bfisher

I'm killing everyone I see.

I found a silenced KSVK today in a tent. Cool, but completely impractical weapon when you are just starting out a new game. No pack and no supplies which means I had to scrounge around Electro with this mosterous street cannon. I did manage to take a shot at a ghillie suited sniper as we were moving to a position on the same hill. I think he Alt-4ed away. And he was close enough I had to shoot from the hip instead of using the scope so I might as well of had an AK.

I'm making my way towards Cherno and Elekro with an AS50 and a M249 SAW and some non-ghillie cammo. I'll let you know :) Seriously though. Applying my significant Battlefield sniping experience, figure out where a sniper would take up a position and then find a non-obvious location with a good line of sight on that position. While he's on a hilltop fixated on noobs sprinting through town, you're on a hill behind or flanking him.

I'll reiterate what I've said in other threads. Have you even watched a zombie apocalypse film? Forget that...ANY post-apocalyspe film? Mad Max? Book of Eli? The Road? Walking Dead (it premiers tonight FYI)? The Postman? Revolution? What is the common theme? It's that the world is full of pyschotic A-holes and it's kill or be killed. Everyone wants to be Mad Max or Lord Humongus and his clan of bandit assholes. No one wants to be Papagallo and his band of under-armed idiots who get hunted down and killed for their beans. 2 people on a server today and we both happen to be at the barracks at the NW airport. It's night, I'm wearing a ghillie suit and I got my SAW pointed directly at his head. He says "friendly" so I make the stupid mistake and let him go. He grabs an AKM from the baracks and starts a gunfight with me while I'm distracted by some zombies. I get killed for my trouble and end up having to sprint back all the way from Balota to retrieve my AS50 and ALICE pack full of meat and medical supplies this idiot left behind. Too bad he logged off, because I was looking forward to hunting him.

I thought I heard DayZ had radios, but I've yet to see one. Anyhow... One thing I noticed. On servers where Side Channel is enabled, there is a lot more cooperation between players. I'm following chatter from new spawns looking for friendlies and setting up rallying points. Warnings about snipers and firefights in Cherno and Elektra. People looking for help and looking to help others. Even warnings about hackers. Some jerkoffs too of course. On servers where it's not enabled, obviously everyone is a lot more isolated. People are more inclined to shoot first and ask questions later since other players are a threat long before you get close enough to communicate. I think DayZ should have portable radios that act as the Side Channel (or channels) for anyone who has them. Maybe make some of them fixed at the radio towers or in vehicles and whatnot. Being able to communicate to other players over long distances might help to keep DayZ from becomming a COD free-for-all. For example, I'm rocking a ghillie suit, an AS50 and an M249 SAW. I would love to unlease a firestorm of angry justice with that hardware, but I don't know where to bring it and anyone who sees me is likely to think I'm a bandit out banditing.

ts, et al is fine if you have a group of friends you want to coordiate with. In game radios would create an interesting new dynamic.

Yeah, hackers blow. I've been instakilled a bunch of times. One night I had some guy in full soldier gear materialize in front of me, take a full clip from my M4 and then kill me while I was looting the body of another player I presume he ambushed in the same way. Although the worst had to be this one jackass litterally levitating above Cherno while blasting "Gangham Style" on the Direct Channel. I had no gear so I just stood their on a hill saluting until I was taken out.

It's not cheating, but it's certainly frowned apon. But I do the gamma thing myself. Honestly, it's just too dark, the flashlights are just too useless and any light source is just too much of an invitation to snipers or other players not to. Plus so many players have NV or thermals anyway.

I will run the Cherno Marathon along the coast agroing every zombie I see

Um...have people every actually WATCHED a zombie film? It's like The Walking Dead meets Hunger Games the game. Everyone who isn't in your group (and even a few people who is) are, if not total psychopathic A-holes, at least desperate enough to kill you for your beans and Makarov. Everyone knows Cherno and Elektro are sniper infested, PvP madhouses. Unless you are a new spawn just looking to grab what you can while you have nothing to lose, there's no need to be there. I mean unless you like the sound your own head exploding from a sniper's bullet. Still, there might be a bit too much military hardware just lying around. I feel like I've gone from desperately running into a zombie infested city full of snipers and psychopaths to grab a can of beans before I starve to death, the point where I've basically passively collected a ghillie suit, AS50, M-249 SAW, silenced M9, GPS, NV, and god knows what else like I'm about to insert into Afghanistan. And I haven't even killed anyone. I feel I need all that shit just to defend myself against other players!

