A new 'status' to encourage cooperation

[jetao2008@hotmail.com 175]

I think the best idea is to have the "humanity" status back, and the less "humanity" you have, the longer will take to respawn in case you die or get killed.

This alone will improve cooperation and make people think twice before killing someone else just because "it's cool".

(This isn't my idea, i saw it in some other posts)

[jesquik 75]

good idea' date=' but it affects a lonewolfs gamestyle alot so [b']maybe adding some antidepressants is the key.

Woah, woah. You actually might be onto something here... could we get some feedback from lonewolf players?

I'm not wanting to make things easier or force playstyles, but adding some psychological tension would be awesome. Something related to being around people, that could be medicated if you want to lonewolf. Thoughts?

I've been playing for 4 weeks and I'm 100% Lone Wolf avoiding players and hot spots like the plague, but I have noticed when I'm playing I subconsciously feel the need to see other humans, I get the urge to "creep", get the binoculars out and look for signs of life. I don't want actual contact because I don't trust anybody anymore, but I am human and this Mod pulls human emotions out and dumps them on my character. I could easily believe that if my current character survived for a long time it would start acting like a castaway, talking to scarecrows or animals, hallucinating, talking out load, etc.

So yes, medication to deal with this is definitely worth considering.

Great insight!

This may have sold me on the idea.

[Shuriken333 20]

good idea' date=' but it affects a lonewolfs gamestyle alot so [b']maybe adding some antidepressants is the key.

Woah, woah. You actually might be onto something here... could we get some feedback from lonewolf players?

I'm not wanting to make things easier or force playstyles, but adding some psychological tension would be awesome. Something related to being around people, that could be medicated if you want to lonewolf. Thoughts?

I'm a lonewolf. This actually seems pretty decent. Every time I venture out, I'm safe in every way, besides when dealing with a random survivor that wants to kill me, but you can only be prepared for that by being extremely aware.

The point I'm making is that when I finally kit back up and I'm ready to get out to go get better gear, I'll have ~7 bandages on me, 4-5 morphine, 4-5 painkillers, 1 heatpack, a knife, hatchet, matches, etc. and I can literally survive forever if I stay away from hotspots. When I venture out, I'm just looking for crashed helis or other players. I'm not concerned whatsoever in regard to my current stats (hunger, blood, etc.) as I am always able to keep them at 100%. Maybe if there was an extremely rare item we needed to keep a certain stat up, I may be more concerned about one of my stats or actually fear walking around for days on end, looking for another survivor to stalk and eventually kill or hunt for crashed helis. Maybe then I would be like "Well, I'll go about ~80km out, as I am too concerned about the low amount of (item) I have and I probably won't find another for a day or two"

Of course, this has it's ups and downs, but being a lonewolf and being able to travel with little to no worries seems a bit easy. I don't want a game breaker where I literally cannot do anything just because I can't find a certain item to cure a certain condition or abide by it, but just something that sticks in the back of my mind that adds a little worry. I know it's a little late to be posting this, but I thought I'd just throw in my $0.02

[Relapse 0]

Ways to encourage cooperation... that's a tough one. I am personally much more reliant on destroying everybody and everything that isn't on my ventrilo. The last time I trusted someone I found my alice pack and everything I had taken from me. I learned from that mistake.

There was one time when I was completely unnarmed and yelled out "HEY i'm FRIENDLY!" I of course was met with something far from friendly.

So then... what could be done to help distinguish these players as enemies and help build the idea of cooperation?

I've learned to deal with the random killing, it doesn't bug me so much anymore as it can be very exciting. One thing I wish that could be done however is some kind of visual to distinguish this. I remember reading... it may have been in this thread or another something about colored arm-bands.

Colored arm bands are fantastic and here is how I think they should work:

-When you spawn your arm band is grey. It means you are undecided and can really just go anyway. This makes you dangerous but at the same time maybe you could be trusted?

