The Better Together Update

This is like…
common sense.
Why hasn’t this came yet? If it’s not do-able in 3.0, then this is a 4.0 suggestion

Alliances
It’s as simple as groups being able to forge alliances, whereby friendly fire is disabled for allied groups. Or perhaps allies could still take friendly fire, but at a reduced damage

Allied group members could have a purple colored name above their head, or whatever you want to set their color to

Groups could easily ally by simply sending an in-game request. The ally status is preserved and saved on the server-end, so it’s based on a server-by-server basis. Very much how servers preserve the data of who is in a custom group, and what that custom group owns

Allied members could not open or salvage your buildables.

When allies break-up allyship it may take a period of time before it’s executed, similarly how it takes 30 seconds for someone to leave your group. I don’t have a suggestion for the time in seconds.

Why?
This is a major reason why being friendly in 3.0 is difficult. I run the RoyalArms - a group literally dedicated to trying to be friendly to everyone in-game, but it is nearly impossible to co-exist with even a single other group in the server, let alone multiple groups with complicated alliances and enemy relations. I think it would ultimately fix the whole dilemma that everyone complains about by giving groups and players the tools to actually be friendly in a meaningful, efficient manner.

Why not reject this idea?
Obviously if two groups really wanted to team up and “ally” in the current game state, they most certainly could form a mutual steam group or custom in-game group that everyone is invited to. However, this is obviously hard and relinquishes the group sovereignty to only one of the group owners.

Similarly you could easily make an alternate steam account, exit Unturned, log off of yours, log into that one, and reopen Unturned to get a new character - or you could just get the gold upgrade and switch characters from the main-menu. It’s a simple suggestion that increases QOL and promotes friendly behavior amongst groups - let alone makes it possible to begin with.

If we can form a group of people that can’t shoot eachother, then why not let these groups ally with one another?

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Also if anyone would like to teach me how to make my text overwhelmingly large, that would be great.

ok here u go mr thunderstorm man

bigtext

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Good idea.

1 Like

Imagine, if you will, a scenario. The location? Russia. The circumstances? A vanilla server; always somewhat full, but never entirely. Several groups of varying size are on the server, as well as a healthy population of solos. Now, consider this; in the current environment, large-scale alliances between the groups are impossible. Mutual distrust prevents any alliance that goes beyond cordial greetings between groupmates; and, perhaps, a gift from time to time. As of such, the large groups are focused on combat between each-other, and, as such, cannot snowball to a point where they have such a stranglehold on the server to prevent any significant opposition arising without some serious effort.

Let us now consider this situation, but under different circumstances; to better clarify my point, the groups will be classified. We have Group A: a respectably large group, with average fighters and resource-obtaining ability. Group B: A smaller group than Group A, but a significantly more dedicated one. Group C: A small group of almost little to no note; three friends just having a good time. And lastly: Group D: rather similar to Group A, but with perhaps a little more skill within the ranks. Say that your suggestion was added within the game; groups could now safely confederate without risk of severe betrayal. Look at the circumstances; none of the groups truly have the potential to entirely dominate the server, being limited by both the resource-gathering capacity of their members, and their manpower. If any of the major groups confederated, as is eventually likely to happen, they could flat-out dominate the server, eliminate any other major competition in the form of large groups or small upstarts; in short, make the server unfun. This is already possible under the existing mechanics and situation; but adding the confederations themselves as an existing game mechanic would intensify the rare occurrence of group confederation into a more wide-spread, and dangerous, phenomena.

Challenge makes games fun. This is no secret; all games have a form of challenge, be it the relaxing numbers-game of Stardew Valley, or the fast-paced gunplay of CS:GO. If you eliminate the base form of challenge, you eliminate the fun of the whole thing. While zombies and PvE can be impressive threats, until the advent of the spritual machine, they cannot compare to the greatest challenge of all; a fellow man. His actions are not based off of lines of code, or preset protocols; he is free to do whatever he wants, however he wants. However, this does not mean his comrades in humanity, with significantly more equipment, cannot put this man in a state where he is not free to act in a manner that could potentially threaten their domination. Achieving this is simple; you can obtain raiding materials from a defined set of locations, and, if you can control access to these locations in any significant way while your enemy is online, you are practically invincible.

Let us return, if you will, to the example posed earlier; and say that group A confederated with group B. Group B assigns 2 men to go, with the barest essentials of equipment, to go to Volk and essentially fight anyone else for domination of the site. Over time, if the men keep coming, they will solidify their grasp; and in that situation, very little can be done to upset it; for if you control the supply of military-grade armaments, you simultaneously get the best guns and prevent anyone else from obtaining them. From here, it is an easy path to server domination; knock out your enemies with superior firepower, ensure that they can never rise again. The result is obvious: the server becomes unfun.

