janus0104

If that is what he meant, he completely missed the point I was raising. As I was saying, a video game can only go so far in terms of realism. You can't have 20.000 different items because it takes a lifetime or a fortune to have that much original art created. You can't have realistic pacing or it would take you a few hours of real time to fix a car engine. There will always be a layer of abstraction, and finding the sweet spot on how to abstract and what to abstract is key to setting the tone. By that I'm not saying realism is bad or realism is good, nor am I making any comment on zombies vs realism. It's a general statement about video games. It's just not possible to be 100% realistic. Medical needs of a character are abstracted down to 6 needs: overall health (blood), blunt trauma (broken legs), open wound (bleeding), having any kind of bacterial or viral infection (disease), mental state (painkillers) and consciousness (passing out). A simple 0-100 health meter would not be realistic enough. Requiring a medical dictionary/degree to know how to diagnose what's wrong with your character and treat it would be going too far. On all levels you have to find the sweet spot between realism and video game, there is no difference in that regard to any other kind of digital simulation or game, just weighted differently. The same is true for pseudo-realistic parts of the game, like zombie spawning behavior. Fully realistic simply isn't possible until standalone, but endless waves doesn't quite cut it either. That being said, I remain on my original position from page 4 of this thread, none of these changes that fidget with balancing between realism and abstraction make or break this game or solve anything until/unless the big problems I listed there are fixed. As to "People who play this game like its COD", I hope it is clear by my statements I do not consider myself such a person. Hell, I haven't even played any COD game. In fact, I despise it's name being used in a manner to categorize people. To put it into simple words, I'm too old for this shit. Still, criticism of changes should be taken at face value and not shrugged off as "PvP player QQ". At least in my case, it isn't meant to bitch and whine about the game but give the community devs some sort of feedback on how their players pick up on the changes. How else will they be able to gauge what works and what doesn't.

What?

Nah, number 2 is also a valid remark, but we all know that's not gonna get fixed in a satisfying manner pre-SA.

If it were a reality simulator, we wouldn't even spawn alive. Zombies have risen and the ENTIRE population has turned? How did the survivors survive thus far if they only have a bandage and a flashlight? It's an escapist fantasy, what would happen if you were teleported into a zombie world out of the blue, with nothing but your zombie movie experience to overcome the first shock of seeing them, and how would you go about meeting your daily needs such as food, drinks, shelter and the occassional medicine. It's an abstraction where e.g. a box of painkillers represents a whole range of medical supplies required to stay mentally fit, or a pack of morphine representing all the tools needed to treat a blunt trauma/injury, omitting realism to speed up the process and actually experience a full day's worth of action in a real-life situation in an hour of gaming. That being said, making a consistent abstraction from reality to videogame sets the atmosphere of the simulation. So while we break with reality in every single aspect of the game, taking a reality check is important to make sure each of those breaks have the same sorta distance between fact and fiction.

I disagree, the shacktac vault looks fine for the first few frames of the animation, but then it just freezes and arcs down. In the video you linked, every single character doing a jump there would have tripped and fell flat on their face. Completely unrealistic. Unfortunately, for a proper speed vault you need character-object interaction be possible with the engine. At an obstacle height of slightly above your kneecaps or lower, you'd place a foot on the obstacle to get across quickly, above that you'd place an arm on it and swing over the obstacle, anything above that would be next to impossible for an untrained civilian with the amount of equipment carried. Let's hope stand-alone engine implements that, it's not difficult or anything, but the engine and animation framework need to support it or it'll end up looking as bad as when you turn around while pitching a tent and such at the moment. So for the time being, that ninjadive is as good as anything else we're gonna get.

To be quite honest, I'd rather die from you and your reasoning than a zombie who glitched through the wall or a 12yr old whose parents wonder why his teachers think their kid has ADD. Gotta die one way, might aswell go to a proper bandit ;)

Damn, I should have added "run around without pants" under activities on my CV...

Not disagreeing with ya, just hadn't read too much about new disease/medical system yet.

As hunting/trapping grounds? Hang a few animal traps in those trees there, come back later to gather the meat. Swamps are full of life, just have to reach down and grab it. But yea, different diseases sound cool.

Tbh, I doubt they'll show the new zeds for a while, since those will sorta make or break the standalone. Anyone else went like "why is he standing in front of that house talking about loot? that one can't be entered" for a second until you realized they probably changed that?

Fair enough ;) What, what, what? What's that I hear about medicinal herbs? Can you grab me a link? I seem to have missed that.

