entspeak

Oh, please tell me that the audio update will fix the static infected sounds. I hate the fact that once the sound starts, it remains locked in that position in the stereo field regardless of whether or not I move.

Actually, turning the shadows to low throws them more onto the CPU. This was stated quite a long time ago. If you want the GPU to handle the shadows, put them on Normal or higher. I do one of two things with shadows - disable them completely or put them on Normal. Putting clouds on Low actually makes things worse.

For some time now, the controls for DayZ have been wonky with regard to sprinting. The ability of a human being to go from a crouch to a sprint is pretty much a given - and DayZ used to work this way. It was intuitive and just worked. If you were in a crouch, pressing the run key made you do a crouching jog and pressing the Turbo key put you into a full-on upright sprint - and when you stopped, you'd crouch again. I have no idea why this was changed, but the current system where sprinting while crouched is actually a crouch jog and you have to stand up first before you can sprint just makes no sense. Why should I have to mash the X key before I can sprint? I have hoped that this would change and the common sense, intuitive controls would return, but they haven't. Why? Why is this system better than the old, more intuitive one?

Helicpopters are not in.

I like most aspects of ,59 (though, I absolutely hate the hotkey limit... not because I hate a limitation on the hotkeys, but just the manner in which they've chosen to go about it. It's stupid.) I've been using the new UI for the FPS boost and didn't realize about the tools. I wondered why I was carrying around these tools and didn't need them.

That's the only reason I can think of... they want wider targets. It's about getting hits more easily using the graphics rather than skill.

And since they are working on zeds again, it might be a good time to bring up the notion of dynamic aggro again. They made huge leaps with this in the vanilla mod and it makes quite a difference to gameplay. This is an idea to provide an interesting dynamic with zed encounters, allow for stealth, and have serious consequences for recklessness - aspects of survival. I originally brought this idea up a while ago with the mod and there were serious limitations with this because of the limitations of the Arma engine to which the mod was bound. Not long before SA was released, however, the devs for the mod made huge leaps in Zed AI that were very similar to these ideas (see Zed behavior in 1.8.1). So, this idea hinges upon a fundamental premise (to which there is one exception): Zeds react differently to sound than they do to sight and they don't aggro unless they see a target. With that in mind, here are ideas for the various ways zeds interact with their environment. Sight: Zeds should have fairly poor vision compared to players - maybe 100m with a 40 degree FOV. Now, these zeds are different from the ones in the mod in that they no longer simply see straight ahead... if they turn their head, they may see you (at least, that's what I've been told, perhaps a dev can confirm this). So, that if they look around, they will see more around them. In reality sight works like a cone: narrower closer to the face, wider as it spreads outward from the face up to the limit of vision. Most humans have good peripheral vision, so our FoV is roughly 190 degrees (95 degrees to the sides out of each eye). With a FoV of 40 degrees, however, zeds will basically have tunnel vision. The conical nature of it however, means you will be spotted if you are 10m off to the right of a zed at a distance, but you will not be seen if you are 10m off to the right of a zed close up.If a player is in the Line of Sight of a zed, the zed should target him... even if the zed was aggro'd by something else.If a zed loses Line of Sight, it will continue to aggro toward the location at which it lost LoS and begin a slow search for a minute. If it doesn't see a player... any player, it forgets what it was going after and resuming it's unalerted status.At night, the distance a zed can see should be drastically reduced (if possible, based on the amount of light available). It would be awesome if shining flashlights, flares, fires, etc... would increase the distance a zed could see.Sound:Going with the premise that zeds only aggro based on what they can see, how they react to sound will add an incredible amount of dynamics to zed interaction and give players lots of ways of dealing with them. The exception to the premise: only very loud sounds should immediately aggro zeds. What the devs in the mod were able to do is to create ranges at which weapons would aggro zeds and ranges at which it would simply get them to walk toward the sound slowly. I think the SA can build upon this idea. and this can be different for different kinds of weapons. So, each kind of ammo (since, I understand audible range is based on ammo type and not weapon type) will have three zed related sound distances: the distance at which a zed will definitely aggro, the distance at which it will only become aware and walk slowly toward the sound, and the distance at which it hears nothing.Zeds aggroing based on sound should run toward the sound for a minute (or until they reach the point at which the sound occurred). If no players come into their Line of Sight during that time, they do the short search and then forget what they were doing and return to their unalerted status.Going with the premise and its exception, the same sort of idea can be applied to other sounds a player makes: footfalls, direct chat and wounded/sick noises. I think it would be obvious that in order to instantly aggro a zed with footfalls and voice, you'd have to be pretty much right next to it... so, what should happen more often than not is that loud running and talking should, at most, only cause a zed to become interested and walk toward the location it hears the sound... of course following all the rules for sight mentioned above. Of course, the distance at which zeds are alerted can be based on movement speed and material that's being run over (cement, grass, carpet, wood floor). What this means is that you can get into trouble pretty quickly if you run right by a zed... running at a distance, may not cause a problem unless you're sprinting on tarmac... and even then, you're going to get a bit of a head start as they slowly turn toward you... and if you duck around a corner, they might not get that chance.Perhaps, at night, as vision is reduced, zed hearing gets slightly better and the distances at which zeds react gets higher.The limitation on sight and its interaction with sound will make for an incredibly dynamic gameplay experience, I think.

