Budiak

In all honesty, I don't think any long guns should be stored in the pack. I think you should strap them to the side, like when you sling your primary. Unless you're using a dragbag you're not putting an M24 or M240b in any backpack I've ever seen. Otherwise I pretty much agree with your proposal. And yes, it would make you a target. Ah, the price of avarice...

The scenario I described was a joke. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, and it could very well be a viable method of securing services. I found it pretty amusing. There are many ways to approach a town. You did not say anything before about the safest way, but you mentioned the best way. There is no best way. It is all dependent upon the situation. Building and geography is in no way an issue of semantics, rather, one of tactics. I run all the time, but in the dubious safety of the forest. I run from tree to tree, usually about 50m at a time, and then observe. SiLLS- Stop, Look, Listen, Smell. Well, there's no smell, but you get the idea. It takes a long time to cover distance. Sometimes it takes two nights of playtime to get to where I need to go. I choose to travel this way. I've never, not once, been sniped while travelling. That is by far not the only way to play the game, though. Some people rely on aggressiveness to achieve their goals. Some rely on groups. There are many ways to survive right now. Slow, quiet, out of sight, shoot on sight is one way. I don't shoot on sight because it's not necessary for survival, which is again based on the situation. If someone gets the drop on me or if I turn a corner and there's no time to think, someone's not going home that night. Hell, usually when I shoot someone I just run once they fall. I'm not in the business of ruining someone's game because we were in the wrong place at the wrong time but that's just me. I'll add right now that I haven't engaged another player in one week of gameplay. Most people don't have the patience to play the way I do, and I'll not assume for an instant that the way I play is superior to anybody else's. I enjoy it. I choose to play this way. While most of my time is spent in the forest, I very often go into towns. I do, however, spent considerable amounts of time observing the landscape and reconnoitering in order to decide the best avenue of approach based on what I observe and what I can't observe. With a group it would be easier because of overwatch, advanced scouting, etc. My skill and patience make up for the lack of numbers. That's what it takes to play solo. I'm good at it. Some aren't. Some are but choose to play with a group anyway. It's their choice. I said you can bandage yourself. If I get hurt and I break a bone, I can only rely on myself. I have only what is in my pack. If I can't heal my broken bones then I will be crawling until I find morphine. There doesn't need to be anything else required to heal because everybody needs to do it and again, those in a group are at a material advantage. Using morphine to heal a broken bone is indeed silly, but it's a game and the morphine represents the extra steps required to tend to serious injury. I haven't found a car in a long time, but you can bet your bottom dollar that I'd drive it, but I would probably only fix up an offroad vehicle because it suits my style of play. A car would be a hindrance, hence, I would leave it be. I also don't use tents. I refuse to be tied to anything that could get me killed, so I accept the limitations of what I can carry on my person.

I won't say that it's a bad idea, but I will say that it's too much micromanagement. The idea that my gun is essentially useless until I find a new front sight post...geh. That's too much like my real life.

Nah. The body adapts to water availability. You still need to drink but to function you will get used to it, both from a biological perspective and a pain/discomfort perspective. You will be dehydrated, but you'll be fine. Drinking nothing but soda does tend to put the hurt on you. But my squad leader used to pop open a Mountain Dew whenever we got to our destination. I don't know if he ever drank water. I like to think that he gorged on water in the fetal position in his hooch when we got back from patrol, and drank the Mt.Dew on patrol to feel like a badass. That idea makes me smile. I think that from a coding point of view, there was one suggestion where if it were raining, drainpipes on houses would act like water pumps. I don't know if it would be too difficult to make them act that way during a certain weather phase. I don't know anything about coding and other wizardry.

You're making a lot of assumptions. Both about me and the game itself. What is the best way to enter a town, since you claim it to be self evident? I am not being coy. I really want to know what you think the best way to enter a town is. I likely do not do it your way. Also, what is the best way to approach a survivor? Do not assume that you know what other people are thinking. Next, blood transfusions and epi pens both require interaction. Those items are not needed in order to enjoy the game or succeed. That is why they don't break it. They also do not require special skill. You seem too caught up in the idea that the game needs gimmicks and equipment and skills to encourage teamplay. You are totally ignoring the fact that team play in itself is an advantage. There are inherent advantages to both styles of play that have nothing to do with equipment or skills. Teamplay does not need to be a mechanic in any way, shape, or form. Gaining the benefits of working together requires no more than two real live human beings working together because they want to. Next, I am not forced to play because of what equipment I have. I acquire certain items based on how I play. I have no need for silenced weapons because I avoid contact with both zombies and humans and therefore will not accept the limitation of rare ammo types. I will pass up a silenced MP5 and keep a lee enfield. It is my choice because of how I choose to play. If I am without a main weapon I would leave an M24 behind because I'm really not a sniper and if someone sees me with it they may kill be because of the gun when otherwise they would let me carry on. Maybe if I had room in my pack, but I would not carry it or sling it. I have better things to put in my pack, like food, water, and extra bandages. It does cripple those who choose to play as I do because it would effectively close off significant portions of the game experience to us. Cars, first aid, gutting and cooking. All of those things are already a much greater burden on a solo player. Making them more difficult is not necessary. The reality of a zombie survival scenario is ancillary to this entire experience. The sandbox free-form gameplay should be the first concern. Classes and "encouraging" anything denigrates the sandbox experience. "This is a hold up! Drop the rifle! Move slowly! Now, fix that car! DO IT! Yeah, good. Now, gut this cow. Slowly...slooooooowwwlyyyy....yeah...that's good knowledge..." Eh. I was on a game last night, minding my own business as always. I was reading side chat for about 90 minutes where two guys were trying to meet up; one had a car. They sounded like they were buddies in real life. Seriously, they had real rapport. Well, turns out when they met up, the driver was shot in the head, looted, and the other guy drove away in new wheels. Situations like that are situations from which solo players are effectively immune. That's another advantage of solo play. Of course, it could have gone quite swimmingly. That's an advantage of team play.

