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Karma affecting starting gear

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I'm sure I'm not the first to come up with this idea, but I think it's the best solution to the reckless-pvp 'problem' and is deserving of a thread. I'd like to see the karma/humanity rating affect your starting gear and blood.

Those with neutral/positive karma can start off with the standard set of gear, while those with low karma start off with no food, no drink, no meds, high hunger, high thirst, and lowered blood depending on how low their karma/humanity is. Your pistol, ammo, flares, and pack will be unaffected.

I don't want this to be seen as just another anti-pvp system, but rather:

a) A reminder that the game is about apocalypse survival, and that your first desire should be getting some food, water and meds, instead of starting off with a full set and bee-lining straight to stronger guns.

b) It doesn't punish killing, but rather it punishes dieing. You can still go on pvp rampages without penalty, so as long as you keep your own survival in mind.

c) It doesn't feel artificial or forced, but rather it fits within the story and setting of the game. You're a survivor that has been washed ashore and some of your items just happened to get lost at sea.

Lastly it should be fairly easy to implement. The beauty of it is that it should be able to be done completely on the database side of things. No mid-game arma mechanics are being changed so there shouldn't be bugs and stuff breaking like the current bandit skin system.

Do you guys think such a subtle and natural solution would be worth the trouble? Or would it not have a big enough impact on the game to warrant the development time?

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Wouldn't removing bandits' supplies encourage them even more to run around killing like crazy?

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Basically yeah they'd now have to decide between scavenging towns for supplies, or risk killing other players knowing that if they fail they'll only be digging themselves deeper in terms of blood levels. Perhaps now the idea of scavenging towns for supplies, or getting players to give them blood transfusions might seem more appealing.

Edit: to clarify your starting blood would be tied with your humanity/karma, so if you keep going for cheap kills and cheap deaths your starting blood will start off lower and lower each time. Eventually even the most stubborn deathmatchers will realise they best start working on improving their blood, either through time consuming hunting or through player-assisted blood transfusions.

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If positive survivors get a "range" of blood at start, and a certain "range" of hunger or thirst too. Meaning, nobody starts out in perfect health with perfect gear. A subtle influence may be acceptable, though it goes against my "deterrent, not punishment" approach.

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Reposting this, again, partially because I love the quote, but also because people need to stop suggesting things that turn this into an MMO with rules that punish players for playing the game the way they want.

Just because I did not script rules' date=' doesn't stop anyone from making their own in game.

Are people so used to games shoving rules, tasks, stories down their throats that they can't handle it when something doesn't? Or would you like a world where the players actually get to do this? Not a structured and controlled environment that is "dressed up" as post-apocalyptic?

I hear what everyone is saying, and yes - its cruel and unsporting when you get killed 10 seconds into the game. But that's what this is, it is brutal, it is cruel. This is not fair. Maybe you will hate this game. Maybe you already do. It is an unforgiving environment with no structure. It is up to you to decide what to do next.

I would rather let the project die (and maybe it will, I accept that) than take over the role of establishing rules and punishments and structure. Instead I am going to work on the world's framework. It is up to the inhabitants of that world, you guys, to decide what kind of world you want it to be.

Is this actually possible? Fuck knows. But I really want to find out, and I've got nothing at all to loose. And to be honest, neither have you because you haven't paid me a cent and I haven't been paid a single cent for any of this.

So here's the challenge - just take a moment and think about what you are asking me for, with alot of these requests. Balancing, structure, rules, protection. These are what the game industry has shoved in your face for the last twenty years. Even the game industry itself can't escape it. EVE-Online tried briefly but caved in. Why? Money. They needed subscribers.

I don't.

This is going all the way, to whatever end that is.

[/quote']

I do like the humanity system; it does have some use as a framework, but it wasn't fleshed out enough and it is fairly pointless in its current implementation.

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Seeing Rocket's buried post gives me a bit of insight I didn't have before. Doesn't change my opinion much as of yet, though.

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while those with low karma start off with no food' date=' no drink, no meds, high hunger, high thirst, and lowered blood depending on how low their karma/humanity is. Your pistol, ammo, flares, and pack will be unaffected.[/quote']

I don't want this to be seen as just another anti-pvp system

Conflicting clauses right there.

I've read this a few times, but I still don't get how it'd not be anti-PvP.

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Punishing players for playing the game the way they want is not something that will be included in this mod.

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I don't understand people's fixation with putting other players at a starting disadvantage or punishing them for playing a certain way. The deterrent for being a bandit should be that others should band together and fight you and that you aren't easily trusted. It's as simple as "Look out for so and so, he's a player killer." That makes the game more difficult without the script enforcing it. The script shouldn't gimp you for making certain decisions.

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Seems like no one is willing to be the law-man in these parts.

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Yeah, there is one as far as I can tell: http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=774

I hope groups like this take off. There are far too many bandit groups and although I have partaken in banditry there needs to be a flip side. The Vigilantes of Chenarus. People will plead to have the vigilantes bring law to a lawless and dangerous land.

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The problem is in the fact that not all bandits are bad, such as someone protecting his friends from aggressors. It happened to my group when we where raiding the NW airport and came under heavy fire, Our sniper picked them off and turned into a bandits.

So in that case why must he be punished

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Entire idea about punishing people for PvP is rubbish. I, just like anyone here, don't like it when I get shot without any warning, but that's the thing about mod - it's not supposed to be comfortable or nice to you. So instead of being a whiny pussy some of us seem to, we are suppose to take the challenge ahead and move on.

Oh, and the vast majority of bandits are hardly bad. It's all about self-defence and survival: kill or be killed.