Here's a crazy idea, have a large number of zeds spawn inside buildings. This way, you can have a small number of zeds spawned in all the time, ambling through the town and then, when players arrive, more spawn inside the buildings who begin to move when aggro'd in some way. This way, you won't be able to say with certainty that a town or village is free of players, you will get the added bonus of having the tension of clearing houses before you can loot them, and there won't have to be huge areas where there is no threat of the infected at all.

There should always be a price. More storage should mean some of it won't be easily accessible.I like the concept of having the hotbar (quickslots) mean something in game, but if you're going to do that, the clue to how to do it is in the name: quickslots... things you can reach quickly. A heavily geared guy may be able to carry more guns and ammo, but a less geared guy will always be able to pull a pistol out of his jeans faster than the guy who has it in his backpack. That is the appropriate in-game metaphor for the quickslots - they represent what you can pull out quickly. If you want to go further, they could even make it so you can't reload mags with the R button if the mag is in a backpack, case or box. The current setup is arcade-like and gamey - "Find higher tier gear to open up your quickslots!" - it's a level-up and that isn't what DayZ is about. And, I shouldn't have to play a particular way in order to organize my keyboard the way I like. If I want my water on 0, I shouldn't have to go out and find cargo pants and a backpack in order to do so.

I hate the new quickslots feature. Quickslots are about key binding and quick access to items. I'm not saying there shouldn't be a limitation on quickslots. You shouldn't be able to put anything in a quickslot that you couldn't get to quickly (i.e - something in your backpack, ammo box, protector case, etc...) - that's common sense. Have a pistol in a chest holster? Quickslot. Have a pistol in a backpack? Can't go in a quickslot. Quickslots shouldn't be used as an incentive to gain "higher tier gear." Not everyone is interested in higher tier gear and would be fine with jeans and a jacket... including what you may have slung on your back, that's a max of 10 small, easily accessible items that could go in your quickslots. Having a backpack, cases, etc... should provide a storage benefit at the expense of easy accessibility via quickslots. But, if I, the user, have just started on the coast and want to put a water bottle on the '0' key, I should be able to do that even if it is the only thing in my inventory. This new setup gives an advantage to those seeking higher end gear, it hurts RP, it arbitrarily and unnecessarily inconveniences the player in terms of organizing their keyboard. It is a horrible idea. Please, do something different. Incentivizing key binding is not good gameplay, it is bad UI functionality.

Very rare in this game ends up meaning very little. M4's are supposed to be rare nowadays and, yet, everyone and their mother has one. I wish they would focus on other art assets rather than continuing to add military weapons. This is slowly becoming more and more like an ARMA mod again.

This is so true!!Whenever I need something in Dayz, that is the time I can't find it anywhere. I spent days looking for a glow plug. Finally gave up and someone else got the truck (I'd previously been sabotaging their efforts while I looked by stealing the tires). Next day, found a glow plug.

It would be nice if meat was just labelled "meat" and you had to identify it by look.

I agree about things like reloading and holding breath as soft skills. The more stamina you have, the longer you will be able to hold your breath and the shorter the hand sway when you stop running. The more you work with a weapon, the faster you would be able to reload. So long as it doesn't give you a kind of auto-aim or more damage for a weapon, it should work as a soft skill. What will make players want to stay alive is the fact that they will lose these skills if they die. The problem I see with soft skills as it was originally described is that you will get the PvPers who don't care about soft skills still being able to shoot/die and re-engage with no disadvantage.

Every week... except last week. ;)