The main complaints I hear from others are these three: - we only ever get stuff we must do, rarely stuff we can do - exception being that new combat roll i guess, whether one likes the animation or not. this has the downside of every new 'feature' only being a remedy to a new punishment that seems deliberate and just there so there can be a remedy for it - the main problems with the game aren't addressed, so you're just adding floors to a house built on sand and get surprised when people complain their house fell together. somewhat a moot point with the engine restrictions and standalone and whatnot, but objectively, it's a valid argument - many changes feel like someone missed what the original root cause was. they may improve or worsen a certain aspect of the game, but it's a long shot from being a fix. E.g. you want challenging zombies, they arent challenging because the AI lacks, you cant fix the AI - for whatever reasons - so you throw more zombies at the player, make them run faster than the player, give them a higher chance to deal status ailments, etc etc. all those cheap tricks video games used in the past to make an AI "hard" when it isn't. DayZ strives to be more than just "a videogame", so people expect more than just videogame corner cutting to address problems. Note that while they seem somewhat the same, the 2nd and 3rd are distinct problems, while the one are technical shortcomings and outright bugs, the 3rd are actual design decisions that come across as half-assed.

Somehow you and I played different games. I have my complaints about the recent changes, but I literally just proned all the way through Berezino, I even took out the hospital windows, and no zombie so much as blinked at me. It's still very much possible. A minute later my pal misfired (alt+tab) his rifle from outside town, see like 60 zombies chasing past me (still ignoring me). I'd say the aggro hasn't changed much, but when one does aggro, you get the full horde. I do like that it adds a little bit of the old challenge that was lost a bit recently, where experienced players just ran to where they know good stuff is, get geared in under 30 mins and then are left with little else other than either hoarding more loot, helping others or hunting others.

Where did you get #4 from? Did we see different devblogs? As for clothing, I find their approach a dangerous path. If they're too unique properties-wise, eventually, no matter if there's 50 or 100 clothing parts, people will learn what "the best combinations" are and then everyone who has survived past a certain point will look the same. Here's praying they go for very narrow categorization so e.g. short shorts have less space than proper pants, but it doesnt make much difference between blue jeans or black cargo pants. But of course we haven't seen much yet, and I like what I saw :D Unless they want to make a gear interface where the charater model is the interface and you move items into pockets and stuff like that, a system that sounds cool on paper but is usually doomed by it's short-comings, I hope they take a look at Jagged Alliance 2 v1.13 (community modded version) LBE-Gear system and how it's implemented: - rudimentary inventory space on character + the usual weapon / armor slots - optional body vests in different shapes with different combinations of pockets, e.g. one with 4 AR-sized magazine pockets, 2 utility pockets and a misc pocket - optional leg-strapped pouches on both legs with different combinations of pockets, e.g. one with 2 grenade slots, 1 mag slot and 1 water bottle slot, or one with room for 1 MG belt mag + 1 canteen or grenade - optional carry-on bag with different combinations of, e.g. 3 items of any size be it weapons or generic items or 2 items of any size + 2 slots for normal sized items - optional backpacks of varying size / space allocation that cannot be worn when a carry-on bag is worn. you can't climb up ladders and extreme stuff like that with your backpack on. you have to unzip it to get stuff out, so it takes some time and requires being stationary - All of the bags have their own weight additional to the contents' weight, need to be found as seperate items, and total weight slows the character down and speeds up fatigue This may be a little bit too militaryesque for DayZ, but it's a good starting ground. In fact, I never get tired of repeating that DayZ can learn many a thing from Jagged Alliance 2 v1.13 in terms of how to make a great inventory/item/attachment/durability system. Also, I disagree on your order :P Besides the humor, clearly #1 is changing stuff to be handled by the server. This was inevitable, so it's good to see progress on it.

No. Zombies are not a threat now, for oh so many reasons. Glitches and bugs have always been the threat, and now they have been buffed. That is all that happened. No, running around is still a viable option, as is driving. Nothing has changed on a fundamental level, just the size of the zombie train behind them was increased. They'll still kill the new spawn, because they can. I don't know who you're talking about. I do have complaints about the new patch, but they go way beyond "I can't deathmatch anymore, QQ". In fact, I think I've only shot at 2 players in my endless amount of playtime. These changes don't ruin the game. This is NOT DayZ how it's meant to be. It's not a living hell. And the zombies aren't the real threats, because they are predictable, they don't spend... scratch that, waste 6 hours of their time laying in prone in a remote location for the one victim to come into their crosshair. There's still viable room for all playstyles. If there weren't, you'd be the first guy on the fences complaining about changes. You don't play the game against the zombies, you play the game against the environment. The zombies are just a portion of it. And to bleed equipment, using a weapon would have to be a reasonable option whatsoever. Endless waves of zombies respawning can't be killed, so it's only about getting rid of the closest ones to make the escaping easier. Doesn't bleed much equipment that. And for every kid thinking they have the reign on what is DayZ and what isn't DayZ, there will always be others to tell him: You're not special. Your speech wasn't special. Your thread and your post aren't special. You'll die in this game like everyone else, whether you consider your approach to playing it superior or not. Please, go ahead and be amused by people complaining, but everyone who has ever contributed anything worthwhile in human history started out with a complaint and the motivation to do something about it.

Like I said above already, apparently in this version you always have to wait 30 secs to log out. ALWAYS. Added to those 30 seconds waiting time in the menu is the actual combat meter thing, so e.g. you might be thinking "oh, let's log off and do something else", but then a zombie sees you. You run away, lose LOS, wait 30 seconds so the combat meter runs out. Then you hit ESC and watch the 30 seconds count down there aswell. Then you hit abort. I don't like it either.

