: such as clothing or facial appearance; to signify the player is a bandit.– Opinion: this both an advantage and disadvantage as you can easily identify at-least one type of player and gauge your interact with them but it also exposes your own humanity to these players.
  

  
  

• All heroes should be able to distinguish each other easily
  

  – Implementation: this could be implemented by having the crosshairs appear green or by using another visual aid: such as clothing or facial appearance; to signify the player is a hero. – Opinion: this both an advantage and disadvantage as you can easily identify at-least one type of player and gauge your interact with them but it also exposes your own humanity to these players.
  

  
  

• Server names should be invisible to bandits
  

  – Implementation: this could be a separate hard core setting possibly even for all players or maybe just those that achieve either bandit or hero status; though personally I think it’s necessary to stop players from abusing the ability to regroup in order to simply player kill – Opinion: and also makes some of the other in game player aids that I would propose a lot more useful and unforgiving.
  

  
  

• Players should be given tools which aid in them locating other players
  

  – Implementation: these tools could be through using the GPS to mark players you know, this could also be done by exchanging dairy information allowing you to see which server a player is on without needing to know the name or perhaps to track a friend; all this information should be reset on death in case of abuse. – Opinion: if server names were to be turned off on some or all server then these tools would help players group up and act like an in game friends list but player would be advised to be cautious as it giving this information away could be used against you.
  

  
  

• Killing bandits and heroes should have a more significant impact on your humanity compared with survivors
  

  – Implementation: an increased boosts or drop in humanity could be given for those killing either bandits or heroes and for instance even higher losses or gains in humanity could be given for killing as either a bandits or heroes or yet a greater loss or gain for killing a player with the same humanity as you i.e. being a bandit killing a bandit or hero killing a hero. – Opinion: this could be used to encourage fair play as the potential benefits of killing another player at a different humanity level than you could be both extremely good and bad i.e. killing a hero lowering humanity or killing fellow bandit drastically increasing humanity.
  

  
  

• Aiding a bandit and hero should have a more significant impact on your humanity compare with survivors
  

  – Implementation: an increased or decreased in amount of humanity could be given for those aiding either bandits or heroes and for instance even higher gain in humanity could be given for aiding for those aiding player of a different humanity level i.e. hero aiding a bandit, bandit aiding a hero or a survivor aiding either vice versa. – Opinion: this could be used to encourage fair play as the potential benefits of helping another player at a different humanity level than you could be extreme.
  

  
  

• Tools should be added to allow players to exchange information about: humanity, experiences, player movements and inventory
  

  – Implementation: Exchanging dairy information could allow a player the opportunity to make use of the information you’ve given to them; such as bandits or heroes you or they have identified, allowing them to see your humanity or even allow them to find which server you’re on and where you’ve been recently; this information should have a lifespan to reflect some authenticity. – Opinion: this could be a great tool to keep track of friends and possibly once you’ve exchanged information identify them more easily so as to save some confusion you might have in a hectic situation.
  

  
  

• Each tool should contain an element of trust which could be compromised by another player
  

  – Implementation: the information you’ve exchanged with this person should then be unsecure and give them the possibility of using it against you. – Opinion: this person may then black mail you; trade it with other people, potentially exposing you to everyone if you’re a bandit or even hunt you down like pray.
  

  
  

• Players humanity may be passed on or uncovered though various tools/mechanics which potentially could expose them to everyone
  

  – Implementation: information about other players could be passed on about other players they’ve come across including their humanity or perhaps you see another player murdering a survivor which then informs you of their humanity. – Opinion: this could then be used both ways bandits may acquire information to hunt heroes or survivors and non-bandits may use it to alert them of anyone they can’t trust.
  

  
  

Also Stronghold mechanics:

• Players should be able to set up areas in city or towns that expose anyone entering them as a survivor, bandit or hero
  

  – Implementation: multiple players could create a stronghold by placing information form their dairy on others humanity in a central area; players may choose which information they post so as not to permanently expose a friendly player to the people visiting a stronghold. All players entering the stronghold would then be temporally exposed and will acquire any information posted on specific player’s humanity who has been exposed at the stronghold which they can then take with them. Information on bandits could then be traded at a stronghold for a boost in humanity. – Opinion: although this wouldn’t turn off PvP strongholds control by either a group of bandits or survivors/heroes would then be resistant to player with a different humanity level; as other player would likely kill potential enemy’s entering.
  

  
  

• These areas should also be destructible
  

  – Implementation: perhaps you would be able to burn a stronghold with matches or by other means or even by destroying the build in which it was placed making it more permanent. – Opinion: bandits may do this to gain control over a city before restoring it to use against anyone other than a bandit.
  

  
  

• These areas should allow bandits to identify the server they're on
  

  – Implementation: act as a central hub to help bandits meet up because they have no access to the server names. – Opinion: this could be used for every player if server names were disabled for everyone but more so for bandits as without server names; they can’t simply meet up and use it as way to quickly rearm after death to simple camp spawn and player kill.
  

