Proposition to "solve" KOS

I actually don’t hate the hell hounds idea. I kind of like the bounty idea on players heads. But I think the problem comes with how the game will decide who is truly evil and good. This comes from the idea that we are basing the morality system similar to 3.0. I think that system just creates bandits and negative rep from just playing the game. Players can opt to be really good but it kind of goes against most instincts and in my opinion forces game-play that most people wouldn’t like.

I will just say when I play on survival, I usually shoot anyone who has a gun because they most likely just shoot me first. If they are naked or are acting newby I don’t kill them and talk to them. I think just blasting everything that moves gets boring and I like interacting with players but not at the expense of my own gear and time. That is why KOS is just so present, you don’t know the stranger and you might have an hour or two worth of looting on your person and don’t want to just lose it trying to be nice.

I don’t consider myself a villain when I play Unturned survival because I like to help new players and talk to people, but if I am threatened or someone is springing around with a gun I am going to defend myself and then the game paints me as a villain.

Unless my only goal is to heal people and try to get shot first to raise my rep I always end up being a villain. Its rare to look at an Unturned server player list and see anyone above +75 rep. I think regardless of how you play you end up a villain.

I also want to point out it seems Azzaholic put “Solve” in quotes because I believe he realizes KOS can’t be solved but rather he wants to push players in a direction that promotes other styles of game play over just out right KOS.

I personally don’t think KOS is a problem at all in survival. To me its a sandbox and killing innocent players will gain you a negative reputation among players in the lobby regardless of a reputation or karma score. I think that role is only natural to be filled, villainous players who go to low gear zones and prey on people starting up. You cant change peoples behavior, only react to it.

I think it would be cool to see players have Hell-hound bounties or denied access to vendors because of an evil rep, but I am afraid a larger pool of players will be pulled into those negative affects for just playing the game. I mean it is a zombie post apocalyptic survival game after all, there will be some killing.

I think something we can do to give another option to players is to make the teaming up system a little easier. I think trying to explain to a new player to leave the server go to survivors and change his group and log back in is a little confusing. I think the addition of the in lobby groups was a step in the right direction but it has some issues.

I made a post a while ago about the idea for groups to be able to ally without breaking the groups down and joining one big one. I think big groups get really confusing and tend to not last. I think it would be cool for two teams of 3 to ally with the benefits of being in a team but don’t have access to your claim flag and doors (I know U2 will probably have code locks). I think this is something that would promote the ability to coexist without having to mass together or just KOS

I mean when I get on with my friends we all ready have a pre-made group and don’t really want to let others into the inner sanctum of out base. So KOSing seems like the easiest route. Teaming with them is still an option but to many times have our teams crossed in the open world and killed each other, wasting time to come back and grab our stuff and apologize. I think something official like how groups show players names above there heads would make teaming up a viable option.

I don’t want every player I meet to join our group, and I have met cool groups of other players. Would be nice to ally with them so if I saw them out in the world I would know its them. I think something like this could organically create a less KOS themed atmosphere. I don’t want to solve KOS but I want other options to interact with players. I think something like this could lead to some cool villages and communities built, which sounds like something that would only happen in an RP server. But I believe if players where given the option things like this would form in survival servers.

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This is a good post but this idea seems unreal. A better idea could be that as Nelson has already mentioned that their will be Friendly NPC’s camps a simple feature can be added to solve this problem that as Quests a person in the camp can give us contracts to assassinate the players with bad reputation in return for rewards. This will encourage players to hunt those players down ( Only players which are neutral or have good reputation can take this task)

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@Sampied Interesting proposal, but that would only encourage KOS players to kill more, since it is unknown who might be with this mission ,KOS players to ensure their survival will kill even more, especially players who have a good reputation.

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I don’t think realism should be a concern in Unturned

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It absolutely should be. To an extent obviously, but still.
Fuck Skybases, fuck jump/prone spam and fuck full auto laserbeam rifles.

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theres nothing to solve, KOS is the single greatest thing to ever happen in a game, probably ever. of all time.

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Well any number of players can take up the Task if they have good Rep or neutral
Their are many pro players who are good so for rewards any new guy can take up the task which will make killing that player his ultimate focus. With this many players would have good reputation.
A tweak to my earlier proposals as Nelson mentioned that a trade system will be made in game positive rep players can even give contracts to others for killing low rep players in turn for something .