Unless I have entirely failed to grasp it's concept, yes, the timer resets when you press ESC, since it has nothing to do with the combat lock (the gun-shaped icon above your temperature). Basically, there be 2 locks now, the combat lock that activates as soon as a zombie smells your socks 180m against the wind and the timer that expects you to stay in the ESC menu for 30 seconds before you can click on Abort and actually get a result. I guess the point being is that you can't catch all the combat logging with the combat lock, so when in doubt lock the player for 60seconds, otherwise lock him for 30seconds. I just close the game with task manager nowadays and consider logging off a 90% death chance. Wish they gave us a nice alternative, like "crawl into your tent and you get to log out right away".

To bring this whole discussion to a common point that it keeps circling around like a dog chasing it's own tail: There are outright bugs, glaring problems that apparently cannot be fixed, which leave us with horrible gameplay decisions that are neither fun nor rewarding, but unless someone can fix them, they'll always be at the center of discussions like these: - AI Pathing / Obstacle behavior. No need to say more, you all know it - AI Movement Speed and it's lack of variety, resulting in a predictability that breaks PvE and often enough turns "running away from zombies" into a marathon - AI Spawn behavior to the point of making fun of zombie movies rather than letting you relive their best moments - Environment bugs: the bridges that make your vehicle tilt up 90°, unresponsive gates/ladders/fuel tanks/vehicle entry and gear points, hilariously cruel object intersection from the inaccessible tent in the tree to the car that slides downhill because apparently all handbreaks are broken, Animals disappearing before you can gut them - Lacking map with loot so predictable it's not even funny anymore, a horrible ratio from enterable buildings to mere scenery and downright death trap buildings with floors that attract the whole town's worth of zombies despite proning and no alternative exit, not even a jump through the window - Vehicle bugs, having to fix a fuel tank for the chassis to be the good looking model, simply wrong readings on the vehicle HUD, when your chassis is damaged beyond a certain point the slightest collision explodes the car (really now, exploding cars!! stop this hollywood nonsense) rather than just breaking your wheels because the metal cuts into them, and helicopters that use the cockpit as fuel tank i guess because breaking the windows makes the fuel leak and you cant even fix the fuel tank to make it stop - Horrible interface management, from the deliberate restrictions like not having spare tools in your inventory but they're fine in backpacks, no backpack interface unless pointing your crosshair at loot, no vehicle inventory interface, invisible container limits, items disappearing when the limit is reached or any feedback whatsoever that the container is full and no realism whatsoever in terms of what constitues as the size of an item slot - Out of sync animations, from medical treatment to making a fireplace, and the glitchy results you get until you memorize when you need to wait for the animation to end and when you're good as soon as the goal is achieved - No DayZ-specific options interface where one could set preferences like dropping firewood or empty tin cans onto the ground, clear labels that "VON" is side channel and "Radio" is local - Deliberate balance between "cutting corners for video-game's sake" (i ate 20 boxes (!!) of painkillers today, how am i not in a coma?) and "semi-realistic randomness for the sake of being random", like infections with blood bags - Unneeded items like the hatchet are found everywhere, but something as simple as a set of clothes is next to the rarest thing on the loot table. Before I get slaughtered for listing the hatchet as unneeded: The hatchet, or it's bigger brother, the fireaxe, is in real life a tool used for a multitude of purposes: Splitting wood (not felling a tree!) you either harvested or already cut apart with different tools, use it's sharp edge in place of a knive for smaller utility tasks (gut an animal?!), and making a fire when you have no matches or similar easier means to make one, it's used to remove obstacles and open doors - at least the fireaxe variety - and like everything else a human can hold in his hands it can be used as a melee weapon, though not really good. To fix the hatchet in DayZ, the following changes should be made: Gathering wood without a hatchet becomes a mousewheel option when on forest ground, give the player a different bundle of firewood though that doesnt burn as long as when done with a hatchet, but long enough for cookig meat/water. Making a fireplace is an option on the firewood, not the box of matches. Actually lighting the fireplace requires either a box of matches or a hatchet, the latter taking the current animation's time to result in fire. The hatchet can be used in place of a survival knife to gut animals, but you get less meat out of it. Make the survival knife usable for melee combat. And if you're feeling generous, give us a key to switch from current weapon to hatchet/knife, it's really not that hard and takes long enough with the freaking reload bug. Until the big bugs in that list are fixed, all these recent changes amount to changing the camera angle while all the time looking at horse manure. I love this game, but show me one of these bugs that can be defended as a desirable feature.

So we get * [NEW] - Zeds now have the ability to damage vehicles. This is limited to glass only once glass is destroyed players within will be damaged. but not * [FIXED] - Helis leak fuel when windows are broken Not a good solution, guys. Fix those helis! Other than that, this update feels like we got nothing we can do, only stuff we must do. Overall, it seems a tad rushed, but not knowing the development process that just might be part of the process, why do QA when you have players who'll cry about issues either way.