There was nothing special about our hypothetical server; and who is to suppose that this could not repeat on a large scale? Groups of poorly-organized teenagers are not hard to come by, and low-quality political arrangements are no oddity. A cascading series of events, resulting from this change, could essentially result in a far more brutal style of gameplay than we have currently; far from increasing friendliness, this could essentially turn servers into group competitions focused around mad dashes towards military locations in the ever-increasing race to the top. The solo would be sidelined; and, if I’m being honest, it would rather resemble Rust.

This is just a worst-case scenario, however, and is, at most, mere speculation.

Let us, for a moment, put these doom-and-gloom predictions aside; relentless pessimism accomplishes little. Another hypothetical, if you please. Imagine that your very own Royal Arms group, in all of their friendly glory, is on a server. For this scenario, let us imagine that there are, instead, 3 groups: Group RA; average skill, average manpower, but inclined towards treaties and kind words rather than bullets and explosives. Group B: A neutrally-aligned group. Skill: once more, average, but well-gifted with manpower. And finally, group C: the stereotypical “evil” clan that shoots on sight and feels the need to expulse a racist epithet once in a while. Groups are naturally distrusting of each other; they would rather see them gone than ally. However, due to necessity or weakness, an armed truce between groups is more likely. This would most likely be observed between Group RA and Group B. Say, however, that they have friendly relations; they don’t shoot each other, say hello, and share things from time to time. As if this were a recipe, let us add your suggestion into the mix. Would things really change? In all fairness, the bonds created via confederation would most likely be weaker, and less “friendly” overall; if another man has the choice to shoot you, and he repeatedly doesn’t, would that not create more of a bond between groups than some artificial group system that only the leader need enforce? Outside of one or two very specialized events, such as group raids, the confederation system would not only be ineffective, but in some cases actually worse than just having no system at all.

Additional Evidence

My credibility, to you, may not seem amazing; while I have provided interesting hypotheticals, and some backing behind them, is there any real proof or legitimate reasoning to these examples?

Let us touch on the underlying motivation behind this idea, and I think it shall explain more clearly my reasoning.

Friendliness and overall cooperation, on a large scale, is very hard to achieve; nigh-impossible under most circumstances.

Let us assume three basic principles:

Resources, are, in some way, limited. Whatever you need, be it high quality food or magazines for your gun, could be found by somebody else before you can take it; although resources are theoretically infinite, the rarity of certain items create scarcity.

Players will, naturally, put their own survival above the common whole. Let’s say that you are low on food, and spy a bag of chips. You can see another player nearby; he could potentially need the food more than you do. While some may be selfless enough to give up their own welfare for that of others, I do not believe that this is possible on a large scale.

Groups of players would rather have no other groups but their own; in a situation where they can choose between allies or nobody but them, they would most likely choose the isolation. No matter how selfless you are, this is a simple rule that most groups follow; they do not want to share the top dog’s position of prime loot and other benefits with anybody else.

These three assumptions are all near-universal; while there may be small exceptions to the rule in the form of philanthropists and other givers of charity, the basic grounding fact is that people will nearly always put their own survival ahead of others.
And now, let us supplement these three assumptions with one fact:

If there is no challenge, the game isn’t fun. PvE servers are in the distinct minority in the server browser, and for good reason; the threat of a hostile player is exciting, and gives your loot more value.

Large-scale cooperation is possible, sure, in the short-term; large confederations to fight against some centralized evil are not impossible, and have occurred beforehand. But whether out of jealousy, selfishness, or just plain boredom, these alliances will inevitably break apart. This can be replicated infinitely; to the smallest scale, in a miniature band of robbers, or on a grand scale, in a clash of clans the size of small towns.

Fixing this issue, and making unturned more “friendly” and open to cooperation, is not easily fixable. It’s part of the human condition for us to act like this, and is not something that can be easily solved with mechanics and confederations. To be topical, there is no real solution that can be achieved within the confines of game design; to reprogram such a base part of the human psyche would require, at the least, large-scale psychological training; something not really possible without the resources of a nation at your disposal, and a large one at that.

TL;DR: The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The forces behind the idea have good interests behind them; but the idea itself is, at best, ineffective, and at worst, ruinous.

it's long

so it’s gotta be good

ok i made the funny joke guys can i get likes now

i’m quirky and hilarious guys why aren’t you laughing

23 Likes

Do I get likes if I say it even if I only read 2 paragraphs of it

9 Likes

We can distill this into a mathematical equation.

Say l represents likes, e represents length, and f represents the funny content of the joke.

If e>3 paragraphs, than f to the power of e will result in a positive l value.
However, if e<3 paragraphs, than f to the power of 3 will result in a negative l value.

Therefore, no likes.

I doubt groups would team up to dominate entire 24 slot servers. Even then, people can still compete against them, ally with them, or join their groups. Nothing wrong with that to me.

As you said this is perfectly do-able, this just makes it easier. It is of course easy for entire groups to dominate servers - and they already do.

