A view on the KOS problem in DayZ

[Salenor]

Good evening everyone,

First of all, this thread is meant to be a discussion .
With discussion I mean something productive, that makes you think about the game/ your view on things in the game. If you want to express your oppinion by writing stuff like "I KOS deal with it" please stop writing you comment this instant.

Well enough introduction, here are the points I want to talk about:

• Reasons for Kill on sight
  
• the problems of KOS
  
• Some sollutions to KOS
  
  
  We all know this situation. You've played DayZ for a couple of hours, scavanged some supplies, found some weapons and maybe even ammo for them but suddenly another player appears. He didn't notice you yet, though you're not thinking of running away. Maybe he'll notice you if you turn your back on him, maybe he'll take supplies that you need. Who knows. Anyway the best solution is to kill the unwanted player before he can do the same thing to you. Let's be honest here: facing an armed player will get you killed nearly every time. But why do people KOS? I thought about it and there are many reasons at the moment;
  
  People are the biggest threat in the game
  The fact that there are only a few Zombies in the cities is a big problem. Gunfire isn't that much of a problem since the 3 -5 Zombies that are walking around in the cities will notice you anyway whether you shoot your gun or not. The only thing that can actually kill you are other players.
  
  You are in need of supplies
  You ate something bad and now you're sick, you got shot and the infection is slowly killing you, you just ran out of food / ammo / stuff to drink. There are many things that can happen to you in DayZ, but for everything there is something that you can find lying around the cities to help you. But when the cities are already looted and you really need a rare supply like antibiotics or you just want to stock up on food then it's easyer to shoot the player you just saw and loot him [unless he logs out and his corpse disappears]
  
  There is no downside on killing someone
  This point explains itself. No one will ever know what you did. There is no punishment. Your appearence won't change in any way, neither will killing someone affect the way you behave.
  
  Boredom or fun
  At the moment there is not much to do after you stocked up on supplies and finalised your weapon. You can only walk around and pretend that DayZ is actually CoD and start killing people.
  
  There is no trust
  How can you trust random people on the internet? You don't know the person who is controlling the character that you're just facing. you don't know if he has friends arount who're coming to help him.
  
  Well I think that sums up some of the main reasons for KOS. I've seen many people arguing about DayZ beeing some kind of Zombie survival simulator and stuff like that but in my oppinion thats just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Your behavior in a game where you know that you'll respawn, where you can quit whenever you want and survive on your own will never be the same like in real life [Zombies are fictional anyway].
  
  But what could happen to lower the amount of KOS?
  I've read through some ideas for sollutions and I think the best would be to either bring back the visual change of your character when you kill too many people or higher the amount of Zombies / make the environment more threatening. To achive this it would need better working zombies... and more of them. If you shoot a weapon and there would be a horde of zombies chasing you, you would think twice about killing someone just for fun. Yet it would make the game incredibly hard for people without a weapon or anything to defend themselves with, but on the other hand this would make teamwork essential in the early stage of the game. At the end of the day some people will never change and there will always be someone shooting you for no reason, but what do you guys think is the best solution to this problem?
  
  [please appologize some grammatical errors / spelling errors. I'm tired and English is not my native language]

[Exeon]

İlk olarak Salenor tarafından gönderildi:

People are the biggest threat in the game

You are in need of supplies

There is no downside on killing someone

Boredom or fun

There is no trust

But what could happen to lower the amount of KOS?

1- This is the main reason why people KOS, zombies aren't a threat at all, at best my threat list is in this order People/Hunger/Zombies

2- True, but with the current despawn bug, this isn't exactly the case

3- Exactly, you don't get known as a Bandit either, in the mod this was diffrent

4- Well, is there anything else to do right now?

5- Can be linked to the first and the 6th point, there is no way of knowing if the person is or isn't a bandit, or will or will not KOS you, even if they say they are friendly they might still shoot you

6- A better alternative to KOSing, a means to know who are bandits, even means to hunt bandits down(considering they like action this would be good as a bandit, the hunter being hunted)
There are many good solutions for this, they just need to be implemented

[Iain cam sròn]

Early 2014 is the only date given when Rocket and his DayZ team return to sort a lot of the main issues. You can follow on the DayZ forum a voting system that puts in order the problems that the players want sorted first.
I personally believe its down to how you play KOS only occurs when you discover another player, in which case you have a choice, interact with that player or stay well clear.
If they see you first there must be a problem in the manner you are 'sneaking' about.

It is a simulation of survival, I play as a scavenger, I dont provoke zombies or players alike I crawl majority of the time on the deck, tree to tree, I do not care for weapons only food and drink. In a sense it makes it exciting for me because if I were to come across another player it is me who is disadvantaged, but my point is I havent, and thats scavenging between Elektro and Cherno.
I have noticed though that a lot of new players do not play with headsets either so KOS is the only option because they cant communicate with you.

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[batia]

For Bandits should be realistic penalty. For example
1) after some minits from combat player can stop and cry "Why???" or something. And this cry should be very laud.
2) then he want drink much more and often some time( sweat)
Something like this. Then people should think, should they kill or just pass another player.

