_Anubis_ (DayZ)

Nope, the opposite. That is now EASIER than in 1.7.4.4 if you don't shoot, because Z don't follow properly/loose sight or interest and the bystanders don't want to risk a shoot due to the aggro risk - you throw stealth out of the window, run like Bolt and rely upon the Z stupidity. Just don't shoot. If you raid when it is dark then it is abismaly easy since Z do not see you well. _Anubis_

I have tried 1.7.5.1 for a while. I moved back to 1.7.4.4 and then forward to 1.7.5.1. The problem of 1.7.5.1 is not that it is too hard, but that it is too random (1st problem) and too glitchy (2nd problem). The glitchy side refers to Zombies. I reported several times that they die stupidly by falling from buildings (I wish I could record this) and now it is acknowledged that their AI is broken. But this is not really hard, just stupid. And indeed the Zombies are EASIER if you just forget you have a firearm (now I drop it before raiding anything), they are far less able to follow, they often either forget or stop tracking or turn around (in a town). I started a new game and travelled in Elektro running circuits to get stuff (power plant, school, hospital, supermarket, fire station, then repeat): the loot was miserable despite having somehow 100 spawn points available and I have been wounded twice in the supermarket, every time by Zombies glitching through the walls. But after 3 laps I had all the tools, food, beverage, water bottles, medical stuff of any kind, an Ak-74, an M1911, ammo and an ACU pack (where are the Alice now ?), it took 20 minutes or so and then I left. The funny thing is that now everybody is so scared to fire inside a town that you have also less risks doing that kind of stunt than before if the server isn't too crowded. The real problem is the high variance in loot. A 6 loot-points places give you almost nothing and half of what you find is crap. A 12 loot-point gives you one/two useful items. I go on mostly by killing Zombies with the hatchet or I have enough patience , I just wait for them to spawn in the wrong place and die. Game is also (too) random. One day it is all rabbits (impossible to catch silently) another day I kill a cow, gut it and after a minute I get another cow. Doesn't make sense... It is not really harder. _Anubis_

Today I committed suicide out of despair, starting to fire in an open field and waiting for the Zombies to come and do their work. I have definitively had enough of 1.7.5.1 and those idiotic glitches: 1) Wandered for miles finding crap as loot. The loot does not f***ing change no matter how much time you wait and how far away you stay and more than 50% of the spawn points are always f***ing empty. The only way to get something is to kill zombies now, which spawn behind you in building just like ghosts. At least I got some fun seeing another of those idiots run toward me from the upper floor of a barn toward the middle floor (where I was), miss completely and crumple on the floor. Thanks God for the renewed Zombie spawn system! 2) Of course also zombies loot has been ... improved. You need to kill on average 15 zombies to kind either a can of coke or canned stuff. Wow. 3) Managed after ages to get hatchet/matches/knife. After seeing nothing other than rabbits, always rabbits. finally here's an hen or something. I kill the thing with the hatchet. I look around: I am on an empty and desolated field, the little moving dots near the horizon are Zombies. I start to gut ... "YEEAHHW" !!! The horde comes, tens and tens of dots are now converging on me. F-T-W 4) Running away uphill, Zombies lost. FInd other buildings, get some food... The plan of getting game failed but at least I have enough beverage/food and a couple of water bottles, but not boiled. Well... 5) go into the forest. Far far away from any living or half-living being, cut some wood and boil dutifully the water with the idiotic tin can that I got by drinking a coke on the spot. Now I have also boiled and safe water, great. 6) Looking for game. Nothing, except for the white rabbit running merrily into the forest... I wish I had an XM214 sometimes. No way to get food in that way, back into buildings. Nothing as usual, kill zombies then. Out of despair I shoot once from the door, get 30-40 Zombies, kill ALL of them, one by one with the hatchet, all I got was 2 cans of coke and 1 of can of bean. This sucks. 7) WTF? Blood level is going down. Did I get infected? Then there are no symptoms whatsoever, I got no message visible, nothing. Temperature is still fine (it is always red, whatever it may mean), The epeen monitor says nothing useful, as usual.. 8) Yes. Blood level down and down. Eating a can of food. Nothing happens. What? Now eating does not replenish blood anymore? A new feature most likely ... Eating ALL the food left (4 cans). Nothing happens. blood going down, now the drop is 100% empty. 9) I see almost nothing, the familiar grey world. I have had enough of this nonsense. Where's the nearest town? Drozhino, West of here. Here's the town, I can see a few half-idiots wandering... Let's make them happy, bless their souls. All i have is a Winchester, I doubt I will hit anything at that distance and trembling like a leaf. Who cares. Bang, the first one goes down, the horde comes 10) I keep shooting the zombies coming from the town when I suddenly realize they are also coming from behind. Why? There should be no spawn point in the wilderness... Must be another new "feature" of 1.7.5.1 to annoy players more. A zombie hits (one of the fat bastards, the ones I hate most), crack, broken legs, I go down. Dead. 11) Silence. I slowly close Arma2OA and switch to DayzCommander. 1.7.5.1 goes away, 1.7.4.4 returns. Sorry for venting my frustration with this long and useless message. _Anubis_

