Solopopo

I don't think you understand what @Whyherro123 was saying. He was talking about how progress towards one specialization takes the opposite down, and then expressed his opinion on that one specific aspect. He isn't criticizing the entire concept of soft skills, as you are. Thus far they have taken a very conservative approach to soft skills, and it is far from the way you have characterized it. Soft skills have been part of their plan for a while now, and many of us have been eagerly anticipating them. Their main motivation behind soft skill is to give players a reason to try to stay alive even if they have lost all of their gear and have been captured. This is cool and definitely something we all want. It has nothing at all to do with any of that crap you just said. My criticism of the system is that it is not beneficial enough to motivate players to stay in game in that situation, however that is my first impression in a stress test setting.

I think I would enjoy it more this way too. @Parazight, I agree that these soft skills don't seem like they will be providing significant combat advantages. But I think healing is intended to provide at least some advantage, within reason. I don't think it's unreasonable for a medic to be able to make a difference in combat scenarios. When the devs first spoke about soft skills they said they wanted to include them because they want players to value their character more over time, which is important if we are ever to successfully capture anyone in game and strip them of their weapons. They don't mean for it to be meaningless. If it is meaningless they have failed at what they set out to accomplish in the first place. You use that word often to refer to a lot of work the devs have been doing I've noticed. I know you are trying to make the point that people who don't like it don't even need to worry about it, but its not meaningless. Its clear they put a lot of thought into the current implementation. Its minimal but influential by design. In my opinion the effects are too minimal right now, but I already talked about that.

Yes, I was very happy it resulted this way. I was motivated to find this out because if it wasn't the case, I would truly despise this system. And thank you, I forgot to mention that as well. Additional crafting and mending features could make specialization more valuable.

It's possible that the console port had no influence on their decision to remove dispersion. Maybe I'd go so far as to say it's likely. They have been nothing if not deliberate in everything they have done thus far. They redesigned the entire engine so the game could do the things they wanted it to do. I don't really think they would allow the console port to influence any aspect of their game design after so much effort to get it right. But the thought still scares me. I only talk about it as a deterrent, because the possibility exists. But realism hasn't always worked out for DayZ. I think realism within reason should be the goal. DayZ had overly realistic features in the past, but they have slowly removed them one by one from the alpha. Players used to go unconscious for realistic amounts of time, which is stupid. Players would commonly break their legs and be unable to walk, which is stupid. The day/night cycle was actually on a 24 hour schedule on every server, which is preposterously stupid. If you have time, you should check this out. I think it provides interesting perspective on the development of realistic video games. This game is a perfect example of what I am speaking about. The devs had to completely redesign the game after realizing they had made it too realistic. It was so realistic that it was impossible to actually appreciate how realistic it was from the players perspective. The devs realized that they had to redesign many features of the game to make it fun and desirable to play. The result is interesting. It is universally accepted that STALKER is a flawed masterpiece. Fans acknowledge its shortcomings as a game, but are also incredibly impressed with its realism, enough to inspire a strong, but not entirely fulfilled, fan-base. My point is that this is a real possibility for DayZ right now. The risk of being too realistic exists, but at the same time the game's realism is absolutely critical to its success. There must be a balance between the realism and the game. Personally, I am a fan of the removal of dispersion, because it makes shooting less random. All competitively viable games have one thing in common; they are consistent. Random elements don't make for good games generally, as far as competition is concerned. If the same player puts his cross-hair in the same spot, with the same gun, under the same conditions, I think that bullet should do the exact same thing every time. That's not to say the shooting shouldn't be dynamic and realistic, but I think there is definitely a limit to how realistic shooting can become before it just stops being fun and starts being stupid. This is what I think the devs were referring to when they said dispersion is nonsense. From a game-play perspective, it sort of is. If every weapon had it's own unique dispersion that was predictable for that weapon, maybe it would be different. But the way they had previously implemented it, it was random. Still, I am not totally opposed to the implementation of dispersion. Many people seem to care about it on these forums. I could take it or leave it really.