[necroth]

I think murder/kill boards in major cities coupled with study body showing who murdered a player and some form of benefit given to Hero players for having positive humanity is the only way to combat KoS without going back to the old bandit skin system with the shemagh around the head. Also show name at 35 meters or less, non-negotiable, so that when a bandit gets close to you and you've read about all of his murders on the board, you'll be able to see his name in game and know he's a douchebag. A realistic benefit to Hero's is access to a survivor/Hero city in the north where AI is set to kill -2500+ humanity players. That could be the only trader area in-game thus forcing bandits to provide their own black market if they want to trade gear. Benefit to Heros and realistic since merchants don't deal with criminals...but I can already see the KoS bandit's cry foul and whine over this, which is why no mod had ever set it up.

[Salenor]

Well having people screaming "Why" and stuff wouldn't be really realistic. I mean even in an apocalypse there can be some really twisted people, that have no morallic issues with killing someone to survive....

[a cup of tea]

Personally I've killed one person on sight because I'd been betrayed by everyone i've met in some way. I couldn't risk losing my supplies which i had spent over an hour collecting. KOS is a problem and I agree that bandit clothing would be a good way for people to see that

[batia]

Now we have people without morallic at all, just becouse it's not real life. Now they all like maniacs( killing in game != killing in real life). Most of people would be demoralizated if they kill someone even for food. In DayZ players( not player that manage a hero, but hero in game) are not soldiers, maniacs or something.

[GutsNoMore]

Implement a Karma system... players who KOS a lot will be more desireable to zombies and won't stop pestering that player. Think of it like a 5-star wanted level on GTA. Other players would still have to worry about zombies, but they wouldn't be a huge magnet for them if their Karma is positive. It doesn't have to be visible who the murderers are, but in a group of survivers, the zombies will favor the brains of the players with "blood on their hands" over the others.

I took the plunge and purchased Dayz Standalone because I know it's a game I'll buy when it's finally released. I spent several hours getting up to the airfield today and within a half second of encoutering a fully-armed player, I was dead - I had no loaded guns and a holstered axe. I'll be interested in seeing how the Devs attempt to handle this. A small group of players can easily ruin the fun for the rest of us.

[Chowder7116]

I do not understand why it is so hard for people to understand this is a kill or be killed world.

[R.J.]

KOS is not a game issue or problem, sorry.

[Salenor]

Well yes it is, or do you like it if someone just shoots you immediatly even if you're willing to surrender to him? It's kinda frustrating when hours or even days of farming are destroyed by KOS. It is part of the game and this will never change. All I'm asking for is a way to lower KOS. It doesn't have to be a "kill or be killed" world :)

[Evo]

Theres a fine line between KoS and plain old murder. I'm no bandit, but I won't hesitate to kill another player. Whenever I've killed players, theres always been a need to do so. But I can guarantee that at least one of them have called bandit, and rage quit. It always depends on what side of the gun your on.

If I'm at the NW airfield, I'm going to KoS any player except my team, because it's too high a risk to let him live. Personally, I believe that to be pre-emptive self defense. But I've only killed 3 people in 35+ hours game time. I think that's fair.

[Salenor]

it's not like I'm flaming the game or anything. Protect the newbies. I really don't need a justification to kill other people ingame and feel good about it. I just wanted to start [yet another] discussion about ways to prevent KOS in DayZ. That's all I'm asking for. Yet I don't think killing people that are near the new player that you protect is a way to improve the the game...

[toroid]

You guys act like you're playing a complete game with polished features and mechanics. This isn't even a game yet; it doesn't even begin to resemble what the final product is supposed to be like. It's going to be a super-hardcore survival sim when development is all done. If you think that the game is going to be all about running around and shooting everything that moves then you're in for a rude awakening. They're aiming to make this as inaccessible and difficult as possible. All the noob bandits that are running around right now will not get very far in the final game unless they learn to adapt.

I'm guessing about 85% of all the people who bought this have no idea what it is that they payed for, and they will wash out fast once it starts getting real.

[Andrew Applepicker]

For my money?

I suggest an increase in glitch noises as opposed to a physical change of their character - I'd want to piss people off for being a bandit, not just be able to identify them easily.

There can be an unseen meter, "sanity" which you can keep healthy by bloodbagging, saline bags, bandaging, feeding, perhaps shooting bandits etc or diminish by killing other players, breaking their legs, force-feeding poison, burlap sack kidnap etc.

What do you reckon? It's unseen to other players, so KOS bandits can't complain about being targets and would coincide with logic - kill more people, become insane.

Alternatively, you could have the same number of glitch noises, just have them complete (instead of half the noise, the full noise) and have them directional which the current noises aren't. Maybe also add footsteps to the arsenal, which currently isn't included.

For those that were unaware - you get noises of soda cans, ammo splitting, reloading, eating, zombie aggro - all sorts, which increase as the server is more full. They are usually half-noises so you can differentiate if you're concentrating though.