nic0

i'm perfectly well aware of the death mechanic of games that died out decades ago! i played them at the time (i'm old too). i've played the more recent games that have permadeath too, and there's a big difference. those old games were still fun! the new games rely on very different mechanics to make them fun. and even in eve, you can (i think) mitigate against death in many ways. i think you're exaggerating that eve has true permadeath, but i'm willing to be proved wrong (don't they have cloning or something? dayz definitely won't have that!) the most recent permadeath game i played was diablo3, and i died in that due to a dodgy internet connection! that wasn't fun in any way. death has to have consequences, i agree. in dayz, it seems right that those should be as strict as they are now. but in a game so riddled with bugs, unbalanced weapons, hacked in weapons (and i'm not even going to mention hackers themselves) it's a bit unfair. i don't care, because it's an alpha and i have to take my chances. i mentioned the standalone because i'll be paying for that, because i'll apparently have to spend a lot of time looting batteries, drugs, getting ill, taking a shit and doing a whole bunch of stuff that is dubious in the extreme - if i die *unfairly* (bug, someone exploiting, lag) after going through all that stuff and i lose *everything*, i'm not going to be having a lot of fun, and what will be the enticement to make me start again? even hardcore gamers have fun, don't they? or do they sit around all day seething in anger and hating every minute of their gaming lives? if the game is made too teeth-grindingly hardcore (not hard, just hardcore), then it will scare away a lot of people (not casual gamers - i'm talking about the very many people that are neither casual or hardcore), which could leave servers largely empty, and make the game less interesting (not fun, because they don't want fun!) for the hardcore. i'd love a game that allows hardcore and middle-core (i made that up) gamers to interact and both enjoy the game. i love having hardcore gamers on the server with me, they make a game like dayz what it is!

well, i take your point, but i didn't say that "everyone" should enjoy the game! i'd also say that i'm not describing a casual game here - i'm suggesting there must be a sweetspot between a game being fun for many (definitely never for all) and being only enjoyable to the "hardcore". proper gamers don't like to be punished for totally random, unfair, or unbalanced things - they like to be punished for making legitimate mistakes. things they can learn from and do better at. casual gamers see one setback and give up - i don't care about those people either. i'm simply saying that if you're going to have permadeath, you have to be *absolute* in that every single game mechanic is perfectly balanaced, fair, proportionate and (yes) fun within the context of the game. if you get any of that wrong, so that people are permadeathed by someone with a weapon that has no counter, is way overpowered, and that kills you so randomly that you can't learn from it, then that's not hardcore, it's perverse.

also, specifically on this, you make a good case here. one thing that i can't quite agree with is the idea that the snipers are seeing you having fun and deciding to end that fun just for the sake of it. that may often be the case, but ultimately this game is (at least partly) based around a combative game mechanic - your fun is predicated on ending someone else's. sometimes sniping is just plain fun - and it's a shame that that fun comes at someone else's expense. perhaps the problem is permadeath. i honestly feel that the devs have this wrong. most of the things people complain about would be mitigated by the death mechanic. if you only dropped (say) a random item, or your primary, or both on death, your "fun" wouldn't be entirely ended at that point. the sniper can have fun sniping, without ending your fun; you can have fun even if sniped (albeit curtailed by losing something and respawning back at the coast). no more "griefing", no more being a dick. the permadeath thing is going to increasingly be a problem with the new mechanics such as disease and so on - it's going to feel far more like a punishment and less like fun as it becomes harder to survive, and as you find yourself losing so much more to death. at the root of so many complaints about griefers and hackers and bugs is, even if it's never explicitly stated, an irritation with the permadeath mechanic.

very much agree with you, though i'd say that AS50s are so common because of duping rather than hacking. i think the game clearly doesn't quite know how to deal with snipers. the mechanics aren't quite right - they're unbalanced. it should be possible to spot a sniper more easily once they've fired a shot, and this should make sniping much more difficult and camping impossible. it should also be hard or impossible to snipe, and therefore control, an entire town from so far away and with so little equipment - you might be able to do that in real life, but this is a game. having said all that - if you don't want to be sniped, stay the hell away from those towns. berenzino is better, as there are no sniper hills in the surrounds that can command the entire town. i'd disagree about the DMR though. you show a lot of skill, and have taken the time to earn that skill - that shows commitment and should be rewarded. headshots are difficult to do. the AS50, however, is stupid. one shot kill wherever you land the shot from more than 800m isn't a balanced mechanic given the rest of the game. if the devs can find a balancing counter, then fine, leave it in (standalone). it's also stupid that you can shoot down a heli in one shot with an AS50. again, totally imbalanced against the difficulty of obtaining and maintaining a heli. it's supposed to be a game first and foremost - never mind real life, it needs to have balanced mechanics, needs the correct balance of risk/reward, and needs to be FUN.