I came across some poor dead sap in an airfield with a rotor in his pack, a G17, and no main weapon. Sad, sad, sad. Must have had a pretty sweet gat.

I actually agree that soda should relieve both hunger and thirst. Soda has an abundance of calories and does have water in it. As it stands, I actually have little use for soda. I carry three canteens and can go across the map and end up with three full canteens on the other side. If I find soda I chug it and move on. But I understand why soda is there. It's one-time use hydration. If you don't have canteens you can walk past pumps and lakes all day and be screwed. Also, why can't you drink from a pump or pond without a canteen?

Forcing people to work together is a crutch. Nothing in the game requires you to do anything except eat and drink. All the rest is totally up to you. The idea that I wouldn't be able to fix a car, gut an animal, or patch a wound without a stranger's help would make the game unplayable to me. Forcing people to play in any particular way is not what this game is about. It doesn't encourage people to work together, it requires them to work together. It cripples those who CHOOSE to play in a particular way. I realize what I just said. Let me clarify. The players are all at an even keel in this game. As it stands, everybody has the same skills. Teamwork comes from a shared cause, be it to find food, provide security for one another, or simply because you in real life prefer having someone around for moral support. I choose to go without. Not being able to perform basic functions like bandage myself or fix a car with parts that I procured myself would limit me and all others who choose to play the way I do unfairly. I am already taking an enormous risk by going alone. I don't need more reason to not play. The game is as unforgiving as it needs to be. Not only would you need somebody else, but he would need the skills you don't have. So I'm going to act friendly with somebody, have him fix my car, and then shoot him and absorb the quickening. Hardly teamwork imo. The skills would cause jealousy and even more backstabbing. Worse backstabbing than there is right now, even.

You should really look at some of the other five threads in the past week that suggest this. To voice my opinion as it was in the other threads, no. This reduces the initial fairness. Everybody starts out with the same equipment, same backpack, with the same abilities, in a random place. Fairness ends there. Everything from that point on is up to the player.

The dehydration and food levels would have to decrease far slower than they do now because at the current rate you would have to eat an elephant every day just to keep moving at a decent pace. But I don't discount the idea of a starving person move slower. It makes sense, but the way food and water is now I think is just fine. You need food but it isn't an emergency at all times.

Stratego, I was pointing toward the idea that in order to implement this without it merely being annoying is to make the damage based on hit location. The easiest way to do that is to make the backpack and the body into separate hitboxes. I know that not everything is in the backpack, but any hit cannot and should not result in random damage to equipment. I thought that shooting someone's gun should break the gun, but is that possible or even desirable? Shooting someone in the face destroys NVGs...likely, but do we really want that? And the high calibur thing was merely to support the simplification. Once again, I don't think that this should be implemented at all. If it is, I want it done with the proper restraint as to not make it a nuisance. What we should think about first when making a suggestion is whether or not it will support the game, not whether or not it is actually realistic. Get realism out of your vocabulary and focus on what makes a survival sandbox game an experience.

Hilarious. You'd have to hang the animal from a tree and sit under it until you get all the blood out. The only disadvantage is that if a car is coming at you you can't move. This forum has officially become a living nightmare.

Another game breaking mechanic. Lone Wolves already have a distinct disadvantage when it comes to their lack of a support system. To make it impossible to play the game alone is blatant favoritism. The blood bags are fine. Eating meat is fine, too. Every time a Lone Wolf shoots an animal and guts it in the open he is taking a risk, and the reward for that risk enhanced blood regeneration. People in a group are able to administer blood bags, epi pens, and even bandage each other. That's as much encouragement as group play needs.

Murders and defenses (shooting vs returning fire) would have nothing to do with a status of any kind. They're just raw data. And yes, reading this data would tell someone exactly how a particular life was spent. That's the point. There's no incentive involved in any of this, it's just a record of how a game has been played. In fact, I'm against a leaderboard. I'm more for a database where you could search records based on filters, trends, and other criteria for informational purposes only. So what if somebody has the most kills. He doesn't get anything for it.