And of course, the group limit config would really help stop this. If you don’t want to play on this hypothetical server where a few good groups are allied with each other then find a server with solo/duo/trio or just low max group count. Some of the most popular servers like Bleeding Out have this - possibly to prevent the very situation you pose. If people enjoy Bleeding Out, or enjoy that aspect of it, then other people will play servers similar to it.

Of course it does. However, just like Carpat, adding unnecessarily annoying and complex “challenges” to something doesn’t make it fun. It brings down the QOL and enjoy-ability of the experience.

I already do this on servers without the help of allies. My entire group can take over major locations with ease. Currently on two servers we’ve built mega-bases on the mountain between Paris and Verdun which effectively gives us a monopoly on the area. We own the mine for metal, we own the military for ammo and raiding supplies, and we own Paris for general town loot. We’re unrivaled because we took much time and dedication into the game, and very few other people have the skills or time to compete, therefore I think our position as #1 on the server is rightfully justified.

If servers do not want this type of scenario happening because they think players will not enjoy giant monopolies of groups dominating areas (like they would in a real survival atmosphere) then they can institute rules or, like I said earlier, config edits to make groups smaller by force.

Unlike your hypothetical dilemma you do not consider literally any other point of loot on the map. Lets take for instance PEI. When a large group dominates Summerside the RA will resorts down south to Holman Isle and slowly stock up on Ranger weapons and use gorilla tactics to keep enemies at bay. We use skill and dedication in order to slowly overthrow bigger, badder enemy groups - which is totally fun to me. I spent the time and effort to do it, and it is very rewarding to de-throne those who control loot hotspots on the map.

In your dilemma, theres tons of other places where good stuff spawns. Zavod, the multiple tunnels across the map, literally tons. So many that I’ll just mark them


Theres plenty of places and possibilities that allow players to effectively rise up against a group

Furthermore, lets use a real example.

On an AU France server the RA was not officially on there, rather, AU members were playing under a different group with a different leader named ACU - which I didn’t mind much at all.

The entire server was dominated by factions of players, and there were of course freelancers that didn’t belong to a group that were still happily playing.

Al of these groups merely KOS’d everyone they saw and gave no cooperation to anyone. Randoms were simply massacred if they entered any sphere of influence that a group controlled.

ACU started some stupid shit, and the RA kicked in to liberate some dummies - effectively sieging and taking their entire base and setting up a skybase in the same day.

From there the RA effectively overthrew every other group on the entire server. There were around 3-4~ groups with varying levels of members and skill. They were so desperate as to ally and tyr to fight us to no avail

I’m not sure what that says to you, but to me it says with enough dedication and effort even the biggest groups can get toppled. Even the RA can of course get toppled.

It’s pretty exciting to fight all odds and overthrow entire groups.

Do you mean a group of players would prefer only they exist? And no other groups co-exist? I would argue against that. Cooperation is key, and people are better together. Why do you think governments all around the would practice devolution - the act of spreading power down to lower authorities such as states, county’s, provinces, and cities? Because no one government could rule an entire people alone.

A smart group would realize they can’t possible organize effectively and control an entire map. They would have better odds allying with a group and claiming they can have half while they have the other half. Easier governing and less stress on a single group.

To me, nah. I’m extremely altruistic and will do anything that benefits the greater whole - or society than it does me. Sure, killing a player is rewarding and I get their loot, but overall wouldn’t it have been better if I made them my friend, have one more player for defense, and one more person to help loot? The safe, and better long-term game is to be friendly, altruistic, and recruit.

When RA has more than it needs, it creates a big row of crates outside it’s base and gives out surplus food and water and chills with the randoms outside, albeit they’re on alert and ready to fight incase anyone tries to do some dummy shit.

maybe thats just us.

Items are theoretically limited. Theoretically if people worked together there would be more items and less items lost.

Infact speaking of this one

You said it best yourself;

It is, as you said, already doable for large groups to dominate servers, and as you said, they already do; thus, the confederation idea would only make things worse for situations like that by making their domination into a game mechanic.

While I may not be in agreement with you here, you have just proved my point; at best, the confederation idea is ineffective. It is extremely situational, and outside of those few situations, as you said with the example of ACU’s France Server where one group steamrolled a confederation, it does very little to help change a situation, and is overall rather useless. While I cannot agree with you on some of your points, I am glad that we were able to come around to some common ground on this issue.

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thanks but no thanks

minecraft ambiance intensifies

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Don’t you hate it when someone reminds you that you don’t count as someone who is part of everyone?

But that’s not how spawns work. You could still not find a gun or not have enough ammo

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Stop making us doubt the meaning of our lives.

i think i know where you got this idea

2 Likes

uhm…

I got this from playing the game. It would make being friendly to other people extremely easy. As of right now the RA is sorta “join or die” esque, because even when we try to be friendly to people we will always commit friendly fire by mistake. Usually this happens to the point where people we’re friendly to will hate us, and just become enemies.