Why not just have a player bounty system in safe-zones. Higher rep players such as Sheriffs are allowed to place bounties on players under a certain threshold. This could maybe be the villain status of -200. The sheriff placing the bounty is allowed to offer EXP and items for killing the player or killing them x-amount of times. After every successful bounty you are awarded with +rep. This will increase the amount of nice players on the server while giving a fun challenge to the villains.
Perhaps reaching the rank Paragon will enable you to use a pinging system of the last known location of a villain or maybe just a simple bounty hunter chat for other high reputation players.

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For the suggestion this seems like an annoying thing to have, but killing should probably have some negative returns if we want kos to be discouraged
88% chance? At a later part in the game they might just end up as a nuisance so you can kill kill kill and not care about the consequences

honestly killing people is fun. i like killing people. i like sniping people. shoot em in the face and you get instant loot. who doesn’t love that? forced friendly encounters with others would be fucking boring and the game forcing you to not KOS people would just feel restrictive and crappy

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I propose something similar to Fallout 3 where certain factions attack and kill you if you have high or low Karma, I feel that a peacekeepers or similary themed oranisation will attack low karma players and high karma people get attacked by a banditry or similar faction, also you should be able to get karma by working for good factions and doing quests this means that even if you kill a player if you’re a guy who is overall a nice guy you will have good Karma because the negated Karma can be gained by doing quests,next the karma you get for killing someone should be less compared to karma loss from quests that make you do bad things.

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The discussion so far seems to be that it either needs to be heavily nerfed as to become unviable or for things to stay exactly how they are in Uturned 3.0. Either solution really isn’t that great. KOS in of itself is not a problem, but right now it’s the only viable way to not only advance, but to survive for any length of time. Not everyone wants to KOS all the time. Other strategies should be equally as viable as killing everything that moves. Consequences should occur from every avenue of play, being both positive or negative.

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It’s not about forcing people to be friendly, it is about balancing the benefits of just shooting people in the face (more loot, less risk of dying yourself) with some sort of counter so this does not turn into yet another KoS fest.

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I agree with Deus’ recent comment. To me, it shouldn’t be about outright forcing behaviors.


Contrary to what some people have posted, there's more than just two major positions. I see three major positions that people stand by.
  1. PvP shouldn’t be discouraged in any way (neither directly nor indirectly). KOS is fun, and people should do whatever they want.

  2. KOS needs to be nerfed and hampered to be discouraged. For example, introducing mechanics that punish players for slaughtering others.

  3. PvE can be encouraged to reduce KOS, by expanding on the systems that support PvE. Less people will KOS or PvP if they can get just as much out of friendly interactions too.

There’s people who want to protect PvP interactions, there’s people who want to eliminate KOS almost entirely, and there’s people who want to focus on other mechanics so that there’s more to do than just KOS.

The third point is probably the biggest example of idealism, but it’s definitely not trying to force behavior. Neither is the second point though – adding risk/reward can both nerf the benefits of KOS but also add in new elements to reward players.


The actual suggestions as to how to do these things is more impactful than just sharing the position you stand by.

This is also a fair suggestion. It really doesn’t discourage KOS in any way, but it does mean that other players will be more likely to KOS you. Encouraging other people to KOS the player, hunt down the player, not trust the player, etc… It makes the game harder for the KOSer because people won’t trust them.

Many people would probably still KOS, but other players will get more out of defending themselves. Even if the KOSer only runs with garbage loot, the defending player will still get a good amount of experience out of the encounter.

This is a unique idea. Karma/reputation has always been pretty iffy, but the idea opens up new content too, even if it’s meant to hamper KOSers.

Many players might be afraid to gain low karma because they don’t want to be attacked by the hellhounds. At the same time, some players might purposefully gain low karma in order to farm the hellhounds.

There’s a lot of people that offhandedly make remarks about the game’s short gameplay loop. It’s a lot of what people like, but it’s also the whole:

  • enter server
  • go to military base
  • raid
  • get raided
  • repeat

speel. Slowing down the gameplay loop with new PvE elements technically impact KOS/PvP. But it’s just a technicality.


What do I like!?

I personally like the idea of fleshing out PvE and other survival mechanics, before even worrying about if PvP will even need to be nerfed/hampered/touched in U4.

There’s some nice ideas focused on influencing PvP/KOS directly, but they don’t scream to me “primary gameplay mechanic”. They all seem like reactionary measures. Bit hard to explain my actual thoughts on it.

I also like to believe that there’s PvE-oriented mechanics we could implement that focus on enhancing cooperative play, without directly touching PvP nor being rooted in “adding more survival mechanics”. KOS already has a fun loop for a lot of people, and works well mechanically for what it is (with respect to the KOSer).