The statistics in the newer Fallout games comes to mind. I like it. Just for the purposes of knowing what you have accomplished. I don't like the idea of having a running leaderboard, or if there were, it would be a score based on a multitude of factors. Not just human or zombie kills. It would include distance travelled (including a breakdown of walk, run, sprint, low and high crawled, crouched), cans of beans consumed, canteens refilled, shots fired AND length of time you had a certain gun equipped without firing it. Percentage of the time your backpack was over 2/3 full. Length of time you spent with a main weapon with two or fewer magazines. Length of time with a mean weapon and 6 or more magazines. It can't favor a certain play style. Number of people you've ID'd and not shot. Number of people you've shot and not IDd. I guess that last one would only work on tag-enabled servers. I'd like to know a lot of these things. I've been playing my current character for about 9 days now and I've only fired my M14 at one person who logged- no kill credit. I've fired it I think five other times. 4 animals, one zombie. Most zombies I have to kill I take out with my 1911.

First off, I read the thread title to the tune of the Good Times theme. Second, I have picked apples, pomegranates, peanuts, and persimmons to eat while on patrols. In a place like Chenarus, which appears to be fairly lush, I think food would be growing in abundance. Especially with nobody around to pick it systematically. [troll] D00d der shud be uh vitminz met4r, n if you go to long w/0 eatin fr00t, ur vitamen meetr goe to zero n u git shingles! wud ncourege te4mw3rk! [/troll]

Sorry, I got away from the idea that this thread was a petition. So, to make it official: No. Simply because there are too many portions of the OP that I disagree with.

As bad or unreasonable as most suggestions are, I think it should remain an open forum. If a post is made out of line, it will likely be deleted by the admins.

Again, players who die cannot be revived because zombies in this game are not undead ghouls. They are infected humans. You are beaten to death and then eaten. Game over. A more feasible mechanic would be a disease you catch from contact which, if untreated, would slowly turn you into a zombie, where you would lose control of your character and the body would roam, starting in the exact spot where the disease took hold. A walking loot trap.

Yes. Like giving sausage links to a guard dog. I like it. Easy. Make the meat attract zombies like a smoke grenade. Make steaks throwable. So it's a consumable/weapon. Hell, a steak on the ground might even attract lazy players. Disclaimer: I say 'easy' because I posess only rudimentary HTML coding abilities. Animals should attract zombies. But I've never seen an animal that close to a town. The zombies probably ate all the nearby animals, at least that would explain it. Why else are the only animals in the middle of fields, or in the middle of the forest?

The only things that could encourage grouping without breaking the game for other styles of play would be things that are not necessary for a successful game. Such as splinting, blood bags, etc. Things that are inherently and materially dependent upon a group. Without the support system, the Lone Wolf cannot take advantage of these things. But he also has the freedom of movement and self-destination that groups do not have. Those are valuable, as well. There is no in-fighting or cannabalism with the Lone Wolf, like there is in any group, Bandit or Survivor alike. With that, I think the system we have now is fine. Players play a certain way because they want to and not because they are forced to. The game elicits emotional responses based on how a player plays. Lone Wolves are perfectly comfortable alone in the woods. When a player sees another, he instantly has an emotional response of fear, maybe dread, and the heart starts beating. When a group sees another player they are much more calm- at least that is my experience. Groups also don't know when to shut up and sometimes get jumped because they feel invincible. These are the real, human, tangible effects of playing certain ways. There does not need to be a mechanic to simulate what we already feel as human beings by taking differing paths in the game. It would also destroy what makes this particular game so unique.

Playing in a group already offers the support system, heightened security, and initial increase in resources that lone wolves don't have. They don't need any more incentives, especially not superhuman endurance and metabolic efficiency.

Mr. Peanut model. I'll be watching my inbox for it.

I support the idea of zombies that are just sitting there not doing anything until you startle them. I do not support the idea of players waking. Players who are killed by zombies or other players are either eaten or dead, respectively. Once again, these zombies are not undead ghouls. They are infected human beings. I am surprised at the number of people who say that out of one side of their mouth, and then propose something rising from the dead out of the other. They don't co-exist here. That's not the lore. If undead zombies existed here, then every zed you shoot would wake up, barring those dispatched with a head shot. Introducing the undead would change too much about the game.

... yes, I was joking. I maintain that any mechanic that forces a player to adopt any play style breaks the game. There IS incentive to playing in a group. There are also advantages to playing solo and as a bandit. Also, last time I checked, zombies are quite capable of killing players, as well. Even if zombies are as feeble as you portend them to be, solo players' most capable foe is other players. It would be other players even if the zombies were more powerful because human players are able to think, scheme, and strategize. Zombies will never be the most dangerous foe and they're not supposed to be. The current system should be kept because it puts everybody on an even footing. Same equipment, same skills, random spawn. That and the death screen are the only things every player will experience. Everything else is up to the player.