exactly - basically, everything that any other player doesn't like is "cheating". in a game with no rules, everyone becomes a judge of what's "right". don't judge, just play the game!

how can something be described as "cheating" in a game with no rules, other than those coded into the game and its mechanics? ghosting is perfectly legit, so long as you're not using a hack. any sniper who sits around and doesn't check his 6 constantly for people sneaking up on him is an idiot, and deserves to get shot either by someone ghosting (which i agree, while not cheating, is a pretty dickish thing to do) or just being really sneaky. the flipside is that ghosting is a difficult thing to time right, and logging in leaves you potentially vulnerable for a few seconds. i wouldn't try it just to get a sniper.

the only griefers in this game are hackers. everyone else, those using legitimate mechanics built into the game, are simply players like everyone else. don't judge someone's playstyle as "bad" or negative just because it's different from yours. i agree that those guys are terrorising noobs. i totally disagree that they're "ruining" their game experience though. why not make that their first experience of the game - if they don't like it, they don't like dayz. that was my first experience too, but i came back for more having learned my lesson and changed my tactics. a cherno that you walk calmly through, on a high-pop server, during daylight, and know that you'll be safe, is the most boring game experience i can imagine. ducking through the place with your heart in your mouth, running from cover to cover, and getting the hell out when you've got what you need - that's the game i want to play. ps. i've tried some sniping and was bored out of my tits after about an hour. those guys camping cherno/electro must be total idiots, but god love 'em.

apologies - of course, you're right. i've seen these things before and hadn't realised they were thermals - i'd genuinely assumed ALL thermals had been removed (for being overpowered). guess i was wrong. and, ironically, just today i found one in a heli. now i'm undecided, because i have to admit it was fun. my playstyle has morphed into avoidance, creeping around, looting helis in far-flung areas of the map and staying the hell away from high-pop areas, or any areas that might concevably contain traffic to a high-pop (like NWA). having the thermal sights made me feel like i could avoid contact. i kept scoping around while i stopped to catch my breath. a real buzz. intense when you spot a heat-sig too - chickens and rabbits made me jump. i see what people mean about tunnel vision too - that could be a problem. i just like to be alone, so this thing feels like an aid to that. in other hands, i'm not sure it's a good thing. and even in my case, i can't say what i might do if i saw another player lit up in the scope...would i run the other way, or...? don't know. i think i'm kinda looking forward to getting killed and losing it, to be honest. it's fun for a while though.

really beautifully done. the love shows. you have my beans - thanks.

exactly...although, to be fair, they were talking about oral sex. much the same thing tho.

yes, this. very much this. you cannot "grief" in this game. those people are just another part of the game. the most fun i have in the game is being shot at having just spawned in at the coast, maybe on my first weapon. nothing to lose, everything to play for. i love those happy idiots - they make even the first few minutes of the game an adventure!

you may want to add an apostrophe in front of "cause". you may also want to find some new friends, or at least stop defending their asshat behaviour. and, finally, did you really post that? really? i've read it three times and i can't detect the irony. you can't possibly be serious though?

agree with the rest of your post, except that we've a duty to exploit bugs in dayz, as we're playtesting an alpha! beyond that, it's the duty of the devs to ensure that game mechanics aren't explotable. i feel quite strongly about that - in cases where players have been banned from exploiting loopholes in commercial games, i blame the devs, not the players. once i've paid for a game, it's up to the devs to test the thing, not me! that said, i think exploiters are asshats.

there really should be a warning about the female skin on the selection screen... despite being male, i tend to use female character models when playing games - my sexual politics are fairly liberated, and i'm not into gender specificity, shoot me. after two weeks in the game, i found a ghille...only then did i find out a pretty useful part of the alpha was closed to me. ahh well. something else to be filed under "to be fixed in standalone" i suspect.

thermals are, indeed, overpowered and add nothing to dayz as a game. they're imbalanced and were rightly removed from the game. those that remain are hacked or duped i guess. i consider the initial inclusion, and then removal, of thermals to be a positive part of playtesting the alpha. your point is well made - they are BS and shouldn't be in the game. the devs agreed and removed them. there's no way we can completely remove them from this mod though, given the limitations of the engine. if they're put back into the standalone though, along with laser weapons, light sabres, nukes and other imbalancing crap, then i'm out!

too many FALs. and i always find them without ammo...i guess all those folks who already have the things get the ammo before i show up. what's the deal with FALs anyway? they're pretty average weapons, rare ammo, smallish clips. i'd take an AIM or an AKM any day over one of these. have never carried one for more than an hour, and never one shot fired in anger either. garbage. i'd rather find a heli looted and empty than with any number of FALs present.

yeah, happens a lot. for me, every 3rd or so kill disappears either as i approach following the kill, or as i'm gutting it. have to hurry. it grates on me to shoot an animal, give away my position, and all to no purpose i must say. but i've got one of those silenced assault rifles now (can't remember the name), so it bugs me less as at least no one can hear me blasting away at ghosts.

