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.

I hope this isn't the case. Back in the mod, you could tell if survivors were in a town simply by their presence. Even that was preferable to having no infected in towns. Even if they got infected roaming aimlessly all the time, you'd be able to spot if there was a player in town based on how they react. If an infected spots a player, anyone outside who's watching would be able to hone in on that player. Hopefully, they can get the AI and server optimizations working so that infected don't stand still when nobody's around. But, if they can't do that, I hope they still put infected back in small towns. Unless you're playing for PvP, the tension goes out of much of the game without the increased threat of the infected.

I really hope there comes a time when there will be more infected everywhere. On my slow trip exploring from Solni up to Severograd, I didn't come across any infected until I reached Severograd. That was over two days of playing. None in any of the smaller towns on the way - not even Gorka. :(

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.

After a few years now of primarily playing Early Access games, I've learned to play when it's there and not stress when it's not. When it's broken, I find another game to play and I watch the news. I took a long time off after .59 and have only played .60 a few times (before the latest issues). Now, I'll wait till I hear the latest issues are fixed. Taking alpha breaks is recommended. No sense getting all worked up over what you know is going to be buggy - especially in experimental. The advances they made in performance with the initial experimental release of .60 indicate that they are really making progress. So, things may have stumbled at the moment. I'll wait till they're back up. I do this with all my EA games. Keeps me from chucking my computer at the wall and whining over something I know is going to be buggy going in. Now, I just whine about the ridiculous hotbar limitations when I play. ;)

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.

More variety is good, but you will never see zeds with missing parts or weapons stuck in their head in SA because these aren't undead zombies.

After playing .59 for a while, I feel the need to reiterate: This - Makes no sense. Hotkey slots are about assigning keyboard controls (user experience and comfort) and ease of access, not an incentive to get better gear. If they want to have the hotkey slots be a part of gameplay, they should limit their use to things that one would realistically be able to access easily (i.e - anything in your pants, shirt, jacket, vest, chest holster, or slung on your back.) Items in cases, boxes, bags and backpacks shouldn't be allowed in a hotkey slot. If I have 10 easy accessible items, I should be able to put them all in my hotkey slot. And, if I have 5 slots available, they should be any 5 slots I want. The way it works right now makes no sense whatsoever, is totally arbitrary and annoying. 'You can only have all of your slots if you have certain gear.' 'Why?' 'Because...' Since hotkey slots have been a part of DayZ I've had mine setup a particular way because it made sense to me ergonomically (melee, primary, secondary, bandages... misc on the next few, ending with compass, binocs, and water on 0.) Is there some reason I should have an arcadey limitation to how I setup my keyboard? To impose an arbitrary penalty that impacts - not gameplay, but user keyboard experience is ridiculous. This arbitrarily limits the RP playstyle because if I wish to have my keyboard setup ergonomically - which, again, is about user experience and comfort not gameplay, I have to get certain gear... which might not fit the character I'm playing. If I've got on a pair of jeans and an M65 jacket filled with 10 1-slot items? Guess how many hotkey slots I should have... 10. If I've got undies and the starter-tee? I get slots for what's on my back and in my hands. That's how it should work.

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.