Honestly, I would not have thought about it at all. I recognized right away that shooting felt a little more "solid" to me. It felt like my bullets went where I intended to put them more often, and I liked it. It doesn't feel like they've taken anything away from the shooting, it feels like they have added to it. However, I have feared this since the day they announced DayZ for console. They aren't porting DayZ to console because they think it will be good on console. All experience with console ports suggests the contrary. They are developing it for console because they ultimately need to profit more from the work they have been doing all these years. Which in my opinion underscores the major problem associated with releasing a game in early access. It is unreasonable to expect people to do work they aren't getting paid for, and I do mean GETTING paid for, not paid for in the past. The world doesn't work that way. The massive amount of work that has been done turning DayZ into a redeemable project did not come free, and anyone who thinks the Alpha profits are sustaining their current work is naive. No one wakes up in the morning and decides to spend their short, precious, life working for money already earned. The decision to overhaul the engine was calculated. They planned out how they were going to pay for this a long time ago. My biggest fear is that the money is in the console version of the game. This terrifies me. If they do in fact compromise the integrity of the PC version for the console version, they will have definitely proven that early access is the most sinister concept to ever assault the industry. But it was a necessary evil to port to console because they chose the route they did. The work just would not have gotten done without profit potential. But again, it does bring the whole notion of early access into question. I really wish they would just let go their death grip on the whole early access thing. No one associates early access with good things. It isn't good to be associated with it. Early access does not define DayZ. It is so much more than that. But for what it's worth, I think DayZ is slowing turning into a masterpiece and I applaud the work that is being done. They haven't done anything to suggest they are making drastic compromises yet in my opinion. I think it is important that DayZ is not just a simulator but also a game. We already have Arma. I'll give the devs the benefit of the doubt for now. I am so happy with the work I've seen so far.

If nothing else, one thing has been made clear to me by .63. They do listen. I see it in so many things. As for dispersion, if they could implement a realistic dispersion system that didn't make shooting actually more difficult than real life, I would be for it.

I'm conflicted. I've always wanted to be able to use bloodbags and saline on myself because I lone wolf it a lot, but I understand your concern that it might hurt the integrity of the game. 7 seconds does seem brief for self administered saline. I could stand to see the duration increased to as much as 30 seconds. I don't like holding the mouse button for long periods of time though. I hope they would make it so you only have to press once to initiate actions when they are long. I do like that we have to hold the button now in general. It makes it feel like you are actually doing what your character is, but it gets tiresome sometimes.

I like the melee combat, but it has its problems for sure. I may just be bad, but at the moment I feel that some of the combat features don't function properly. I haven't managed to get much legitimate use out of the dodge or the block, unless I'm fighting zombies. The block causes invisibility against them. My biggest complaint with the melee combat system is that for all the features they have added to it, the simple light punch combos to the face are more effective than anything else, which is the same thing we have already been doing in alpha for years. I dropped person after person by just walking right up and aiming for the face with light hits. I see a lot of people doing the charge attack, but even a connected charge attack leaves you open to retaliation. Despite the quirks, I still think it's fun. I have managed to make use of the heavy attacks, even if they do get me punished more often than not.

It does. I agree that there is a difference between what Dean Hall wanted for DayZ, how players now prefer to play it, and even how the current devs view the game. I referred to that article because I was looking for something that spoke about DayZ's core philosophies. It seemed to make sense to start at the beginning. But the current devs, the ones who have their hands on it now, have stated that they don't intend to encourage PvP. I do in fact believe that player interaction and interaction with the environment is meant to be an integrated experience. We need to have a common enemy in order to not KOS all the time. Zombies are actually dangerous now, and food and thirst degrade faster than before, depending on the circumstances. I couldn't believe it, but I got overwhelmed by just two zombies on my last death in .63. I was fully geared. I got comboed to death. I couldn't even draw my weapon. Working together may be preferable to KOS for this reason, and when players are working together they sometimes betray each other, making any PvE scenario a possible PvP encounter as well. I know I personally have interacted with more people in the past few days of stress testing than I have in months in alpha, and I think at least part of that is because of the additional challenge. I've had many people limp up to me asking for help. As you say, the survival features enrich the experience. But they aren't meant to be a distraction, a passing fancy, as you make it to where the game really starts: the airfield. The survival features ARE the game, at least a significant part of it, along with player interaction and everything else. It isn't something just tacked on to distract from running. I don't think that is the way the devs see it, or how they have designed the beta experience to be. But of course, everything is still up in the air right now. We'll see just what kind of PvE experience they will actually give us soon :)