Title says it all. Does it work for you? In my case, it does not. The "abort" button is always available no matter what (quiet situation, chased by aggro zombies, fighting, with/without pistol icon flashing). I can press abort and then disconnect always. Have I misunderstood something (may well be)? _Anubis_

Dude, I have seen Zombies in barn (upper floors) and then I have seen them either coming down from the floor NOT using the stairs or glitch through the outer wall. Result is the same = dead Zombie on the floor. Easy enough to understand for you? If so, make a favor to everybody and add it to the list of things to fix in .2, will you? I understand randomness, that the reason why if I keep seeing rabbits everywhere, the system is not so random as it should be, what do you reckon? As amazing as it can be, some backpacks have (or should have, as part of 1.7.5.1... but maybe you'll tell me it will be probably fixed in .2) a storage area for items and one for weapons. You can wiki it... Cheers, _Anubis_

So it doesn't.... Well I am not surprised, after playing 1.7.5.1 can see there are so many thing broken: 1. Loot spawn messed up: tons of garbage and wood, or nothing, even returning to the same place over and over again 2. zombies spawning in building, but since their path-finding system is screwed they fall outisde and die, that's the reason why there are dead zombies around barns 3. zombie path erratic: often they stop turn around or just stand like morons (aggro'ed as well) 4. zombies passing through walls and doors, they don't manage it to open ip but pass neverthess 5. less game. I have been wandering for long time in the countryside, only rabbits... 6. hundreds of zombies will chase you in a city if you aggro one of them 7. the weapon slot in backpack does not work (weapon lost) and now the combat-timer supposedly fixed doesn't work. :-) Kudos to whoever worked on it, those people should read a book or two about software testing _Anubis_

I have started a new game with 1.7.5.1... Aside from the fact 3/4 of the servers are messed up (either because 1.7.5.1 is not working yet, or they tried to roll back to 1.7.4.4 without success). I have visited the nearest barn to see how Zombies behave and get an hatchet: 1) The 80 meters thing works: indeed you get plenty of zombies to kill and if you wait them while they climb the stairs you can get stuff faster than visiting a supermarket in Cherno 2) The spawn system has been changed as well: for some stupid reason they spawn now inside the barn at different levels. Most of the time due to glitches in their path-finding system you find them outside, around the walls of the barn (they fallen and died, so sorry) 3) Inside the barn they do not always follow you, this is another variation from 1.7.4.4: some will follow you climbing the stairs, some will wander around (afraid of stairs?) and you can kill them at your leisure by going halfway the stairs _Anubis_