  
  

Edited August 31, 2012 by Rpatto92

[rpatto92@hotmail.com 26]

Please leave me your opinions bellow.

[magmatrix 38]

tl;dr

Holy crap... please stop the overly complicated moral systems, please.

[rpatto92@hotmail.com 26]

Holy crap... please stop the overly complicated moral systems, please.

I did say if you don't feel like reading skip straight to the core of it right at the very top of the page.

[curtis19 10]

Sorry you have good ideas, but i don't think they fit inot this game except maybe the "Killing bandits and heroes should have a more significant impact on your humanity compared with survivors" other than that the others remove the who is this person, i see where your going, and the closes thing I would like to see is people able to see friends names above their character and enemiy names if they have maybe grouped up before or at least show a Red glow around people that they have attacked or been attacked by while in their current life. other than that it removes the "is this person dangerious or a good guy." I like the idea of joinning groups where you don't know exactly whose good and whose bad. Thats why i think just having the group funtion i described in my post...http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/80532-humanity-and-groups/

I think its the most realistic one possible without giving payers informaiton in real life people wouldn't know.

[xximrtwoixx 104]

I don't understand why you want to remove the ability to play with your friends, I see many suggestions that want to limit or eliminate this. Don't you get more enjoyment playing a game with your friends?

I also think its unrealisitic to expect players to join up in random spontaneous groups when they are at risk of losing everything they've worked for. An hour or two of cooperation is not worth the risk of losing days/weeks worth of play time. As more content is added in that allows players to accomplish more this will continue to diminish, players must turn to outside avenues to join groups or find friendlies. Random ecnounters will always have a high chance for violence.

Counters are always going to be BS, they try to track dynamic actions in an arbitrary way thus they will never be able to accuratley track "humanity". Also skins are BS and deafeated by the fact that other wearable skins are in the game. IMO all items active/inactive need to be displayed on the character model as this will tell you by looking what a player values and more than likely how they are going to act.

[rpatto92@hotmail.com 26]

I don't understand why you want to remove the ability to play with your friends, I see many suggestions that want to limit or eliminate this. Don't you get more enjoyment playing a game with your friends?

I also think its unrealisitic to expect players to join up in random spontaneous groups when they are at risk of losing everything they've worked for. An hour or two of cooperation is not worth the risk of losing days/weeks worth of play time. As more content is added in that allows players to accomplish more this will continue to diminish, players must turn to outside avenues to join groups or find friendlies. Random ecnounters will always have a high chance for violence.

Counters are always going to be BS, they try to track dynamic actions in an arbitrary way thus they will never be able to accuratley track "humanity". Also skins are BS and deafeated by the fact that other wearable skins are in the game. IMO all items active/inactive need to be displayed on the character model as this will tell you by looking what a player values and more than likely how they are going to act.

At the moment the idea of "no server names" is only meant to applied to bandits; to combat the constant loop of players spawning, running to a friend, rearming and player killing for the sake of killing, that's what standard multiplayer is for.

If it were to be applied across the board to all players no matter their humanity then; they'd most likely also be an in game mechanic's to allow players to retrieve the server name and hook up with a buddy; so basically taking the server menu and making it an in-game system. The point of this is; well one it would be even more hard core because you wouldn't simply tell your friend to join said server and hook up, it'd be a lot more visceral. You'd instead find a city, village or street sign and use that as a sort of in-game invite system built literally in the game not just some UI, then once you've met up with your friend you could then exchange information, which would allow you to hook up more easily in future. This could possibly enable features allowing you to find friend much more easily in game.

[Vangelics 10]

I think you've got some good ideas, morality should play a much larger part :thumbsup:

[rpatto92@hotmail.com 26]

I think you've got some good ideas, morality should play a much larger part :thumbsup:

Thank you for the complement, have you had the chance to vote.

Really appreciate people saying good things about my suggestions but even so what is really most helpful is criticisms and suggestion on how the flaws in this concept could be corrected if implemented. So that said has anyone got any suggestion on how to maybe simplify this system and maybe make it more fluid and elegant because as of right now its a whole bunch of scrambled suggestions that kinda work together as a system.

[Ozelot (DayZ) 394]

Problem is, killin a bandit doesn't really make you a 'good guy' just another killer.

[rpatto92@hotmail.com 26]

Sorry you have good ideas, but i don't think they fit inot this game except maybe the "Killing bandits and heroes should have a more significant impact on your humanity compared with survivors" other than that the others remove the who is this person, i see where your going, and the closes thing I would like to see is people able to see friends names above their character and enemiy names if they have maybe grouped up before or at least show a Red glow around people that they have attacked or been attacked by while in their current life. other than that it removes the "is this person dangerious or a good guy." I like the idea of joinning groups where you don't know exactly whose good and whose bad. Thats why i think just having the group funtion i described in my post...http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/80532-humanity-and-groups/

I think its the most realistic one possible without giving payers informaiton in real life people wouldn't know.

Yes that's exactly were I see this going, making humanity a more significant part is just a small part of it though.