I just spent 10 minutes running through Elektro with probably half a dozen snipers taking pot shots at me. None of them were very good shots.

I'm just outside some town near the NW airfield - Kabanino I think - when I come across some guy on an ATV. He doesn't see me, but I hail him on the side channel because I just popped of 5 rounds at some zombies who were on my ass and I don't want him to think I was firing at him. Anyhow, we are chatting back and forth when all of a sudden, I pass out and start bleeding all over the place. I didn't hear any gunshots, I'm behind cover anyway and the guy I'm talking to is litterally mid text. Anyhow, I pop back up and bandage myself but then start rapidly moving to the right with no input from my keyboard. So any idea what happened? I'm ok now, in case anyone was concerned.

I'm not expert or anything. But for me, a DayZ game tends to follow the following stages: Opening - Basically from the point where you start on the beach with nothing. My goal here is to run around as fast as I can, gathering the basic common supplies I will need - ax, map, compass, some common weapons, food and drink enough to travel. At this point, I don't care about anything because I don't have much and haven't traveled far. Middle Game - Once I have an AKM/M4/M!6, a sidearm, and the do-it-yourself meat kit (ax, knife, matches) and a canteen plus the map and compass, I'm basically self sufficient and no longer have to worry about immediate survival. I can move about at will, resupply at will and explore or try to find more high-end stuff. And I have enough medical supplies to fix anything that might happen. I'm a bit more cautious because I have more to lose and I'm probably further north by now. End Game - Killed by sniper, hacker, someone who got the drop on me or my own stupidity. Typically because I'm now geared up like a boss and start looking for trouble. So my question for people who have been alive for months at a time is what is your "end game" for long term survival? Do you try to stay in more isolated parts of the map and live off the land? Build a base and actively defend it? Don a ghillie suit and hunt anyone who might be a threat? Fix a car and try and stay mobile?

This:

It's more dangerous obviously. But the CQB aspect is a lot more fun and satisfying then running for 20 minutes only to drop dead from some unseen snipers bullet. Like take what happened to me today. Rather than bore you with the details, let me set the scene: You have me (just recovered from a zombie-related ailment where I was passing out every 5 minutes), another player armed to the teeth, and a couple of zombies, all locked in the Stary Sobor supermarket and mostly unaware of each other. No one knows each other's intentions (except the zombies). I'm content to sit quietly in the stockroom and let everyone pass on by, except the Zed who busts (warps) through the back door has other plans. Well, I don't know if Mr Remington in the frozen food aisles is waiting for me to explain that my 1911 wasn't meant for him and he's not exactly running for the exits. Long story short, I end the discussion with a blue-light special on hand grenades. Maybe we could have teamed up if things had gone down differently. So I will honor him the best way I know how. Take his M4 HOLO carbine and the absurd amount of ammo he had, and go kill his idiot friend who sniped at me on my way out of town.

How do these snipers "play"? Do they just set up camp and sit motionless for hours until someone walks by? I did see one Ghillie suit running across a field, but he reached the tree line before I could get a shot off and I wasn't going to chase him across a half mile of open farmland. I was watching that post-apocalyptic show Revolution the other day. Basically a major plot point revolved around the main characters trying to come up with a scheme to kill some minor warlord who had sniper/hunting rifle. That's really how the game should be. Some of those rifles should be so rare that people would be afraid to use them for fear of every player in ear shot swarming them like zombies to an Enfield. Other than .50 cals like the AS-50 (which I guess is the Brittish equivalent to the American Barett M82) "sniper rifles" wouldn't be that rare IRL. Most are just slight variations on scoped hunting rifles.

Yes DayZ sucks. It's buggy. It's glitchy. The server system blows. It's not balanced. The inventory interface isn't intuitive. You spend hours jogging through the woods from town to town, trying to gather enough shit to survive and actually compete against a bunch of jerks outfitted like they just looted SEAL Team Six. It's full of hackers. The zombies are annoying as fuck. And finally, when you have all the cool equipment you want, before you get to use any of it, you get your head blown off by a sniper, killed by a squad of bandits, teleported away by a hacker or maybe just have the wrong door close on your head. Then you're back to nothing but flashlight and bandages, And yet I feel compelled to start over again.