After some playing, it seems to me there is far more junk by scavenging than before and much less canned food and cans. Matches? Forget them and without matches no boiled water bottles and cooked meat. That means in order to survive you have two options: kill zombies (shoot and aggro them on purpose, enter a building/barn, kill them with the hatchet one by one until you can collect more gear than in a supermarket) or hunt other players for their beans. Actually the new patch gives more reasons than before to go PvP. It is meant to be hard because it is apocalypse zombie survival, fine. But to make it hard because you can die for stupid reasons (e.g. horde of zombies coming from km away and passing walls to hit you) is merely annoying. I'll probably look for a 1.7.4.4 server and downgrade. Strangely there are more and more 1.7.4.4 servers coming back. _Anubis_

Today I killed a player for the first time ever, when I did it I had no idea whether he was a bandit or not. It was pitch dark and I had cranked gamma to try to see something. I was close to an isolated farm waiting for some more zombies and stuff to re-spawn. I usually chose a protected place behind trees to watch. Suddenly I see in the open field between the farm and the forest where I am, a player moving. Tags are off, so no way to understand who he is. The player gets closer and from his profile against the sky I can see that he has NVG,wears a Ghillie suit and has a silenced rifle -- he completely overpowers me. He does not say anything (no voice, no typing) while moving and then he drops to the ground, I can't see the rifle barrel so either he is looking now on the opposite side, or he is aiming. I stop hesitating and I shoot, two times with the CZ-550 which I found at the barn before. i have no time to think about zeroing, I just aim to the body now in the grass, then shoot a third time and I get the message that the player is dead. I exchange my CZ-550 for his silenced M-4, get his backpack and some ammo and food and leave the field. Checked with the epeen monitor while leaving: murder count is 1 and the humanity level is below zero... Wonderful I killed some other poor guy like me :-( _Anubis_

Useless. If I want to leave suddenly I simply take out the WIFi usb stick from my pc. What happens then? _Anubis_

You have to understand the loot spawn system, that's the key to survive the first phase. Don't go to place A, loot, leave and go to place B walking for miles. Stay nearby place A and wait for the loot to respawn and return there over and over again. Also, consider that certain buildings have a single loot spawn point whereas others have tens of them. Since loot is random a place with many spawn points provide you better chances to get something useful. Finally, according to what you are looking for (weapons vs. tools vs. food) you will need to look for different places. Study this map: http://dayzdb.com/map to understand what I mean. Good Luck, _Anubis_

All in all this 80 meters zombie radio is just a cheap trick to increase the difficulty by having many stupid zombies instead of a few smarter ones. One zombie or 100 zombies make no difference if you have an hatchet and a choke point where zombies have to slow down and pass one by one, typically a door frame, on the contrary you can exploit this to gather stuff from them. The real danger is now the buggy new spawn system, I have seen zombies spawning within 5-10 meters from my position, this is insane. _Anubis_

By the way during that (server's) night I was killed as well. After a long trip during the night without compass I managed to reach Vysota from the west map corner to pass the rest of the night there. At one point I saw some zombies get aggro and run uphill: I watched for a while and started moving with the M-4 in the backpack to appear less dangerous. Nope. Bang bang bang, drop dead (a sniper judging the noise). Well everything is temporary so someone else now enjoys my gear :-) Another dayz lesson: don't play at night, the only ones out there are snipers with NVGs. _Anubis_

nope, no bandit skin at all while humanity was below zero... _Anubis_

Wait there is more to that! After a few hours of playing I discovered that my humanity level is growing, I can see in the epeen monitor and it is around 1500 (it was 2500 when I spawned). The only thing I did was to kill a lot of zombies and drop items when I found something more valuable. That's strange, does it means there are no "bandits" at all in 1.7.5.1 ? _Anubis_

Half of the servers aren't working. Some of them moved to 1.7.5.1 and failed to complete the transition, some of those went back to 1.7.4.4 and the thing did not work out. I had the same problem, hard to find a working one. _Anubis_

If the 80 meters thing is recursive [hopefully not] then you may have the entire zombie community chasing you: the first zombie will aggro any zombie within 80 meters, they'll aggro other zombies around them an so on... _Anubis_

