As i think this suggestion got a little lost in the other threat here is a new one for it.

I would suggest that every player, regardless of bandit or hero, has the same skin.

This might encourage the kill on sight attitude with freshspawns but as far as i know this attitude is already there.

There is one main benefit i see from this: Make hero gameplay more challanging/avoid heros killing bandits on sight

If all players look the same heros will have to look twice if they want to kill someone. They will be forced to engage in conversation or observe the playing style of players they encounter before they make their decission.

This could bring back the elemement of conversation and make encounters more challanging, at least if you want to play it that way.

Minor side benefits:

No camo advantages for different player groups
old hero/bandits skin could be used as the often requested findable clothing on the coast
Hero only squads will loose the benefit on identifying their teammembers in teamfights easily

What do you guys think of this?

+1!!!

I would LOVE that idea! Not just because I am playing as bandit right now - the bandit playstyle is something you are really forced to do, when you got the skin. "I am friendly!" Bandit skin? Nevermind! (BAM!) "Hey, don't shoot, I have a bandit skin but-" (BAM!) "PLEASE don't shoot me! I jus-" (BAM!)

ZeroSurvival would loose much of its "Shooter" component and be much more survival, if you surely do not know whom to trust - and if you get a chance to play good (and don't get shot immedieatly) because you want to play good - and not what your skin (haha, you see the double standard here?) forces you to do!

Also I don't like german uniforms being (as usual) the bad guys (kidding )

Edit: Grammar

Edit: I also wanted to quote this as the most important sentence in your post:


"There is one main benefit i see from this: Make hero gameplay more challanging/avoid heros killing bandits on sight" > YES!

I do support this, though I would like to see the different uniforms as collectible items.

Even if the idea cam out of my corner.... isn´t the goal of the server the vanilla DayZ experience?

But I like Arfour´s idea in that regard. At least you could have them in the game...

Oh yes in my eyes it will boost experience of meeting other players a lot. Now it pretty much looks like Selo wrote.

I actually really like this idea, because it would, as stated above, really change the gameplay towards more player communication and less KoS.

Heros though should still get a reward for their hard work, which was the hero skin with the bullet proof vest and better sprinting (if this still exists).
I guess the last part will still be possible but they should have some kind of visual mark that they are a hero.
Maybe it is possible to give them small logos on their clothing which can be only identified from close up?

I also think that the clothing everybody will wear has to be non camo and good to see in the woods like the current bandit skin or the hero skin. Tough I think we shouldnt use none of them, because it would confuse people. Maybe the survivor skin with the white shirt would be an option, but there are tons of other skins available in arma II.

A problem though would be the heartbeat that appears when you look at another player and he is a bandit. I don't know if this can be removed or maybe set only for bandits below -20000 or smth.

Sorry if I am not correct, but isn't the heartbeat something you are just hearing NEXT to a bandit, not LOOKING at them?

Anyway - that should go away too.

Little markers as some kind of reward for Heros seem to be ok if its technically doable. The Cars can have logos too?

The clan logos which can be seen on vehicles also transfer to some clothings, for example Bandit Baklava from Epoch has a small logo as and arm patch.

For Heros though there has to be some different kind of system because you cant put just all the bandits into the same squad.xml, can you?

Im more in favor of adding more uniforms from ARMAII which technically isn't exactly a mod then since we all already have these art assets. that way each fireteam at least have a chance of getting their own brand of uniforms to help avoid friendly fire.

For the rest you can remove the humanity system so clothing doesn't depend on it.

Took the words from my mouth.

Or fingers i suppose...

That's the only problem I see with that, as much as I would like more possibilities to customize your character by different skins / uniforms. Hence I'm in favour of the most simple solution which would be to decouple the skins from the humanity system and make bandit / survivor skins lootable objects like ghillie suits. Perhaps a bit more common.

