Why is the life expectancy going up?

[BL1P 252]

I am surprised noone has asked this.

But we haven't the faintest idea. It is currently calculated across all characters (ignoring those who died within a few minutes).

Given the vast swathes of people who died earlier' date=' there must be a dramatic rise in survival times for it to be rising. Any budding statisticians have some thoughts?

[/quote']

Because people have stopped playing as much because of the kill on sight.

less players higher survival rate.

5 or 6 people i alone know have stopped playing because of the kill on sight.

I know its not alot but if 5 or 6 people everyone who plays knows .... well

[Cormac McCarthy 15]

every person ive seen for the past 2 weeks has killed me as soon as they see me. so now i just sit in the woods and kill animals and avoid cities all together. i should have to worry about zombies not snipers. i dont mind being killed face to face, i just hate being shot from 1km+

[poisonman 28]

Well you said that players that die within a few moments don't even go into the calculations and that is really when / where all the DMing people complain about happens, is on the coast within the first minutes - 15 minutes of playing, after that most people start moving inland and lasting a lot longer, would be my guess, that the DMing isn't really being counted / calculated.

Otherwise the life expectancy would be going down not up, haha.

[dissaifer 3]

Without the actual data, I can guess. Are we allowed to have data?

Things that need to be looked at:

- Trending Logins

- Trending total time played

- Trending new logins vs old logins

- Population migration (where are most players in a given time frame)

- Population deaths (location and reason)

And that is off the top of my head.

[pengs 8]

Popularity peak has worn off

Previous deathmatch addicts are tired of shift+tabbing the Steam overlay and running

More lethal elements are being added

Overall I'm pretty sure the first one is the main reason.

[rotekz 18]

Everyone is going lonewolf to survive. Disconnecting at the slightest whiff of trouble. No trust exists any more. The fruit of having no downside to player killing.

[ansonh92 0]

I am surprised noone has asked this.

But we haven't the faintest idea. It is currently calculated across all characters (ignoring those who died within a few minutes).

Given the vast swathes of people who died earlier' date=' there must be a dramatic rise in survival times for it to be rising. Any budding statisticians have some thoughts?

[/quote']

If you really didn't include people dieing in Bean Coast, my answer is simple: Learning from mistake.

[septuscap 42]

What I really think has done it?

People disconnecting before they die.

I might get yelled at for even suggesting this but really' date=' I have noticed well over 50% of the players I run into now will disconnect to avoid death, be it from other players or from zombies (Much more likely. I've met lots of people who ALWAYS disconnect to avoid zombie deaths but never player deaths)

[/quote']

I could believe this.

---

Because people have stopped playing as much because of the kill on sight.

less players higher survival rate.

5 or 6 people i alone know have stopped playing because of the kill on sight.

I know its not alot but if 5 or 6 people everyone who plays knows .... well

That is another theory. Bad players have stopped playing, thus survival rate rises.

[Big Boss (DayZ) 23]

What I really think has done it?

People disconnecting before they die.

I might get yelled at for even suggesting this but really' date=' I have noticed well over 50% of the players I run into now will disconnect to avoid death, be it from other players or from zombies (Much more likely. I've met lots of people who ALWAYS disconnect to avoid zombie deaths but never player deaths)

[/quote']

I could believe this.

A good set of correlations / theories.

-PK/ Bean war / Shoot on sight: sends people away from the mod

-Disconnect Abusers: Should have left game with above group, however, adapted in the wrong way.

[Andrej Dudev 50]

you have the initial outbreak victims and then the victims of the victims etc until you get us.

The survivors.

And by survivor you mean "those with enough supplies to camp and shoot on sight than others", right?

I think that the average lifespan is increasing because players are not happy with the actual trend of the playerbase.

In my personal experience I can say that my average lifespan is increased by DAYS since the first login because of increased awareness of locations and equipments; I died only because of random lolsnipers shooting in the middle of nowhere.

I noticed also that a lot of players are going to shoot everyone since the first minute of spawn.

[urbanfox 116]

I think it's only natural that life expectancy has gone up based on two reasons:

1) The game BLEW up in popularity. I know it did because I have never played ARMA and I bought this game just to try this mod. I'm almost a month in and my play style has changed dramatically throughout the weeks. You learn how to survive and adapt. You learn that dying sucks, especially when you have invested your time traveling and gearing up. You learn that the zombies are merely obstacles, not the true enemy. In the end, you learn it's you vs the game and everyone in it.

2) The bandit skin is gone. At first I thought this would lead to more chaos, but I have found in my short time that this had led to more 'shoot on sight' tactics. I've learned to stay away from everyone and be incredibly careful and quick if I enter a popular town. Basically, and I say this in chat, I'm friendly but if you approach me head on I will take you as a bandit.

[haviv[3rdid] 57]

@Johnny5vsZombie

I have to agree there' date=' which is why I never called murderers "CoD kids." You just made an assumption, my friend. I suspect "CoD kids" because I'm sure some Call of Duty players bought ArmA 2 specifically for this mod and played it expecting something other than a hardcore zombie apocalypse simulator. No indication of them being murderers was ever made....although I won't object to admitting that I think CoD holds people's hands way too much and perhaps that's why some of the "CoD kids" may have left.\

TL;DR: Hand-holding is bad.