The game has [more than] some stupidity in it... And it has nothing to do with being a survival mod. A few examples: 1) you can have a gun (hands), a rifle (shoulder) an hatchet (tool-belt) but you CAN'T have a gun(pocket), a rifle (shoulder) an hatchet (hands), you must drop your rifle. Why? 2) You cut wood from a tree (fine) and you must have it in your inventory to make a fireplace. Stupid. Drop the f***ing wood, then make a fireplace and light it with matches 3) I try to store a weapon in the backpack and there isn't enough room, the weapon disappears. WTF? Where did it go? The mother of all zombies has eaten it? Make it fall to the ground, what's wrong with that? Those are asinine glitches, which do not make the game more realistic or harder, but just more annoying. The game could be better without those problems. _Anubis_.

Same here... It happens on Chernarus map, but it does work with Taviana, Celle, ... Any idea about how to fix it? _Anubis_

If you want to be on the safe side, you have only one option: KOS; anything else increases the risk to be shot in the back. However that's where the fun is. I have been killed and I have been helped. I have helped but so far (luck) not killed unless in self-defense. One more thing: if you play on a private server the chances to make friends are higher since people will come back there and if they act bad, they'll be remembered. _Anubis_

Fresh spawned, let's look around: West of Elektro, not the best place to start without anything. Alt-Tab to switch to the online DayZ map: yes, it is nearby Elektro. I spot quickly what I am looking for, the big green dot marking an isolated farm, the best place to start to get organized and to kill zombie in full safety while they stagger on the stairs. No compass, so let's define a route via landmarks: top of the hill, hit the trail, turn left following the trail, at the junction look at the power station and from there, diagonally across the big field, there should be the farm. The zombies are relatively far away, so I can move quickly. Climbing the hill diagonally... Here's the trail, turn left now. Junction of roads and now I can see the power plant and the open fields. Should I make a long detour to reach the farm or cross the fields, starting near the power plant? I have nothing so I am harmless and if someone takes pleasure in killing a bambi moving openly... Well, I don't care and I have nothing to loose. Coming down the hill now, looking carefully for zombie activity near the building, but there is none. Moving toward the power plant and someone types on the side channel asking whether I am friendly or not. Finally someone who is does not KOS. He's not visible, so it must be in the buildings. I stop, say yes and I explain I just started and I am planning to reach the nearest farm to find some basic gear. He types back ok. Moving again, I quick check a barrack to find a bandage and behind a corner, here's most likely the guy who asked [tags are off]. He has a Winchester. We look at each other but there is no time to talk, zombies are close. We both get out and move in separate directions... I wish him a silent good luck and move ahead. Passing a line of trees, a fence and a road: the farm should be then somewhere right and here it is. I recon the area slowly, but I can only see quiet zombies, time to get something, I am also thirsty and hungry. The farm does not offer very much, not a single hatchet and the only lousy weapon is the crossbow. Oh well at least I have zome food. I need to go around and return regularly to get new items respawned, it is a matter of patience. After a few round-trips I have finally enough: a Lee-Enfield, plenty of ammo, an hatchet, food and water bottles, more bandages and painkillers, also thanks to a few zombies killed on the stairs. Decision time, leave or stay more? The power plant is close and has a nice red spot on the map, so it can spawns military as well medical stuff such as morphine. Remembering that I died last time after many days of survival due to broken bones, I decide to take the risk. Moving back toward the power plant, just North of Elektro, I can see players typing in German on the side channel, they are talking about me and saying I am friendly. Most likely snipers, but I press on, I will stay only the minimum amount of time. Zombies see me, so I have to zig-zag and turn around buildings to loose them. Finally I am inside, what do I have here? More food, bandages, an ACU pack and yes, an AKS Kobra, but I have already a lee-enfield, so I simpy decide that I will pick it up later, I do not plan to kill anybody here... Moving up, an Alice pack! This is wonderful. More exploration and then suddenly a zombie comes out of wall, some glitch. I shoot him with the rifle, then put the rifle in the Alice Pack and take the hatchet. The noise has attracted other Zombies so I move up killing a couple of them. At the top floor I find what I was looking for, a morphine injector. Now I really have everything, let;s just wait for the zombies to cool down and leave this place. Silence... Time to go down. I slowly climb down ladders but then I hear a noise: someone is coming up. I have still the hatchet so I can simply wait for the zombie to come up and kill him from the side, it always work. I move toward the ladder, the head appears, that's a baseball cap, he is a player not a zombie.And now, here's the chain of events leading to me quck death in a fraction of a secod: 1. I do not have the headphones and the mic and I have no time to type I am friendly 2. I decide to not kill him so I stop moving 3. He has the AKS that I did not pick up from the lower floor 4. I am within striking distance with the hatchet he has not seen me, but he will as soon as he will turn left 5. He will suddenly see another player very close with an hatchet and he has an automatic weapon in his hands... Three shots, I drop dead, they guy realizes (maybe?) I meant no harm and types "sorry bro". Ok, I would most likely have done the same and shot just by reaction, can't blame him, I should blame myself. This is why I love dayz. _Anubis_