Players having different levels of humanity, only really matters and will actually have an impact on the game if its a visible to other player; though doing so can cause the bandits loop; were good players are caught up in the bandit skin and are killed when trying to defend themselves. So to combat the bandit loop but maintain the usefulness of humanity I though of having humanity as a discoverable feature. This helps break the loop, allowing some innocent players to redeem themselves out of the loop but at the same time allow other players the opportunity to discover another's humanity; so as they aren't completely alone in the dark waiting for a bandit to pounce. Also I think by having bandits and hero able to identify their own kind, will add an element of risk to being either or: with the possibility of a reward with players you can trust. Plus that way bandit don't always have the jump on unsuspecting survivors; as they'd have their own issues to worry about. Taking it from a complete free for all into a more calculated game but I think the way in which to implement this, is still to be debated; as what Iv'e came up with isn't an exact science yet and the bits you see shown are the pillars of the idea with the bits bellow hidden being my opinion on how it could be implemented.

So yer much yet to be refined; I like to see your suggestion on how this could be done.

[xximrtwoixx 104]

Problem is, killin a bandit doesn't really make you a 'good guy' just another killer.

Because the Z's are really living infected people killing them should also reduce your humanity, they are just sick people after all. Why don't all the care bears take up ethical treatment for Z's as a cause, your still murdering living people so whats the difference?

[rpatto92@hotmail.com 26]

Problem is, killin a bandit doesn't really make you a 'good guy' just another killer.

I totally agree but "killing" is relative; if your the person being shot at, it becomes a lot more important than if you were to just see a person you don't know being gunned down but however we can most agree that being in existence is better than non-existence at-least to an individual maybe not to a group. So for a group of people who's objective is to end other people's existence; in a game were the emphasis is on surviving the apocalypse, all of a sudden taking a life becomes a lot more of an issue.

So "killing" someone as they represent a treat to you or even many others is a "necessary evil" as its known and thus it is humane to inflict pain on another for the benefit of a larger group but killing a bad person still doesn't necessarily make you a better person than them. So perhaps killing a bandit as survivor or hero should have less significance, as killing another of your kind and or killing another bandit as a bandit should perhaps have more significance as; it represents a change in direction.

[rpatto92@hotmail.com 26]

Because the Z's are really living infected people killing them should also reduce your humanity, they are just sick people after all. Why don't all the care bears take up ethical treatment for Z's as a cause, your still murdering living people so whats the difference?

again this is just another necessary evil; these Z's represent a treat to your existence, so you remove them from the equation.

[Ozelot (DayZ) 394]

Because the Z's are really living infected people killing them should also reduce your humanity, they are just sick people after all. Why don't all the care bears take up ethical treatment for Z's as a cause, your still murdering living people so whats the difference?

It's a matter of opinion. If you think killing zeds is right or wrong is up to you, the player to decide. Same thing with killing survivors or bandits or little bunny rabbits. The game shouldn't have to tell you these things.

[indominator 95]

hmm, no more pvp, now this has become a team domination mode, blergh

[magmatrix 38]

I did say if you don't feel like reading skip straight to the core of it right at the very top of the page.

Sure, but i don't know what the recently popularised game by Seananners and Hutch created by Bad King Urgrain "TTT" or Trouble in Terrorist Town is.

Neither am i interested in buying the recently popularised game by Seananners and Hutch created by Bad King Urgrain "TTT" or Trouble in Terrorist Town, installing it and trying out the game mechanics to get an idea about how that system works. That would actually be WAY MORE tl:dr for me than your overly complicated description of the proposed system.

[rpatto92@hotmail.com 26]

Sure, but i don't know what the recently popularised game by Seananners and Hutch created by Bad King Urgrain "TTT" or Trouble in Terrorist Town is.

Neither am i interested in buying the recently popularised game by Seananners and Hutch created by Bad King Urgrain "TTT" or Trouble in Terrorist Town, installing it and trying out the game mechanics to get an idea about how that system works. That would actually be WAY MORE tl:dr for me than your overly complicated description of the proposed system.

I probably never replied to this comment in the first place because it appears to be a blatant troll but now as I've came back to the topic I'll do so anyway. The important thing is; the original idea was inspired by that game and the related quote is there simply out of context. As I go into quite a lot of detail without it anyway; which judging form the replies was probably a mistake but it has helped me to form a simpler take on this concept. Which I should perhaps state and leave it up-to the comment section to devise mechanics in-which it may be implemented.

[CreepySalad 108]

I don't like humanity at all.

Also, ABSOLUTELY NOTHIN'

[rpatto92@hotmail.com 26]

I don't like humanity at all.

Also, ABSOLUTELY NOTHIN'

I know and on second thoughts me neither. What if you removed the humanity part altogether from this system and left the rest; letting the players decide who is a bandit and who's a hero for themselves and then allowing players to share their experiences with others. This way the only players that need to hide themselves are those with some sort of infamy or fame; so you only get found out if you're careless or stupid and get caught be other players.