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i think if things are rarer and there’s more aspects to make the game more harder and survival-focused, people will act a bit friendlier

I do believe a game with more PVE mechanics like survival and AI encounters, especially ones that net loot, will naturally change the atmosphere. Will people still KOS, of course. Will I still KOS, big of course. I think it all comes down to what benefits the player. If players don’t need to access vendors they will just KOS and not go to vendors or quest givers.

I got the new Deadside survival game (don’t recommend unless your really bored) but it has a really good bandit AI system. I found myself not actively hunting for players because the change up of combat from intriguing AI kept me entertained. PVP was always welcome and I for sure encountered it but I also grouped up with a lot of strangers. We paired up because AI was a little hard for solo’s and we could net more loot working together. I think people don’t group as much in 3.0 cause PVP is the thing to do. Who wants to group up and kill zombies? I want some action. I believe tho if zombie/bandit AI was intriguing and rewarding to defeat and monsters/events (excursions/bandit camps) net good loot people would naturally team up and be more open to working together.

I think giving players something to rally against or enabling them to profit from it and letting them figure it out for themselves works a lot better. I don’t hate the 3.0 reputation system but the more I think of it I would rather it not be in U2. Like I said in my comment on this discussion above I think just playing the game forces you into a villain state unless your just trusting ever single person and healing them. This is a sandbox game with other players I think people can make up there own mind who is there enemy or friend.

To me the fun of the game comes from surviving in this hostile open world and finding enemies to pvp while doing PVE activities like farming and fishing. Building a base with the bois and doing what I want. I think a system that rewards too heavily something like a positive karma could seem a little restrictive to most players. I like the idea of an empty canvas (map) and players filling roles of role-player, pvper, pver, nice guy, new player, evil player, or just toxic people giving each server its own backstory. Teaming up with others to band together against a group you don’t like and battling for dominance over the map. Like I said before I think things like easy to form groups or the ability to ally with groups would work better than something like a negative score.

Enable the option for players to team up through group systems or obvious rewards like loot and letting them decide and figure it out.

Most people don’t want to add more people to the inner group or complete strangers, I think the system to ally with groups like how nations are allies but separate would work better.

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Man… this is an awful ideal. Where do people get thoughts like this from? Religion? Why must all be about punishment?

I’m playing in Russia all by myself now and have trouble finding a “decent” partner to complete the MKII Steam achievement. For me, there should instead be a rewarding system for non-KOSsers instead. I know I just can’t trust random PvErs as they oftenly cause more accidents than positive outcomes. I was until this week in a group of three but they ended up breaking the agreement with me as they feared the Pirate :pirate_flag: Boss our of their own incompetence. I did my share and helped them build a proper base first but when they were to honor their side of the pact, they disbanded. Unturned is “Post-Apocalyptical” and the only organization watching over people is the “Coalition” and Captain Sydney herself warns players to behave.

So to me, the real solution to the problem would be the Coalition sending Positive Reputation players a mini-care package :package: to their own base platform on the top of their bases. Some kind of craftable structure that can be placed like water barrels but must be of bigger size like the Water Tank ir Industrial Generator size. Think positive please.

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In my hours of experience most positive rep players are PvErs and most negative rep players are PvPers. I don’t think PvErs will win at all and would still be scared as F to fight PvPers.

  • Would it not be better if there is a system by which your actions are judged, in U4 it is highly unlikely that the coalition will be the sole faction(If its in the game) since there are NPC bandits the scope for factions is unlimited.

  • Even in an uncivilised society people get to know things about you and some may not like you for it. Next the rep system is dumb and wont be used in U4. So replacement for will hopefully be a karma system similar to the Fallout series(or other games) where even PVE players who work for bandit NPCs can cause damage and trouble for Good guy factions(thereby making them bad people). My opinion is that if you do bad things good people should come after you and if you do good things bad people come after you.

  • Most of our punishment opinions come from our morality and our experience in other games, where there are similar system to make the world feel like it lived in by people and not just a game where your actions have no effects, in which the experience isnt full cos a world filled with shrieking 12 year olds with Colt Canada rifles killing you at every instance and turning the game into “PUBG but you respawn” isnt Zombie survival. The game should feel like a world with people not just players who care only about loot.

  • And yes other factions can and should reward you for helping them or being a good or bad guy,the street goes both ways. People shouldnt be forced to restrict their playstyle to being a PVPer instead it should be a choice that comes with ramifications, which will add to the rolplaying aspects of the game

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No just dont do that XD you are playing bcz you want to kill people for loot / just bcz you want to thsi is not minecraft.