All good tips. I believe the technical term for using the terrain is to take a "defilade" position. The advantage is your are standing and still mobile, but the angle of the terain blocks all but your head and weapon from the enemy. The disadvantage is that it doesn't block your head. Honestly though, I've had very few close quarter firefights like you described. Usually I get killed by someone I never saw from 100m away.

Have you been out in the country with no streetlights and no moon? It's freakin DARK! I remember summer camp when I was a kid, you couldn't travel at night without a flashlight because it was pitch black. In that sense, DayZ is pretty realistic. Most other games are "tv dark" where it's just as bright as day, just with a blue tint and a black sky. Honestly, I would rather not play at night. The lighting effects are cool and all, but I just feel it's a lot more dangerous from a PvP standpoint. Anyone still playing once the sun goes down probably has NV goggles or thermals so there's no real advantage.

The fundamental problem is that this ARMA II is a hard core military simulator that has been modded as a zombie apocalypse survival simulator. So you have this inherent imbalance between the "short game" - sneaking around buildings with axes and pistols long enough to scrounge a can of beans - and the "long game", hard core guys equiped like Delta Force commandos blasting away at their leisure from some hilltop 1000 m away. But assume nothing is going to change, gameplay-wise, there are steps you can take to stay alive longer: * AVOID THE SNIPER DEATHZONES ON CROWDED SERVERS! Everyone knows that snipers pearch atop of Cherno, Elektro, Stary Sober and the NW airfield. * If you must go into those places, SCOUT IT OUT FIRST! Everyone knows where the snipers take up positions and they all have their eyes fixated on the hospitals and supermarkets waiting for you to stock up. So maybe take some extra time to outflank those big hills and clear them out. * Move during the day. People may argue this with me, but I've mostly been killed at night. Thinking I'm safe in the darkness with NV gogles while the guy with the hacked .50 cal probably has a hacked thermal sight as well.

I was a little surprised this morning when I logged in and found myself along the coast outside Cherno instead of outside the NW airfield, but it became a pleasent surprise when I quickly found a functioning bicycle! So I did what any hard core survivalist badass would do. I went for a picturesque bike ride along the shore! The mobility was really a game changer for me. I was already pretty well looted up, so really I just spent my time exploring some of the coastal towns up north where I almost never go. Found a couple of dead bandits and dead noobs/newspawns. Not sure how the bandits died as they had all sorts of gear on them. NV goggles. GPS. Alls sorts of cools stuff. LOLed when someone asked "whose on the bike?" on the open channel. Actually for awhile it sounded like a pretty friendly server, so I let some people know where there was a body north of Elektro full of geer (including my AKM which I had swapped out for an M16 HOLO). Later the server didn't sound as friendly, based on all the chatter about running firefights and sniper duels in and around Cherno :( Accidently ran over my own tent with my bike. Fortunately I had loaded up so I didn't loose anything that couldn't be replaced. After a morning and late afternoon of suriving off bandit camps (thanks for the SAW and extra ammo, by the way), I ended my day by spilling my bike into a ravine, breaking my legs and nearly bleeding to death as I lay passed out and twitching in severe pain. I'm fine now. Fortuantely I loaded up on medical supplies too.

You're funny. I'll kill you for your beans last. ;)

I think these are all fine ideas. You should be able to cobble together protective gear that one would reasonibly expect to find in the rural suburbs surrounding a cluster of military bases in a post-soviet republic. Anything from sporting equipment, motorcycle helments up to Class IV military body armor. But it should come at a cost in terms of mobility. In fact, mobility is never a factor in the game. You can sprint just as fast and as far carrying twin SAW machinguns and an ALICE pack full of ammo and gear as you can unequiped.

Yeah, I logged in this morning and spawned on some empty stretch of land with a bunch of other players and no weapons. I dropped and joined a different server but instead of being up by the NW airfield I was outside of Cherno. I had all my stuff so that actually worked out for me. Hours later, I found I could see every player on the map. Also someone made the words "Fuck You Motherfucker" appear on my (everyone's) screen. Plus shit like making fires or refilling canteens seemed to be delayed for a minute or so.

It's still a pretty interesting concept. But unfortunately there really isn't much to do besides PvP. I'm not going to build a camp in the woods and just spend days staring at my character sitting around eating and drinking. And there really is no incentive to work with strangers instead of just killing them for their stuff.