Dagwood

Colored armbands suggest that the person is not alone. White armbands are just a way to save space and preserve a bandage when everything goes to shit in a hand basket. But as always, making assumptions in dayz is just that: an assumption. You never know anything for sure.

Private servers and public servers vary wildly. Pub servers will be desolate at mil bases for hours at times if they are high pop. Private servers will be the opposite. Keep that in mind.

Also learned recently that when I marked my stash location on my in-game map, my buddy could see the marks when he borrowed it. Would be cool to leave a treasure map for somebody. Or kill some dumb sap like me and find his stash after you kill him. Sadly, most players don't even bother with the in game map. What other features could be added to the in-game map to incentivize more players to use it? Sorry for double post

Found one in a shed north of novo tower, and another under a blaze in a green house in novaya petrovka. And only after like 30 minutes of combined looting. Maybe I'm just lucky? But it was private hive so don't bother asking for trade ;)

Server hopping > yield than multiple players looting on same server. Private servers are where the real scarcity lies. At least in the last iteration of CLE

My group already has multiple tents, assault rifles, a fully kitted M4, a Winchester, and 5 trucks. ON A PRIVATE HIVE that had consistently over 40 players online. Quit bitching about lost gear and go find more. At least now there is loot to find instead of fighting over the scraps left from the last iteration of CLE.

I think tanned leather could work currently. Takes time to find and create, and can be used to create a wide variety of items. But as others have said, in a low transaction landscape like the apocalypse, bartering is much simpler. Can't say I would trade an AK for even 100 stacks of leather or any other potential currency. But depending on my situation, I might trade it for some other weapon or tents or what not.

You were server hopping high priority loot locations on low pop servers. You'll run into people doing the same. Welcome back.

Gotta love that burst damage. I would argue it has the highest .5 second damage output in the game at range, only behind maybe the SVD. It's limited capacity also forces you to stick and move, like you said. What do you do with the automatics these fellas leave behind? Bury them? Use them as bait?

Really? Veresnik is still poppin? I figured not since it only has one of the new big barracks, if I remember correctly. I've been using the tent cities as my honey pot these days. Do you use CQC tactics and weaponry or do you cover it from the hill? Tell me how

The stratification of loot quadrants had made the biggest difference for me. On and near the coast food is common, but weapons + ammo or less common. Now that I'm in the NW of the map, I have an AK with all the goodies, but I'm wounded and can't find the food to get healthy. Thinking I will head down to the coast and hold up some freshie for his food. I think the ultimate goal of the CLE is to force players to move around the map. Now that I have gotten into some fights and earned some top notch gear, I need to head back down to the coast to find other supplies. IMO, they have done a good job with CLE so far, and for the first time it doesn't feel like I can just "meta" myself some sweet loot like was possible with all of the other iterations of the loot spawning system so far. Also, every town you enter is a potential threat. After a firefight at myshkino last night, my buddy hit the small town north of lopatino looking for food. He caught a .357 to the back of the head in a log cabin. Took him completely by surprise as we had dropped our guard and were looting the town willie nilly. Give it a try. The changes are subtle, but will alter the way you play.

Saw two players at myshkino last night and another in a small town north of lopatino. All encounters ended violently. Slow down and take a look around you. If you're both in warp drive you're not going to spot each other.

Ya. You were lucky to find a good pack there. After you have some food and maybe a jacket, or in your case the backpack, head inland. More loot to be had there. Coastal towns should just be for grabbing the energy and hydration to start moving.

You are wrong ;)

With the way loot is distributed in 0.58, there will probably be less* players hovering on the coast. Better weapons and gear spawn inland, and ammo isn't really that common on the coast. It also takes more time and effort to get top tier military gear, so boredom doesn't set in as quickly to drive you back to the coast. But of course, only time will tell

Loving the current implementation of CLE. You can really feel your character progressing as you move north and west. Can't wait for this to hit stable with persistence to see what happens. With loot hoarders the balancing act with loot will become that much harder I would think

I've been playing on an English server from Oregon USA with over 200 ping and have been experiencing great performance, both close range and long. Not so sure that ping is the causing factor in desync

They must have been listening in on this thread ;)

This game takes place in rural Eastern Europe. Most of the population likely took their food and other useful belongings with them when they evacuated. If this game took place in the US or some other highly industrialized part of the world, I would agree with you assessment. But it does not. Most people in rural communities, especially farmers or others that make their living off the land, have trucks or other utility vehicles that can haul a lot of cargo. They wouldn't leave behind excessive canned food and weaponry, they would take it with them. Furthermore, if food is made to be plentiful, as might be the case in a real life scenario, why include it in the game at all? So we can watch our avatars eat for the sake of immersion? Food, drink and the whole nutrition system is relevant because sustinence is scarce. If it wasn't, why bother including it?

Yes. This "pleasing the masses is the only way for dayz to be a 'successful' game" argument became invalid when Bohemia sold 2 million copies. They've made the money, now they have the freedom to take the game in whatever direction they want. We've all heard the anti-game vision Rocket shared with us. If they follow through with that vision, they can't be chastised if some people who bought the game don't like it. They told us what we were buying. If there are only a handful of full servers every evening, the game will still be alive. And the fact that the game is "too tedious" for the majority that payed for its development should mean nothing to the developers. They've been open with us through the whole process.

I think having one "standard channel" that is default, and the ability to input "custom channels" for more private conversations would be a way to go about things. I agree that having too many channels makes radios that much less appealing to use. If everyone is using the same channel for hailing strangers, squads of players using TS etc might be inclined to carry one just for eavesdropping. I feel as though radios will useful the more commonly used they are, and will only become commonly used items if they are useful. I believe this, in addition to their inherent bugginess, is the cause for their lack of use currently. I think attaching some other utility to them would help get the ball rolling.

Barricading will have a whole new meaning when zombies are added into the mix. Having a boarded up house to fall back to when a train of zombies is hot on your tail will be nice for looting big towns like novo and sevorograd. Or creating an aid station in costal towns (when coastal towns aren't the place to find high end loot). In the games current state, bases would only serve as places to hoard gear. In which case, I think it's a waste of time.

One problem I foresee with barricading pre-existing structures is the barricading of highly desired buildings like barracks and police stations. This was one thing that had to be addressed in aftermath. People would build gates 5-10 deep around important loot zones that were nearly impregnable and denied loot to anyone other than the members of the fortifying-clan. They eventually made certain areas off-limits for barricading, but you know, immersion and all. But I must agree, aftermath's barricading system was very well put together. The materials needed for deconstructing someone's precious base/barricade made finding the thing about 10% of the battle. When you need 100 sledgehammers to take down multiple gates it gives these clans a fair advantage based upon their time invested in construction. I hope the devs can find a similar balance.

Batteries and M4s

Being able to tap into PA systems at military installations, schools, hospitals, etc would make for an interesting addition. I can just see someone(s) taking over the PA system at NWAF and announcing that the airfield is under their control or whatever from the ATC. It would give you a much larger audible radius and provide the means for some interesting situations to unfold. And if some obnoxious twat starts spamming the PA to annoy everyone, his location is fixed, and he can properly be dealt with. Or, alternatively, the radios could be used to hail Medics of the Wasteland types. This wouldn't really be necessary at the moment, but when surviving is more difficult, I know I might start broadcasting for help if I was trapped in a building surrounded by zeds or a group of murderers. And of course, there is the banditry/trolling potential. "I need help, please come to X location with morphine" would-be hero arrives* "I'm here, where are you?" Bang hero dead* Radios could definitely add a lot to the game, but they could also stay worthless junk like they are now. It will be interesting to see what te devs do with them.