Maybe it is a stupid question... Today I died after many days of peaceful survival after falling over from a deer stand. Broken bones, no morphine, far away from any hospital. To make a long story short, an horde of military zombies took good care of me, I stopped shooting because it was useless. Thinking again, maybe I should have dropped all my gear before dying, either for a lucky survivor or for me (assuming I could go there again). Do dropped items survive after exiting and restarting? _Anubis_

Quick replies, thanks! Well time to restart after a long adventure in dayz... _Anubis_

Hi All, I have discovered DayZ a month ago, it was love at first sight. I have been playing for a while and now I start to make some sense of the inventory (the most counter-intuitive and stupid design I have seen in years), being accustomed to the weird DayZ bugs (like loot suspended in the air or Zombie moving through walls), find a way without a map and loot a town: the game is great after all, but I think there is no way one can survive without shooting on sight every player, I find this stupid, there must be some cooperative or at least neutral way to survive. My experience interacting with other players has been so far limited: I have either watched them or simply said "Hi" on the chat and leave them and I never killed anybody even if I had this opportunity a few times (I spotted them before they spotted me), but it is useless: I can recall several occasions in which I was shot on sight without doing anything: it seems the simple fact I had even a low-grade weapon (such as a Winchester or a Lee-Enfield) was a reason good enough to kill. So what is left? Either to shoot on sight or begin to play single-player, not so much at the end. To say "I am nearby XXX and friendly" is worse than useless (because people can home in on your location). What's your view? I bet I am not the first one facing this dilemma... _Anubis_

Well the eremite thing works. I am still alive after a few days in dayZ, with a full load of food (cooked meat), water bottles, tools and low grade weapons, but weapons nevertheless and plenty of ammo. I "live" in a forest nearby a farm, which is a wonderful place for noobs/casual players like me for at least 4 reasons: 1. it has 12 spawn points so with patience you'll get a full kit after a while 2. zombies are easier to kill while they climb the ladder with an axe 3. nearby one can find animals and therefore meat 4. The process to get things is dead simple: stay in the forest, wait, visit the barn, kill a few zombies for extras, leave the barn, hunt into the forest, kill and cook and start all over again, much better and faster than wandering around any town Best of it, if (when!) I will die, now I know I can repeat the process rather easily, so I take things with philosophy. After the first two days dedicated to stockpile items I now wander around, kind of exploration treks returning at the end in the forest: deer stands and helicopter crash sites are the next targets. One day or another I will visit some city just for the fun of it (I am close to Cherno) and most likely I will be killed by a sniper sooner or later but guess what? I do not think anymore it is a big deal, I will simply restart. During those days I have only seen two players, they did not spot me and I decided to not take any risk and remained hidden in the forest. But next time who knows... I like this game! _Anubis_ p.s. anybody who want to team up, feel free to contact me by email, I have no problem in starting another 'life' on other servers