You read an entire article about the challenge and hardcore nature of DayZ and conclude it's not supposed to be hard? I would encourage you to read people's entire responses to you, as @Guy Smiley suggested. Mine is entirely based on that article man. Did you read it at all? You can't take players out of the experience and still have DayZ. It is hard to survive because they are there. It is hard to find food because they are there. Obviously the themes discussed in this article apply to every aspect of the game, not just player interaction itself. Why am I the one trying to find an article proving the most basic tenet of DayZ? I challenge you to find even one that supports what you are saying, which will be significantly more difficult, because it doesn't exist. But there are a myriad of articles out there on the subject of DayZ's difficulty. When I said it took me 3 seconds to find that article, I meant it. You won't find a single one implying anything about the game is easy. You need to define what you mean by survival if you are going to continue to insist that it is not hard. What exactly are you referring to? If you are trying to say that persisting in .62 with no other players to threaten you is easy, I don't think anyone would argue with you about that. .63 may be a different matter. Getting and staying well fed and hydrated is not as easy as it was in .62. Does that not suggest something to you? Maybe it's supposed to be a least a tad challenging? To me the fact that anyone would suggest DayZ is not supposed to be hard is absurd. Players are dropped in the middle of nowhere in an epic landscape with no map, no compass, no weapon and no food. They are already thirsty. If they choose the wrong way to run they will starve. There is literally nothing but experience to guide you. Honestly, I think you've been playing the alpha too long. Do you seriously not remember how hardcore this game is intended to be? How unforgiving it is to new players? How unforgiving it can still be to you if were to make the mistakes you've already learned from a thousand times before? Just last night in .63 I got completely lost at night in the woods and wound up running the wrong way for 20 minutes. I was fortunately stocked with food, but if I wasn't, I could have died easily, especially if wolves were spawning right now. The "grind" as you call it, makes your character more valuable every passing moment. And at any moment you can lose it all. At it's core, DayZ is an extreme survival game, and while you may not think it is hard, clearly it is intended to be. Hard, brutal, challenging, real. These are themes that underpin the DayZ experience. To think that they would exclude one part of the game from this philosophy.... why? Why would you think it's not supposed to be hard. Explain. No comment. This is not relevant to the discussion.

DayZ is meant to be challenging. I'm surprised you are still arguing this point. The game is extremely hardcore by nature, and that's not hyperbole. Its reputation is built on that. You are speaking about what the game is currently and trying to make the point that it isn't hard because finding food is easy. But you can't consider only the nutrition side of survival alone and say survival is easy. There is more too it than that. There are not as many players on the map as there are supposed to be, so of course if you run off to some barren region with practically no people and apple trees, you'll be fine in the alpha. There are also zombies and wolves to contend with, which are much worse to deal with when people are around. If all you want to do is persist, you will have an easy time in the alpha. If you want to actually play the game, it will be hard. But it is supposed to be hard to survive all the time. It is one of the most basic philosophies of the game. Death is inevitable, and you are just fending it off. DayZ is literally the most brutal survival game on the market. The apple glitch has caused so much damage to some people's outlook of the game, it's crazy. Before people knew about it, it was actually a real challenge to survive in the alpha, with or without people around. The name DayZ Standalone is synonymous with difficulty and challenge. It brings constant hardship and death to most people's minds, so much so that some people even avoid it for this reason. Surely there is a limit to how much difficulty is fun, but I think they've struck a nice balance with .63 so far. If you want to hear it from the developer's mouth, heres an article it took me all of 3 seconds to find. https://www.engadget.com/2013/03/29/gdc-2013-dean-hall-on-the-pillars-of-dayzs-design/ If you do some of your own searching you'll find that Dean Hall also cites the 60 player limit as one of the biggest drawbacks of the alpha build. There are also many articles like this one where he talks about the importance of DayZ's hardcore nature.

Yeah, I guess I kind of just repeated what you said in more words, haha. I have noticed this as well. The arrows haven't been consistent for me this stress test. I'm used to seeing both thirst and food with two arrows down while jogging, sometimes one for food. During this stress test I am getting 3 arrows while jogging. But after surviving for a long time it went back to the old way. Yes, I have been stuffing my face beyond the point that it first turns white. I noticed that the arrows can still point up for a long time after it first turns white, so I figured there is some extra room there. It works this way in the alpha too, so it seems natural.

We don't need 100 percent accuracy when the difference in nutrition loss is as large as it is. All we need to know is whether the difference is in fact large. We don't need exact numbers for that. All my tests seem to indicate that jogging isn't just a little preferred, but often the only way to survive. And when I say "tests," I really just mean my desperate attempts at survival. Many times it was clear I just wasn't going to make it alive if I chose to sprint. Many times I did actually succumb faster while sprinting. The HUD, which i'm assuming is intended to be intuitive, seems to agree with this logic. They may have tweaked things for this one though. I'm still testing. I suspected that they may have increased the rate of nutrition decay while jogging for this patch, but I think it may have been influenced by other factors, perhaps the endless rain that was falling earlier. It's back to normal now though. It's true that we can only infer so much without numbers, but some things we can at least be certain of: sprinting kills. The degree to which it kills is obviously still in question. What is not in question is whether or not sprinting will help you get to food faster, and therefor help you live. It won't. It will kill you faster, unless you are chasing a chicken. Your sprinting speed and nutrition decay rates do not balance out. This can be empirically proven with statistics, without any prior knowledge about the game. Jogging equals a higher chance of living. That has been my experience. I encourage you to try and see. You won't need to go out of your way. Just pay attention next time on the stress test. If we are talking about numbers though, the ones I am most interested in seeing at the moment are the damages of strong and light attacks.

