smoq2

Pumps, lakes, ponds, berries... Dying from starvation/dehydration has never happened to me in this game. As far as murder goes, I actually killed people for lesser reasons, but never for food. I never simply had to. I've beaten to death some guy (armed) yesterday with my bare fists simply because he was unlucky enough to unintentionally corner me in a room. Called me a prick, which made me even more happy to be alive watching him with his face against the floor. :D

Yeah, lag is my biggest grief too. I never know if what I'm experiencing in the game is actually representing what is happening on the server. This includes: - Order queue getting shuffled (automatic holstering of weapons, vaulting dance, prone-crouch-prone, etc) - Damage delay (players going down 1-2 sec after receiving a headshot, often shooting back as well) - Item operation delay (pickup lag) - Many more issues This is due to server design, not internet connection speed, and apparently is supposed to be fixed when the 64bit server architecture is implemented. Then again, the guaranteed messages they added a month or two ago were suppose to mitigate the problem and we all see (or rather don't see) the results. To simply put it, I'm not keeping my hopes high in the matter.

Then make it an excuse. Any reason to learn a new language is good in my book.

No I did not make that error. I simply would assume this initially and then try to assess if the second group is larger then the other two. Actually, since the development effort is not a factor, I would ignore the second group altogether, and look into the first and third, keeping the second in mind only if the other groups are even. I probably didn't convey what I had in mind correctly. I do that more often then I'd wish. :) The only error that I could have made, is assuming they didn't research it. If they did not, they should be at the "1/3" stage, which basically means - "we don't know".

I really fail to see the reasoning behind limiting to only a few types of ammunition, be it based on design or required development effort. Let's elaborate... ------------- Design - "Users don't care about (...)" - Wrong assumption. We can assume there are three camps - one that wants realistic specs, one that does not care and one that advocate the idea. Group 1 - They are put off by the very thought of having guns with unrealistic technical specs. Plain and simple, no need to go further with this. Group 2 - They don't care - and this is what we should focus on. Since they don't give a damn, they are open for both solutions. Either decision will have no impact on their ability to gain joy from playing the game. Group 3 - They don't want many types of ammo. Reasons would probably vary, but the most common would be that they don't want to spend hours to find correct ammo for their gun. Now I'm not sure whether DayZ team did any research on the topic (I assume they didn't), but until then it would be safer to assume that the group who "does not care" is 1/3 of the gaming community. ------------- Development effort - Now this shouldn't even be an argument. Once you got a ballistics model working and a base "ammo" class object, you just make a new ammo mesh (in the case of DayZ this requires 2 models - a box and a shell, still the most easily modelled items in the game industry), copy and paste, then modify the config values, add the object's ID to loot tables under the ammo array and viola. Unless DayZ uses some strangely unique development pattern for adding new items, then that's 3 mh tops. Someone who works directly on the ballistics should do it way under a man-hour with placeholder configuration values. ------------- So this boils down to: Unless there is some grand argument that would have an impact on the future of the game design, there is no firm reason why to restrict to only several types of ammo. As some suggested before in this thread, this strongly hints at an attempt to "streamline" the game for the common crowd who look for sole PvP and don't want to spend too much time searching for death-bringing equipment. As for me, I'm in the "don't care" crowd. I'll play either way, but if they decide to go the simplistic way, it will leave me we an uneasy feeling about the game's targeted audience. Also, I don't like how the design team is selective about what should be realistic or "streamlined" - heart attacks GO but corresponding weapon cartridges NO GO? It's like they start to lack consistency. EDIT: I forgot to mention they are implementing a new "Bullet SDK" - I don't think that it's exactly a "Software Development Kit", since this is used for creating content to an existing model, but instead, it's a whole new ballistics model. Maybe it forces them somehow to put everything on hold and makes adding new calibres a hindrance. But that's still speculation.

Firm strategy! I wanted to use the same tactic to lure people into an ambush - "OMG, they're chasing me in Polana!" :D . Didn't manage to get anyone on the radio though. I suspect it's because it's damaged, since I don't receive anything on any of the channels either.

H1Z1 is doing something similar. You can check out their solution here: http://www.reddit.com/r/h1z1/comments/272f7n/another_major_issue_in_survival_games/ It has a trade off though - all nights will become pitch black. I am for regardless, as I don't believe making brighter nights (as some suggest) will encourage most exploiters to stop upping their gamma settings. Exploiters exploit, simple as that. They do it whenever they can, if it gives them even a tiny advantage. I'm also not sure how feasible the solution is for the DayZ engine, but since they are in the middle of redesigning their renderer, now is the best moment to look at this particular issue.

So I tested the crossbow on stable today for a bit - I'm getting ready for the hunting/cooking update that seems to be coming in the very near future. I envision doing so with the crossbow, as I assume bolts will be retrievable in the next update, since now (to my disappointment) they disappear, regardless of hitting a living target or map geometry. So my question is to those who play experimental - does the crossbow has crazy dispersion like in stable and are bolts retrievable from animals?

