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Troll_Hunter

Hero and Bandit Global Rankings.

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I see the following weak points in current DAYZ SA:

 

1) Lack of a long term challenge after learning how to survive,

2) Rampant Indiscriminate killing / Killing on site (Kos).

3) Lack of friendly interactions with strangers.

4) Lack of deeper strategy.

5) Lack of cooperation.

6) Lack of high long term stakes.

 

To remedy and improve these points I propose:

 

Two rankings: - Bandit Ranking and  - Hero Ranking, both in game visible.

 

The two ranking careers are substantially different, which makes for interesting choices and many more hours of exiting diverse gameplay.

People can own and play multiple characters, or change their career by changing who they select to kill.
 

How to implement?

 

- A created character has a permanent unique name, age and global ranking number. Characters will be remembered and remain listed on the global ranking forever.

- Identification in game is to be either up close (<25m) by watching a character for a second it will unveil their name, age and rank. At distance with a
scope/ binos  from say 100-200m. And online off cause, with a link to their current server, so the hunt can begin :)

- Ranking is coloured corresponding to their current bandit path and rank, or Hero path and rank. High ranking (top 1/3) characters have a lighter colour.

 

How does the ranking work?

In general:

  - Killing high rank players give more points.

  - Killing bandits makes a player go to the hero reputation side.

  - Killing heros makes players go to the bandit side.

 

As a Bandit:

  - killing a hero increases your bandit rank, amount depending on the hero's rank. (higher = more ranking points)

  - killing a low and mid ranking bandit (lower 2/3 and down) increases you Bandit rank.

  - killing a high (top 1/3) ranked bandit shifts your reputation a to the Hero side.

 

As a Hero:

  - killing a hero shifts your reputation to the bandit side, amount depending on the hero's rank. (higher = faster to the bandit side)

  - killing a bandit increases your hero's rank, depending on the bandit's rank. (higher = more ranking points)

 

In Practice?

 

Killing fresh spawns yield only few ranking points, making them much less interesting targets for ambitious players.

Playing as a starting bandit is in the beginning easy, you can kill and loot nearly everyone and see your ranking rise. Finding help is more difficult as your bandit status has people alarmed.

Playing as a starting hero is in the beginning tough, as you need to identify and make sure you're not killing another hero. Finding a buddy is easier, because of your hero status.

 

Becoming a mid ranking bandit means you're a high value target for Hero's and higher ranking bandits, who do not like your competition. Killing the high ranking bandit gets them out of your way, but you'll have an substantial cost in bandit rank points. A cunning plan is better: Let's betray his location to the heros and hope they'll eliminate my competition!

Becoming a mid ranking hero, you'll find that killing bandits alone is not enough. Those high ranking heros look immortal, and prevent you from promotion! Maybe an nice accident can make some space for my inspired leadership without to ranking points cost for killing a high rank hero in person :)

 

A high rank bandit is feared by most and worshipped by many for his power. He needs a trustworthy security team, to keep his enemies at bay, the ambitious mid-ranking bandits and off cause the hordes of ambitious hero's. A very demanding stressful job, envied by many, hunted by many.

A high ranking hero enjoys admiration from low ranking heros but cannot blindly trust the ambitious mid-ranking heros any more. He needs a security team as he is a major price to all bandits too.

-

 

There are different effects of killing people with a different status, makes target identification valuable, and Killing on Sight sometimes costly, if you want to rank up or down.

 

The ranking offers players the glorious chance to become the worlds best DayZ player. May the odds be with you ;)

With a character's global ranking on the line I expect some extra high drama moments, and smashed keyboards. <- which is good for the economy ;)

 

Criticisms: 
 

General Zod, on 26 Nov 2014 - 09:48 AM, said:

    The idea of stats ranks and identification is bad on it's own. But the idea that others can find what server
    I'm on on some website is just plain stupid. Griefing will go through a roof.

  Argument: "Griefing will go through a roof."

Yes! there will be griefing, revenge and vendetta's! That is the challenging price of living a bandit's life... - you reap what you sow :D
Living a successful (hero) live also has it's share of trouble. Think other hero's ambition, jealousy and envy, making things tough for high ranking hero's too.
With a published ranking, being a top ranking character will be increasingly difficult, just like in real life...

