Abolition

Seen it mentioned, here is some more info from my experiences so far: Uncon from gun shots to the chest from 5.56 and 762x39 wearing a stab vest is often only a few seconds, around 5 no more than 10. Had this happen with every player I've made uncon with those calibers, seems a bit too short. haven't shot anyone with a press vest or plate.

My thoughts on finding weapons and tools reliably are more about giving the player the tools necessary to deal with the infected. The default shouldn't be resorting to exploiting or cheesing the flaws in the AI. Locking them up because they can't break windows or doors and can't attack if you jump on a object chest high, this isn't difficult or immersive game play it's cheesing. Damaged clothing isn't a big deal on Chernarus, sewing kits aren't a necessity like they are for Namalsk but Namalsk is a mod so it can sort itself out. You are right the stealth kill shouldn't be super fast so you can just blast though and clear an area. but at the current pace of the slow crouch, people will once again just resort to locking them away. I really like the 1.12 aggro system over the 1.11 and below. Thinking about different zombies in different media, I like the Train to Busan/peninsula ones the most. Terrible senses especially at night, decaying perception makes sense, they are very sensitive organs. Night time should be the best time for looting and faster stealth kills. so lowering the infected night time awareness is worth testing. My main thought process is about making the experience immersive. The unfortunate truth is when you make something difficult, most people will try to find an easier way. Not by finding out what the game has for you to find and use, but where the weakness is in the gameplay/coding/animations/netcode. Pitch black nights for example, server owners had to make nights brighter because half the server population just logs off when night hits and come back at daybreak . Namalsk is fresh in my mind so I apologize for the mod examples. Defrosting food was meant to take time, slow the player down and create a risky immersive moment to plan with your buddies, fix up your clothing and sort your inventory. First day people discovered you can insta defrost food while also getting the heat buff by damaging it inside a single rag/paper fireplace inventory. This and a few other things became meta for the first couple months and it turned Namalsk into a cheesing/exploiting race down south. I realize some of my wording such and "wont" and "should" were probably the wrong choices. My aim was to add to the thinking of "How can these difficulty changes be accomplished while also keeping DayZ accessible and appealing to future players" "Fixing issues that current players want fixed before these changes are made" and "Players will find a way to get around difficult things rather than go through them" New players are going to help keep DayZ thriving so it has to be kept in mind with any updates. Their first experience is going to be with the Infected so they and every system in place to deal with them, needs to give the impression they are dangerous in numbers but 1v1 not so bad while not making the easiest thing to do is abuse flaws in the AI. I can't imagine how hard it is trying to cater to the hardcore survival base and the PvP base. Both are the sides of the same coin, without both DayZ dies. the fear or thrill of PvP is what drives most players, there has to be bad guys otherwise it's just a looting sim. Zeds/Infected are what set the DayZ mod apart from Wasteland, King of the Hill and Battle Royale. Survivors banding together to fight the zeds while scavenging for food and resources, I see why the devs want the infected to be more than just a nuisance. but other players will always be the bigger threat. Hopefully with all our input we can reach that perfect spot for the infected threat. Some great discussion going on around the ballistic and armor changes. In 1.11 my favorite gun is probably the CR 527, it's in a great spot 1 shot head shot, 3 to unarmored torso under that 300m range. DayZ needs more damage values closer to this. hard to hit 1 shot kills, good chance to knock uncon. less 1 shot torso kills makes for longer more exciting engagements, higher chance for infected and other players to get involved. The messier an encounter, the more fun there is to be had trying to survive.

