Jamesbiff

I started off openly supporting the darkness of night time. But as ive played for longer and longer, it really is a bit of a nuisance, not because of the realism it offers, but because of how imbalanced its become. Its no secret now that ramping up the gamma/brightness offers you decent night vision. However, its not something everyone can do, its a combination of your hardware and monitor. I can do it fine, but a few of my friends simply cannot, no matter how high they put the contrast, so whilst they are stumbling round in the darkness fumbling with chem lights and flares, im moving round and spotting them as if its day time. Only problem is im not sure there is a way around night time. You cant offer everyone NVG's and you cant simply get rid of it. So im not sure, it needs to be addressed though i think.

This has only just occurred to me when the server i was playing crashed. I was in the fire station scavenging for stuff (my 2 week char died /sadface) and id managed to find a Silenced M9 great! then the server crashed, not so great! Anyway, i joined a different server and spawned again in the firestation at Cherno. And there, before me, lay an Ak and some more M9 SD ammo. And then it occured to me, surely this is a major flaw in the system? is it feasible to park yourself in an area of rare loot and simply hop across low pop servers till you get what you want? or is there some mechanism in place to stop this because it certainly seems pretty game breaking.

well i pretty much got in straight away the next server i picked. Plus, if that loot is decent enough, waiting 15 min, for some people, would be a small price to pay for instant access to a fresh loot spawn.

One time i logged out in the middle of nowhere, when i logged back in i was directly behind 3-4 survivors. As a bandit it was an incredible struggle not to destroy them, but that just wouldnt have been cool. I did however follow them for about 20 minutes then killed them. protip: look behind you. Often.

I wasnt sure how to word this, but ill have a go. (NB: What i write here is purely my opinion, if it sounds like i stated something as fact i either didnt, you misread, or it was unintentional and i apologise) Im not sure that the way certain weapons work in this mod are...the best way they could work? i mean, right now, ive been alive for over 2 weeks, my character has most of the tools youd need, map, compass, matches, knife etc etc But im still using the winchester and the revolver. For 2 very simple reasons: 1) Ammo; plenty of it. 2) Noise; quietest (non silenced) weapons ive found (ex crossbow). Now, the problem here is that those two reasons are also INTEGRAL to surviving in the wilderness. Youre going to need to shoot stuff and youre going to want to do it with the least fuss possible. What am i getting at? well, most of the high end weapons (again, ex silenced weapons) are incredibly loud and also incredibly hard to find ammo for, so ive found (the hard way) that these weapons just arent worth it. If your intention is staying alive, using these weapons to any extent will end up getting you killed. What does this mean? well, for me and many of the players ive discussed this with, it means that these weapons that many players clamour for and organise raiding parties to get, are effectively useless, after many brushes with death; zombies, players, thirst and hunger, we've found that there is literally no good reason to risk your life for those weapons. I had an M4 with 4-5 mags of ammo and left it in a barn for a winchester instead, everytime i fired the damned thing i was either swarmed or 10 minutes later players were hunting my ass...I left one of the most sought after weapons in the game...in a barn...for a measly shotgun. Now, is this just my playstyle? potentially yes, it could just be that. However, the mod has been out now for a while, many people are experienced in how you survive and undoubtedly, near the top, if not AT the top is stealth. What am i suggesting? well in all honesty, i hadnt thought about it, this wasnt a complaint thread, merely an observation thread by someone who feels he has experience enough to have some sort of commentary in the matter, im sure many people feel the same and i dont think any ONE person will have a solution to it. BUT, a start would be to test out tweaking the weapons, they need to offer something more than just rarity, the game is after all about survival, not an mmo where you show of your shinies. Chances are the guy you waste with that M4 ISNT going to care if it was a makarov or a gold plated anti tank cannon. At the moment i have 3 categories of weapon: 1) Pistols 2) Winchester 3) Stuff thats going to get me killed. I apologise for the flippancy. If you disagree, great, tell us why, if you dont, contribute an area you feel these weapons could be impoved/balanced for the effort it takes to aquire them.