That explains why I thought dispersion was iffy. I had mounted an ACOG and it was firing like 1 m above from where I was aiming. Did you try to shoot animals with it? Are bolts retrievable then? Also, I found 2 quivers. Do they work alright? I can't seem to fill them with lone bolts.

Not really... In one of the streams (2-3 months ago) Rocket aka. "The Prince of DayZ" himself said that he basically wants people to fight with "sticks". Somewhere in one of the parts from this stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PExkBTofho

A quick off-topic: Do damaged/badly damaged walkies work, or do they have to be worn/pristine?

Barn's second story is known to break legs for no apparent reason. Better to avoid barns at all - evil constructions... Edit: You ought to be commended for your perseverance in playing the game as it should. *clap*

However, I do believe there should be incentives for players to spread across the map in the future. I'm all for randomised loot.

Well, this chart shows that more and more people do actually stop to play, although the drop is gradual and somewhat steady. Don't know what predictions are to be made from that. The future will become clearer once I see the peak created by the game going to beta. Nonetheless, the graph presents a common product life cycle, and that's not too good.

Yeah, I know why we're experiencing the issue and I disagree with it being common, as I've never seen another multiplayer game take so long to process damage on another player (provided both players have adequate ping). Even the hated WarZ does it more fluid (another player drops dead the minute a bullet hits his/her head). However, the fact of understanding the problem does not help with coping with it, just as being aware that your leg hurts does not make the pain go away. I was just pointing it out, that this little hit-lag might be a deal breaker for me, if unaddressed at some point in the development. :)

I'm guessing it was the known weapons switcharoo bug, but at least I'll try to explain to the OP why I think so. When you're holstering your weapon your client sends a request to the server to holster it. Than the server validates the request, executes it, and updates your client. So unless hackers found a way to fool the server and mimic your client (which in theory is possible), there is no way to control your actions to any degree remotely. The problem with DayZ is that sometimes the queue of requests gets all shuffled or even wrong requests get sent (or are falsely interpreted by the server) - drawing and immediately holstering weapons, random vaulting, etc. Hence it is very probable that you experienced a queue bug and the presence of your killer could have even caused it without his/her intention.

Ahh yes, you're right. I didn't catch what you were referring to. My language proficiency played a trick on me there. :) Yep, missing cloud of dust at the impact spot is a bug.

It's not a bug. They added this in the last update, or the one before. Can't remember. Basically when your character operates the bolt on the Mosin the reticule goes way up. Early versions didn't have that, so you probably saw some older videos on YT.

Damn! That's so survival! ;)

My biggest beef is with the time when a hit is actually registered on another player - the second between your enemy receiving a headshot and then dying. Sometimes my victims tend to even run for another 1-2 meters before falling to the ground. I've seen others mention some of their targets managing to even shoot back within that little time-frame, ending in death of both. I know it is an ArmA/DayZ issue since the very beginning, but still, it would be nice to be acknowledged.

Same here. I'm just waiting for the loot respawn. Until then, or unless H1Z1 proves to be better, I'm not touching DayZ.

Well, I don't really know what sir Rocket meant by that, as he didn't elaborate on the subject. It was basically a short answer to a question about how he envisions combat in the DayZ SA: "People fighting with sticks and makeshift weapons." I can only guess that means that guns such as M4 will be the top high-end weaponry and the variety of modern firearms is going to be small in comparison to the low-end armament.

Hate to break the flow of gun and tacticool suggestions, but from what I've heard on one of the streams, rocket intents combat tools to go in the "stick and stone" direction, so I would expect more peashooters in the DayZ arsenal than modern firearms.

If we considered DayZ a social experiment, it would only produce mixed results. The very reason for that, is that the game minimizes social interactions, despite the fact that it's the key aspect of the game. Let me clarify: Social interactions are not only verbal exchange of information, and this is the only exchange we have full control of in DayZ. In the case of body language we have only a couple of predefined gestures, poses and movement. We cannot control facial expressions, which are key for social interaction, sub-conscious arm gestures, or pheromone discharges (yes, this has a part to play in interaction). Then there is lack of complete emotional attachment. We do not share the value of our own life with the life of our avatar and our interlocutor is aware of that, even if just on a sub-conscious level. This is why I believe many players (or "participants" if you prefer) would act in a completely opposite way than they do in the game, if they found themselves in a similar situation in reality. To visualize what I mean - Many players, who are merciless killers or torturers in the game would do something totally different, if their victim was crawling in mud, crying and begging for his/her life. It's not easy for a healthy brain to compute and validate killing a human seeing his/her facial expression, provided that the human acts appropriately for a human being. I've read somewhere that this was the case with the Nazis, where killing for them came easily, as they were trained (or rather brainwashed) to not perceive victims as human.

Nope, not all servers have 2h restarts. Usually server admins include restart times in the name, but it's not a rule. Unless I don't know about some recent changes that is.