the term "griefer" has no meaning in this game. dayz is setup, from the start, to be a pure PvP game. there's no story content, no NPCs, no missions or quests. there are people who kill other players either regardless, or with some code of conduct known only to them - either way, they're not griefers. every player i've ever come into contact with has tried to kill me, and hence i try and kill or avoid every player i meet. that's the game. the game is also trying to survive and trying to avoid contact with other players. to try to play the game and never kill others. if that's your game, then more power to you - your way is harder. but neither is more correct than the other. provided you are using the game mechanics legitimately, and not actually using a hack, then you are a player, never a griefer. having said all that, alpha testing is there to remove game mechanics that are more "griefy" than others. i'd class barbed wire in that category, but maybe that's just me.

you'd fix duping by implementing item ID on every item in the database. but as has been pointed out, that's easier said than done, and probably not possible in this alpha. it's also not worth bothering with. i'd be horrified if effort was expended on creating a better experience for players of an alpha mod, when that effort could have been expended making the final product better. i think we have to accept that the devs have taken this mod about as far as it can go. the announcement of standalone is, i'm afraid, the death-knell of any more serious and concerted effort on this mod. the only thing that mitigates against this attitude is that, right now, most of us would agree that the player experience isn't being tested on this mod anymore - by which i meant that the devs cannot use the player experience on this mod to gauge the experience on a stable, hack-free, dupe-free standalone, because dayz becomes, daily, entirely the opposite of that. we are no longer playtesting dayz.

hmmm - tell that to the guys into whose heli i popped a single M107 round fired from an AS50. crashed and burned, literally. ever since that day, i cross myself when i see an available vehicle, spit on the ground, and run the other way.

nothing but nothing could persuade me into a vehicle. i have absolutely no idea why anyone would willingly place themselves into those coffins. you might as well stand in an open field near cherno, light a campfire, and shoot AS50 rounds into the sky. here i am! that said, i think the vehicle spawning, saving and repair mechanic in this game isn't really fit for purpose. what, seriously, is the point in having, or acquiring, a vehicle at the moment? other than the bragging rights.

the other day i'm trotting my way through the woods, about 2 clicks south east of NWA. low pop server, maybe 4 people including me. i've been trotting along in the same direction, aiming to the north, petrovka, not NWA itself, when a shot rings out, very loud, very close, one shot kill. didn't sound like a 50cal (and anyway, the bullet hits you before the sound does) so i'm guessing a headshot did for me. now, it put the buzz on me, because i couldn't guess how i could be that unlucky. i scan all around as i run, and i didn't see anyone moving. and if they were moving, how the hell did they manage to chase me down, without me seeing or hearing them, and get close enough and keep still enough to fire a perfect shot into my head? then i heard about the ESP cheat, and saw it in action on youtube. to me, this is the most insidious hack of them all. if i'm dumb enough to keep heading in the same direction, and you've got ESP and are within range, you can get in front of me, settle in, and just wait for me to come within range. no teleport, nothing obvious. except, of course, the extremely unlikely nature of the encounter. and man, for a while i thought i'd love to have this too. not to grief, but just to be able to see the griefers coming. to be able to spot someone inexplicably homing into my position, and outdo them. or to watch for impatient hackers suddenly appearing close by. ahh, but that way madness lies. and curse their souls for tempting me to become like them. anyway. i've a better strategy. i now find that i get more out of the game. i never run in straight lines. i never run any more than it takes to get out of breath - stopping constantly to regain my ability to aim. i turn and watch my back in the woods. never, ever take it for granted i'm alone. assume that i'm visible at all times. allow the paranoia to settle into my game and keep my heart constantly racing. i admit that it's a lot more tiring, but i feel like i'm in the endgame now. just desperate to survive, totally paranoid, never firing a shot and jumping at every sound. it turns every inch of the game into white-hot excitement. still, i frikkin hate the hackers.

would having a squad have made a difference? watching the hack in action (and i recommend everyone watch the vids - know your enemy!), you can imagine that a single player, in the woods, could outflank any squad. it puts a box around your avatar at close range, shows distance to target. they could pick us off one by one or, more likely, avoid entirely. but i think you're right - usually these cretins are poor players, overconfident and reliant completely on their hacks - a properly organised squad should be able to overwhelm those turds.

yeah, sorry - that was a mean trick i pulled with the title ;). glad you enjoyed the post.

found a ghillie and NVGs at a crashsite once. was wearing the female skin at the time though, so had to dump the ghillie; and i threw the NVGs away without a thought as, every other time i've had a pair, i've been killed within an hour. while i was dropping this gear on the ground, some sneaky turd blew out the front of my skull. basically though, if i find a heli site with not one fn-fal of any kind, i'm happy. even if there *are* only chemlights...