There is actually a substantial difference. The rate of food and thirst decrease is very high when you are sprinting. It is not a direct trade off. It doesn't balance out like that. This is from my experience, but also the red arrow that appears when sprinting seems to suggest this as well. What I am referring to are the single, double, and triple arrows that appear on your food and thirst icons. The third arrow is red, indicating critical loss. It is always red when you sprint. Jogging is much preferred if you don't have many supplies. You will run yourself to death. I did it several times in the stress test. Once you start limping from lack of nutrition, you aren't going to survive if you don't have supplies on you or nearby. You will get progressively slower and then just go black. It doesn't take long. But if you don't sprint, you can get much farther. Also, if you stop moving completely your food and thirst decay slows to a crawl.

Haha, that's too crazy even for me.

Jogging is what I'm referring to, lol. I think that's clear if you read the original post.

I am also disheartened by this @Pliskin Scout. I am worried that some of the truly great things they have accomplished are going unnoticed/unappreciated. I encountered people at NE airfield. I think anyone who survived long enough to go north was there. I was hearing a decent amount of shots around and ultimately wound up getting gunned down after lighting a flare on top of the radio tower for fun.

I think it depends on how you define hard. It is possible to find yourself in a position you can't survive because you don't have the necessary supplies, but if you know to gear up , I suppose it becomes easy. It became a little difficult for me to survive for long periods of time stalking around NE airfield. I kept having to press into the military bases to search for food and water, and one time I had to outright leave. But in general I guess it's not hard for a player who makes good decisions. Yes, that is a very good point. There are more modes of transportation on the way, and we are meant to appreciate having them.

Stop sprinting when you can't afford it. You will notice in the lower right hand corner that the food and thirst decrease indicator becomes red when you are sprinting. Exile does have pretty awesome base features. It's inevitable that they will eventually come to DayZ. Modders will certainly add this kind of stuff if it is lacking. As for rotating items, I don't think that is something we will see the devs deliver. They have redesigned carrying containers. Some are short and tall, others are wide and stubby. The ability to rotate items would the work they did designing the different carrying containers.

I've been messing around with the offline mode and I've noticed a few really awesome features in the .63 beta. Weight affects maximum stamina. You can actually see the stamina bar adjust as you load items on and off your character. Shoes also affect maximum stamina There is a circle in the lower left corner of the UI that indicates the condition of your held item. Items wear from use and don't work when ruined There are light, strong, and charge melee attacks. It seems like there may be a block as well. If you completely deplete your stamina bar you enter an exhaustion period of about 10 seconds in which you cant run or do anything else that requires stamina, even if you have regained enough. Melee attacks take stamina, which means you can't attack. The player model actually pulls the trigger when firing, which is visible in first person mode depending on the gun Weapon sway functions as expected. Crouching makes it a little better. Going prone minimizes it more The player model indicates your condition. Bad condition causes limping, which becomes more prominent over time as the condition gets worse. Your characters gait always seems to be slightly adjusting itself, indicating the most current condition of your character. Coupled with the fact you need to manage stamina now, this really helps to make long trips feel less mundane. Things actually happen over time now you can look out for. Zombies are much better to fight. You can kill them faster, but they can kill you faster too. They are a legitimate threat now, and have a few new animations and reactions too. They are actually pretty scary. It only takes about 6 hits to die. It takes about 3 to kill one, but it can be easy if you are faced with only one because of how responsive the game is now. Still, a misstep means punishment you really don't want. Only being able to sprint for a short while changes how you need to approach zombies. If you get caught out in an open field with a train on you and no weapons, you are probably finished, unless you can get far enough fast enough. Movement is much better. The inertia system is great. The players feet actually move around in a realistic way when shifting around, instead of 360 hover sliding. The vault ability seems to have been completely removed. Most things that could be vaulted over before are simply walked over now. Your character just kind of bounces up. There is no animation for it, but it's nice to not get stuck. However, there are still some low fences in the world your character won't go over. Guard rails along the side of roads are an example, as well as pedestrian guard rails in cities. There is much more ambient sound in the world, including weather, footsteps for tons of different surfaces, and even fire place noises. Also, the outside ambient sound becomes quite when you go indoors. The sound of wind will die down as you enter a door. This feature in particular I think is a really nice touch. The change from ambient noise to no ambient noise is pretty abrupt at the moment though. I think they should add a short transition period where the volume of ambient noise quickly lowers. At the moment it's like throwing a switch. But in general the wind feels real. I haven't tested bullet ballistics with the wind yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if wind does affect bullets like it is supposed to now. They seem to have implemented arma 3 ballistics, or something similar. I noticed when shooting through a small tree that my bullet came out the other side at a slightly different angle than it went in, similar to how bullets ricochet in arma 3. The character model does not collide with small bushes, but bullets do if they hit the stalk of the bush. The character model doesn't seem to collide with anything at the moment. You can't hit walls with melee weapons for example, you just swing through them Bullets make satisfying sounds when they hit surfaces. Shooting at trees makes a distinct thunk sound, which was very distinguishable as a bullet hitting the tree hard. This will be really cool in fire fights. If something hits the surface you are hiding near or behind, you are going to know. The game feels and looks incredible in first person now. I can't really describe why. It just does. Overall I am really excited about these changes. Many long standing problems seem to have finally been addressed. The devs have done a fantastic job. I hope they continue to deliver this kind of quality.