A bit of feedback After 27 hours on experimental. I like the Zeds in 1.12, the lower clothing damage and blood loss made a lot of difference. Players being forced to make more noise is a good thing especially on a big map like Chernarus, pulling more players towards each other means more interactions and fights. The change to the Shovel and Sledgehammer knockout is a welcome one with Rubber Slugs being the new knockout meta, no more stealth knockouts. Knocking someone out should be hard or make a ton of noise, zeds and players getting more involved is a good thing, otherwise they might as well not be there in the first place. However the zeds while being challenging still have to be manageable without having to rely on cheesing them(climbing on something chest high or locking them in rooms) Newer players first introduction to 1.12 can't be a zed that phases through the player, gets stuck inside the player or hits them from 3 meters away while they are backing up. Easy to kill zeds remove some of the jankiness, hard to kill Zeds highlight the pathing/targeting issues. Zeds turning radius while sprinting seems to be the biggest contributor to some of these issues like running back and forth past an open doorway and running around the player in a circle. Changing how close the zeds can get to the player is something to consider and is highlighted below. I'm a avid soulslike fan and one thing that always strikes a cord with me is creating a challenge that is tough but also fair. If AI are hard to deal with, that needs to be because their attack timings and openings a fast and take practice to deal with efficiently. Not because they have infinite stamina and have RNG stagger chance. RNG is not the way to tackle harder AI, tightening the pathing and attack patterns should be the first step forward. A lot of zeds are spawning inside inaccessible objects/buildings and under terrain, especially around/in the grassy mound part of the hangers at NWAF, this may be contributing to the belief these changes are being made to reduce the overall amount of zeds for performance reasons. Stealth kills are a great mechanic Increase crouch movement speed just a little bit or lowering crouch running noise. Players won't use the stealth mechanic since you have to crouch walk from so far away and it quickly becomes tediously slow closing the distance. There is a balance there somewhere hopefully we can find it. Making melee weapons and tools more available, finding your first simple weapon should take a couple minutes not 10-15mins in some cases Early game is just locking zeds up in buildings. Crafting rags with either more tools or ability to make less rags with hands (maybe one rag per item of clothing) Melee Stamina Cost Melee power attack stamina drain is fine as a fresh spawn but once you start looting it quickly becomes impossible to do more than one power attack. Gun Melee/Weapon Bash is crucial to survival, even the pistol whip takes a good chunk of stamina. Zeds get too close, changing how close they get to the player before attacking or removing the gun raise mechanic for pistols would clean up a lot of the close combat with zeds and remove that awkwardness it creates.(would help with the phase through/get stuck inside the player that happens) Gun melee hit registration needs a tighten up, it feels like the first hit always misses but it's more a case of the zed is too close. The range on the gun melee hits further away than feels right and misses when the zed is within it's strike range( virtually inside the player) Shooting Zeds, with the Zeds being this tough in numbers shooting is the best option other than locking them up, Suppressors feel like they are in a good spot, they are useful and the durability lasts a good many shots. Guns damage very quickly, weapon cleaning kits are very hard to find. Non suppressed aggro range feels good. These a just things I experienced and thought about while testing, most coming from deaths in one way or another. None of this feedback is set in stone in my mind and my experiences wont be the same as others, that's the beauty of DayZ. I know some issues with AI and syncing are unavoidable in an open world multiplayer setting like DayZ, some mechanics need to be tweaked with those kind of issues in mind. Realism Vs QoL gameplay

dgeesio I only had to look at the titles of your DayZ video's and all i can say is you are a complete douche your "style" of play is wasteland go play wasteland you rooftop camping bitch I don't care if this is out of line players like you infuriate me and you have no valid argument on this thread

Thats what i was saying in the OP, No game mechanic will stop KoS without completely changing what DayZ is but peoples attitude towards surviving needs to change. Dayz isn't having a can beans and a pepsi in your back pack running around elektro shooting everyone so they don't steel them, It's about having an adventure while surviving, meeting people in arkward standoffs, possibly teaming or helping each other out and going your seperate ways to run into each other another day. Anything can happen. If you shoot everyone, your alone that's it, you miss out on a massive aspect of the game while i suppose using the KoS aspect to your advantage but having the advantage often gets boring like spawn camping BF3 Metro it's not a challenge. Truly surviving and risking an adventure thats a challenge.

For me it's more of a rush trying to hold someone up and in the reverse hearing that voice over direct chat, it's that oh shit moment. Just from saying something over direct anything can happen but if i just straight out shoot someone that's it their dead, that's not very exciting. Obviously this can't always be the case

Agreed The title means what DayZ use to be for me, but from this thread and peoples feed back I am realising that it's not as bad as it seems and there are things i can do to change my experience like Finding a good community which i have been part of some really good ones in the past, just sadly the servers died and I wont argue the fact that it's easy to get lazy and not check an area properly, and it will always be a big risk trusting people you haven't met or played with before. and at the end of the day risk is a huge part of Dayz, It's what makes it fun. I'm am surprised by the feed back, I think I expected more negitive replies. :)

I do understand there are still friendly players around but i haven't seen it in a very long time. Maybe i'm just dwelling on the past to much, on how it use to be. Maybe I've just had really bad luck with the player's I've been incountering. TheRedScare has a prime example of the kind of attitude i'm talking about the "This is Dayz" Attitude i come across almost everytime i play. I am glad to hear that other people are still trying to play friendly :)

There are so many different forms of DayZ now Origins, Epoch, Overwatch, DayZero etc. They are all fun but they all have one fundamental flaw the players. For me teaming up if great fun, getting shot in the back while looting or climbing a ladder is not (Thats what Wasteland is for). Now some versions promote KoS with lots of military, That's fine for those who like to play that style of DayZ. But for those that play DayZ to team up, fix a car and go looting the KoS players ruin it and no matter what version I play its always the same who see's who first. I know some of you will say " Harden up" or "Go play on a PvE server". Don't get me wrong I like the PvP in DayZ it add's alot of excitement to the game( We all remember the heart pumping gun battles when you first start ), The main problem is no one talks at all. It use to be that you shot someone because they posed a genuine threat to you and your gear ( once you had some good gear ) or because you wanted their gear (meaning you had crap gear) Now its just I've got shit gear he's got shit gear lets shoot each other or I've got good gear im gonna shoot the guy running around with a makorov. Alot of Dev's and Admins have tried to find ways to promote team work but nothing seems to work for very long. This is always going to be an issue even with the standalone and I personally don't think it can be fixed in game, The thing that needs to change is people's attitude towards what DayZ is. People use the excuse everyone KoS so i have to, otherwise they will just kill me ( Thats fair enough i say it aswell ). As a a gaming community we need to be working towards changing this not just the Dev's and Admins there is only so much they can do. So please join me in this discussion and help bring DayZ back to life Cheers for reading and i look forward to any and all feed back.