[/quote']

I'd say the opposite, the DayZ is the first game that allows players to just 'be themselves' without having to conform to a military structure or be the 'good guys.'

---

And server population is less dense. Used to be all servers were 50/50. Now' date=' there are so many servers, that there are tons with only 15-20 people on them. I think the servers have actually outgrown the population at this point.

[/quote']

They may be at night time, which is not very popular.

[Andrej Dudev 50]

Everyone is going lonewolf to survive. Disconnecting at the slightest whiff of trouble. No trust exists any more. The fruit of having no downside to player killing.

He speaks the truth.

[guynumber7 1]

idk it it matters but i went on a 3 week vacation then found when i returned that i was alive for 25 days, lol

[moxrox 5]

Everyone is going lonewolf to survive. Disconnecting at the slightest whiff of trouble. No trust exists any more. The fruit of having no downside to player killing.

He speaks the truth.

I would give a similar answer....yeah. Trust is just gone and people dont even try anymore, lonewolfs surive longer because they hide.

[dayzfox 3]

would be even lower as some of the longer life players and medium ones are only there due to ALT+F4'ing half the time.

However, i'm proud to say i'm at 22 days currently :)

Been at as low as 1.2k blood and shot at least 4 times and fought honestly with no disconnects or zombie re-logging (However, 6/15 of my firefights have resulted in the 'enemy' d/c'ing on me/us. Not cool)

[WalkerDown (DayZ) 296]

rocket didn't specified yet (or i missing his post) if the "surviving time" is the effective playing time or just days alive (even offline). If the it's about the days an avatar remains alive (not in game), then this is going to increase like the hell.. in example i don't playing the game by hum... 10 days i think, because of the kill on sight.. so i am "alive" indeed! And i'll remain alive until a proper solution will be found (or until my account will be "reset").

But if it's about the online living time.. then it's different, it could be really about ppl learning how to stay alive longer, but it would be really strange, after the bandit skin removal i didn't found a single person that didn't tried to shot me on sight.. while previusly the majority of those with the survivor skin were friendly, or well at least they didn't tried to kill you but they were just passing around without engage the fight.

[Belhade 0]

maybe next.. people will learn that co operation > killing randomly for no reason!

I was going to say this. In my community at least, many players have been teaming up for co-ordinated city raids and lockdowns. This nets a lot of good gear which can be distributed, as well as security against bandits and zeds.

[Tallpoppy 19]

i haven't died to silly things like hopping out of a heli 10cm from the ground and parachuting to my death, being hit by a quad bike cos some one bumped into it and bleeding out, hitting respawn instead of options to adjust sounds, falling off stairs, lagging out in ma tractor and hitting a tree. that was the 8 days of play for me. i've survived 3 nights (12 hours ingame approx) now but since we are now finding cars again i'm sure my death rate will increase.

[Shroud8 3]

I think people are learning more tips & tricks on how to survive and better stay out of harms way.

I was playing last night and I was approaching Zelenogorsk, from around 900m away I scanned with binoculars and noticed there were zombies throughout the town, which meant another player had caused them to spawn as I was to far away, so I skipped Zelen and moved on to another emptier town. :)

[Budiak 1]

I've been alive about a week now, it's my third to last this long. I play alone. I've never been shot by a sniper. I don't fill my pack with blood bags and other stuff that requires another player. Careful movements, noise and light discipline, not using the same route twice, etc. I generally go whole multi-hour sessions without even seeing another player or getting zombies riled. I've only fired my M14 three times in anger(the rest of the times were negligent discharges). I avoid high density areas during the day. I don't cook at night. I avoid large open areas. I'll skirt the woodline for ten minutes to avoid it. I only hunt in very remote areas or boars in the forest. Most of the time if I spot a player I watch him and then book it the other way because I don't know who else is there or who he's talking to on Mumble. I can't tell you the last time I got attacked by a zombie that didn't hit me through a wall.

I can't be the only one. I'm convinced that other players are learning how to survive. When the flood comes, I may have to turn into a much more aggressive player just to have freedom of movement.

[LastManOnEarth 14]

I think people are learning more tips & tricks on how to survive and better stay out of harms way.

I was playing last night and I was approaching Zelenogorsk' date=' from around 900m away I scanned with binoculars and noticed there were zombies throughout the town, which meant another player had caused them to spawn as I was to far away, so I skipped Zelen and moved on to another emptier town. :)

[/quote']

Yeah but I kind of wish there weren't game-y "tells" (or clues) like this, that tip you off as to whether or not other players are in the area. I'd rather no one had any idea whatsoever! It'd certainly be much more realistic--which is supposed to be the mantra of this game.

[Budiak 1]

...but that sort of out-of-the-box thinking is going to keep you alive in a DayZ kind of world. I think.

[mmarionz 6]

Yeah the zombies spawning is an instant giveaway that someone is close.Was it always like this?

[killroth 9]

People have learned to avoid rocks...:P