I've noticed that sprinting makes hunger and thirst decrease faster. We will need to sprint strategically now. If we have tons of food, we will be able to sprint much more. If we have none, players might second guess sprinting the entire way. I can't wait for soft skills. Sprint improvement over time, coupled with the system .63 has currently, will be so awesome imo.

Also @-Gews-, let me be a little more clear. I was referring to the wildly broken sway that they fixed which used to be in .62. I was saying that the current system in .62 is better than it used to be, but still hard. A common complaint about DayZ SA is that it doesn't feel like the mod. In the mod you needed to be more stealthy, because players couldn't stutter dodge like in SA, but also because it was easier to land shots at range in general. It actually isn't really that hard to hit a target with the right gun and scope in real life. It isn't like a one in million chance to hit a 300m shot. It's fairly easy, even for a novice, with the right equipment. Consider how many people the recent shooter in las vegas hit. He wasn't a professional by any stretch of the word, but he killed dozens. There is a limit to how much difficulty is actually realistic. It isn't realistic just because it's hard. He hit 481 of his shots. He fired 1100. That means his accuracy was 44 percent. His range was a little greater than 300m. Sorry to use such a grim example, but it sure makes the point. Also, if realism is primary concern in this thread, I don't understand why anyone is bothered by a stamina system. There isn't anything remotely realistic about infinite sprinting without limit while carrying great weight. No one travels on foot at their full speed. There is always more in the tank for emergencies. Melee combat will be more strategic as well because of the stamina system. Purposefully wearing opponents down will be a thing now. Exhausted opponents running for dear life won't be able to just turn around and go all out on you. This is realistic to me, much more so than the current system. I think you guys haven't opened your eyes to the possibilities in all honesty. It is different, but it's for the best. We don't want the old clunker of a game that we've had this whole time. It has been hard to land shots in the alpha because the alpha is crappy. You are mistaking bad ballistics design for realism and challenge.

Come to think of it, the servers I play on are in fact heavily modded. I don't think it was the kestrel, but something similar. It must have just been bullet drop / lag then in dayz. That's a bummer. "Another thing is that after the rewrite of the weapons we are missing implementation of dispersion - random cone-shaped spread defined by angle. Previously it was used as kind of an inaccuracy from the manufacturing process where long barrel weapons were most accurate and short barrel ones were least. We are not using it anymore as I think ‘fighting’ some random nonsense on mid to long ranges is over the top, as players are already challenged enough by mechanics like sway, recoil, zeroing, actual bullet speed and drop - all that combined with character movement, which is enough." I didn't realize this quote was included in your response to me at first. I actually agree with this statement. I think aiming difficulty has been a little over the top. It became way better when they stopped the wild sway that used to happen, but still very hard.

Wind actually does influence bullet trajectory in Arma 3. It is one of the game's lesser known features. I remember experimenting with it a while back. There is an item in the game to determine wind direction which is intended for sniping. I used it. It works. I've also anticipated wind direction in DayZ to land shots at range. One of my fondest Arma 3 memories was a long distance snipe I had where I used the smoke from a crashed plane to determine wind direction, and hit the target on the first shot.

Ah, okay. That is a significant change. I have noticed that landing shots at range seems a little more consistent. That isn't something I necessarily mind though. As far as I know, wind still affects bullet trajectory, which is good enough for me.