Its mainly because i never engage someone on open ground, i never travel across it and i never sit near it, if im engaged with someone i either have the drop or i have cover, in which case flanking around is easy as pie. I also dont sprint everywhere and regularly take breaks from running, so my crosshairs are rarely shaking around too much to aim effectively. If im outranged, i wont sit still taking futile potshots ill just keeping moving, till im in range, this isnt only to compensate for fall off, but simply its a better way to fight when ammo is scarce, even if i could make a shot at an impossible 600 yards, i probably wouldnt, id get in close and be sure of using only one or two slugs than potentially missing and wasting 3-4.

Im a bandit, i hunt players, as long as you can aim worth a damn it doesnt matter what weapon they use and you arent engaging at crazy ranges.

Id definitely like to see a bit more variety in the lower range weaponry, ie: enfield, winchester, CZ500 etc. But yes, more important stuff first, more weapons can be added much much later. Very much a tertiary concern for me right now.

this should be implemented ONLY when there are suitable servers for everyone to play on. As it stands, forcing people to play on the same server or lose all their stuff will only serve to kill the mod, because there are simply too many people. Its a good idea, but at the moment, it would only serve to kill the mod faster than the drawbacks of cross server persistency.

I offer the same advice to you. Bandits are very much a core aspect of the game, if you dont like them, i advise another game.

I dont always want it windowed, so i usually just stick with the old 'Alt-Enter' route.

Sweet jesus... /facepalm.

i think the loot spawns need to be completely randomised for a start. Im in that same rut now where im not exploring the map because there really isnt any point, i know where the good weapons are and i know the best places to find food and water. Having 100% random loot spawns would most likely inspire people to actually go exploring.

I see. So you like night-time because it provides you with the opportunity to tweak your settings to negate the lack of visibility and gain an unfair advantage over other players. Yeah...that's definitely a great game-design argument for leaving things as is. It cant be fixed either way, so regardless of how day night cycles work, people who do this are always going to have an advantage. Ive been killed in pitch black forests enough to guess that most people do this trick, doing it myself has severely decreased the amount of times im killed in the pitch black...or what appears to be pitch black.

To echo other people, im not for or against the speed, i understand there are tradeoffs in regard to technical limitations, however the zigzagging needs to be fixed or limited somehow, i understand you should fear the zombies, but encounters boil down to twitch shooting, which arma just isnt designed for.

The main problem with night time is that its easy to avoid by simply ramping up the contrast/gamma/brightness either on the pause menu or through nvidia/ati interfaces. It may be an immersion breaker, but if you arent doing that, youre playing at a disadvantage, because whilst youre fumbling in the dark with flares, trying to maintain the experience, there is a bandit sat on a hill 500 yards away who can see you clear as day, without giving his position away. And it CANT be patched or fixed.

VSS has a built in silencer yea? the silenced weapons are uber uber rare in this game, never seen one myself.

Find the winchester. Stick to the trees. Fire first. Been alive for quite a while now, following those rules. Though with the density of Zeds ive started hunting players for provisions alot more now, its easier and quicker than crawling in and out of towns.

Rocket has addressed this before: The Arma2 engine is pretty demanding, what you can and cannot add is a major balancing act, more zombies would mean less of something else, for slow zombies to be any threat youd need THOUSANDS populating servers, if you did that, the servers would be crashing all the time, the engine just isnt built for that kind of activity. Hence fast zombies. Its not a development problem, is just part of the engine, you cant change it or code around it, thats just the way the engine works.

They really need to balance the numbers based on risk and reward, having a brick load of zombies in smaller settlements where people are gonna go for their beans doesnt make a lot of sense, whereas having them in droves around the cities and airfields does. Its going to get a little stale knowing that the zombie numbers are the same everywhere, and that going for a tin of beans is as dangerous as going for an m16 assault rifle, there needs to be a balance or youre gonna see banditry sky rocket. I already hunt players for food now, far far easier to do than go into cities.

I holster my weapon, and it has everything to do with first person view, in 3rd person you can see your character and are more aware of your surroundings allowing better spacial awareness....like in real life. 3rd person is actually alot more realistic, it emulates far more accurately the peripheral vision we as humans have, 1st person is like wearing blinders. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-XlMRTfMBiWY/T6qwSNK-eFI/AAAAAAAAATo/XIJQFX6DZcw/s389/Fov.png It makes very little sense to campaign for 1st person when it offers the least immersion.