If I am honest I don't think this would solve KOS, simply because people are assholes plain and simple, I would still shoot everything on site regardless of skin and am pretty sure I can say the same for my squad xD and several other squads on the server, However I would really love to see more lootable skins, such as soldier skins or other skins. However I know this is a ballache for seaweed so I doubt it will happen :p

I guess I am still attached to the Pilot skin and the plethora of other soldier skins we used to have :p

Being able to pose as a survivor sounds...full of possibilities.

regarding other skins than the ones already in game seaweed has more then once mentioned how difficult/impossible it is to add them.

regarding the bandit heartbeat on close distance I think it should stay. its a good warning for someone getting very close and is the benefit for the hero

I would not add any visual differences

I'd say this would be an interesting experiment but I can also understand the people that are in favor of the vanilla experience.

since most opinions have been voiced I would like to hear seaweeds thoughts on it

I like the idea a lot, my only worry would be that the more casual players may not like it. I can't see most bandits having an issue with it though as the bandit skin is pretty unpopular for it's camo lol. I know some heroes take a lot of pride in the hero skin though as they work harder to get it. The heartbeat I could maybe change slightly too, maybe have a certain amount of time you must spend close to a player before it'll even kick in.

In terms of adding more skins there really is very little opportunity. Unfortunately nearly all the skins you see in other mods come from external arma 2 mods which you need to have the files for. We don't have the luxury of being able to add new assets like this as a 1.8 server.

We are limited only to models from arma 2, or rather models whos classes are not banned by the mod. There's a handful of these and they are pretty much all desert soldier uniforms, they weren't too popular when we had them. Not very good camo, and not very realistic in terms of dayz. The only decent one imo really is still pretty "unrealistic", its a terrorist skin but it looks pretty badass. Theres also a green camo soldier with a red berret. The terrorist skin does not have its own skin parcel either, which means I have to use an existing skin parcel instead (as my random soldier skin mod used to do). I think we had some annoying issues with people not being able to get in vehicles with some of the skins too. They were really more trouble than they were worth in the end. Before 1.7.7 there were more options and it was better, like the pilot skin tom is remembering.

So the question is how angry would people be going from 6 possible skins to 4. Certainly I'm in favour of the idea. I think the standalone got this right but as a 1.8 server we can't have all the different customisation items. I wonder if we did it, would still being able to see bandit kills on the debug monitor be detrimental too, maybe I would have to combine bandit + survivor kills in game and only show them on stats. It's quite a big change to vanilla which is also a worry, but if it improves gameplay as much as I think it could I see no problem with it.

Maybe have it as a poll...

i still think the heartbeat should stay like it is, its somewhat the last warning and if you are that close you probably already had a chance to rethink whether you want to shoot the guy or not...

Have switched OP to a poll

If only some skins cause problems maybe introduce new skins gradually? that way over time we can test each one and see if its broken or not, its also probably less modding work than introducing a whole new pack of them at one time.

Also if you could actually pick/get cloth color and it would be the same color on all clients you get enough variance on the survivor skin to allow for individual identification

I see alot of possibilities in this...

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>No tears; only dreams now.

This is something we thought about yesterday as well. Would it be possible to remove the randomness out of the survivor coulours? I wouldn't mind spawning with a random coloured shirt but it is pretty annoying that everybody sees another color. Makes identifying your teammates a pain in the butt.

As I said there's not really anything to test. I added every single model that arma allows to be used as a skin previously. When you wore a soldier skin you got a random one. They were not popular at all and don't fit in with the game as they were desert soldier skins.

AFAIK its just always a random one, for me it will always looks like the same skin in the code and an engine level function randomly picks the colour. I can't see what its picked or change it. Just part of arma unfortunately.

Dumbest idea ever!!!

I bet all team deathmatching bandit squads on this server voted yes. This obviously gives them a boost to their gameplay.

If people want to be friendly they can work for the Hero skin! If they just want to KoS they will be flagged as bandits for others to know. If you can't tell a difference people will just assume everyone is a bandit and be killing more on sight, I know I would. If this gets implemented I will just move somewhere else cos I CBA to be a Hero anymore it would be impossible!

"I actually really like this idea, because it would, as stated above, really change the gameplay towards more player communication and less KoS."

eh. No. I will still try to kill every fukr I see ingame.

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Always outnumbered, never outgunned!

thats cause your a bandit, thats how you are supposed to be ^^ heros however will have to do way more work