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I am a solo player who stays in the wilderness and rarely (as in, basically never) sees other players. So I don't really have a dog in this fight. HOWEVER: It should be noted that pretty much every single MMO (granted this is not technically an MMO, but still) that allows rampant, full-loot PvP has either implemented something like this or become a deathmatch. What the OP proposes is basically equivalent to Ultima Online's statloss system.

I am on the fence about this because we are talking about a post-apocalyptic world. It is different when dealing with games that are supposed to simulate functional, living societies, because rampant killing doesn't make sense. Someone can't just sit on a building in a living, breathing Chernarus and shoot everything that moves. The police/military would kill them. That doesn't exist now, though, and there's no law or order except what players make.

On the other hand, I really kind of chuckle at people who say that the only way to stop PK'ing is for players to "band together and hunt [the Pkers] down." Sorry, but this never happens. Not in any game where developers expect it to - ever. Why? Simple - because there is nothing to be gained from it. Other players are not going to risk getting themselves killed to hunt down PK'ing douchebags who will just respawn and keep PK'ing regardless. The risk for doing so is extremely high - much higher than trying to loot from zombie areas - and the reward is comparably low. It is much easier to simply avoid the PKers and take care of yourself.

There is a legitimate point in the OP. While violence, theft and a generalized lack of morality make sense for this kind of a world, deathmatching does not. There are players who do nothing but spawn and kill other players. They aren't killing other players because they want the gear. They're killing them because they're bored, because they can, or because they like screwing it up for other players. These people are a nuisance and I would not mind seeing some kind of measure implemented to punish them specifically, but I don't know if that's possible.

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Well I don't want it to be taken as a direct punishment for killing, but rather forcing greater value upon your own life.

Reckless pvpers don't value their life cause they know can respawn in perfect health and with a full set of gear, minus the 10minutes it takes to find a primary weapon. Thus they recklessly throw themselves into pvp, racking up as many kills as they can within their short life.

Btw I'm not against pvp, and I applaud those that use pvp to out-survive others for weeks at a time, but a noticeable chunk of the player-base right now simply just want to rack up kills in cherno, get killed, respawn, rack up kills in the stary sobor, get killed, respawn, rack up kills in elektro, get killed, and so on.

Something needs to be done about the current respawn system as it greatly promotes reckless play. I suppose it doesn't have to be targeted against just pvpers, but a tougher respawn for all players would still be worthwhile.

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Bandits are already punished by receiving the bandit skin.

And I'm in favor of the removal of that.

Bandits and murders NOW do not change their clothes into murderer clothes so people know to expect them.

And if an outbreak happens they won't change their clothes so people know to expect them to thieve and kill.

They will befriend, thieve, backstab, and murder to get ahead. Not out themselves by wearing silly clothes.

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I see karma as like this.

Good Karma: Supplies for staying independent, ie; compass, map, knife, matches, and extra food.

Bad Karma: Start off with stronger weapons.

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I think everyone should start out with evenly sparse gear as now.

I play as one of the good guys, I do that knowingly that in a post apocalyptic world the nice guys hide in the shadows and operate at night, while the bad guys walk proudly, spreading fear and death in the light of day.

If you wanted to determine default gear based on karma/humanity, the most realistic would be the bad guys spawning with big knives and long guns, while the good ones spawned with an unloaded weapon, getting slowed down by a weak loved one's company.

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Yeah that seems like too much of a straight up punishment for bandits. It should come with pros and cons, same for having extremely high karma. High Karma might spawn you with, say, a crossbow, bolts, food, medical supplies to help others, and low karma might spawn you with somewhat less blood, lack of medical supplies, one ration of water, no food, but a better starting pistol or, say, an enfield. Something along those lines, anyway- it can't be a straight punishment, because there isn't anything patently wrong with playing as a bandit.

Overall the gear spawn for various levels of humanity above and below the default could be different from the default in various ways, but should equal out to that level of starting in some other arrangement of stats/gear.

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Why not rewards baised on karma? Bandits get ak's with 1 mag when starting out (prehaps semi auto only?) and cops get shotguns. Nutral gets their current gun, and some beans.

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You keep posting about bandits as you call them, being a problem then you're not playing this "game" properly.

Most of all, if you don't have teamspeak and want to survive you need to assume that everyone you spot is potential killer.

This is a game a bout surviving and it's very realistic.

Arma is not your LEVEL-UP game neither is a game of instant gratification.

It's also labeled 18+ age. Blood and gore, violence, use of drugs, etc etc. So instead of nerfing pvp, you're new to arma? check your age with your ID.

You're new to Arma? learn to move -

Learn to recon and spot, it's where the fun of this game is. If you see someone and you aren't in the same team speak channel, then it's a foe.

GO HIDE. Hide well, without that 3d spotting shit of regular servers. Hide well and he will not see you. Is not like bandits are free to move. Hide well and he will not see you. OF course if you're one of those who play on regular...i understand you.

You're new to arma, this means you're used to games like skyrim and gta...well while you where headshooting people in battlefield 3 there where people putting effort in learning real life tactics in ARMA.

It's your fault that now you are a newbie and veterans met you. AND KILL YOU.

You hate bandits? But this is postapocalitptic world, and in the real world if you go right now is some african city they will probably kill you on sight because you're assumed as a foe.

EDIT:why there's should be cops in a postapocaliptic world...it's not the cop role that gives you more power. Is how you spot and move.

And one last thing. Grow up and stop complaining. The Battlefield 3 forum are full of people taht complains about ANYTHING.

PEople is getting really mentally ill, because they voted EA as worst company in America...when american still lose houses and can't get cured...for insurance..

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There shouldn't be any punishments for being a bandit, you already get killed on sight 99% of the time by players who assume that bandit = mass murderer.

Keep getting killed? Then stop going to Cherno and Elektro. Go north and raid the towns there, as long as you avoid Stary Sobor and Novy Sobor you should be relatively safe.

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