-If you've killed at least 2-5 people your arm band will be soaked in blood, it'll be completely red thus signaling 'Hey, I can't trust that fella'.

-If you've used blood-packs or healed other players around 6-10 times, you could be considered friendly thus allowing your arm band to become white.

This is not a perfect solution but I think it's a start. Now then onto building cooperation amongst the players.

Well, Zombie Hoards for one. If you have at least 100 zombies roaming around at hot-spots then you'll need to work with others to get in there. As a zombie survival mod we should emphasize the use of the zombies to be much more then just annoyances.

It'd also be a good idea that in these hot-spots are materials to create bases and other things that'd require multiple people to coordinate to collect. This would still keep the balance of PVP in play since you'd have people working together to get it while fighting one another, territorial control ect.

Now these idea's are far from perfect but they certainly sound interesting, at least in theory. They do have flaws and major ones at that, especially the arm bands... but creating cooperation requires things that need team-work (Duh).

[Shuriken333 20]

Colored arm bands are fantastic and here is how I think they should work:

-When you spawn your arm band is grey. It means you are undecided and can really just go anyway. This makes you dangerous but at the same time maybe you could be trusted?

-If you've killed at least 2-5 people your arm band will be soaked in blood' date=' it'll be completely red thus signaling 'Hey, I can't trust that fella'.

-If you've used blood-packs or healed other players around 6-10 times, you could be considered friendly thus allowing your arm band to become white.

[/quote']

I like this idea. Just one small detail is that I think it would be better if friendly arm bands would be blue. White and gray are too close in shade to be distinguishable. It's a hell of an idea. Then again, it may lead hardcore bandits to turn into white/blue armband target priorities, creating a possibility with being friendly to turn even more disastrous.

Like I said, I like the idea. I agree, too, that it's a good start, but the "I want to watch the world burn" bandits would target these friendly arm banded survivors...

[James2012 0]

This is a pretty good idea! But for the chat channel, have it so they can only access this threw walkies talkies, so its more realistic.

[matt23495@hotmail.com 9]

I really like that idea, it would add a extra element to the game. Instead of only thinking about precious beans, now you need to think about precious survivors. +1

[djkling 5]

I'll chime in late but i like the idea of needing to be around people BUT, I think that Survivor styles should get a benefit for banding together and Bandits should have a penalty for being around others (this will support their play style and prevent blob-banditry to some extent). I also like the idea of a medication to help stave off the lonliness for survivors, though I think they should be moderately common (on par with... maybe bandages? or morphine?). This provides a grouping mechanic AND another survival aspect

[Zdudeski 10]

As a lonewolf i wouldn't mind this mechanic of antidepressants every now and then or i like lose stamina , dogs should have the same effect as survivors when your with them .

[madmax939@hotmail.com 3]

What about hallucinations? When I first started playing Dayz I often got creeped out when I heard sticks breaking or birds scuttering away in the forests I was walking through, but after a while I realised these sounds just play randomly whenever you're in a forest and in fact had nothing to do with other players being in the same forest.

What if these noises were modified to be related to other players being around in the forest with you (so the stick breaking noise might play when another player is nearby in the forest). Then if your depression/anxiety/schizophrenia etc is severe, these noises would be increased to play even when there are no players in the forest with you.

Not knowing whether there's another player in the forest or if it's just their own solitude mind playing tricks on them makes the Lone Wolfs more careful about traveling on their own and really feel insecure, but doesn't just piss the player off with a greyed out screen like they're low on blood.

Maybe the psychological breakdown could be explored even more if the player doesn't find anti-psychotics, such as experiencing visual hallucinations. But I fear that visuals may change gameplay dramatically - stuff like seeing human figures or zombies might really fuck the player up if they start shooting at things that aren't there...

Edited August 30, 2012 by Naive Magician

[idontknow68 0]

Im a lonewolf but this is really a good idea for me