Published Server location: knowing which server someone is on still gives players plenty of time and SQUARE MILES to hide, work on their ranking, plan ambushes, call in defence, escape.
I would love the tension of facing an organised gang trying to hunt me down in Chernarus.

The cool thing is this challenge scales along your improving skill, so it's challenging fun for all skill levels.

For expert players It will become extremely challenging as they approach top rankings. At times bloody scary, a most wonderful strong emotion experience only a few games manage to pull off.

The most scary sandbox game just got another level of fear :)

ps. if you fear the wrath, you better choose a hero playing style :D and team up.

 

Chaingunfighter, on 26 Nov 2014 - 4:01 PM, said:

    Real life manhunts are only held in orderly societies, where there's a government and police force who can keep track
    of them. DayZ is the complete opposite; a post-apocalyptic environment where everything (at least in the region you
    play inside) has broken down. And even in orderly instances, it's not like the police have RFID chips that tell them
    exactly where the perpetrator is (in most cases), ala giving them the server they're on.    

    People shouldn't be able to just come and track you down to kill you because you've killed a lot of other players,
    I mean realistically speaking, why is all of this information available to everyone?

    And how does the game know for sure that the killings weren't justified?    

    If people want to hunt down some notorious killer or bandit, they should have to do it themselves. No features or
    whatever to do the work for them.    

    You're trying to define morality in an open-sandbox game; an oxymoron, if you ask me. (Let's not forget all of
    the other things "evil" playstyles can do that don't necessarily involve killing)

   

Thank you for your response.

 I get you're worried about your current play style, like many here on this forum, let me clarify the ranking system I envisioned.

Voluntary participation.

One does not need to engage in the ranking competition, it is a voluntary option for those who want a tougher challenge.
To stay a low profile/rank player, you can create multiple characters, so their hero or bandit points stay relatively low and you
can explore your fantasies without the consequence of your actions. Another option is to kill people on both ranking sides so your ranking stays low.

Bandit-hero ranking points determination.

How does the game knows your killing is justified or not? Well, it does not !  However it knows the rank of the person you've
killed, and deals point accordingly. So if you want to be a hero, you better check id before shooting. If
a person with a hero rank suddenly decides to indiscriminately kill you, he may loose a lot of rank points of his hero
status because you were a hero too. I think this will work out beautifully, and both bandits and hero's will enjoy their
different careers, which from they can deviate too!

Changing your mind, and status.

If you start out killing everyone, including heros, then you'll become a bandit. But at any moment you can have a change of
heart, and start discriminating between hero's and bandits. By killing high rank (top 1/3) bandits you quickly lower your bandit status and have your status cross over into a hero ranking status.
Going from hero to bandit is easier, just kill everyone accept the top 1/3 rank bandits.

In short:

 

I think a Hero and Bandit ranking is a voluntary, flexible, challenging and motivating mechanic.

 

Questions:

 

1 What play style do you currently have?

2 What do you like?

3 Where can the two rankings idea be improved?

 

Please try to present rational arguments so we can learn and we can grow.

 

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The problem with Hero/Bandit scores is that those will only reward some arbitrary playstyles that may or may not have any relation to true Hero/Bandit behavior. So all it does is giving you random points for following a fixed moral codex by the letter. Why would we want to have this? To make people follow a fixed moral codex by the letter. Do we really want this? No!

 

The problem with public global rankings would put a great focus on metagaming and provide people with extremely biased information about others they did never meet and they never heard from. Why would we want to have this? To use metagaming to know if a certain player followed a fixed moral codex by the letter. Do we really want this? No!

 

What we do need is an ability to simply recognise another player or survivor we met or heard from without some stupid algorithm telling us biased things about them so we can decide on our own if its a good or bad or honorable or pious or whatever morality you are following fellow. And if we do not know someone we should not get information about them for free.

 

Think about a really nice and sweet girl that went really unlucky over the last year getting dumped by a couple of "seemed nice but was actually a jerk" boyfriends. Now think about someone following her around and telling everyone she meets that she is a slut.

Edited by Evil Minion

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